Monday, March 23, 2015

Aháta ha ajapóta!

¡Hola hola!  ¿Cómo están todos?

This past week was crazy!  We had divisions Monday night and Tuesday with our sister training leader Hermana Field and her companion Hermana Palacio.  On Monday, Hermana Sorenson had just gotten over a cold, and Hermana Field, Hermana Palacio, and I were all sick with mild to severe cold symptoms.  Can you imagine us - three sick little missionaries trying not to get snot in our scriptures.  Haha.  Hermana Palacio went to the doctor on Tuesday and found out that she had bronchitis.  Ouch.  They scheduled her for a check-up on Thursday, and since we had Zone Conference Friday, it didn't make sense for her to have to travel back and forth from Encarnación to her area Obligado (about an hour's bus ride out of Encarnación).  Rather than abandon the Hermanas' area completely, we decided to do emergency divisions.  After working with Hermana Field for two days in my area, I went with her to Obligado for another two days and didn't return to my area until Friday evening after Zone Conference.  So I hardly saw my companion all last week!

Working in Obligado was great.  I got to meet a ton of wonderful people, teach a few spiritual lessons, and learn from a lovely sister.  And I found a treasure in the Obligado pension: a Book of Mormon in Guaraní!!!!  (I've been asking for one since I got here.)  Also, one of the members of the Obligado branch who fed us lunch sat down with me and taught me how to pronounce the letters in Guaraní, so I can actually read it.  I memorized part of one of my favorite scriptures - ten points to the person who can identify it correctly!

Aháta ha ajapóta umi mba'e Ñandejára he'iva'ekue.

Zone Conference was great, we talked about how the Lord is really hastening His work and what that means for us.  We are working a lot more with members now to help them understand that concept.  The day of the Lord is coming soon, and we need to be prepared!

I love this work!  I love you all!

Hermana Watts 

P.S. Fun Fact: Encarnación is celebrating its 400th anniversary on Wednesday!  There are flags and banners everywhere! 


Q & A 

1.  What did you do for your district activity?  (She mentioned that they didn't email until late last week because they had a meeting in the morning to plan for a district activity for the members).
  
The district activity is scheduled for the 1st of April.  We're planning to do a Book-of-Mormon-themed activity to help people get excited about the words of the prophets, both anciently and in the present-day (since General Conference is that weekened).  We're going to have different stations set up with activities to teach people about different book of mormon prophets, and at the end we're all going to gather in the cultural hall and reenact the first recorded General Conference with King Benjamin.  Pray for us so that we can really invite the Spirit into our activity and help these people to become excited about the Word of God!

2.  Is your church building air-conditioned?
  
Ours isn't, but we have a ton of ceiling fans, so that helps.  The church building in Rama 1, where we have our district meetings, does have air conditioning.
 
3.  Are most of the members of your branch recent converts?  
  
The majority of the members, while maybe not necessarily recent converts, are first or second-generation members.

4.  Is there a common street-food that you like?  (I also mentioned to keep her eye out for Easter traditions).

There's this thing called chipa.  It's basically bread with cheese baked into it.  And apparently, since you asked about Easter traditions, during the Semana Santa the tradition is to make chipa.  I'm pretty excited!

If you're still working on translating the scripture above, this might help:

Here's a clue.  In Spanish, that part of the scripture translates to "Iré y haré lo que el Señor me ha mandado."

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