well, where to begin. i guess the beginning is a good place to start! haha :) tuesday was rather dull to be honest, we had a lot of appointments that we tried to go to, but everyone was either gone, or didnt want to talk to us. it was kind of a downer, but at the same time i made a good realization :) because the Lord looks at the desires of your heart, the results of your work arent the most important thing in the world. sure the purpose of a mission is to invite people to come unto christ and recieve the covenant of baptism. but if you do all that you can to share, and you work your hardest, but in the end your dont have the results you wanted, its ok! because God will only hold you accountable for your desires and the effort that you put forth. somehting kind of funny though is that we were at one of the apppointments and as we were saying the closing prayer a mango fell out of a tree and almost hit me in the head! it was kind of scary, but also very funny :) to end the day we stopped by at our last house and the people were only kind of receptive. we almost got to see them kill a pig for christmas but it was too late in the afternoon and they decided not ot but to wait until tomorrow :P haha so yea, that was tuesday :)
wednesday we spent teh day trying to proselyte but werent received very well haha everyon was busy! but we did get to pick up a laptop to use for skyping familys on christmas, and we had one lesson. the lesson was really cool cause we stopped by the house of this old investigator just to check in on her, and her friend was there. his name is matias and is like 17 years old. we asked if he had ever talked with missionaries before and he said no. but he did say he had noticed us in the street before and could tell there was something differnt about us. he said that he thought it was because we greet random strangers as we walk by without a second thought. which i found interesting because people do that here all the time. so what could the real difference be? well i figure that he could tell that because we have the gospel in our lives we have a purpose to why we are here. i thought it was so cool that he could see tht in us! we finished the day off by having christmas eve dinner with the alvarez family(they are the ones with the cattle ranch and have given us fresh milk almost every time we visit them :) and we headed home listening to tons and tons of fireworks. we watched the other side of heaven before going to bed and it was a very uplifting to see that if elder groberg could have success like that out in tonga, we can definitely stick it out and find success here in curuguaty paraguay :D
Christmas was just all good things :) i got to talk with my family for a while, and then elder carpio talked with his family. between teh two we stayed inside most of the day which was just perfect cause it was extremely hot outside tha tday haha :) for dinner i made some spaghetti to finish it off :) i had a small miracle that morning though. i still havent received my english scriptures, and its been getting kind of hard. i pray every day that i will get them soon, but they still havent arrived. before this last zone conference i prayed that i would get them before christmas so that i could read the christmas story in english. but they werent there at the zone conference. i was kind of let down and didnt understand. If God has promised that if we have a righteus desire in our hearts, and we pray for it, and do all that we can on our part, that he will make up the rest. so i was confused as to why i didnt get my scriptures then. so on christmas morning i wasnt exactly sure what i wanted to study because i had wanted to read luke 2 that morning. i was prompted to open jesus the christ and see what the chapters about his birth said. much to my surprise and delight i found all the verses from luke 2 that contain the full christmas story qouted word for word in the book! oh how God works in mysterious ways :) it indeed was a righteous desire of mine to read the christmas story on christmas day, and because i prayed for it God answered my prayer, he just did it in his own special way :)
friday was back to work, and i started the day off just like any other regular day. but when we went out ot work we were greeted by a surprise! we have been praying that these three girls will be able to talk to their parents and receive permission to be baptized. we had talked with them in the past and put a goal of talking with their parents on christmas day. they did, and it looks like their parents are going to allow them to be baptized! we are hoping to hold the service either this weekend or the next! i am so excited, cause they have been waiting for this for a long time, one of the girls has almost finished reading the book of mormon already! these three sisters have such strong testimonies and i know that if they join the church that they will be able to help our small group grow :)
saturday went by really fast. the only thing to really mention is that elder carpio woke up feeling kind of sick, and asked for a blessing of health so that he would have the energy to work that day. i did so, and he felt better within the hour! we left and worked hard and it was great! we had 6 lessons along with one new investigator! it was so crazy how quickly that day went from a "oh no, we might need to stay inside all day" to "holy dang we accomplished a lot today" :) it was really nice :)
sunday we taught the second lesson from the gospel principles book, and i gave a talk on the difference between inmortality and eternal life. i didnt have elder carpio edit it this time and i think some of the people in teh audience didnt fully ynderstand what i said :P but oh well, we felt the sprirt and that is was matters :) we only had 7 people in total at church, including elder carpio and i, but that just means that if we have 8 next week it will be an improvment and we will feel that much better :)
overall i have had a sort of hit and miss week work wise, but and awesome week spiritually and personally :) i am starting to actually think like a missionary and i can really feel the spirit working through me :) i was a literal witness of the scripture "seek not to declare my word, but seek first to obtain my word, then shall your mouths be filled" we were at the familia gimanez house and hermana gimanez asked "who are Gods parents?" and needless to say we were a little shocked by this question, especailly since we had said that we dont know the previous sunday when she asked the same question. i was then prompted to explain that we dont know, because God is our Heavenly Father, and he is the one that we worship and adore. we also pray to God the father. if we knew who his parents were, we would want to pray to them instead of him, and that is sacriligeous since he is the father of our spirits and the one who created all things. i dont even know where that came from, but it felt right and it was so nice to be an instrument in the lords hands to answer a question so out of the ordinary.
Sunday was also jezees birthday, and i definitely was thinking about her a lot that day :) I love my miracle sister :)
thank you all for your support and your love, i wouldnt be the person i am without you. i love you all and cant wait to report the news from the upcoming week! but since this is my last letter of 2014, i would like to share a poem i came across a few months ago that i really like :)
"If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with 86,000$...
that carried over no balance from day to day...
allowed you to keep no cash in your account...
and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day....
What would you Do?
Draw every cent every day of course, and use it to your advantage.
well, you have such a Bank... and its name is
"TIME"
Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds
Every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you have failed to use and invest in a good purpose.
It carries over no balances
It allows no overdrafts.
Each day, it opens a new account with you
If you fail to use the days deposits, the loss if yours.
There is no going back
There is no drawing against the "Tomorrow"
It is up to each of us to invest this precious fund of hours, minutes, and seconds in order to get from it the utmost in job performance and personal happiness.
How many minutes do you have each week to use effectively to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man?"
-Anonymous
I really like this poem, and i intend to use its teaching every day for the rest of my mission. I know that my time here in the field is brief. I have already been out here for almost 4 months. I cant believe how fast time goes back, but at the same time it is inspiring. I will use every minute that i possibly can to "teach and preach and learn as missionaries do" in 2015 :)
With Love,
Elder DuFort
wednesday we spent teh day trying to proselyte but werent received very well haha everyon was busy! but we did get to pick up a laptop to use for skyping familys on christmas, and we had one lesson. the lesson was really cool cause we stopped by the house of this old investigator just to check in on her, and her friend was there. his name is matias and is like 17 years old. we asked if he had ever talked with missionaries before and he said no. but he did say he had noticed us in the street before and could tell there was something differnt about us. he said that he thought it was because we greet random strangers as we walk by without a second thought. which i found interesting because people do that here all the time. so what could the real difference be? well i figure that he could tell that because we have the gospel in our lives we have a purpose to why we are here. i thought it was so cool that he could see tht in us! we finished the day off by having christmas eve dinner with the alvarez family(they are the ones with the cattle ranch and have given us fresh milk almost every time we visit them :) and we headed home listening to tons and tons of fireworks. we watched the other side of heaven before going to bed and it was a very uplifting to see that if elder groberg could have success like that out in tonga, we can definitely stick it out and find success here in curuguaty paraguay :D
Christmas was just all good things :) i got to talk with my family for a while, and then elder carpio talked with his family. between teh two we stayed inside most of the day which was just perfect cause it was extremely hot outside tha tday haha :) for dinner i made some spaghetti to finish it off :) i had a small miracle that morning though. i still havent received my english scriptures, and its been getting kind of hard. i pray every day that i will get them soon, but they still havent arrived. before this last zone conference i prayed that i would get them before christmas so that i could read the christmas story in english. but they werent there at the zone conference. i was kind of let down and didnt understand. If God has promised that if we have a righteus desire in our hearts, and we pray for it, and do all that we can on our part, that he will make up the rest. so i was confused as to why i didnt get my scriptures then. so on christmas morning i wasnt exactly sure what i wanted to study because i had wanted to read luke 2 that morning. i was prompted to open jesus the christ and see what the chapters about his birth said. much to my surprise and delight i found all the verses from luke 2 that contain the full christmas story qouted word for word in the book! oh how God works in mysterious ways :) it indeed was a righteous desire of mine to read the christmas story on christmas day, and because i prayed for it God answered my prayer, he just did it in his own special way :)
friday was back to work, and i started the day off just like any other regular day. but when we went out ot work we were greeted by a surprise! we have been praying that these three girls will be able to talk to their parents and receive permission to be baptized. we had talked with them in the past and put a goal of talking with their parents on christmas day. they did, and it looks like their parents are going to allow them to be baptized! we are hoping to hold the service either this weekend or the next! i am so excited, cause they have been waiting for this for a long time, one of the girls has almost finished reading the book of mormon already! these three sisters have such strong testimonies and i know that if they join the church that they will be able to help our small group grow :)
saturday went by really fast. the only thing to really mention is that elder carpio woke up feeling kind of sick, and asked for a blessing of health so that he would have the energy to work that day. i did so, and he felt better within the hour! we left and worked hard and it was great! we had 6 lessons along with one new investigator! it was so crazy how quickly that day went from a "oh no, we might need to stay inside all day" to "holy dang we accomplished a lot today" :) it was really nice :)
sunday we taught the second lesson from the gospel principles book, and i gave a talk on the difference between inmortality and eternal life. i didnt have elder carpio edit it this time and i think some of the people in teh audience didnt fully ynderstand what i said :P but oh well, we felt the sprirt and that is was matters :) we only had 7 people in total at church, including elder carpio and i, but that just means that if we have 8 next week it will be an improvment and we will feel that much better :)
overall i have had a sort of hit and miss week work wise, but and awesome week spiritually and personally :) i am starting to actually think like a missionary and i can really feel the spirit working through me :) i was a literal witness of the scripture "seek not to declare my word, but seek first to obtain my word, then shall your mouths be filled" we were at the familia gimanez house and hermana gimanez asked "who are Gods parents?" and needless to say we were a little shocked by this question, especailly since we had said that we dont know the previous sunday when she asked the same question. i was then prompted to explain that we dont know, because God is our Heavenly Father, and he is the one that we worship and adore. we also pray to God the father. if we knew who his parents were, we would want to pray to them instead of him, and that is sacriligeous since he is the father of our spirits and the one who created all things. i dont even know where that came from, but it felt right and it was so nice to be an instrument in the lords hands to answer a question so out of the ordinary.
Sunday was also jezees birthday, and i definitely was thinking about her a lot that day :) I love my miracle sister :)
thank you all for your support and your love, i wouldnt be the person i am without you. i love you all and cant wait to report the news from the upcoming week! but since this is my last letter of 2014, i would like to share a poem i came across a few months ago that i really like :)
"If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with 86,000$...
that carried over no balance from day to day...
allowed you to keep no cash in your account...
and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day....
What would you Do?
Draw every cent every day of course, and use it to your advantage.
well, you have such a Bank... and its name is
"TIME"
Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds
Every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you have failed to use and invest in a good purpose.
It carries over no balances
It allows no overdrafts.
Each day, it opens a new account with you
If you fail to use the days deposits, the loss if yours.
There is no going back
There is no drawing against the "Tomorrow"
It is up to each of us to invest this precious fund of hours, minutes, and seconds in order to get from it the utmost in job performance and personal happiness.
How many minutes do you have each week to use effectively to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man?"
-Anonymous
I really like this poem, and i intend to use its teaching every day for the rest of my mission. I know that my time here in the field is brief. I have already been out here for almost 4 months. I cant believe how fast time goes back, but at the same time it is inspiring. I will use every minute that i possibly can to "teach and preach and learn as missionaries do" in 2015 :)
With Love,
Elder DuFort