From: Elder Joshua Freeman
Subject: ÁFeliz A–o Nuevo!
Date: 5 January 2004 7:24:16 AM EST

ÁHola!

Man, it's crazy to think that we're already in 2004. These things just sneak up on you. If you were wondering, basically, all they do here for New Years is put alcohol in the fruit salad and set off a whole bunch of fireworks. But that's about it. And they get drunk; but that doesn't require a holiday.

Things here are going well. We're baptizing a kid this week and we should have a couple other baptisms coming up this month. The mission has a goal of 10 baptisms per zone this month, and our Zone is notorious for not baptizing, so we're looking to change that a bit. And that requires a lot of work, and a lot of help from the Spirit. Lucky for us we're missionaries.

Last Monday, after writing email, we went out to JosŽ Duarte's and taught him the next charla. We're also talking with his sister, who is a Mennonite. She's pretty smart though. On Monday afternoon, we went out and tried to talk to various people that weren't home. We did get in a charla 1 though, with an amiga of Eugenia. And to finish off the night, we had a Family Home Evening with the Benitez family and started the Red de Contactos with them. It should work out well, they have a pretty big family. So we'll see how that turns out.

On Tuesday, we had our normal meetings in the morning. In the afternoon, we went out and talked to some old investigators. Then we did an FHE with Eugenia's family; we played a smaller version of Twister. Elder Urling recorded it (he has a video camera) and we watched it. It was pretty funny. After that, we had a charla with Valdelice and her family and just read with them, because her "husband" wasn't there.

On Wednesday morning, it rained a lot. We went out to teach JosŽ Duarte again, and the road to his house was just a huge river. But the charla still went pretty well.
In the afternoon, we taught a charla 1 to another friend of Eugenia's family, and that went pretty well. Then we visited a few more members to finish off 2003.

On Thursday morning, we went to „emby and played fœtbol again with the Zone. Then we went out to Real and got our money from the ATM. Then we looked for a place to eat lunch, because almost everywhere was closed. We ended up eating at a Shell station. But oh well. After that we came home and wrote letters and stuff. When we actually went out working, we visited a few inactives and investigators.

On Friday morning, we went with Eugenia to her friend's house to see if she read the part we assigned her, and she hadn't, so we read it with her. She seems a little odd, but hey, you take what comes to you and make the most of it. We had lunch with the flia. Benitez like normal, then came home and studied. After lunch, we looked for a few people that weren't home, visited some members, and then had some good charlas with Claudelino, Jorge (the Brazilian) and Valdelice and her family.

On Saturday, we went to the Duarte's house, but JosŽ had left, so instead we visited some inactives that live out there by them. Then we came home and got stuff for lunch and for dinner on Sunday. Interestingly enough, I noted that it was 26.6¡ (that's about 80¡F) with 60% humidity, and I noted to myself that it was a pretty nice day outside, not too bad at all. That's the kind of thing that Paraguay does to you after a while. Anyway, in the evening, we went out and talked with a few various investigators, nothing spectacular.

On Sunday morning, we went out to Eugenia's to make sure that her kids were coming to church, and we met her on the way with just two of them. So we went to her house and woke up the rest and they got dressed and came. Sometimes they just need a little persuasion. It was a really good day for us, we had 8 investigators there, and three more kids that are only 7 so don't count. But that's easily the most I've ever had in a Sacrament Meeting. We had our first Gospel Principles class with the new teacher, a member of about 2 years that recently reactivated along with the rest of his family. He did alright, but he's got a little polishing to do. But that'll be good. After church, we had lunch with President Mar’n and his wife. We also visited some inactives and a couple other members before we came in to study and then have dinner with the other Elders.

So that was our week. It was pretty fun. It's nice to hear that everyone's trips went well and that you all had fun together. Have fun with school and stuff.

Thanks for everything that you guys do from me, I really appreciate it.

I Love all you guys!

Love,
Josh