Travel to Itaugua to visit Betoo

hey familia!

just want you guys to know that I'm still alive.... haha 

I kinda gave up almost all of my ciber time to write today so I could go travel to Itaugua and visit Betoo(the dude I baptized) and his familia. I had the best time today, it was unreal. But legit you guys have no idea how much I have grown to love this family, they are one in a million. His mom calls me su hijo(her son) haha I love it. I'll drop a pic of us below. I hope you guys are doing great! 

I love and miss you guys tons!

Elder Nyberg

Junior's baptism & General conference,

Hola familia!

okay this week has been another crazy one in paraguay thats for sure, today I have like zero time to type cuz I have a lot of work I still have to get done by tomorrow soooooo im gonna send a bunch of pictures and hope that makes up for it:) hahaha 

But two quick cool things that happened this week was the Baptism of Junior and i got to see Elder Evans!

Hope you all liked conference too! cuz i got to see all of it this time! but it was in english and was super weird to listen to all the people give talks in all english for a day haha. 

But Love you guys TONS! hope your all doing great!!!

Elder Nyberg

Junior's baptism

Watching conference in English

cousin elder Jordon Evens (serving in asuncion)

Changes and Lisandros baptism

Hola familia!

This week was soo rad... first off we had changes! annnnndddddddddd looks like im staying! In cocuere, San Lorenzo and with my same comp Elder Cisternas from Argentina. I was sooo happy to get to stay because I was able to be here for Lisandros baptism! man that dude was so prepared for baptism it was crazy. I'll be sure to send all the pictures below for sure.

So at changes we traveled to anahi to get changes and my friend Elder Jensen our Zone leader was messin with me soo bad haha cuz they already knew all the changes. He was telling me all about how the chaco is and was like soo sorry bro you can't see your baptisms this change haha it was good when they finally told us the changes and he is the new assistent haha. But during the district meeting on tuesday to know changes i had a pretty cool moment in the mish just thinking about how far ive come and all the things ive learned so far. In that meeting the zone leaders asked me to teach a 15 min class to the whole zone of like 30 missionarys and it turned out to be a super dope class on the importance of the BOM and the Holy ghost in conversion. I was just thinking if you were to tell me i had to teach a class for 15 min in front of 30 people and in another language at the beginning of my mish i probably would have told you nooo way haha. but now it was super tranquilo, i actually really enjoy it now, getting to teach and finding ways to make it fun. 

Okay today is a holiday in paraguay ( I have no idea what holiday) haha but this is the only ciber we found that was open and they just told us their going to close in a bit so im gonna hurry and sent off as many picures as i can!

Love you all!

Elder Nyberg

Lisandros baptism

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