Turkey Day!!!

I love hearing how great you guys are doing. Honestly, I love you guys so
much, and I'm glad you guys are having so much fun!!!

As for what we are going to do for Thanksgiving... well, it's the end of
the month and turkey pretty much is impossible to get here and the only ham
I've ever seen in the supermarket is sandwich meat and not very yummy.....
maybe we'll make that chili? Make sure to enjoy the crud out of all those
carbs you're gonna eat, just for me!!!

So this week was kind of awesome because.... BAPTISM!!! And it honestly was
the most incredibly spiritual baptisms of my entire mission. Pamela Benitez
is a 10-year-old girl who has been wanting to get baptised for quite a
while now. The thing is that we have had very little support from her mom.
She pretty much came to here baptism alone with one friend from her
neighborhood, and with the support of one sister from the branch. Besides
that, there were us 6 missionaries from the branch at the baptism. However,
when it got time for her to be baptised, tears started running down her
face. I was sitting next to her, and got share the most tender moment with
her when she turned to hug me and just cried. I asked her if she was ready,
and my comp and I led her to the door of the font to walk down into the
water. She took a couple deep breaths, turned back towards us, and although
she was still a little emotional, she looked so incredibly happy. That was
honestly the strongest I've ever felt the spirit working in a person in any
of the baptisms that I've attended in my mission. It was such a sweet
moment, and I'm so glad that Pamela got to have that wonderful confermation
from the Holy Ghost that she really was doing Heavenly Fathers will.

Honestly, that's the big thing that happened this week. I love this work. I
am so happy that I get to be a part of this change in people's lives, even
when they are only 10 years old. I know for a fact that this is the Lord's
true church, and His true Gospel. I'm working on memorizing The Living
Christ in Spanish before Christmas, and it strengthens my testimony even
more as I read the profets' testimony of Him.

Love you guys, and Happy Thanksgiving!!
Hermana Jeppesen

Zone Conferences!!!

This week was pretty great, actually. We had interviews with Pres. Agazzani on Tuesday, in the which I dumped out all of my feelings and worries that I've been having as I come up on the end of my mission about what I'm going to do afterwards. That's when he ever so lovingly reminded me of the wonderful promises that the Lord makes in D&C 84.... I don't remember which verse. The one about the lilies and the birds of the air and not worrying about what to eat or wear or whathaveyou. So I'm doing my best to push everything out of my mind and focus 100% on the work here. I'm actually trying something new with Hna Goering to do a "40 day fast" of the English language. IT IS HARD, but we are actually doing pretty well! I think we've gotten to about 95% Spanish, exept for when we get super frustrated and need a good rant.... which has only happened once or twice! PROGRESS!!!

We also had Zone Conference on Thursday. Basically everything that we did at the Leadership Council on Monday, but we got to teach it all to the other missionaries. Hna Goering and I are trying to apply what we've learned by searching out every single member in the ward list that lives in our area that we don't know yet. That can be SUPER difficult when most of the streets in Caacupé don't even have names, and house numbers pretty much don't exist. It's like a super extreme hide-and-go-seek! The best part though, is after a long day of disappointments and frustration, prayer and motivational drawings to get us pumped to baptise, we found a family of 10 that want to learn more about the Gospel and accepted the invitation to be baptised! They've already shared with missionaries where they lived before, and have even gone to church several times!! It's so wonderful how the Lord blesses us when we put our trust in him and work our hardest to do what he (and our mission president) wants. 

In other news, Pres. now wants us to start doing twice as much divisions with the sisters than what we were doing before. Tomorrow we'll be in a bus for 3 hours to go to Caaguazú, which is super out in the "campo". We are going to be working A LOT.

Welp, time to go. We've got our district activity today, so we're going to go eat Burger King (AMERICAN FOOD!!!), take a tour of the great and abominable basilica, and then play fútbol. Yay for p-day!

I love you guys!!!!!!!!

Hermana Jeppesen

Our serious about baptism faces

Phone calls

Saltamonte!!!