Sunday, April 3, 2016

March 26, 2016

Hola familia, 

This week has gone by so fast. i mean they usually go by fast but this last one felt...... man i just wish we could slow things down a bit haha. But this week has been a fun one, Down here in Paraguay this week it's called ¨Semana Santa¨ or Holy Week. I think i am just going to talk about some fun stuff that has been going on this week. 

So... Chipa. Yeah, Chipa is like this really hard crunchy cheesy bread stuff they make for ALL of the Semana Santa. I've easily eaten like 50 chipas so far this week, just because EVERYONE gives you them. Every house we go by, every person we talk to, everyone. The weirdest thing is it is not even that good, but it's a major tradition down here so you just gotta eat it anyway haha.  

Down here it's all about tradition, Most people don't even know why they do half the things they do during the Semana Santa but it's really special to them because of the tradition. Once you get to Friday down here, there is literally NO ONE in the streets. it looks like a legit ghost town, (and i'm in the capital city of Paraguay haha). Another fun fact about ¨Viernes Santo¨ or holy friday is that they don't eat meat for the whole day and the only food they are allowed to consume is Chipa. They all stay close to home and usually recite or chant prayers to these little Shrines of the Virgin Mary. Down here for sure every house has a little table shrine in front of their house with a couple candles going and some flowers with a big Virgin Mary Statue in the middle. We would be walking down the street and we would find like 30 or 40 people gathered in front of one house doing a ¨rezo¨ or chanting a prayer together to the Virgin Mary Statue. But overall the Semana Santa was a really cool experience.

During this week we also found a really cool investigator named Jessica. She is a mom of a couple little kids and she has been having lots of problems with her husband. We contacted her and she said she was busy and didn't seem super interested but said we could try again and come back some other time when she had more time. So we did exactly that haha. We got sitting down and talking and she came out with a question after a bit that kind of surprised us, she asked where do the people go that end up taking their own lives? At first we just thought it was out of curiosity but after teaching lots of The Plan of Salvation and trying to find what her real need was, she came out and told us she was really considering taking her life because of her situation she was in with her husband and kids. Out of all of the things one can think of to respond to that, i had a really strong impression to simply, make sure she knows she is loved by her father in heaven. It felt like my companion was right on the same page too because we didn't leave that house that day until she knew how much her father in heaven loves her and of her potential as a daughter of God. Missionary work is really the best. 

Hope you guys had fun this week! love you all!

Elder Nyberg

Divisions with Elder Dufort from the CCM

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