General Conference‏!!

Hello everyone today is a great Monday here in Paraguay! 

Nice and hot and I'm like sweating from every pore. It is not the most attractive thing in the world, but attractiveness rules fly out the window as a missionary. A couple great things happened this week and I'd like to tell you guys all that happened, so I will. Obvio.

Tuesday: We had the district meeting and the sisters and my companion are awesome. I've got the sister leader trainers in my district and they do work. It is definitely different coming from a district of all Elders and coming here. During the district meeting we talked about the importance of studies and how we need to have efficient study sessions to have the spirit with us daily, so we can be guided to the people the Lord needs us to meet.

Wednesday: We had interviews with the President of the mission, President Aggazani. He is from Argentina so his accent is really different from the Paraguayans. My interview was like 20 minutes, usually they are 5 to 10 min. His timer on his phone went off to tell him that he needed to end the interview and he just kept going. We talked a lot about plans and how we have to have plans so that we can achieve our desires. Then he talked to me about girls & how I can't just go home one day and have a plan to date every girl I can, but I have to have specific plans and cut down the girl pool so that it is easier to find the girl that I am looking for. That was an awesome interview. Desires with specific plans leads to specific results.

                   

I also got my giant package from my parents this day. It was like 15 kilos which is like 35 pounds. I got my package from the mission office, I had to carry it to the bus stop, had to get on the packed bus with it, then I had to walk a mile from the bus stop to my house with a 35 pound square box. You should have seen the peoples faces when they saw me. Blonde guy walking around the street with a big old box. That was quite the adventure. My parents sent me Oreo's, Cheese Its, canned foods, a party bag of Reese's Pieces, pudding, apple sauce, and peanut butter. They sent me a jump-rope too, which I have used every day since. It was almost like my parents thought I was starving or something haha. I thank my parents for the box, but the best part by far was the bubble wrap. I'm still popping every little bubble I can. 

                   

I also had to go to the doctors today for the first time on my mission. I have an eye infection it turns out, so I bought some drops and I should be good as new. The presidents wife told me that I needed to go, so I went. I´ll let you guys know if it goes away next week.

Thursday: Weekly Planning, nuff said.

Friday: Friday was a great day. What happened exactly I don't remember, but I know that it was great. I will take better notes next week.....

Saturday and Sunday: These two days we had General Conference, which is a semiannual conference that the church does every 6 months. It was awesome and we had two investigators go. If any of you didn't have the opportunity to hear the conference you can get on LDS.org and look them up. The North Americans were in one room watching it in English and the rest where in the Sacrament room watching it in Spanish. I watched two sessions in Spanish because of our investigators, but it was still pretty cool. Hearing the words of the living prophets and apostles was excellent. 

I know the church is true. I know that there are living prophets and apostles on the earth today and that they are called of God. 

The mission is going by fast. It is April already and before I know it I will be home.. I have felt the love of the Lord in my life and I know he lives. 

Elder Jessop

This Week Went By Fast‏..........

Greetings from a big city in Paraguay. Good old Elder Jessop is here to lead the way with a great letter to write to everyone. This week went by fast! I was thinking today about what I was going to write to you all and the only day I could remember was yesterday and as it so happens, yesterday was a great day. 4 investigators went to church yesterday!!! I'm going to tell you a little bit about them in a second.

Jorge: Jorge is a guy that lives with his dad. When we met him he wasn't working, his wife had just had a miscarriage of his two kids that were going to be born and he was pretty upset at God. His first question to us was, "Why would God leave a guy without a job and why would he take two of my kids away from me if he really is loving." I will tell you right now at the moment I didn't know what to say, then I thought about his question long and hard and I opened up the scriptures and we tried to teach him why something like that would happen. The scriptures are a powerful tool to invite the spirit. The next time we visited him during our visit he told us that he had found a job and that we brought him good luck, then I remembered the importance of recognizing God when he blesses us. He then came to church last week and yesterday he came to church again. His job makes it hard for us to visit him, but he is progressing very well and is way happier than the first time we met him.

Arnaldo and Elizabeth: These two also went to church yesterday with their 2 year old son. They are not married, but they want to get married and they want to start keeping the commandments of God and they came to church and it was really funny what happened. They got lost and right before sacrament we had to go find them and they were walking in the complete opposite direction. At least we found them and they made it to church and they are awesome.

Josefina: This girl was a contact who has been to the United States several times and the first thing she told us was that she wanted to go to church. AND SHE CAME!!! It was awesome! We called her Sunday morning and she was like yeah I'm coming. She had a great time and she sat with the Relief Society President. We haven't actually taught her yet, but we are going to her house tomorrow. We will find out more about her tomorrow.

Honestly I am having a great time. I love it here. It is a lot of work and my body is definitely getting its use, but it is amazing all the things that are happening. I'm changing. The members of my family are changing too. I love every second. I know that the church is true and I invite everyone who reads this email to find out for themselves if it is true. I know it is, if I didn't I wouldn't be spending two years of my life here, but I know it is true. I am giving two years of my life for the salvation of many. It is worth every second.

Elder Jessop

Week 2 of Ettiene

This week it rained. I sent pictures of a flood last week, but this week it was way worse and we are looking for a new house, so I happened to have my camera with me because I have to take pictures of houses. Yeah anyways HI. I'm doing great here from Paraguay. I'm on a computer here in a Cyber place and there are 2 kids next to me listening to country music.... It is really weird. I'm going to tell you all what happened this week now.

Rain: Yea so it rained for three days straight and the roads flooded. It was quite the experience. A lot of the cars got stuck and we did too. That day we taught 1 lesson to a girl named Lorena. It stopped raining for 30 minutes so she let us in haha. We were pretty wet, but we did a lot of things and we found a lot of people knocking on houses. A lot of the houses here have big giant gates and have speaker boxes, so you can walk up on a house that has one of these and they don't even leave the house. They just say "Que dicen". We found a nice trick that keeps us healthy and gets the people to leave their house. WE ASK FOR WATER!! Here in Paraguay it is really hot and the people feel bad, so sometimes when the people don't leave the house right away to talk to us, we ask for water and they come out and we talk to them. In my other areas that wasn't a problem, but here asking for water has worked great! In the rain it doesn't because know one wants to leave in the rain, but it works when it is not raining. 

FRANCISO VIñas: This last Wednesday a 70 came to talk to us name Francisco Viñas. He is a leader of the church here in South America and he talked to us a lot about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and what we have to do to accept him into our lives so we can be better missionaries. It was a great conference and it really helped me remember the sacrifice that Jesus Christ did for me. He died for me and through him I can be saved if I do my part. He has already done his, it's just up to me and everyone of us to do our own part.

LUNCH: Elder Arrington and I cooked on Wednesday too before the conference and we made an egg thing. He washed the potatoes and chopped them and cooked them. I cut the tomatoes, peppers, onions, and hot dogs and cooked them all and then we mixed the potatoes with the other stuff and it was a great lunch that we might do again this week.

Everything is going great here. We are working with 4 investigators right now named Lorena, Jorge, Arnaldo and Elizabeth. Jorge went to church Sunday, Lorena is going to get baptized and Arnaldo and Elizabeth want to live according to the laws of God. I will let you know more about them next week.

I love you all and I hope that you all have great weeks filled with laughter. Always gotta laugh sometimes.

Elder Jessop

I Got Changed!!

Hello everyone!! I got some good news! I got changed!! I moved to Asuncion. I'm like in the city and it is giant. Cars everywhere, the houses are giant, it is chuchi(rich) land. I'll tell you about the week now.

Ettiene: I got moved to a place called Ettiene and I am a district leader again, fourth change in a row. In my district there are 3 companionship's of sisters & my companion, and I. My whole district is filled of sister missionaries. I cant do divisions, but I have the Sister Leader Trainers in my district, so they do divisions for me. I also have a new companion named Elder Arrington and he has 3 months less than me in the mission and is from Utah. I'm really excited to be here and I will let you all know about the miracles that happen here in Ettiene. We are looking for a house to move into, we don't have water here and I have been bucket bathing for the last 5 days which has been really fun. We literally fill up a bucket, get a bowl, and dump water over our heads. The amazing life of being in South America.

Dog: I sent pictures of a dog because my dog bandit looks exactly like the dog I met here in Paraguay, so I took a picture of it and sent it. It made me really happy. :D

Flood: It has rained 3 times this week and I guess when it rains the streets flood here too, even though we are in the city. It is really funny to see the crazy drivers drive in the rain. The drivers here are nuts and in the rain it is even worse with pot holes everywhere and stuff.

Scripture Covers: I also got some really COOL scripture covers for my Spanish scriptures. There is a guy here named Gustavo who makes scripture covers for the missionaries in all of Paraguay and he made mine too and they are sweet. I took and sent pictures so you can all see how cool they are. They were expensive too (for Paraguay), but way worth it. 

Soccer: We had our last district activity in my district in Paraguari and we played a lot of soccer and my team lost. (See photo of our team) There really isn't winning and losing but we lost.... Soccer here is like more important than everything. When your team loses it is like the end of the world and the World Cup in Brazil is coming up, so things are about the get crazy, but luckily Paraguay didn't get in, but I feel really bad for the missionaries in Brazil. They are not going to be able to leave for days.

Things are going great here in Paraguay. Time is flying really fast. I haven't been here that long, but it has been a long time. I'm loving every second and learning everyday. I learned a really good lesson about listening to the Spirit and the importance of having it always with you. We need to invite good things into our lives so that we can have the spirit, if not we will loose it. It is a blessing to have the gift of the Holy ghost in my life. I just did my shopping for the week and it is time to finish. I have been on for 59 minutes, so that means that it is time to get out of here. Love your guts! Have a great week & please and stay safe :D

Elder Jessop