April 16, 2016

Hola familia,

This week was a pretty crazy one here in Asuncion, with changes on Tuesday we have been preparing everything to get things ready. Lots of stress for sure but we're getting things done and we're almost ready. Right now as i'm typing this in the mission office, President Mcmullin is right behind the wall i'm sitting next to, in his office, receiving the transfers for all of the missionaries. Its super cool to be able to work in Asuncion with him. He has been in his office since Thursday and has only left for a short time once in awhile. President Mcmullin is a stud of a guy, and a huge example to all of us. I don't have any doubts that he is called of God and that our transfers come straight from God. 

But as for some cool highlights of the week, one of them is for sure our investigator Cido. He ended up not showing up for church and also cancelled on our cita that we had set for Tuesday. I was super bummed and constantly thinking about what was going on. I got a hold of him on Friday and he said we could come over for a little bit, but he sounded really weird on the phone almost as if he didn't have time for us to come over or something. Anyway we went and got to his big apartment building and he wasn't looking so good. Turns out he had been feeling really bad that Sunday so he didn't go to church and Monday when he just got out of a meeting at his work he fainted and fell and hurt himself pretty bad. He was in the hospital with them doing tests on him all week to figure out what was going on, ending up with not to many conclusions. He got home from the hospital a little bit before we went over and said he had to go back today for more tests. It's crazy in my mission i have seen many times that some of the coolest people that we find have the weirdest things happen to them to delay their progress. I mean "delay" probably wouldn't be the right word for Cido because he asked for a ton of the lesson pamphlets that we had so he could read them all while he was chillin in the hospital haha. But as for our lesson goes, we went over a little bit of the restoration again and focused a lot on the Book of Mormon. Last time we gave him the homework of reading the introduction of the Book of Mormon and he read it all before we got there. He had also been praying everyday since then to know if it is true, he says he hasn't gotten a solid answer yet but at the pace he is progressing i'm sure it will come soon. Cido is such a stud, he's had a couple road blocks in his way to slow him down but he's still going strong. 

Well next time i write you guys i'll let you know what happened in changes. Hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Nyberg

April 9,2016

Hola Familia, 

This week has been a pretty tranquilo one, not as stressful as it usually is here in Asuncion. The weather is finally dropping a little bit, i mean as much as i love just 105 degree weather and humidity all week long, i really missed the rain and cooler weather haha.

This morning we got up an early and went to go play fútbol, half way through the game it started pouring rain and man it was fun. We split up on teams of Latins verses Americans and i was reppin the US soccer jersey, needless to say when we actually scored against the Latins there were some pretty funny Goal celebrations haha. Fútbol down here is for sure one of the funnest things, everyone is so into it its awesome. 

But as for some cool experiences go, we had been calling Cido all during the week to confirm a cita with him but he wasn't picking up his phone at all. It had my comp all worried haha but i knew there was some good reason for it because this guy is way too golden to just drop us that fast. We finally got a hold of him yesterday and we went over to have a lesson. It turns out he was out traveling to a little town out in the chaco called Loma Plata all week where it's so far out there normal cellphones don't work. What was he doing in a little town out in the chaco?  He just barely finished building the first working hospital out there. Super cool huh? But anyways as for the lesson goes, well before we even started teaching, he told us that he had been praying every day and night so that was rad. But we taught lesson one or the Restoration of the Gospel. We talked a lot about prophets, Dispensations and Apostasy. I think a really cool part of the lesson was as we were teaching the great apostasy, he compared it to the world today and thought we were still living in a time of Apostasy. When we then started to talk about Joseph Smith he compared himself to Joseph, saying he has been searching and searching for the truth but has never been able to find it. And as you can imagine when we taught the Book of Mormon and testified of having a Prophet, Thomas S. Monson and the 12 apostles today he was beyond eager to start reading and praying to know if it was true. Something that stuck with me after i left his house, were the words in the closing prayer that Cido offered. He said in Spanish "please help me to know if this is the path i should take and if this is true."  I don't know why but those words really stuck to me, Cido always tells us that he needs to work on his faith and that he really doesn't have much but to me Cido is really an example. He is ready to obey God's will and take that step of faith knowing that God will point us in the right path. I really know that is true, sometimes life gets hard and we have to take a step of faith or maybe even a leap only trusting in God that everything will work out.  But no matter how hard that step is to take or leap even, trust in God, because he always comes through for us. I know it. 

Love you guys tons!

Elder Nyberg

March 19, 2016

Hola familia Por´a,

Como estan? Siento que hace poco estaba en esta misma silla escribiendoles, pero aqui estoy de nuevo. Probablamente papa va a ser el unico que entiende esta parte jaja pero vamos a ver si alguien mas en la familia entiende un poco de español jaja.  Este semana fue uno de los mejores que he pasado aqui, uno de estos razónes es porque pudimos ir al templo como misión! Pienso que voy a hablar un poco de eso, porque fue tan pureté. 

So this week was definitely one to remember here in Paraguay, This week we had the opportunity to go to the temple as a mission. I think the mission has really helped me better understand the importance of the temple, and with the possibility of only going to the temple once a year here in Paraguay this trip was well waited for. I still didn't quite get to escape the stress of working here in the office because i had to help plan how to get 2 Zones from different parts of Paraguay to get to Asuncion safely. Yeah that was a fun one haha. But our day started bright and early, about 3 hours earlier than everyone else who was going because we still had to finish up a couple things. So we finally arrived at the chapel next to the temple at 7am with everyone else and begun one of the coolest meetings i have ever been in. Before we got to go into the temple we got to have a testimony meeting within about 50 missionaries. Just sitting there listening to all of the different testimonies, getting to see lots of old companions and friends that i have worked along side of for the past year and a half, testifying of the love they have for the savior and for this work was unforgettable. I was really thinking about everyone of these missionaries and all the work we have put in, and one thing i could see in the faces of every single one of them were the future leaders of this rising generation. People that love the Lord and because of that, are obedient to his commandments. People that are courageous in choosing the right, time after time again, not giving importance to the consequences that follow. And most of all, People that follow the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are HAPPY. 

Once we got to go into the temple, It felt so nice just to forget about the worries of the world and to be close to my father in heaven. All of the stress, the phone, all of the problems and things going on in the office just to leave it all behind for a bit and focus on other more important things was such a great feeling. I still remember the first time i got to go through this temple at the beginning of my mission and not really understanding that much spanish, Compared to when i got to go through just barley. I had lots of time to think and reflect on my mission up until now and the things i have learned and how i have grown. I really feel like i have grown in so many ways in this year and a half that i could have never done if i was anywhere else. I don't think i could even start on how many things i have learned, but one thing is for sure, i am so grateful that God has given me this privilege to be able to serve a mission and to have called me to Paraguay. I can already say it has changed my life completely and for the time i have left, it will continue to change my life for the better. The temple trip was exactly what i needed this past week and i can't wait to be able to go again. Without doubt i know that the temple is the house of God on earth, i know that the priesthood has been restored to the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith and that same priesthood which we read about in the times of Peter, James and John can be found again here on the earth and in God's temples. 

I hope all of the family is doing great! love you guys so much!

Elder Nyberg

April 2, 2016

Haupé familia Kuera,

This past week has been a fun one, and a couple cool experiences that i wanted to share. I don't have a ton of time because we have to get over to the church in Trinidad to watch Conference but it's going to be cool because i get to be able to watch conference for my Pday. 

Okay, i think the coolest thing that happened this week by far was a lesson that we had with a new investigator named Cido. Cido is a guy that has like 40 years and has a family but is divorced and lives alone. Cido is a doctor and an architect. So it all starts out with a friend of Cido´s. His friend is a member of another ward like 30 min away.  And this friend is just a normal guy that lives the gospel, Cido said that just seeing how happy his friend was all the time made him really curious about him and they got talking and his friend told him it is all because of the gospel of Jesus Christ and following his teachings. So the member gives us his number and we give him a call up and Cido invites us over. We get to this big high rise building and Cido lets us in, next thing i know im going up an elevator to almost the top floor to this massive apartment overlooking all of Asuncion. We got talking and Cido turns out to be one of the most perfect investigators i have ever seen. We don't usually do this but we felt to go forward and teach about the Gospel of Jesus Christ about the 5 basic principles of the gospel. The spirit was with us in the lesson, you could feel it so strong. After we were a ways into the lesson Cido had a really cool question and my comp was explaining a lot about faith and exercising his faith. I remember my comp just looking at me and i got this prompting that i needed to invite him to be baptized right there, I just went with it not really knowing how anything was going to end up and Cido not only accepted a Baptismal invite but he also accepted to be baptized in 3 weeks on the 23rd of April. It is one of the coolest things to see how the spirit teaches these people and testifys to them. 

There were a couple more things that went on this week like i got to go give an emergency blessing with President Mcmullin, got to eat over at his house too and one of my favorite members in San Lorenzo passed away on sunday but i'm getting short on time so i'll have to save it for another day. Hope you guys are all doing great and that you enjoy Conference! Love you guys!

Elder Nyberg

we had some fun on April fools after finding a whole role of plastic wrap;P

Family home evening ¨Wasú¨ with a couple menos activos and a that new convert Brazilian family too

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

March 12, 2016

Hola familia!

Well this week was a pretty crazy one that's for sure. It was transfer week and again being in charge of moving around 200+ missionaries is not the easiest task. I really do like being here in Asuncion though with the other elders that work with me, somehow we always find ways to make it fun with as much work there is to do around here. As you might remember, this week was much like the last months transfers. A week full of deadlines, no-sleep, airport trips and planning trips for lots of taxis and collectivo buses haha.  But lets see if i can remember some of the highlights.

I think first off, this week i got surprised by a phone call when i was waiting at the airport to pick up the new missionaries. It was Lisandro from Cocuere and it was super cool to be able to talk with him again! I think the coolest part was when he called he was super excited to tell me he just got ordained to be an Elder and have the Melchizedek Priesthood. He told me he is planning on leaving the day he hits one year of being a member for a mission. September 26th will be a year from his baptism and he is beyond pumped to get out to the mission field. You bet that just about made my whole entire week haha i can't even describe what it feels like to have heard those words from him. 

I don't know if you guys remember the familia Monzón from cocuere, But they are one of the most solid member families in this world. The dad is the 1st counselor to President Mcmullin for our mission. His son is in our mission too and the whole family are just some of the coolest people. Anyway since i've left Cocuere, Presidente Monzón had a couple heart attacks and he is not doing so good. He was hooked up to oxygen and has lost tons of weight from having heart problems. This week he was getting ready to have heart surgery and since his hospital is in my area a member here went to take us to say hi and hopefully cheer him up a bit. Man i wish you guys could be here to just meet this guy, He is such a stud of a guy and has been a perfect example for me. We got to visit the hospital and when we got there his room was packed full of people, like tons of some of the first members of the church ever here in Paraguay. It was so cool to be all around them, but what really surprised me is he chose me to give him a blessing. It was a really special experience for sure. Man i wish you guys were here, someday you'll have to come meet some of these people down here and get to know them like i do. I love paraguay so much.

Thanks for all the emails, Love you guys so much! have a great week!

Elder Nyberg

Visit to Cocuere & Elder Bednar

Hola familia!

 

This week has been really great! Lots of work as always but one of my favorite weeks for sure. There were just a ton of fun things going on this week and i definitely learned a lot too. I think ill just go over a few cool things that went down this week. 

I cant remember if i talked a little about this last week but remember that convert lady who just moved into our ward here? So we have been going over there to teach and she has the coolest family ever! Every time we go it is so much fun, mostly because the whole family are from Brazil and only moved like 6 months ago. Which means the Recent convert (hermana Val we call her cuz her name in portuguese is too hard to say) speaks only portuguese mixed with bits and pieces of spanish. Her husband is super cool but he only speaks portuguese haha so basically we just wing it when we teach them and it always turns out super cool. It's been really fun to be with them and keep helping them out, and i'm hoping i pick up a bit of portuguese while i'm at it too;) haha. Spanish and portuguese are really similar so atleast its a bit easier trying to learn haha. 

Since i work here in asuncion, i get to see a lot more missionaries. There are always missionaries coming and going, and i learned a couple cool things this past week from some other missionaries. I don't know if you guys remember a guy named Richard that i was teaching when i was in Huguito? He is 18 and is going to college. me and my comp in huguito found him contacting one day and we only got to teach 2 lessons before i had special changes to Asuncion. But an Elder let me know this week that last saturday was his baptism! Cool huh? I don't know if you guys remember Armando from when i was in Cocuere, san Lorenzo too? anyways the elders let me know that since we found him he hasn't missed a sunday since! Its super cool how word gets through all the missionaries of the people we have taught and the people we continue teaching. 

But i think the highlight of the week was by far a special broadcast from Elder Bednar. It was just to our mission, and two others in Argentina. It was probably one of the most spiritual experiences that i have had on my mission so far. The first thing he did when he got up to speak was ask us to get out a pen and paper to write notes on, but then he told us straight up not to write anything he said or what any speaker said. You could tell everyone kinda got a little confused haha. But what he said is so TRUE. Today in the church you always see everyone talking all these big notes on every word the speaker says. Now be honest, where do all these notes we take end up? we usually hold on to them for a bit, but as time goes on they always get lost or we forget what the speaker talked about. But the one thing we can never forget is the holy ghost touching our hearts. He talked about the big plates and the small plates of the Book of Mormon. The big plates were written to contain the historical text of what was happening with the people, But the small plates contained the majority of inspired words and prophecy given to the prophets. So then Elder Bednar proceeded to invite us to ¨Write on small plates.¨ To write down what the holy ghost testified to our hearts while we were listening to him and others speak. I can tell you at the end my notebook wasn't filled up all the way with notes, but the few notes i had at the end of that meeting, i will never forget. I am trying to think how to even begin trying to explain what i felt during that meeting, and im not sure it can even be put into words. But i will sum it up by one line that can be found in my notebook, ¨Elder Bednar es un apostol de Dios¨. I know that Elder Bednar is an Apostle of God, and I have not the smallest doubt about it. And its not because my parents told me he is, or other missionaries told me, or some friends, its because the Holy Ghost testified to my heart this truth, and as Elder Bednar said, This is something that i will never forget. 

The time i have to write you guys never seems like enough haha, i can't wait to get back and tell you about all the crazy stories i have that i just didn't have the time to write down. But i love you guys so much! and i hope you have the best week coming up!

Elder Nyberg

p.s got to visit junior and lisandro today. ill try to drop a pic below. they are both doing great, haven't missed a sunday since i left the area.