newest address info

For letters:
 Paraguay Asuncion Mission
Camilla de Correo 818
Asuncion,PARAGUAY
 
 
 
For packages:
Paraguay Asuncion Mission
2881 Del Maestro c/ Caballero
Barrio Herrera
Asuncion, PARAGUAY

Christmas and an Email 12-26-11

Well we got to see and talk to Elder Beatty on Christmas! It actually turned out to be a little bit tricky. On Christmas day we actually weren't able to connect with him so we tried again on Monday and were able to see him on Skype. The only problem was that we couldn't hear him. He could hear us though. So he typed while we talked. Then later we were able to get him on the phone so that he could tell us more about his mission.
One thing he mentioned is that he would LOVE pictures! I have posted (above) his letter address and  his package address. You can also find it on the side bar under Current Address.
He did tell us that most disgusting thing that he's eaten down there is Cow tendon. They boil it for hours and hours and then serve it cold. Sounds REALLY gross. His day usually goes as follows: (let me know if anything is wrong) Get up at 6:30, say prayers and do a few exercises; take a quick shower; eat breakfast (usually oatmeal-plain they don't have brown sugar down there); scripture study; language study; usually out of the house at 9:30; visit appointments and go door-to-door; usually eat lunch with a member; then during the "siesta" they try to find people to visit but it's really hard because everyone is sleeping. Then they go for more appointments and usually dinner appointment too. They have to be home at 9 unless they are teaching a lesson, then they can be home at 9:30.
The temperature there is 118 degrees at 70% humidity. Definitely hotter than anything we've experienced.
The monthly baptism goal is 133 for the mission! The hard part is that most of them, once they're baptized, go inactive.
Elder Beatty bore his testimony and it was beautiful. He said that he KNOWS that being on a mission is a million times better for him than anything he could be doing here at home. He also hopes that you all can see (or I guess in this situation: read) the change that has happened in him since he left for the mission. He bore his testimony about the Book of Mormon and how we can learn so much from it. He bore his testimony about the Savior and how he knows how we feel. Even if we slam our finger in the car door, Jesus knows how much that hurts.
We are so thankful for our Elder and the hard work he is putting into the mission. We love him and love getting the letters and Emails from him. We hope that you can feel the spirit from his emails too and hope you enjoy reading them :)

Here's the email from the day after Christmas:

2011.Dec.26

Well wow what a week it has been......... There is just so much to say and so little time to say it. We got 3 baptisms this last week...... Ya..... We didn´t have it planned when we started the week but then in the end it came. There is a family here in this area that has been taught by the missionaries for 12 years..... They pretty much know all the basic stuff about the gospel. We had passed by a few times and taught them, but their biggest doubt was getting married. I guess about 4 months ago the elders had got them to have the desire to get married. They had everything all set up so that the marriage would be awesome and that they could be baptized right after they were married. But I guess the family thought that the elders were just rushing them too much and so didn´t go to their wedding and didn´t get baptized and vowed to never come to church again. 3 months later here comes Elder Beatty and Elder Van and started helping them feel the spirit again. We talked about the commandments and how they were living all of them except one. Adultery........ They said that they knew that they needed to change but still they didn´t feel ready.... so we just kinda let it go, and thought that they still weren´t ready to progress. Well we just got out of a lesson on Wednesday night when all of a sudden we got a phone call from Rokue. (That’s the dad.) I picked up and asked him “what’s up”. He said. ¨hey we have decided to get married and want to do it this weekend. Can you guys get everything ready? ¨ Of course I said yes without even thinking because I was so overwhelmed..... I hung up and looked at Elder Van and said ¨you will never guess what just happened! Rokue and Celeste want to get married this weekend¨ Wow we were both just shocked from what that meant for us and for them. We had a ton of stuff that we had to do. We had to get all their papers put together. Set up a judge. Clean up the chapel from the night before when we had a ward end of the year dinner, empty out the font because the pump is broken. Set up the marriage in the cultural hall and do some cool decorations. Find 4 witnesses and make sure that they have copies of their ID´s and make sure they come. We had to call all the ward members and invite them to come. We had to make sure we have a cake for after the baptism. We had to get money for the judge. We had to get them interviewed for their baptisms again.... It was just crazy!!!!!!!!!!! Wow..... In the End we got it done. We got them baptized and married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The whole family didn´t get baptized but the parents and the little girl did. The younger 16 year old son wasn´t ready for baptism and so we thought it would be better to wait. Plus the dad will be able to baptize him anyway. Which will be more legit. All in all what I have learned is that even though we really didn´t do anything as far as convincing them to get married, God did. And when God wants something nothing is going to stand in the way of getting it done. But that still isn´t an excuse for us to be lazy. We have to give the Lord our all to make sure that what He wants will happen. He will work through us! 

Just one quick thought I want to share.  We were in church and for the final hymn we sang “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”.  It isn´t a statement of belief, it isn´t a thought or general pass of feeling, It is a knowledge!!  A knowledge that we gain from a constant testifying from the Holy Ghost.  We can´t see Jesus, we can´t touch Him or smell Him or hear Him..... But we can feel His love.... The Holy Ghost is going to “talk” to us in words that our heart recognizes as feelings.  Those feelings drive us to gain a knowledge.  A knowledge of something that we can´t see, hear, or touch.  What are we supposed to do when we come to this knowledge? Is it good enough just to know that our Savior lives? No... We have to push forward... We use that knowledge that we have gained through the Holy Ghost to help us to push through the difficult things and difficult times.  If we have gained this knowledge through the Holy Ghost and all we do is nothing; we are not worthy to know.  With more knowledge comes more responsibility.... With our knowledge of the Savior and what He did for us we have to push forward with faith in Him and His promises.

I hope you all can have an appreciation for the knowledge that we have here in the church.  It is a knowledge gained through the Holy Ghost.  I love you all and wish you the very best and most happy Christmas this season in remembrance of our Christ and Savior.

Rohyhu mi familia

Elder Beatty

Email 12-12-11

Hello all and all hope you all are having such a holly jolly Christmas because it’s the best time of the year. hahaha ho ho ho ho  the Christmas season is coming up and boy has it been getting really really hot and humid.  It’s crazy because it seems that you just start sweating when you aren´t even doing anything.  You sweat when you’re sitting and not even thinking about anything. hahaha no but this last week has been pretty tough for us.  Elder Van said that this last week has been the most that he has walked in his entire mission.  Wow what an accomplishment. 

Even though we walked a ton this last week i feel that we had some good success.  We didn´t quite find as many new people to teach as we had wanted to but I think we still had some good experiences and lessons with the people that we did have.  We actually found a family that used to be investigating the church.  The family Aldalma.  They had a baptism and wedding date but when the day came they didn´t go because they felt rushed and so they just kind of dropped away from the church.  We found them this last week and we taught them the 10 commandments and told them that it’s a commandment to go to church as well as be married and baptized.  We invited them to church and left and we didn´t think they would come but lo and behold they did this last Sunday and everyone was super happy to see them again.  And by the looks of it they had a super awesome experience too. 

We actually had some good lessons besides that family.  Venancio is a boyfriend of one of the member’s daughters and we started teaching him last week and we talked about baptism and stuff.  He had gone to church one time.  We passed by to talk about the plan of salvation and the atonement.  Elder Van did a cool thing with his backpack that is super heavy.  He was like ok hold your arms out straight.  He put his heavy backpack in Vanacio´s hands and he had to hold it.  We are like ¨this backpack is sin¨.  We have to carry all the sins that we have.  Then I put my backpack on and it was super hard to keep them up but this kid did it with great effort.  We then talked about only through a baptism and through Jesus Christ we could take all the sins that we had and drop them.  We took off the backpack and just sat there.  We invited him to be baptized and he said that he would love it.  He really does understand that a baptism is a way to change your life forever.  So that was pretty sweet. 

We did have a baptism set up for this next Saturday with Jorge but he didn´t come to church this last week so his fecha fell.  He isn´t married to his girlfriend either and so that is going to be a little hurdle that we have to jump over.  Good thing I have been around track and field for a while.  hahah wow that really wasn´t funny.... but anyway I think he will do it because he knows that this is the right thing in his life.  He has already stopped drinking and smoking so why stop the change there.... hahaha 

The two girls that we were teaching who have fecha we really didn´t get much chance to teach them this week.  We went by to their house on Saturday to invite them to church but their dad was super drunk and was just dogging on Joseph Smith and it was all I could do from not punching him in the face.  We kind of invited them but they didn´t end up coming so that was a little bit of a bummer, but we are really going to focus with them this week.  We had one sweet lesson with them in that we went and we had the game plan to see how their prayers went because we invited them to pray about what we had taught them was true, and we were going to resolve their doubt.  So we went and asked them how their prayers went and they said yeah we got our answer that these things are true.  Wow..... Elder Van and I didn´t know what to do because this basically never happens.... so we invited them to be baptized on the 7th of January and they said yes..... wow.... what faith they have to have gotten their answer from God this fast.

I had to teach the class this last week in church and it went really really well, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about.  While I was teaching the class we were reading a lot of parts about Jesus Christ and testimony and His atonement.  I looked and saw the picture of Him when He is resurrected and visiting the Americas with the people.  I just thought about Christ and all that He has done for us.  We have some members in our ward who aren´t very strong and have a lot of doubts about what Christ did for us.  I just thought in that moment when I saw Christ in that picture that Christ is our Savior....... We don´t have to see him to know him......

I hope you all have a great week this week.  I hope that you can know our Lord and Savior Christ.  Remember... you don´t have to see him to know him.
Rohy´hu familia
Elder Beatty

Sorry there haven't been pictures in awhile. We're experiencing technical difficulties. 

Email 12-5-11

Wow what a week. The week of Changes YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA... hahaha I left Pre Franco and that area.  I am now in an area called Ytororó.  It is on the opposite side of the country in Asuncion next to Argentina.  The first week of changes as always is a little slow and boring.  First you don´t know your comp, second you don´t know the area, you don´t know the people, and in my case this change… I had no money to buy food.  Living off of crackers for 3 days........ What an experience...... especially in the Jungle hhahaha.  No but it all turned out really good.  We left from Cuidad Del Este at like 1 in the morning.  I got on the bus and sat next to an Elder named Elder Beckett.  He is from Roy and guess what?... He knows Ramsey... heheh small world eh.... but anyway we just talked most of the time on the bus because its nearly impossible to sleep because the guy who is driving the bus is a little drunk so he just weaves back and forth on the street.. Its like trying to sleep on a Disneyland ride. hahahaha but it all ended up good.  We got to Asuncion at like 6 in the morning. We waited until 8 and there were a ton of missionaries there.  I saw Hermana Hubbard and Elders Edwards and Marple.  They were in my district in the MTC and they looked great.  Its crazy because Elder Marple is Training..... WOW..... What a legit missionary.  I met my comp there in the Terminal also.  Elder Van Mondfrans.  He is from the Salt Lake area and has about a year and a half in the mission.  He is pretty cool.  The first day was a little hard of course because we aren´t used to each other and so it was a little quiet.  I guess something happened because we started talking about super smash brothers and we talked about that for about 5 hours.... I think we have something in common hahaha No but really he is a great missionary who loves the work.  He is just a little bit more quiet than the companions I have had before so that will be a great adventure as well as a learning experience for me.  The first 3 days we were together we walked and walked and walked and walked.  Elder Van said that this was the most walking that he has done his entire mission.  We went and tried to visit ALL the investigators that they had before which is like 7 or 8 every single day and none of them were home every single day.  He told me that it was a test from God to see if we were going to keep working and doing our best to teach and find people and that it would pay off the next day.  Finally we got some success when we met with these 2 girl references that we got from the ward and we invited them to be baptized.  They were super awesome because they had a TON of questions.  One thing that I’ve learned is usually when someone has a lot of questions it means that they are legitly interested in what you have to say and teach.  We invited them to church but they said that they didn´t know if they would come because they were going to a 15 year old birthday party and it was going to be late when they got back and so they didn´t make any promises but it was ok.  We also visited Jorge.  A guy who has made HUGE changes in his life. Mostly with the word of wisdom.  He has stopped drinking, smoking, and doing drugs in the last 3 months and is now coming to church.  It’s been crazy to me to see the faith that this man has put in God.  He is reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know if its true.  I still don´t know why he hasn´t got his answer.  That is our main focus this next week with him; to help him recognize his answer.  We also have Benancio.  He is dating a member’s daughter.  He is a super legit 18 year old kid.  He also has a ton of good questions.  He is coming to church and praying with his girl friend’s family and it’s great to see his progress too.  I think that he wants to believe the things we are teaching are true but he just needs to have that trial of his faith first.  So this last week we did some service too.  We went to dig something like a latrine or something like that. It had to be six feet wide and six feet deep and all we had were some crappy Paraguayan shovels.  One had a handle of a tree limb that gave my hands a ton of blisters and the other didn´t even have a handle.  We got down pretty deep with just those two things actually.  About 4 and half feet.  I was proud of myself but my hands sure did hurt from that stupid tree branch.  It’s been really cool for me to see the way that Elder Van teaches.  He really focuses on baptism and why it’s important.  He will just come out and say that we have to have the authority of God to be baptized in the right way.. and if its not with the authority its not valid.  It is a testimony to me; because before, I would be scared to say that to people, but because he is teaching with the spirit, the people understand him and know why its important.  The ward here is pretty good too.  We just got anew bishop put in.  The ward has been without any really good leadership for about 4 months.  To me its surprising that the ward has gotten along all by itself without any leadership.  Elder Van said that since the bishop has been put in he has seen a new excitement in the members about the work in getting more people to come to church.  The bishop has been giving us a lot of stuff to do with him in trying to get the ward better.  I can´t wait until we can get this ward up to 100 people.  It will be great to see the chapel full for once.  

We had a FHE with the bishop´s family yesterday.  It was all about having a change of heart, and that repentance shouldn´t be something that is easy.  It should be something that hurts and takes time.  If we don´t suffer and feel in our hearts that we truly want to change, then we haven´t repented.  It was great to see that example because we all go through times like that in our lives were we think we can just change and everything will be ok.  No its not like this.... we have to show to God that we are willing to give all that we have to him.  We are willing to submit ourselves to His will by making a change of heart.  By making our desire His desire.  When we can gain this vision, to do what God wants us to do and repent to make ourselves what He wants.  That is when we have a change of heart.  It won´t be easy.... But it most definitely will be worth it.  

I love you all and hope you have the spirit of the Lord with you in all things.  I hope you all are striving to attain this change of heart so that we can all have more love for those that we are serving, even if we aren´t on a mission.  May this holiday season bring peace and happiness to your soul.

les amo muchisimo.

Elder Beatty