Cambios And Christmas

You know... sometimes it is just really hard to describe all the things I do in a week and have you understand what it is like.  I always describe very briefly all the adventures I have but I feel like you are lacking the whole story.  I'll try to get better at that

So, to contradict what I just said, here is a short list of all the things I did this week without much context:

-We received new missionaries!  I went to the airport bright and early to pick up the missionaries, take their pictures, and we went back to the office to do a little conference.  We had the church all set up for a little conference with the newbies.  We presented my slide show, revealing their first comps and presenting ourselves as office Elders willing to help them in all of their needs.  The next day we helped them all get their visas and sent them off to their new areas.

-We had transfers!  About 100 missionaries showed up at the office and we helped all of them find their new comps, change their whatsapp accounts, and head out with all their luggage.  I usually take a ridiculous amount of pictures during this time because everyone wants a pic with their old comp and then their new one.  I also do all the whatsapp things.  It is pretty normal for me to spend about 4-5 hours on the phone with missionaries that couldn't figure out Whatsapp and have requested my help.

-We had a Christmas conference!  This year we are having two Christmas conferences, one in Ciudad del Este (CDE) and one here in Asuncion.  On Friday we drove the 5:30 hours to CDE and got there later than expected.  We hoped to arrive at 8 pm to set things up, but we didn't get there until 9:30.  By some miracle, we got there and the ward was having a big Christmas party!  They had plenty of tables and chairs already set up and many decorations.  We asked them to leave everything up for us and we didn't have to do anything!  The Christmas conference turned out great.  I descibe it a little better next week.  I don't want to ruin the surprise for my missionary friends that read this email and don't know yet.  But it did take a lot of preparation.

With all we did, there wasn't a lot of time to get out and preach the gospel, but we saw miracles anyway.  I think that God prepares our path so that we find the people that need us, even if we'll only be out in the street for like an hour haha.

God is still a God of miracles!  Love you all!

Elder Blacker

*I know I don't have a Google Photos and I don't send very many photos, but the mission facebook page is basically my Google Photos.  I'm not in the photos very often, but in every photo, I'm there sitting behind the camara.  Photos will be dropped there as soon as I have time to upload them*

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