Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Mosquitoes, Brownies and Upcoming Baptisms...

Hello Everyone,

My week here was good.  Unfortunately the baptism of Carlos didn't quite work out.  He got very  busy with work so things got hectic and never worked out. When we went for his interview he wasn't home.  This week for sure he will be baptized and we should also have another baptism if things go well.

There are so many people here who know what we are saying is true but they are scared to accept it and be baptized.  I just can't ever loose hope.  One day they will and all I can do is get them started on the right path.

There isn't much new going on.  This past Sunday we were able to get a lot of people to church so that was really cool.  The members are finally starting to help out.  The brownies we have been making them are really paying off.  We are talking a lot of their neighbors.  There is a  family we have gotten close to and they love us and are really helping us out in this area.  They just needed a little love and are slowly coming along.

The weather is good.  I don't think it has changed since I've gotten here.  It's just super hot and then it rains every once in a while, like once a week.  I guess it is supposed to get colder but I haven't felt that yet.  I guess we shall see.

The mosquitoes are going crazy right now.  They are everywhere and the bug spray doesn't work at all.  Hopefully they go away soon.  They are annoying.  Yesterday was the worst sleep of my life.  All night they just kept flying into my ears, it was awful.  Then this morning the shower blew up on me and shocked me.  It was pretty rough but I'm still alive. ;)

No more pig stories this week.  I think I've had about all the experiences with a pig I can take.


Sunday we received an email notification that there was a comment left on the blog.  Rarely are comments left so it definitely caught my eye.  The comment is as follows...
Good morning, how are you?

My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Paraguay? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Paraguay in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain

If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

Yours Sincerely

Emilio Fernandez
We shared this story with Andrew in hopes that he would be able to send this Man a message.  Missionary work from across the globe. ;) 
Andrew's reply: 
I would love to send this man a message.  I have no clue where a post office is and have actually never seen one since I have been here.  The way we send letters is through the church.  I would be more than happy to do it.  Sending him a book of Mormon would be easy as shipping is free from the distribution center.  I will look into it this week and see what I can figure out.  Excited to do this. ;) 
As for Mother's day I still haven't gotten everything figured out. Transfers are on the 6th and so things could change for us.  Hopefully I will know more by next week. 
Love you all a lot
Elder Heugly
Drew
 Asunción at night.  This picture was taken from the second highest building in the city which would be about the size of the building Dad works in. 

 Me and Elder Jensen with a member and his cousin who we are teaching. 

Some sort of bike race that was taking place.  There were 1,000's of bikers.

Friday, April 24, 2015

April 20, 2015C

Hi Everyone,


All is well here in Centro.  I'm awesome and everything is going good. Our apartment here is small.  Before I was living in a house and so it has been a bit of a change.  It's very old but it works so I have nothing to complain about.

The branch here is kind of tough.  The members aren't really excited about doing missionary work  so we have been baking brownies and writing letters to ask them to get more involved.  It is working, we are making progress.

We are entering the rainy season.  The rain in centro is worse than in Yaguarón.  There is no mud but there are a lot of hills so the water just rushes down the hill and it destroys us.  It's alright though, it's better than the mud.

The weight is just melting off  (he is down 50 pounds) but here we eat a lot so I'm not losing or gaining so it's nice.  We eat a lot here.  Sometimes we eat 2 meals a day with members so it's nice.  I'll make sure and send some pictures next week.  Today we had our district activity and I forgot to bring my camera.  Next week I'll send home some good pictures.

The week was really good.We have a baptism scheduled for Saturday if all goes well.  It looks like we finally did it.  There hasn't been a baptism in this area in a year.  His name is Carlos and he is one of the poorest people I have ever seen or met.  He supports his Mom, Sister and Niece by selling on the buses.  He doesn't make much but he is so humble and has given up drinking and smoking.  He is always reading his Libro de Mormon.  Please keep him in your prayers this week.

After Carlos we don't have anyone to work with.  We get rejected a lot but it is what it is.  We have Carlos and that is all that really matters.  After he is baptized we are going to work on his family.

Crazy story of the week would be that...well I don't know how to say it without it sounding bad but,
(I will say it for him...they castrated a pig).  Apparently it calms them down.  It was the weirdest thing I have done yet.  No worries though the pig is fine and I'm just a little bit scared!

Sounds like everyone is doing well.  I can't wait to see and talk to you all on Mother's Day. You guys are pretty lucky to see my beautiful face. ;)

Love you all,
Elder Heugly
Drew

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Testimony builder...

Hey everyone,

This week was a tough one. I am in a very tough area but have learned a lot being here.  I have learned to trust in the Lord and am learning to have faith.  Being in this new area is a real testimony builder.  So many people tell us that we don't have the truth but they just don't know.  We are rejected so many times that it is actually helping my testimony grow stronger.

Not much is new this week.  A lot of rejection but no worries we are still going strong.  We aren't going to give up and are searching for that golden person who wants to know the truth.

We have a few people we are working with but I don't really like to consider them investigators.  People here are mostly catholic and really like arguing so it's hard to have a good lesson and feel the spirit.  The problem is here in this area the people are educated and like to analyze everything and look for problems.  Most have the Internet and this gives us a lot of problems as well.  They look up anti Mormon stuff and its become a real pain but we try and help them understand what they read isn't true.

One investigator whose name is Luis comes to church every week but doesn't want to be baptized.  He has a few doubts still about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.  Today we are going to his house and we are going to have family home evening with him and make some brownies and watch the restoration movie and invite him to be baptized.  Please pray for him today also please keep us in your prayers that we will find that person who is looking for us.

Mom asked about the killing of the pig.  We did kill a pig and BBQ it and it was quite the experience.  First they grab him by the tail and then flip it over so my companion and I got to help flip it over.  Then someone takes a knife and they stab it in the heart.  After the pig is killed they cut it up and BBQ it.  It was actually very delicious.

Tell mom to not get too excited about skype yet. ;) We still have quite a bit of time until Mothers Day.  I don't know if I will speak in Spanish...I know you are all dying to hear it. hahaha Maybe you will get lucky and I will get a phone call while we are talking and you will hear me speak. ;) We will see though.  We will just let it be a surprise.

Sounds like everyone is doing great.  I can't wait to hear how Sam and Bridger do with their games.

All is good here.  We are fighting against the odds but we will continue to fight.

Love you all a lot

Elder Heugly

Drew
 The pig we barbecued
 Me and a turtle we found 

 The scariest bridge of all time.  It shakes and half of it has fallen in.  We have to cross it often and I don't like it. 

Me on the bridge

 This is Robertito.  He comes with me and Elder Jensen often.


Friday, April 10, 2015

April 6, 2015 Conference Weekend

Hey everyone,

This week was a great one.  My new companion is great, his name is Dawson Jensen.  He is a really nice guy and we get a long really well.  He has been out a year and a half.  He cooks breakfast all the time and is a really good cook so he has already won me over. ;)

The branch is good here.  It's actually smaller believe it or not than the branch in Yaguarón.  It's the only branch in the city of Asunción and there are a lot less people that go but it's because the city I'm in is mainly a lot of businesses so there are less houses. However we do have a good amount of less actives too.

Mcdonalds last week was great! I got myself a nice burger and then we also ate at Hard Rock café and I ate another burger.  It was delicious and I even bought myself a sweet hard rock café shirt.  A member payed for our Mcdonalds so we ate like kings last Monday.

I did miss our families traditional Easter breakfast of  homemade egg Mcmuffins.  It wasn't quite the same without them.  Sounds like you all had fun in Midway.  Looking for golf balls though? I guess that's what life has come to without me.  Kind of sad, hahaha, just kidding it actually sounds like a blast!

Conference was good.  It stormed here and it knocked out the signal for the first session so we ended up going to an investigators house and watching the first session with him on his computer.  It was actually really cool to be able to do that.  Then we ended up watching the rest of conference at the church but we were able to watch them live.  Conference was really good.  They talked a lot about the family and a whole bunch about getting married.  Didn't really apply to me since I'm never getting married...hahaha just kidding, maybe one day in the near future. ;)

You will be happy to know I didn't fall asleep once.  Pretty proud of myself for that. ;)
My favorite talk was by Elder Andersen the Music of the Gospel.  I also really enjoyed Elder Ballards talk on the greatest generation of young adults and missionaries.  Pretty much I thought conference was awesome.

Things in my new area are a lot harder but this week we had a lot of success in a scary part of our area.  We were able to get 4 people to come to conference and found a few new people we are working with.  I think we just might break the Centro curse.  My new area is a good combination of both the rich and the poor of Paraguay.  I like to be in the poor areas more but we can't be there for too long.  It isn't very safe.  I am about 3 hours or so by bus from my old area.  We usually walk everywhere  but if we are going from one side of our area to another we take the city bus because we are lazy and my new area is a lot smaller than my last area.

I had my interview with the mission president and he said I am in the most dangerous part of the mission...hahaha I love it! The interview was really cool.  He said my Spanish was outstanding and that he was proud of me and that he sent me here to centro because he said he felt like I could make the change.  It's one of the hardest areas we have and so that was really amazing for him to say that.  I am hoping we can make a difference.  There hasn't been a baptism in our area for over a year.

We are definitely planting seeds everywhere we go...soon enough you are going to see a bunch of mango trees.  :)

Love you all. Until next week.

Elder Heugly
Drew

 Me and My companion Elder Jensen at Hard Rock Cafe'

 Chilling at the beach

 Enjoying lunch at Mcdonalds with a member

 The main streets of Asunción.  It was Holy Week so the streets were pretty dead this week. Usually they are really packed. 

Watching conference with our investigator Reuben