Paraguay Ascunción Mission...Now I call it home. : Bautismo soy el mejor

Hey,

This week went by quick. It feels like I talked to you guys yesterday. I am emailing quick this week so that I can try and send a lot of pictures. Hopefully they will go through and make up for the shorter emails this week.

Congrats to Sara and Dima on their upcoming missions. London and Hungary, WOW! I know they are both going to do great.

The week was great. I had my first baptism on Saturday. I baptized a Woman/Mom by the name of Graciella. She lives on her own with 6 children. It was awesome!! It only took me 5 tries to get the baptism prayer right...hahaha. I had a hard time with her name. It was super long and is very hard to say, but the 5th time was the charm. :)

We found the single Mom. She has been working in Asunción to support her kids. It turns out she has been going to church in Asunción and reading the scriptures all the time. If she is able to come to church this week we are going to bless her baby and then baptize her on the next Saturday. Hopefully everything works out for her.

Today we are going to talk the Dad of the little girls. Their uncle (the man who was struggling with the drug problem) who is going to be baptized on the 7th, is going to go with and and help us talk to him. Hopefully it will all work out. I will send you pictures of him and the girls today.

The little girls all came to church again. When we arrived at their house on Sunday they were all cleaned up and in dresses ready to go. Their Aunt Graciella (the woman I just baptized) had helped them get all ready. It was AWESOME!

Not much else has happened. Pretty much the same old same old.
I'm going to send pictures right now. Hopefully it works. :)
Good hearing from all of you.

Love ya,
Drew
Elder Heugly

We also received an email from Andrews companion Elder Diaz. He wrote us last week thanking us for his Christmas package and we wrote back to him. It was nice to hear from him and get a little more insight into what is going on. :)

Thank you for your emails, they really do inspire. Yes it is hot here. We had been working with Estanislao, the fatehr of the three girls, but he is almost always drinking when we get there with his friend. It is actually a sad story. He isn't married to his girlfriend, and he leaves the house a lot while his girlfriend works in Asunción. She comes home only on the weekends. The girls have to cook, clean and wash clothes. The men here don't really do anything but "work". The work they do is not like the work we think they do. There is a lot of laziness here. There's no concept of self discipline so it's harder to get people to live certain principles or give up something for the Lord. For example when Estanislao leaves, he just leaves. He doesn't tell his kids where he is going or when he'll get back. They are used to it though. It's kind of a culture thing, most of the time the paraguyan women have no idea where their man is. He'll just say "I'm going" and they leave.
The woman who was just baptized this week (I'm sure Elder Heugly told you all about it) is a tougher situation.

There are a lot of trees and foilage everywhere and a lot of mud. This is my 5th area and my second hot summer. Paraguay is great, although I'll probably kiss the holy land when I step off the plane.

What's it like to be a mother to children. My girlfriend wants to have 9 children. I've tried to develop responsibility and constant work ethic skills on the mission, but somehow I still feel like the same person.

I feel like the Gospel saved me. I was baptized when I was 18 and my parents were not in agreement but they are more relaxed now. What really helps me get through challenges is the thought of Eternal life. Salvation was never easy, wasn't bought cheap and never short cutted.

Any other questions for me or that you want Elder Heugly to know?

Elder Diaz