Week 14

Hey Fam,

First off, Congrats David!!! That´s really neat to hear about his call. Wowsa. Really sweet. Look at this family, just heading out hacer un poco daño a satanas. Muuuyyyy bien.

Listen, we have important things to discuss this week.

Food. The first day I got here, I thought I was going to die. Really. My first meal here was horrendous. If that´s a word... But you get the idea. REALLY bad. It was at a member´s house, and I couldn´t even finish it. They put it in a little bag for me to take home, because I kept telling them how good it tasted, but how i just didn´t have room to finish. I threw that sick little bag away.

Fast forwart to this week. We were eating at the same house, with the same meal. And I couldn´t help but laugh. I was savoring it. It turns out that that is one of the best meals, one of my preffered ones. The mission can change taste buds. A fast food burger with onions and tomatoes and everything that I never liked, sounds AWESOME right now. Picky? That was in my past life. I´m a changed man.

A man stopped us on the street and very politely told us how our church, and especially Joseph Smith, was of the Devil. Really interesting experience. First one of it´s kind with me. We bore simple testimony, and shook hands and left.

Pigs. Guiness book of World Records never came to paraguay. The biggest pigs I´ve ever seen in my life walk right by us in the streets. Haha, they´re not scared of us one bit, but I found out that if I make a cougar noise, they squeal and RUN. And I mean RUN. I have a little bit of fear of the super big ones though. THey might come charge me....

Mom, haha! I LOVE to hear stuff like that. You and rachael going on runs together, and you painting the girls´ room, and Dad and Rach and King Alex all shopping together. It makes me miss home a little bit. A good miss though. I really wouldn´t ever have been properly grateful for you all without this misión. I really love you all, and I´m so happy to hear that you´re happy.

Dad, your store blew my mind. Incredible. Before the misión, I never Would have thought that posible. But it´s so true. WAY TO BE!!!!!!!!!! Missionary in American Fork. That´s my dad. Keep in touch with him. Just like you said, Satan really is merciless, and just smacks people when they´re down, and trying to get back up. That man needs a friend. Wow. The Lord´s work is everywhere, if we can just open our eyes to the people around us.

Companionship. Every week I grow a little more grateful for my companion. He´s solid. He teaches me sooo much, and I´m really growing from him. He´s tough. He makes me get out of my comfort zone, especially with my contacts and with the language. It´s really helped me to move along though. His trainer didn´t push him to do contacts, and he felt like that held his language back a little. He wants the best for me, and I appreciate that.

Testimony. My testimony has strengthened this week. Last night, as we were teaching, the Spirit hit me really hard, and I just started to cry. The spirit told me that the Lord had been preparing Olivia for years, so that she´d be ready to receive our message at this moment in her life. She´d talked with the missionaries a time before, and went to church, but it just wasn´t her time, and she just dropped the whole religious idea. But she told us last night that she quit taking anti depressants two weeks after she started meeting with us missionaries this time around. She never mentioned that once before, while we were teaching her. She said it was super hard, but she just quit, because she knew that the Lord was giving her a new path to start walking. She told us how happy she is, how much light and joy our teaching brings to her. Haha, she called me her little angle. She said she could understand everything I ever tried to tell her, even right when I first got to paraguay. She called elder swenson the big boss, that keeps everything moving along, and then just told us both how grateful she is for the two of us. She´s still struggling with quitting to smoke, but she´s down to 3 ciggarretes and a cup of coffe each day, which is a huge improvement. I love the spirit. We´re not doing the work here. The spirit is. The Lord is. There´s no way she understands what I´m teaching without some divine help.

I love this work. I hope everyone´s happy back at home. Love you all.

Ask me some more questions!!! I loved answering them.

Elder Stewart