Letter #19

Hola Familia,

como estan? this week was really good! time just flies by here! i can't believe that i already have 6 months in the mission. that's a third of the way done and it's crazy!! so this week not a ton of exciting things happened. i might be turning into a jungle woman since i killed a lizard with my bare hand out of instinct ;) haha  i've never been more grateful for a washer and dryer because we have to do all of our clothes by hand and "ain't nobody got time for that!!!" ;) it's pretty aweful. so dont take those beautiful machines for granted! we of course have an ant infestation again!  it's a never ending battle... it's like mom and all the birds that love to poop all over her cute porch! ;) but i will not give up!  we had intercambios on friday for a day and i was with hermana brown. it was good.. just a regular day. so we have a crazy ward mission leader here and we had him come with us 2 times this week and it was horrific!! we probably lost 2 investigators because he literally scared them away.. but thats okay.. maybe they just weren't ready.... so we started our english class this week and it was super legit and everyone loved it! we are finding new investigators because of it! we finally found the doubt of maria magdalena. . . her kids! :( so she is a 45 year old and she is the cutest, best person i know, and she has such a strong testimony! she knows that this is true and that she needs to be baptized and that she wants to join the church... but her children hate us and don't want anything to do with the church and so she doesn't want them to hate her and all that jazz. . . it's so frustrating when people let others control their salvation.... i love the nike motto... just do it!!!!! but this is where i really have to learn a ton of patience!!! but we have 6 really great people with a baptisimal date! they all need a lot of prayers! it's amazing how we can win  the confidence of kids just by playing a bottle cap shooting game with them! i always make bets with them, and from that we get progress! :) it's the best when we see little kids running up to us screaming hermanas, hermanas and give us huge hugs! and there's this game called batti. it's a mixture of baseball, golf, and bowling! it's pretty awesome and the little guys always want to be on my team cuz i can smack the ball to china! haha i'm gonna bring it to the states! :) we just play it in the street with old bottles, sticks, and a crappy tennis ball.... but it's seriously the best!!! hermana line and i get along great!! we are working really hard! there's always something that we're laughing about! like the other day when we got meowed at... yeah, that's right..... meowed at! :) haha...... usually it's wolf whistles, "que linda son" or i love yous... but that was the first meow we've gotten! haha 

i love this area! but there's so much work to do.. so there's nothing else to do, but get to work! i did the pencil trick to my companion and the other two hermanas, I know uncle val, I am sharing  the sinister pencil method here in paraguay ;) haha  love you :) so now they all know how many kids their going to have and its written in all their journals! :) so that's about it.... we are seeing little miracles all the time, and just doing all we can with faith! we're hoping for the baptism of maria magdalena this saturday.. so if y'all can pray for that.. it'd be awesome! :) i love and miss you all!!! Always keep the faith!!! 

love, Hermana McDougal

Letter #18

hola familia!! 

sooooo i'm now in my second area. it's called Ñemby... pronounced nemboo.. but the oo part is like down in your throat. it's kinda fun to say. :) i LOVE it!!! it's huge!! it's beautiful and not beautiful in the city areas.,  but my companion is Hermana Line. we're from the same group, so we have the exact same time and experience... her last two companions went home wednesday so she told me that they haven't worked at all here and it was a fight everyday just to get out the door to teach people. so we both want to work really hard! we're just starting over in this area. i'm actually really excited!! :) she's AWESOME!!! we get along great! we are so much alike. and we have the same goals and ways of working so its going to be a great exchange.!!! there's seriously so much work to do! we have one investigator, so we're just hitting the pavement. my apartment is a lot nicer than my last one! :) we live in the same floor as another companionship of hermanas and it's awesome and we have all kinds of fun! :)  i have a lot of hope for this area :) .........okay......so our ward mission leader here is CRAZY!! i'm serious! like to the point where the other hermanas don't come to ward mission coorelation because they almost got in a fist fight with him!!..... he's horrible to his wife and talks nothing good :(   he tells all of us that we do nothing as missionaries and he is the only one working and sacraficing... lets just say he's special ;) ........ i have to remind myself to just keep it together whenever we sing in any class with him because, it's like the movie home on the range..... you know,  when the cow is singing horrifically and the vultures are flying above her and the other cow yells "she's not dying!!!" and the vultures ask "are you sure? we can come back later"......  i'm not kidding!!..... i don't think i've ever heard anything quite like it!! bless his heart, poor little lamb ;)  so it was interesting at the baptism we went to this last saturday....not too much has happened besides that because we are just getting to work and i don't really know the area or the people here yet, so next monday will be better :) but im doing great!!  i'm LOVING the mission and the work! i'm so grateful for these experiences. i'm glad that grandma and grandpa are really doing good again! makes my heart happy! :) i love you grandma and grandpa ((H)) i hope all is well with everyone else! love you all so much!!! Always keep the faith!! :) 

Love, Hermana McDougal. 


                                            

Letter #17

Hola familia!

como estan? i hope everything is good with you guys! soooo as you can see... KAREN GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!  it was the best!!! ive waited 4 months for this!! and it was all worth it! it was kinda of a fiasco the day of and before... but it all turned out super amazing! the day before there was a tiny little hiccup with karen, and i wasnt there because we had intercambios... so the other hermana was kind enough to suggest that karen could WAIT another week.... what kind of an INSANE idea was that?? i had to do the little calm down exercise that chin po does in mulan!!!! ;) karen also called the hermanas that night to talk to me because she wanted to be sure that "her hermana" didnt abandon her.  but it was an awesome experience, she had to get baptized in a temple dress because non of the baptismal clothes that the ward had would fit. and her mom and grandma and uncle and cousin were all there to support her along with alot of people from the ward!! i of course cried from the joy of it all.. you know me! she was sooo happy!! i have every hope in the world for her!! and wanna know what is even more awesome in this story.. her mom who was never really open to us and didnt want anything to do with the church, wants to be baptized too! and her grandma cried at the baptism and wants the lessons as well!! :) the TRAGIC part of it all is that we have cambios this wednesday and theres a 99.9 % chance that im leaving this area. im super sad about it actually! but im so grateful for the experiences that ive had here. we had an awesome sunday as well, conformation of karen and we had andrea in the church and her adorable kids and diana and it was great! mirian who is goin to be baptized mirian didnt come to church.. we found out why.. she actually is really really scared of baptism because her other baptism was a horrible experience. but we helped her with that and i pray that she will be baptized in 2 weeks! so the last 6 weeks have flown by and i cant believe it. but i love the mission so much and all the things that im learning. i realized that the success of your mission, or your life basically, depends on your relationship with your heavenly father and jesus christ.. duh right?? but really... if your relationship is really good with them, everything else in your life, may not be easy.. but it will be so much better! i love you all so much and hope all is well! always keep the faith! :) 

love, Hermana McDougal

Letter #16

Hola familia, 

so this week flew by! a lot of great things happened! first we taught miriam, with the evil husband miriam, who only speaks guarani miriam, which means we can't communicate with her.. so we sing :) cuz she can feel the spirit, and she knows the word oracion, so we taught her how to pray with drawings in the dirt! it was great! :) we also walked a ton!!! in seriously a million degrees!!! it's the surface of the sun!!! then the next second its a monsoon and we are soaked from head to foot, then it's a million degrees again with humidity... its always an adventure!! ;) they also have GIANT avacados here! i have a pic. its the green thing. and we didnt know what it was so martha was like oh its an awacate, i'll make some juice. hermana austin HATES avacados. so we drank deliciously thick avacado juice, which is avacados, milk, sugar, and a little ice to make it cold! i didn't think it was too bad.. hermana austin was dying so i had to drink hers too. haha :) takin one for the team ;) an old man named angel lopez wants to marry one of us because he can't find any good woman here in paraguay and his wife died 6 years ago.... so he keeps us feeling beautiful! haha :) miriam didn't come to church this sunday so i probably won't see her baptized i'm pretty sad about that. so we saw a miracle! the lord really changes hearts! so we got the permission of karen's mom for karen to get baptized and she's gonna try to be there, and she likes us know and invited us to lunch and all! but then saturday karen told us that she couldn't come to church because she had a teakwondo (how ever you spell that) tourn. that is a long ways away. so we were going to try to get her to a different ward later in the day.. but it wasn't a set thing and i was so sad!!! but we were fasting and praying and had faith it would all work out. so we're getting ready sunday morning and we have like 30 min. until church and all of a sudden she calls us and tells us that she's not going to the tourn and wants to come to church so we need to come get her!!!! oh it was the BEST!!!! a huge miracle! then we get to church and our president and his wife are there and guess who else... Linda K Burton. the General President of the relief society!! :) yup! so she's amazing and bore her testimony, and then after we met her and karen did too!!! Sister burton congratulated her on her upcoming baptism and told her to always remain strong and faithful and to remember what we were teaching her because it will bless her life forever and that she really had a special spirit! which of course she does! then sister burton taught relief society and it was all about missionary work and how all the members need to help the missionaries in their ward because they want the people in the wards of their family members to help their missionaries! and it was just so powerful and spiritual

! WOW!!! AND  then of course we got a picture with her and karen as well!! it was amazing! but i'm out of time... but i love and miss you all so much!! karen's baptism is this saturday! so excited!!!!! always keep the faith!! :) 

Love Hermana McDougal

 

       

Letter #15

Hola Familia!! 

como estan?? entonces this week flew by!! i only have 2 weeks left in this transfer. crazy right?? but so much happened! so first off we saw oscar for the first time in a month! it was really good to see him and he is definitely going to be baptized one day... i just dont know when :)  he's better than when we first met him.. but looks worse than when he was reading the scriptures and going to church and trying to change. i still have faith in him though.  we had a little service project for Gladis because she can't walk a lot you know.  so we went to her house and we cleaned her patio, and trimmed all her trees and bushes.  she also wanted to feed us lunch, so we had to put on our big girl pants and eat double almuerzo (lunch) back to back. :/ but the service part was great!!!  it was really fun to actually do service in that sense and to work with my hands again!!! :)  so we were eating lunch with a menos activo familia and their sobrino came over and he wanted to learn more. so we are teaching him again and he's just an awesome guy! reading every day! understands things perfectly! we are just hoping he can find a way to come to church because he works.  bueno, so today we got to travel to the temple to clean it!!! :) :) that's why this is so late!!  it was so good to be in the house of the lord again!!! you really receive the most peace there! (AND not to mention there are actually very powerful toilets like in america... that was a nice touch too)! ;) after  we went to get some ice cream and we were walking out of the place and it was seriously like, you know, that bird in the windex commercial? when he flies into the glass door cuz he can't see it... yeah, that was me! i seriously was a centimeter from walking through the glass door!! .... I think the suns getting to my head! ;) haha. so for the miracles this week... first, we were contacting before lunch on wednesday... and we were being rejected HARD CORE!!!  it was not fun!!! we had lunch with familia Ramirez at 1... and it was12:45 and we were both just sick and tired of being rejected and wanted to just go to lunch, but we kept walking and decided to contact one more house. so we did and we found miriam, a different miriam, and we said who we were and started talking about jesus christ and how he can help everyone, and she just started crying!! she said her daughter needs this and told us to come friday, so we did and BAM!!!  MIRACLE!! :) andrea is her name. she has a little boy and a baby girl. she's had a hard life, and she just wants to be baptized. she can feel the spirit so strong every time we are with her and she is doing everything she can to prepare for her baptism! i'm just sad that i probably won't be able to see it. :'(      second, we get to church and see a different investigator named miriam.... I know right! ;)  we've been teaching her for a couple weeks but she didn't want to be baptized because shes already done it once.  but all of a sudden there she was in church.  so we visited with her after and it's amazing how god can change peoples hearts!! we invited her to be baptized again and she told us "bueno, i was told that i should only be baptized once....but whatever, i'm going to be baptized again! when's my baptism??" oh my gosh!!! it was awesome!! we were so flippin happy! we left that lesson and just started laughing in amazement! we couldn't believe it! :)    third, isaac came to church too.  he's the grandpa of the OTHER miriam in yukyty, you know, with the evil husband that must be destroyed ;) well, we saw him in the street and invited him, and the next day there he was!  he wants to be baptized and miriam too!!!  only problem with miriam is once again her evil husband..... aaaand they only speak guarani.. which we don't. so, thats potentially problamatic! :/ oh well! faith right?  so now for karen!  we made empanadas a week ago and it was so much fun and they were delicious. but then after that, we couldn't meet with her.. all week!!  :(  i was soo worried!  then she tells us she's been to the hospital twice to take blood and tons of other stuff because her bones are killing her! since she was five her bones have hurt, and now worse than ever!  we are praying that it's nothing serious! shes only 16! :'(  but we finally met with her sat. night and she was just in pain!  but she asked if we would be there tomorrow at 8:30 to take her to church! oh my goodness! she is the best!!! so we take her to church, she bares her testimony about the holy ghost in young womens  and is just awesome!!  but then she tells us.... her mom didn't really know she was signing her permission slip for baptism... and doesn't like the idea and doesn't really want her to be baptized.... my heart dropped!!! we are going to see what we can do to help change her moms mind, but really the spirit needs to change her heart.  it's really sad, because she's kind of an alcoholic, and sleeps until 2:00 everyday and it's super sad for karen. my faith kind of hit rock bottom.... i haven't seen anyone be baptized.. i haven't been able to help anyone really progress... and karen is special.. i was suppose to find her.. so WHY is this happening??  and then i realized that my motto for my mission is "Always keep the faith" without faith we really have nothing!!! and every miracle that has ever happened since the world began, has happened because of someones faith! so that's that.. i REFUSE to lose my faith. i'm going to do everything i can to see miriam and Karen baptized before i leave.. and after i've done all i can with a glad heart, not doubting anything.. i´ll stand still with the utmost assurance that gods arm will be revealed. (D&C 123 last verse) i'm so grateful for the opportunity i have to be a missionary. i've learned so much and my faith has grown even more. i've learned to recognize how much we really need the savior in our lives. and how serving others really brings you the most joy!!! i love this work, i love this gospel, and i love my savior! ALWAYS KEEP THE FAITH!! 

Love, Hermana McDougal

 

 

Letter #14

Hola familia!! 

como estan? so things are really good here. we've had good things and bad things happen, but thats usually how it is!  :) but this week was full of new experiences. first i was pretty much deathly ill for monday night and all of tuesday.  we left for part of the day tuesday and  it was not good. i seriously looked like HECK!!!! i just want to vomit the whole day and was seriously doubled over in pain of my stomach because i had to drink the paraguayan water... so yeah i almost died. that same day we got a text while we were walking... well i looked more like a zombie... and the text was from norma... she informed us that she would no longer be able to participate in baptism or go to church for "personal reasons" so we lost 4 of our investigators that were going to be baptized. . . that was a hard day :'(  but we just put it in the lords hands and kept moving forward. we had a lesson that was completely in guarani and of course, we didn't understand anything. but it was really cool... but ended up sad because the lady we did it for, miriam, who can feel the spirit so strong and loves when we sing and wants to go to church and be baptized, has a crazy A husband who is evil and won't allow her to do any of it or talk to us anymore. as mallory and weezy would say... "you are evil and you must be destroyed!" ;) haha, but we pray for her and heavenly father knows her heart!! okay,  it is HOTTER than i thought was possible! we pretty much die everyday! but then it randomly starts pouring! all of saturday night we walked in a DOWN POUR! it was crazy! but because we said we´ll do whatever it takes, we were led to hermana gadoy who is an awesome member and has a 14 year old son who is great... but right now he's struggling and into not good things. she's a single mom and doesn't know what to do to help him and has been praying for help... Heavenly father really does answer prayers through other people! okay, so we also have a baptism registry... idk if that's what it's called because i only know all this stuff in spanish, but we had one with only a girls name and the permission signature of her mom... but she was never baptized. we had no idea who she was.. she didn't have an address which means she lives in yukyty.. which means we were NEVER going to find her. . . but after we got rejected from miriam i said we need to go drop stuff off at hermana carmens.. and guess what.. MY CONVERT WAS BACK!!!! sofia was back and was visiting her mom for the weekend and shes just so cute and came to church with us and knew all the answers and is just amazing and has a chance at a safer better life with her dad in a different city, and she wanted the little picture of the logan temple i had that i told her mom and dad and grandpa and grandma were married in because she wanted to have it as a memory of me. i just love her! anways i got side tracked.. :) while we were visiting sofia, there were of course tons of other little children running amuck, and after we taught them, we were asking all their names and who did we find.... YANINA!!! the baptismal registro!!!! and we were talking to her mom and she's going to be baptized this saturday!! if all goes well. it was a miracle! a lot more awesome lessons happened this week, we made fancy sandwhiches for a baptism with karen after the yws activity. and today we are going to go learn how to make empanadas with karen too! she's serioiusly the best! i just pray all day everyday that i will be able to see her baptism!! its for the 7th of feb. probably my last sat here in this area. we also had the miracle if teaching her mom as well... we never thought that was going to happen. but karen is like my little sister here!! it's amazing how when you want the best for people and are serving them and helping them, you really have the true love of christ and love them with your whole heart. when you forget yourself and only worry and serve others.. that's when you really find the most happiness in your life. yeah things in life stink sometimes and are super hard and i cant even imagine the things that people have to deal with, because i've had more than a blessed life... but one thing i do know and it doesn't matter what your circumstances are... serve other people, do good to those that hate you and despitefully use you, pray for your enemies, and literally pray for charity and just concentrate on helping others, and you will see the most happiness and peace in your life. the savior said.. i will not leave you comfortless.. i will come to you.... and he really will!!!! when we say we are trying to be like jesus.. it's not that we're trying to be perfect.. it's that were trying to serve people and love them with our whole hearts. i love the mission and i've learned sooo much in just 5 short months! :) i wouldn't trade paraguay or the mission for anything!!!! i love you all so much!!  I miss you like crazy!!! thank you for all the prayers!! Always keep the faith!!! :) 

love, Hermana McDougal

Letter #13

hola familia!! 

que tal estan?? entonces, this week was really, really good!! we have been seeing miracles every single day! so we had 29 lecciones this week! we worked our butts off!! i got a pretty nasty sun burn too... sun screen only works for 80 min when your sweating like a normal human being and we are sweating like a rented mule... translation... we look disgusting and smell and sun screen doesn't work... but we still have our paraguayan admirers wolf whistling at us every 5 min! it's hard being beautiful isn't it... :) haha. we found a guy that is a vietnam war veteran and he can't speak a word of spanish and his wife doesn't speak a word of english... so idk how that one works... but then i remembered little mermaid and the advice of ursula... "you've got your looks, your pretty face and dont forget about BODY LANGUAGE HA" hahaha :) it cracked me up! people here are strange when it comes to health... when we ask what is the most important thing in your life.. they all answer.. "mi salud" which is health.. and they eat like rabbits! they just go grab some weeds on the side of the road and chow down like its the most delicious substance on the planet! i also saw some magic mud witch doctor action this week. that was cool too. interesting, yes ;) becuse of the humidity something awful happened!!! our apartment that has termites and every other species of insects known to man, had an eruption of ants!!! we have scrubbed down our apartment and they are still everywhere! i poured some cereal the other day and guess what came out.. yup an ARMY of ants! so i picked ants out of every bite of my froot loops. 

okay....so we have some awesome investigators!!! Norma and her mom sabina and her girls stefi y feriorela. they are awesome and all want to be baptized so bad!!! every time we visit they have another question about the day of their baptism. we are going to get them there! next we have Gladis. she is 60ish years old and super funny, and makes sure to tell me every timeout see her,  how much work i need on my spanish. but she has huge problems with her knee and an even worse problem with her ankle. she can hardly walk. but we got her to church this sunday for the first time!! :) she loved it!! and si o si she's coming back next week! we are so excited! now for our little miracle karen. she is 16 and the sweetest girl EVER!!! she is going to be baptized the 31 of january. when she received the book of mormon she started to cry. the next lesson she told us she prayed and received an answer and started crying again when trying to explain her feelings! she's our amiga! we asked her mom if we could take her to church and when she said yes, karen litrally did like a touch down dance!! she came to church, prayed, and bore her testimony in young women's of how she knows this is the truth! then after, she told us that she wants to be a missionary some day too!  i just keep imagining her in white, smiling in the baptismal font!!! oh it's going to be an amazing day!! :) and we are just having faith that it's going to happen and not having any doubts because one thought can change your destiny says elder... can't remember. but it's been an amazing week and we are going to keep working hard! we had a zone conference and the theme was take the strength of the whole house! significa... we need all the members!! really it's like in one huge area were 2 girls that are 19 and 20... we need help! one out of every 1000 people contacted without a member is baptized.... 600 out of 1000 people are baptized when we contact them with a member! so i know you all have busy lives... but this is the work of salvation.. it's peoples souls on the line.. and they need your help too! so invite a friend to church, share your testimony, give names to the missionaries and help them.. and pray for investigators by name, and pray for opportunities to share the gospel!! when we all do this, miracles happen! i'm so happy that grandma's shoulder is healing nicely and that poor grandpa can finally go home. i miss you all like crazy and love you all! thank you for your prayers and for everything!!  always keep the faith! 

Love, Hermana McDougal