Email 10/26/09

The rains and storms haven´t stopped yet. Wednesday we had the biggest storm I´ve EVER seen. It was CRAZY!!!!! Hail and everything. It made you pretty conscious of how this is all the Lord´s work. This week has been miracles from one end to the next.
We have FHE´s about every night and my rule is that they have to bring a buddy, or two or three or ten. We call it FHE so everyone gets excited about it. It´s kinda funny, it´s a real big deal in Paraguay to have a Family Home Evening with the missionaries. So when we call it that it turns a lesson into a party, with food, and everyone wants to help. We had a BIG one with Raul & Antonia and their family with Miguel & Liz and their family. You wouldn´t had thought that Miguel wasn´t a member already. It was a wonderful lesson about the Restoration and everybody helped. And the food was REALLY good. We´ve started making empenadas and their pretty popular.
Their is this Brazilian girl that we´re teaching, her name´s Daiane. She´s 19 but with the maturity of a toddler. Honestly I think Brighton´s more grown up than her half the time. But she´s got an amazing spirit so it´s why we teach her. Her problem is that she is SOOOOO scared of starting then failing and that keeps her from starting the process. Friday we had an AMAZING lesson with her. The spirit was so strong and she could not deny the fact that she had to get baptized. She came to church yesterday and she´s getting baptized in the middle of November.
As we were trudging through the rain and hail Wednesday a guy called out to us. "Hey Elders when are you going to teach me." Our response was "that depends, where do you live?" His name is Leonardo and he is amazing. He´s a very educated guy that travels all over the country selling and repairing computers and the like. He REALLY wanted to know what it was that made two young guys walk around in the storm. He´s also getting baptized in November.
There is another Brazilian family that we´re working with, Familía Jahnel. Most are members but the 20 year old son is not. We´ve been trying to reactivate the family so that we could work with the son as well. So our method has been FHE´s. Last Friday´s was amazing. Our plan was to give everyone a scripture and they would have to share it and a little spiritual thought. Everyone participated and the spirit was SOOOOOO strong. This past Friday was a little different. The plan was that THEY would have to pick their own scriptures to share. Well, it didn´t go so well. The mom hid from us, the two oldest kids weren´t there (the son is #3) and only the littlest daughter had prepared her scripture. Eli is 13 and her testimony was so sweet and so pure. So then after her the missionaries had to share a scripture too. Elder Blake gave an amazing lesson about the Atonement and the spirit came in SOOOOO thick. Then I started talking about miracles and got everyone to tell us what was the miracle from the bible that they wanted to see. We got the story of Elijah and the story of Moses and Daniel and so everyone was thinking BIG. Then I shared about Miguel and Liz and how they´ve changed so much, about how that was a miracle and how that they didn´t even know that it had happened. Then we talked about the Friday before and how that FHE was a miracle. Right then the oldest daughter Nilsa came home. She is the spiritual one of the family. She asked us to give her a blessing. Well when we did the spirit just came in like a waterfall. They ALL came to church on Sunday. That was a miracle.
The biggest miracle of the week was Miguel. His baptism and wedding went off without a hitch, even though ALL Saturday morning it stormed to beat the band. It was beautiful. Both he and his wife (Liz) bore their testimonies afterword and the spirit was SOOOOOOO strong. After his confirmation we went to their home. They made the goal right then that on October 25th 2010 they´re going to get sealed as a family.
This has been the most spiritual week of my mission. I´m just so happy. It´s been AMAZING.
We have a normal church building and Elder Blake and I take turns playing the hymns. My suggestion was to trade off between verses but we figured it´d be better to just do it every other Sunday.
The Glamis trip sounds awesome. I gotta admit that I miss the sand a bit.
I love you all so much. Thank you so much for the letters.
Elder Frank Wills