¡Feliz Navidad De Paraguay!

¡Feliz Navidad a todo!


This week has probably been my favorite so far!  The people of Paraguay love to feed us.  Especially since it's Christmas, we've been fed non stop and I feel sick.  All the food is so good here though.  There's only a couple things where I'm like "why would you ever want to eat that?"  But everything else is just awesome.  Like in Paraguay they like their rice one of two ways, covered in cinnamon and milk and different things to make a really rice pudding type things, or they like it as plain white rice with mayonnaise.  What?  Why?  I love the rice pudding thing, even though rice as a dessert is a bit weird, but mayonnaise on rice?  That's disgusting.


I'm starting to really enjoy teaching.  We have a lot of friends right now, so our finding new people time is very minimal.  But I love going from lesson to lesson, trying to teach people the importance of following Christ.  In Paraguay, almost everyone is catholic or at least fairly religious.  We do a lot less teaching about who Christ is, and a lot more about why we need Christ's restored church, not any other one.


Before this week, I'd sit in during a lesson and just listen to my comp teach.  I'd follow along best I could, and then bare my simple testimony at the end.  I was able to follow along in the lesson well enough to bare testimony in spanish about the right things and everything, but I didn't participate much.  Now, on a good day, I can actually participate in the lesson.  I'll cut in and share my thoughts and comments throughout the lesson.  I can't lead a lesson though.  I still have to think too much before I talk.  It's okay because I'm progressing tremendously well in Spanish.  


One thing I've been focusing on a lot recently is gratitude.  I know that everything I have comes from God, but of all those things, I thank Him for so little.  I've been giving more credit to God for all the little things that I used to never recognize.  I think it really helps build a relationship with Him.  I've also been slowing my prayers down.  Every night,  I'd be tired, but I still want to give thanks to God.  I found that I'd say all the things I was grateful for as fast as I could and close quickly so I could sleep.  I starting making my prayers more sincere by saying things slower.  I'm giving thanks for less things at a time, but I think it's a lot more sincere and meaningful.


Also, I just realized this while writing this email, but I missed real missionary work.  Yesterday and today we've done very little work because it's Christmas.  I've had an amazing time celebrating with my comp, but something was missing the whole time.  I just want to be out there helping others.  That's why I'm here.  We did go do work for about 2 hours tonight.  We taught a 12 girl and committed her to being baptized.  It made me so happy in a way that all this non-stop partying (seriously, we've had a blast) during Christmas couldn't deliver.  Interesting how that works isn't it?


Well I hope yall had an amazing Christmas.  I feel like I need to say something here like remember the "reason for the season" or something like that, but never once have I read something like that and actually took it to heart.  So that's my invitation, take it to heart.  Realize that God will bless you for all the little sacrifices you make to Him.  Love, happiness, support, and comfort are all sitting there right in front of you.  You just have to give up your own ideas and thinking and live your life God's way.


Merry Christmas (I was gonna put a snowflake or something but no, it's like 112° here)


Élder Blacker


Pics of
-My Christmas

-Some of the Paraguay food I ate for Christmas eve

-The toilet after I ate the Paraguay food (nah I'm jk, you don't wanna see that)

-Maybe the best pizza I've ever had (it's three layers of pizza, like a pizza sandwich big-mac style, stuffed with every pizza topping and kind of meat you can think of)

-And finally a pic of when I had McDonald's for the first time here (its almost the same)







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