12/13/10

Man! This week was fun. And I'm only slightly sarcastic. Monday last week I spent a lot of money and it turned out that most of the stuff I bought tastes like crap. Too bad. I gave all that stuff to my companion. Tuesday Presidente Callan and his wife (Mission President btw) came so we had a zone conference. During the zone conference they fed us lunch. I was stuffed and could barely eat it all. It was some kind of sandwiches. Besides tomatoes I'm not sure what the other stuff was, maybe ham and cheese. Since I am companions with the District Leader I have to do exchanges every week. This week we exchanged with the zone leaders.

I was with Elder Evans. This was a two day exchange. After the zone conference we went to his apartment to get his stuff and we had an evaluation of the zone conference and we talked about what our goals are for this exchange. After that we went to go back to my area and the guy on the bus told us they would be passing by hotel rosa, near where we live, but it turns out he lied. So we had to find another bus after the first one took us to some random area of the city. It was raining like crazy so even though we were on the bus we got soaked between the first bus and the second bus, then the second bus to our house. When we got back to my apartment I changed out of my suit while Elder Evans set his stuff up. We tried to follow the plans that I had made, but we got lost.

I am terrible with directions and remembering and stuff like that, so we were lost the rest of the night. We did a lot of contacts though. We even got free empenadas from a guy who we contacted. Later I found out that I was really close to where we were supposed to be and if we only turned right on this one street I could have found my way. With no success in direction we managed to find our way home and we went to bed. The next day I was actually able to get around, but it took a little longer than when I'm with my companion. We were supposed to eat lunch with this family that lives behind the bishop, but it turns out it is a holiday, or something like that, and everybody is at their parent's house. So we crashed the Bishop's party with his family. He insisted, so I called our lunch appointment and explained why we were going to be late. He just laughed.

Bishop Azcona is the only member of a completely catholic family. We sang a Christmas song, I shared a scripture, they gave us some hot dogs and pop, then we left for our real lunch appointment. It took 45min to walk to the house of Hno. Medina, the father-in-law of Gorge Gomez. Gorge is a RM of 5 years and he had the pleasure of baptizing his wife. They went to the temple last year. They have a two year old named Mitchel. We ate with the entire Medina family, it was basically a south American version of a barbeque. We got a lot of references from them. We visited an inactive member family of like 20 that lived nearby and we tried to get them to come back to church, no luck. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful because my origonal plans were ruined. That's ok though.

The next day we went to the Zone leaders house to re-exchange. We did an evaluation of how it went and then Elder McShinsky and I went back home. I am really thankful for that because Elder Evans is too intense for me. He only has a couple of months left in the mission so all he talks about is baptize. The next couple of days were painful. I had a little bit of Chivivi (That's Guarani for Diaharrea), but I didn't know that you aren't supposed to consume dairy products or it will make it worse. So I had a glass of Milk at a members house. My companion knew I had Chivivi, but he didn't warn me or save me. So All I remember about these last three days is that my stomach hurt and I have become really familiar with the bathroom. It's getting better, but I still have it. I'm trying to eat more rice, crackers, apples, and bananas to get rid of it. In my opinion it isn't working fast enough.

We visited a less active family. The father drinks and we committed him to come back to church and stop drinking. He's going to come next week. We finally got to teach a guy our age named Richard, he was too busy with work and school before, but now he's done with that. We showed the Restoration to a man named Carlos. His wife is a member and they have a cute baby named Nidelyn. We committed him to baptism. He told us his doubts and he said he'll pray about the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. The spirit was really strong. I bore my testimony about receiving an answer before we left and that made me feel the spirit even stronger and it was another confirmation that all this has to be true.

That's all I've got time for today. Can't wait to hear more from you guys.
Love,
Elder Zacarías Santiago Singson

The MTC

Oct 22

I've been working with a teacher as a progressive investigator recently. The teachers name is Sister Burrop and she is so spiritually amazing and uplifting that if she wasn't engaged I would have proposed. Seriously though when she teaches me and my companion she gets us really excited to go to work. And when she talks about her mission and how she wishes she could be a Missionary right now makes her desirable.

All the Missionaries that work with her say she is the best. Anyway I'm teaching "Stephanie" the role that sister Burrop plays when we are teaching her.

"Stephanie is a really spiritual girl who goes to her Christian Church every sunday. She teaches the Youth about the Bible. She reads the Bible Every day. She is engaged. She loves sports and in high school she played on the basketball team with two LDS friends that she had. She never got the chance to read the Book of Mormon or attend Church with them because her Mom wouldn't allow it. She firmly believes in Christ and she believes that the Bible is all you need to make it to Heaven. She doesn't think that Prophets were called by God. She believes that the Prophets were Spiritual men and did Miracles because of their great faith. She believes that anyone who teaches about Christ is technically a Prophet and it you have great enough faith you can perform miracles just like them.

On Monday was our first lesson, it went pretty good but she has doubts about the prophet, but we commited her to read and pray about the Book of Mormorn. Wednesday we taught her the second lesson. She said she didn't have time to read the BoM and we commited her to do it again, but I doubt that she will. I didn't think the lesson went very well and later when she sent our teacher our feedback she said that half way through the

lesson we changed our focus from her need to just teaching the lesson. I was really down. I wasn't sure what her needs were or how we could get her to act on them. Thursday we had a Teacher Evaluation with Sister Barker. She was an answer to my prayers. She taught us how to ask effective questions that will cause her to think and draw her closer to God, instead of us dragging her there. She taught us how to wait and listen to the Spirit, which was kinda awkward at first but it really worked. She basically taught us how to ask questions like Christ would. He taught in parables to have the people find out for themselves what they believed and find their own answers. That is how we are going to try to teach from now on.

Oct 29

It's Me! This week was pretty eventful. I hope I have time to write it all. First thing I want to do is say, Thanks! Thanks for the Bread and the apples, and the snacks and the sheet music, and the andes chocolate (More please ;), and the mission prep thingy, and aaaaaaaall The other stuff.

     Next Item of Business. On Monday this week we had an Elder go home. I knew if somebody was going to leave it was going to be him, but I didn't think he really would. He wasn't very good at Spanish and he wouldn't work hard. He said that he didn't have a desire to come on a mission and that he was just doing it for his parents. I think he was making excuses, because I know and have heard how passionate he is about the gospel. He would get a lot of letters and I guess that made him homesick, plus I think he was worried that his girlfriend would leave him. We gave him a blessing that he would be comforted and the Fireside we had on sunday by Stephen B. Allen was directed specifically towards him. We tried everything that we could, but once the idea of going home got into his head it just kept getting larger and larger until nothing else could fit in. If he wasn't worrying about himself I think he would still be here. The secret to getting though your mission is Work, and he just wasn't doing it. If he waited until he got to the mission field I think he could have made it the rest of the way. That just shows how real and Powerful Satan can be. I hope things work out for him.

     This tuesday we got to hear from Elder Richard G. Scott. Thats two apostles in a Row! (Last week was by Elder Russel M. Nelson Btw)

Elder Scott talked about how to be led by the spirit. During his talk I don't think I've felt the Spirit so strong for so long before. It was really great. He made a list of the knowledge he aquired about this subject throughout his lifetime and he made copies for everybody. I got a copy laminated and shrunken to fit in my scripture case, I'm going to sent the original home sooner or later. It's really good and I think everyone should read it. One thing he said that I want to to read right now is:
"Often when we pray for help with a significant matter, Heavenly Father will give us gentle promptings that require us to think, exercise faith, work, at time struggle, then act. It is a step-by-step process that enables us to discern inspired answers." And "Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. Your character will grow; your faith will increase. There is a relationship between those two: The greater your faith, the stronger you character; and increased character enhances you ability to exercise even greater faith." Lastly "At times spiritual guidance can indicate or imply events that will occur later in life. Our acceptance of such prompting and willingness to obey it, does not mean that the will of the Lord (or our trials) will be changed. It does mean that the impact on our life will be different. There will be far more significant consequence because of our willingness to obey the counsel given by such sacred guidance of the Holy Spirit."

     Yesterday I had a Teacher Evaluation with my "Progressive Investigator" Stephanie. It was awesome. We soley focused on her needs. We asked her thought provoking questions and I think we got her to do some serious soul searching. She read a little in the Book of Mormon and we committed her to read more and pray about it to know that it is true. I promised her that if she prays tonight about the Book of Mormon to find out if it is true, then while she reads it she will get the spiritual confirmations of the Holy Ghost testifying that it is true. I also got her to pray to find out if Joseph Smith is a true prophet called by God it our modern days. When I bore testimony at the end I almost started bawling because the spirit was so strong. I think it really hit her hard too. It was a good lesson.

     I don't have much time left so I just want to tell you how much I love you all. Love you Mom, thanks for being so tolerant and loving. Love you Dad, thanks for being a great example and thank you for all your support and kindness (and humor). Love you Marisa, Thanks for being the good example for Micah and Kayley. Thank you for being a leader and a caretaker. Love you Micah thanks for being the silly ball of energy that always lifts my spirits. Love you Kayley and I'm sorry i didn't show it more. I miss you and hope you are all doing well. I'm doing great! :D

Nov 5

I was going to a Teacher Evaluation to teach a lesson, but it turns out the guy was from Paraguay and he lives in Asuncion. So instead of teaching he just taught us about Paraguay forever. Ha ha it was so much better than an ambassador like the other guys had to meet. He told us that 1 dollar was equal to 4,000 Guarani. And for 12,000 Guarani you could get huge amounts of food. He says just because it is a third world country doesn’t mean that they aren’t up with the times. Tons of people have cars, I-phones, and stuff like that. He says that MacDonalds and Burger King are so much better than here in America. He told us that we would be eating a lot of Beef, Chicken, and Pasta. He says if you are willing to have Diarrhea for a week you can drink water from the tap for the rest of your life. He says you can talk to anybody on the street and they actually want to hear what you say. Everybody is friendly. It is so green everywhere. If you go to Google Earth and look at Paraguay you’ll understand what I mean. He says that their middle class is different from our middle class, but it’s not that bad. You’ll be thankful for what you’ve got when you come back, but it’s not that bad. There are even people with million dollar houses. There are tons of members and quite a few churches. It isn’t likely that we will speak any Guarani because we are in the city, but we’ll pick up a few phrases. I’m pretty good at Spanish, but when this guy talked my confidence was shot. I knew he was speaking Spanish, but I couldn’t understand a single word he said. Oh well! ;D

Nov 12

This week has been going by sooooooo...... SLOW! I'm tired of being here. I'm starting to be less diligent because I'm too excited. I am going to start packing today and I hope I can somehow make everything fit and not exceed the weight limits fairly easily. Guess what? Elder Bednar came this Tuesday and taught us about how the doctrine is always the answer. He told us that if someone has a problem with something, usually we try to give them an application to solve the problem instead of the doctrine. He told us that Parents and Missionaries do this all the time and what you really need to do is teach them the to understand the Doctrine (or the Why), then the principle (or the What), and lastly the application (or the how). When they understand the doctrine then they will have an easier time applying it to their lives.

     Right after something funny happened. When we were in our Dorm Rooms I was reciting "Malk" by Julian Smith for a bunch of people in one of their rooms. There is a lot of screaming involved in this little skit of mine. Anyway some people of the other side of the building come over and start yelling at me telling me to shut up. One of them swore and I was just shocked. Then some of these guys who looked like they were on roids started spouting some self righteous crap about trying to feel the spirit. I was amazed of how stupid and hypocritical they were. Sure yelling makes it hard to hear the spirit, but swearing drives it away completely and besides I was in a room, if it was really about the spirit they could have just asked me to close the door. It was funny and quite sad. I personally wanted to fight them, but I'm a missionary.

     I must be typing extremely slow because I've only got 10 minutes left. Elder Love's Bishop is going to be in the Texas Airport at the same time as us, so he says he is going to take our entire district (6 people) out to dinner. I don't know why he is there, but that is really cool of him. Elder Love has metal screws in his knee so we are going to be stopped by security for sure. Plus Elder Love and I are kinda reckless and adventurous so we'll probably get on the wrong plane and end up in Tokyo. Plus it doesn't help that I've never been on a plane before and Dallas Airport is bigger than Manhattan Island. So it'll be fun.

     As a District the sunday before we leave we are required to sing in sacrament meeting. During MDT yesterday we were practicing in a room that has deviders that open up. This room is used for Large Group Meetings when it is open and when it is closed there are 3 seperate rooms for sacrament or priesthood or something like that. So while we are practicing this guy comes in and says "I need to do interviews so I'm going to have to ask all of you to leave." I was wondering "Couldn't you find a small room where you can have privacy?" It really upsets me how a lot of the people working here are so High and Mighty. We are Missionaries! Right now, we are better than you! Stop treating us like crap! I wonder how they treat real people.

     I'm almost out of time and I was just wondering. When are you going to find our Rachel's address for me? How am I supposed to build my relationship with her, so that one day we can be married, if I don't have her address? Anyways I'm really excited to go out into the field and I'm going to work on sending you a tape and pictures and stuff before I'm out of here. I love you all and I hope they give me more time to write you out in the field. My teacher said it depends on your mission president, but he let them e-mail their families for a whole hour. I can't wait to see how much you have all changed in two years. I also can't wait to see what i'm like in two years too, ha ha.

Nov 18

I´m sorry but I didn´t have time to call you in Dallas, The flight was delayed too much and I barely had enough time to get to my next flight. On the way to Argentina, I´m not gonna lie, but I watched ¨Despicable Me.`   yeah i´m a bad person. It was on and I have never seen it before so I gave in to temptation. In Argentina I would have called, but the phones wouldn´t work. They wouldn´t let me use the calling card and I ran out of pesos trying to do it. When I got to Paraguay President Callan and his wife were waiting for us.  We got to eat dinner and relax a little bit. He did interviews after we ate and it was good. I normally would have an hour to write you, but this stupid computer and this crappy system of email wouldn´t let me log on and I still have to write a letter to the President.

Day two. So I woke up and we had to get ready quickly and go to sign some papers so we can live here for two years. That took forever. We waited for over an hour to sign these things and take a picture. Thats all it was, but we had to wait an hour. Anyways, ¿Did I mention that Paraguayos are crazy drivers and there are basically no laws over traffic? yeah well it´s true. Besides stop lights people basically govern themselves and the police don´t care. Moving on. So after I signed my thing we went back to the chapel and waited for our trainers. Mine´s Elder McShinsky. He is from Draper, he did ballroom, and he is a hard worker. I don´t know that much about him, but thats ok. My area is Ciudad Este. That is as far east as you can get in Paraguay. It is on the opposite side from Asuncion. It took 6 hours on a bus to get there, it smells like sewer almost anywhere you go. When we arrived Elder McShinsky , the district leader, had to do a baptismal interview so I got to do splits the first day. Yay! So I went with Elder Evans, one of the zone leaders, to drop off my stuff. My nuevo casa is pretty new, just a little dirty, and it is mostly underground. I´ll send you pictures later. I only unpacked a little bit and then we went over to reunite with our companions. Elder Evans did 2 contacts and he had me do the third. I talked to a kid who looked about my age named Marcos. I could talk but I could not understand him, I can´t understand anybody, so when it was time for him to give us his address and phone number Elder Evans was gracious enough to step in. We waited for a bus for about a half an hour. None came so we moved to two different locations before one decided to pick us up. We got to the chaple, switched back, and went home. Not a very eventful day, but I got my first contact and it was successful so i´m not complaining. I slept without sheets or clothes. It is so freaking hot, and this is just the mild weather. Fun huh? 

Today we ate with a family, it was good, and shared a little message. Then we went shopping and now I´m writing to you. On Monday, my real PDay, we are having a thanksgiving fiesta as a district. Oh and the only thing seperating us from brazil is the river that runs between us. Thats how close I am. I can see A city in Brazil we are so close. I am somewhat in the city, but there are parts near the jungle. Frogs whistle instead of croak and sometimes you can hear monkeys. I´m done for today. Love you all and see you in 22 Meses! 

Nov 22

Eder McShinsky is tone deaf. He can get most of the notes but he messes up all the time. He isn't nearly as bad as the Paraguayos though. They are completely tone deaf. It wouldn't bug me that my companion is tone deaf, if he didn't love singing all the time. He sings throughout the entire day and it is hard to ignore him. I don't want to tell him though.

     It is freaking hot here and I'm told that it's just getting started. It is humid so it feels like I'm wet all the time, which I am because of sweat. The water is sticky. I'm not sure how else to describe it. You never really get dry. It sticks to your skin and it kinda feels like you have a layer of slime on you all the time. It would be bearable down here if I were wearing normal clothes. Walking here and there and everywhere is hard. If it is too far we wait forever  to get on a bus. If it is close enough we walk which takes forever. There are hardly any paved road. All the roads aren't even flat. They just lay rocks on the road and your expected to drive on it. Most people drive motorcycles.

     The ward only has fourty or so active members. We are trying to get more members coming back to church rather than bringing new ones in. We are teaching like 7 family investigators, but our focus is on the members. During sacrament the children just run around in the back. Nobody has any control over their children. Immodesty is pretty bad here, you have to be careful where you look. To tell you the truth we don't teach a lot. Mostly Elder McShinsky starts talking with the people and then they won't shut up. They talk too fast and to weird to understand. My neck and back are always hurting because of my stupid backpack. I'm going to have to buy a new one, because mine has a giant hole in the top.

      We live next to a giant supermarket that is kinda like wal-mart. It's pretty fancy for something in south america. Thats where we get all our groceries. We had a zone thanksgiving party/dinner today. We played football americano and ate a ton of food. It used up all of our p-day though so we can't really do anything besides write you because of it. They need to learn how to plan better. It's hard to make plans here because nobody has a schedule. All you can really do is ask them what time they are usually home and hope you get lucky. We waste a lot of time walking. If we don't teach anybody it doesn't really matter because it will take us an hour to walk to another "appointment".

     My companion has set it up so that we have a lunch appointment everyday. I haven't eatent anything wierd yet, in fact they say you rarely will eat anything weird. In fact I've liked all the food here a lot. It's so much better than MTC food. I've had noodles and chicken. Beans and chicken. Rice and Chicken and salad. They don 't put anything on their rice but for some reason it's really good. I've had Ribs and Rice. Salad with Mandioka, (A fruit thats like a potatoe but more bland) sausage meat, chicken, beef, and pork with rice. It's all been good. We only eat pankakes and sandwhiches for breakfast, and we hardly ever eat dinner. I hope that I can become fluent soon.

Dec 6

Sorry family I sent this email last week, but it said that you didn't receive it. You should have written me anyways though. :'(

Hiya Family!

This week was interesting. Last week for Pday we had a thanksgiving dinner so I didn´t have time to shop and all I ate were Ramen Noodles for dinner everyday. Elder McShinsky kinda talks a lot. He won´t teach simply he always has to teach in depth. And he´s always "Teaching" me. I already know all this stuff, teach the investigators. I can handle dealing with annoying people, but it doesn't make it less annoying. Tuesday we taught this family and a Catholic Preist in Practice comes randomly and basically steals our lesson. It was the worst. He taught like those people teach on the "restoration". He was basically yelling the whole time and he was up in everbody's face. I didn't like it one bit, yea not one wit. I don't understand how anybody can like that style of preaching. It's definitely not teaching though.

A lot of stuff has happened but it feels like it happened forever ago. Our plans were changed so I couldn't bring my journal to write the things I wrote in their to you, plus that means I left my camera at home, so you won't get any pictures this week either. Elder McShinsky and I aren't good at following plans, but we have been working on that. Mostly we just want to go in, teach, get out. That is our goal because everybody loves to talk and we can't get a word in edgewise.

Everybody has cute little babies I get to play with, unfortunately it is because they don't live the law of Chastity. Alcohol and ciggarets cost close to nothing, so that is a big problem. You have to be careful where you look because porn is sold out in the open and people do not dress modestly in the slightest. Everybody is friendly and will invite you to come talk, but that doesn't mean you can teach them. They like to talk they don't like to listen.

They place where I proselite is called Presidente Franco, it really isn't in Ciudad este. It's like Provo and Orem they are right next to each other, but they are two different places. Ciudad este has 2 zones has 10 wards/branches. Presidente Franco is part of that zone but i only has 2 missionaries (us) and 1 ward for the entire city. That is a lot of walking and work for 2 missionaries. Presidente Franco is probably about the size of Provo just lenghwise instead of round.

There are 3 families that are progressing investigators. but mostly we are just working with the ward. We have lots of investigators, but they are never home when we go to teach them. We have 2 people with Baptisms this month and we are inviting a ton to get baptized on christmas. It doens't feel like its almost december here. weird. The progressing investigators are Familia Huel, Carlos y Sonia, and a recently found investigator.

Sixto, Sara Huel, and their duaghter Laura, are progressing ok. The father, Sixto, is the key. If we can get him to understand then we can baptize the entire family. The problem is he has tons of questions. He's really smart and that is good, we just need him to go beyond logic and trust in faith. They've been to church and have had all the lessons, so whenever they are ready they can be baptized. Carlos y Sonia are good. Carlos is the problem. He won't do anything. Sonia comes to church by herself, but she's waiting for Carlos to be convinced so they can be baptized together. They have a cute little girl named Naidelina or Naide, it's almost like Natalie in English.

The recently found investigator's name is Alberto Roman. We taught him once and he was really interested. Next time we went he wasn't there so we taught his brother, he seemed really interested. We wen't a third time and Alberto wasn't there so we taught his family.This is where it gets interesting. At first we were teaching and it was all good, but then the wife's sister comes over and while we are teaching them they go off about the visions they've both had. Everybody seems to have a vision here in Paraguay, I think it's because they always are drunk. Anyways the two sisters talk forever and then they start talking about their beliefs and they won't shut up. After a while they finally both leave.
We have a youth member, named Ricky, who comes with us to teach Alberto. Well it turns out that a boy around the same age who is a Priest in Training followed him because he knows Ricky comes with us to teach people. At first I didn't think anything of it. He joined the lesson and he listened while we were teaching. Suddenly he gets up and starts sharing scriptures and talking very strongly at everybody, telling us that we are sinners and that we have to repent. After almost an hour of him preaching without taking a breath inbetween he has us stand and give a prayer. He starts moving aroung the circle blessing everybody and he has his arms up and looking towards the heavens the whole time. I thought he was a hypocrite because before he told us to humble ourselves before god when we pray and kneel. Finally he leaves and we have to recover the lesson and leave a short message because we are late for our next appointment. It was very interesting.

I don't have any time left, but I'll write you all next week. Send me the recipie on how to make your delicious chocolate chip cookies. I've been craving real and good junk food for a long time and unfortunately the Stores don't have any good candy and stuff like that.

Love you all!

Dec13

This week was kind of eventless. For the most part. We have had no success. Nobody is progressing. I think its partly because they are lazy and don't want to put in the effort, but I think it's because they just don't want to leave the comfort of their religions. They are never home, so they might be avoiding us. They ask too many questions and don't exercise faith. They are always working on sunday so they never come to church. All these things make it very hard for us to baptize people. Ugh.

This week my companion had to do splits with me because he had to go to Asuncion to go to a leader's training meeting or something. So I got to go to a whole other district. Their apartment was on the second floor and they had their own personal stairwell to reach it. It was big, clean, and nice. I was like, what? Why isn't our apartment like this one? It didn't really bother me, but thats a thought that popped into my head. Me and Elder Perez slept there wednesday night and did our normal missionary routine in the morning. Why did we switch at night? well that is because Elder McShinsky and the other district leader didn't take a bus to Asuncion until midnight. Anyways. After proselyting for an hour we went back to the apartment to eat lunch. We ate 3 hot dogs... Yum, I am so full. After that we only were able to teach 3 people all day.

One lady would not accept a Book of Mormon. I invited her 6 times to take it. She gave 7 differnt excuses. I destroyed the first 6 excuses, but after the 7th excuse I gave up trying. Later we taught another family. They were catholic and the accepted our message really well. I think the wife felt the spirit really strongly because she started crying. They accepted my Libro de Mormon. Lastly we taught a less active and he said he would come back to church. It took a lot of convincing and a lot of promises of blessings, but he promised he would come. The time we weren't teaching we spent looking for people, but to no avail.

We switched back that night around 11 and things continued on like normal. I may not write alot in these e-mails, but do not fret my little ones. I have already filled out half of my journal and when it is finished I will send it home so you can read it. The weather here is crazy. Since the lightning rarely touches ground it just stays up in the clouds. We had a lighting storm that lasted all night. The thunder is really loud and it lasts a long time too. When it rains, it pours. I've been soaked 3 days in a row. It finally let up today. At least the pair of shoes I'm wearing right now are dry.

Life is crazy, but it's fun. Love you all,