Stake Conference

Hola familia!

 

This week was pretty crazy just cuz time has been passing by so fast! It's kinda cool having 2 areas to work in and being over a whole rama because there is always stuff to do and we are constantly busy. But I'm really loving it here tons, the members are the best. Oh and changes are tomorrow so I'm a little sketched out, cuz the summer months are coming up and this change there are lots of places in the chaco that are opening up and most of them don't have running water or electricity -haha so we´ll see where the Lord wants me to be. 

 

letss seee.... a couple cool things that happened this week..

okay so we finally got to sit down and have our first real lesson with Marta Beatriz. She is a lady with like 40 years. She is a little different teaching because she loves the Virgin Mary so you gotta be careful about what we say about her or their moms in general cuz she takes it super serious. But for real she has lots of potential, she has been to church various times and already has a friend that's a member. I can already tell that she is changing poco a poco and going to be a fun one to teach. Hoping that things turn out for the best. 

 

Okay yesterday was by far one of the coolest days in my whole mission so far. Yesterday we had Stake conference for the stake of Capiata which I'm in. The stakes here are a lot more spread out here in paraguay and the coolest part is that Itaugua is part of the stake Capiata. welllll what does that mean? It means I got to see all of my miembros in Itaugua!!!! ahhh it was soo cool, I was loving every bit of it. I got to see jesus(beetoo), the dude I baptized there and his mom and brother and ahh it was so cool to see them growing stronger and stronger in the gospel. I got to see so many familias and everyone of them that I saw their first words were ¨Holy crap you can speak spanish really good now?!?!¨ hahaha it was so funny tosee their faces when I would first start to speak, cuz they still remembered me as I was in my training barley being able to speak a word of spanish. So that was super cool to see all of them and the other cool part of the conference was that both Junior and Lisandro came! But Lisandro in particular had a sweet expierence there. In the conference President Mcmullin(mission pres) and his wife both talked about mission work and preparing to serve a full time mission. And in the middle of one of their talks Lisandro leans over to me and asks out of nowhere ¨How long does it take to prepare to serve a mission because I think I could have everything ready to go by this next September¨ Man...... like bro your not even babtised yet and he's already dropping everything to get ready and serve a mish! I mean how rad is that?! Yesterday was just one of the best days though. haha sometimes I just wanna leave and go visit all my miembros in Concepcion too ha I for sure have to visit them some day too. 

 

But I'm glad to hear everything is going good at home and I hope the best for this week too! you guys are always in my prayers, love ya tons!

 

Elder Nyberg

Left to right Junior (Inv.), Carlonio (Member), Me

view from my house

 Welcome to my crib...

selfie after some lady cut my hair

Hump Day

Hola familia!

So this week was such a rad one here in Cocuere. We have some super sick investagators coming up and man some massive help from heaven too. I could legit stay here and write for hours of all the cool stuff that happened this week but I think I'm just gonna stick to writing about one investagador that found us. 

So I don't know if you guys remember in my last email I mentioned the name lisandro, he's a 20 year old dude that went to church last sunday. His older sister is a member but travels all over the world so is barley home. At church last Sunday  when I saw him, I thought he was a member already -haha he just looked like he fit right in. Not until when I was sitting next to my other investagator Junior, Mickayala (the branch pres`s wife) came up to us and told us to go sit by him to help him with the hymns and stuff and I was like why? he's already a member isn't he? but nope! haha so we went and after we scheduled a cita to go visit him. So this week I went over there for the first time with Elder carpio my Zone leader in divisions.  Annnnddd Danngg. So we got in there and got started talking about his life and why he ended up going to church that last sunday. He told us to hold on a sec. and went in his room to go get something. He came walking out with a triple BOM/PGP/D&C in his hands and he goes ¨i saw this book sitting in my sisters room, and decided to read a little bit, since then I've just been reading more and more. I don't know what it is but when I read this book or even have it in my hands, I feel something...something different.¨ Then he goes on to say that he always felt like something was missing in his life and that he found that something in this book. haha in this moment me and Elder carpio just looked at eachother like ¨Whattt just happened?!?!¨ Turns out that he has been reading for a whole week every night and is already in 2nd nefi 8!!! After he told us he was reading every night he said he was also praying to God after every time he read to know if he should keep going and to see if it is true and then he looks at us and says ¨Wait thats okay right? that I'm praying like this? like its not bad or anything?¨ Yeahh..... mine and Elder Carpios jaws were just dropped at this point like Holy golden investagator! But my favorite part was after we got done talking about the Book of Mormon he told us not to tell his sister that he stole her book hahahah and then he asked us how much a book like that cost so he could buy one. (and trust me this dude was prepared to drop some serious cash on this book) Man you should have seen his face when i told him it was free and when i gave him his own copy that was in my backpack his face just lit up so much. So when everything was said and done we put a babtism fecha for the 26th of september and he accepted. the only bad thing to this whole sick expierence is that changes are like a week before his babtism and it could be that i leave the area but im hoping i get to stay. But more than anything just came out with a stronger testimony that there are people SOO prepared for us to teach. They are out there. We just have to keep searching and working hard and God puts these people in our path to find. I know this church is true without a doubt in my mind, and that this is his work. Man the mish is soo rad i just love it. 

Oh and somebody hit their HUMP DAYY this week... yeah this kid. Can you guys believe ive been out a whole year? cuz i cant haha:P

Luffffff you guys tons! hope everything is goin good at home! keep livin it up and dont forget to keep smiling!:)

Elder Nyberg

Searching for junior...

Hola familia!

This week was seriously one of the best. We've had soooooo many little miracles its been crazy. Sooo many random people that just seem to be coming out of no where into our path. Lets see how much I remember about the week;P 

Okay cool stuff, a couple days ago we had a teenager named Junior contact US in the street saying if we should pass by his house cuz he wanted to listen to us (yeah when does that ever happen?). So the next day we went looking for his house with the really bad paraguayan directions he gave us. We were searching for about an hour asking around and nothing. So we sat down a sec, super bummed that we were going to loose this sick referencia. We decided to just leave it and go to our next lesson, my comp got up to walk back to the main road where we came from but I told him I wanted to take this other sketchy road just cuz I wanted to explore a bit -haha I really have no clue why. But what do you know we walk 3 min. down this field/road and we see Junior in a house in the distance waving at us -haha. cool huh? We had a good lesson and the kid is looking sweet!

Another one, we got a referencia from a member to go to visit a guy named Ricardo Paniagua. But when we got talking it was crazy! this guy knows his stuff when it comes to the bible and has traveled all over the world and just knows a ton! He knows so much about so many different religions telling us that he has been looking for the truth all his life. He already had a Book of Mormon  from who knows who but we pulled it out and answered a little bit from a question that he had of why the good people in this life have to suffer so much. he then kept going off on all the differences of all the different religions and how everyone is preaching ¨the truth¨ but its all different. The coolest part of the lesson was when I asked him if he had ever asked God which church was true, and if he had ever prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true. And the look he gave me was like ¨whoaa, I've never tried that before¨ haha you would have thought that someone that traveled the world and knows so much about other religions would have thought to ask God about it but nope! So he told me ¨give me a couple weeks so I can read the book and ask and then we´ll know¨ So I left him Moroni 10 4-5 and we´ll see how it goes!

Okay I'm running out of time but these are just a few more of the people who came out of nowhere that look super great. Marta beatriz and lisandro. they both have cool storys of how we found them, or how they found us is better said haha but i dont have more time!:/ its all good tho

Love you guys and hope everything is going great!

Elder Nyberg

80 year old Hermanna

Hola familia!

This week was a tranquilo one, well I mean it was a pretty crazy one with lots of work but its always tranquilo here in paraguay. the weather here is getting pretty hot again, it hit 108 today and the summer is slowly coming in.(even though its always summer here haha). But lets see if I can remember some stuff that went on this week.....

Tuesday-  ah man, Tuesday was a super long day that's for sure. in the morning we traveled to Capiata to have our zone confernce that started at noon. It was pretty cool, kinda like a refresher on a lot of stuff but I liked it. We had interviews too with President Mcmullin and it was super sick. Pres is one of the raddest dudes you could meet, that guy works soooo hard everyday out here and he seems to know just about every answer to life you could ever think of. I respect him a lot si o si and look up to him. But the confrence was from noon to 6 at night (sitting in those hard chairs that everyone loves;) jaja. Then we caught a collectivo home and got here just in time for a meeting about mission work with the sumo sacerdote assigned to our rama. Then after that meeting we had consejo de rama from 8 to 9 with the pres of the branch and all the leaders. so yeah! that was all my day! 

Saturday- well I think it was saturday.. oh well- haha. I had a couple funny things happen but overall it was a pretty chill day. Okay so shout out to the hermana Jara for being the sickest 80 year old member in the whole world. Last week she asked us to bring her a complete package of folletos of the resoration of the gospel so she could go around her neighborhood and share the gospel with EVRRRRYONE. So we got phone call from here in the morning and tells us to come over cuz she has a familia for us to teach haha. If your a missionary thats like the same as getting a massive present on Christmas or something. So we went over and I thought this famila was going to come over to the Hermanna Jara´s house but nope! she goes ¨you guys ready?¨ and our 80 year old stud of a member walked like 7 blocks with us to share the gospel.  When we got there it turned out everyone in the familia was working exept their grandma and so the grandma came out to talk with us. The Hermanna Jara might be a little old but she sure has LOTS of energy when it comes to the gospel and in the ¨lesson¨ with the other grandma she just kept going and going and me and my comp. barley had time to say anything! -haha. it was super funny though the hermana Jara and the other grandma were just going off and off in Guarani and me and my comp were just chillin trying to follow the best we could but we weren't understanding tons. the other grandma was super catholic and was going off about worshiping her statue of mary and not wanting anything to do with us( just like anyother normal catholic here).  the Hermana Jara wasn't having any of it and came in to dropped her fatttt cane... she was like ¨ I'm really so sorry for you and feel super sad because when we are standing before the judgement seat of God and you go to ¨h-e double hockey sticks;)¨ for rejecting his gospel your going to really wish you would have listened.¨ haha mannn it was so crazy, I love the hermana jara even though we had to have a little talk with her after about how members should be in the missionary lessons -haha it was great. Were going to be going back there when the normal family is home this week and we´ll see how it goes haha.

Anyway life is super great here, I'm lovin every second. I hope you guys are all doing good! 

Love ya tons!

Elder Nyberg

Little Miracles

Hola familia!

This week has been a super good one, we had lots of little miracles sent down from heaven to help us out this week for sure. Me and my comp Elder Cisternas are working really great. The wierd part is we don't have a ton of things in common but we get along super well. The work here in Kokuere is coming along great! Everyday more here is really the best. 

So a couple cool things that happened this week,,,, ahhh yeah so like a month ago I contacted a lady named Veronica that lives in a super humble house in a pretty ghetto part of the city. She spoke little spanish and LOTS of guarani. We taught her a little bit of the restoracion of the gospel and it was a special lesson trying our best to teach in guarani. She was really nice but didn't show a lot of interest or anything like that. Since then we've tried several times to follow up and no one has been home and the cell phone number she gave us wouldn't work. So this Saturday getting ready for Sunday I decided to give her a call just to invite her to church on Sunday. I called 4 times in the morning and the phone wouldn't ring or anything just like it had been before. I don't know why -haha but that night I was thinking about her and tryed one more time to call just for the heak of it. I was super suprised when I heard the ringing and a voice on the other end. I said we were the missionaries and we were looking to talk to Veronica. The first thing she yelled in the phone with her mixed guarani and spanish was ¨When are you guys coming to look for me to take me to church?!?!¨ haha. I said we could pass by the next morning and we would all go to church together. When we got there to our suprise we found veronica all ready with her best pair of pants and T-shirt on without any holes in them and her Libro de Mormon in her hand. We went. And she loved it. 

Another was Lionia and her familia. Lionia and her kids went to church this Sunday and they are loving it so much. Lionia is so prepared for babtism its crazy! it's her husband that is accepting things a little more slowly. But things are going to work out with them for sure.

I visited a inactive family this week that got babtised like 4 years ago. they are called the familia Garay. first off they haven't been recieving the missionarys for about 6 months now. We got in and It was a crazy first lesson with them for sure. Once I walked in the mom of the family kept looking at me all funny and it was super alkward not gonna lie -haha. then we got talking and she said I was for sure the same as the Elder that babtised them named Elder Davis. She was so conviced that I was him -haha it was crazy, anyway one thing led to another and they were remembering all the good times of her babtism and this Elder Davis that I've never met and you could just tell how close they were to this Elder. Anyways once we left the house, they committed to coming back to the church and even invited us over to eat dinner with them after church the next Sunday.

Fun expierence on Sunday too. haha 5 min. before sacrament meeting starts the branch pres. comes up to me and says ¨hey elder nyberg, I need you to give a talk and fill up the last 15 minutes of the meeting, okay?¨ haha I thought he was just messin with me but nope! I gave a 15 min talk and it was sweet. that promise in D&C that says if we always treasure up the words of the scriptures it will be givin us the words we need to speak in the exact moment we need them is totally true. 

Last cool expierence. I was asked to give 2 blessings of health on sunday too by two different hermanas. The power of the priesthood real. And just another reminder to all you priesthood holders out there. We never know when God needs us to use the priesthood to bless others, so ALWAYS be worthy of it. 

Anways love you all and hope things are going good!

Elder Nyberg