General Conference! It was simply amazing as many of you know. I loved it, and it has such a different perspective if you're a missionary. There were a lot of talks this round about member involvement in missionary work, but not just missionary work, in Home Teaching and in working with Less Active Members or Inactive Members. They were things I really wished my Branch leaders had heard so that they would get really involved with the work, because things are going slow with the Branch and what we really want is to pick things up.
Before I go back to General Conference, let me talk a little about my Area. It's a little sort of suburb-ish thing in Ciudad Asunciòn Norte, but it's really poor. Most people lump it together with another area nearby and call all of it Zeballos Cuè, but it's actually locally known as Viñas Cuè, and it's fairly close to the center of Asunciòn Norte (20 minute colectivo- that means bus -ride away).
Anyways, within our Branch boundaries, we have on record about 1,500 members, but our weekly church attendance lays somewhere around 75 or 85. That's a huge problem. So, we changed all of our goals to mean increasing number of people attending sacrament meeting, because over the past two decades really, the baptisms have been rolling in, but the Branch hasn't grown. Ever. So, since they started the kick to focus more on helping inactive members reactivate, baptisms have gone way down, and I'm kind of glad about that just because some of the people who are active weren't baptized under the best conditions as far as having a real, tangible testimony goes. And one reason why so few remain active for long, as far as they say, is because no one visits and so they grow to feel like no one cares. Which brings up the issue of Home Teaching, Visiting Teaching, and visiting Inactive members. Those things don't exist super well here, but when we finally got out and visited some inactive members with the Branch President, they wanted to reactivate. It was really cool.
Anyways, it means that Conference felt really inspired for my situation, but no one goes to sessions other than Sunday morning because it's all in the Stake Center and it's not part of the culture. So, it was just a bunch of missionaries and a few small youth (not a single soul from our Branch) up until Priesthood session when few people come or Sunday Morning when a good chunk of the Branch comes. So, the moral of the story is for all of you Utahns, you have easy access to all sessions and a pretty strong culture of actually watching it! Don't take that for granted. I still love you all though!
Other than General Conference, we also had Stake Conference, which was important because the Area Authority, Elder DiGiovanni, came to speak to us, and he asked that we gather all less active and inactive members into the Stake Center. They even printed invitations for us to give and arranged for a free colectivo to pass by a certain spot in Viñas Cuè so that everyone could have an easy time going. We didn't have one single Investigator or Less Active Member with whom we're working show up. That was a really frustrating day just yesterday. The work has been really slow this past week. We have three Investigators that have been taught everything necessary for baptism, but can't be baptized for various reasons (two need to get married and one needs parental permission). It's also become hard to find a new solid investigator, and so everything just slammed into a standstill in the way of Investigators. But, the fact that a lot of less active members didn't come either just makes me feel like I did nothing for a week. It's frustrating.
However, God will provide, and I am doing my part. I need to improve in a lot of ways, but Elder Yauney and I really are working hard and trying to make progress. There's the giant hand of Agency though that continually is giving us sweets and then turning around and slapping us in the face continually. It gets fun after a while!
Okay, this sounds way too hopeless. In reality, I fully believe that this Branch will grow and become more than it now is and that I will get to be a part of that process. I'm happy over here even though it an emotional rollercoaster and my comp and I are having just tons of fun. So, please don't worry about us over here!
I have something very important to tell all of you though, so litsen up!
You can all send me things! The missionaries have all gotten all of their packages, so there's not a worry there. However, my telling you this so late means that you would need to send a Christmas package soon, so I thought I'd take all of the work out of it and send you a list of stuff I either miss or actually need! Send it all to the address I posted in the first post! Here's the list:
The only candies I really want are these, and I care not how many I receive, so if all of you just so happen to send me some, that's wonderful. ;)
-Skittles
-Starburst
-Rolos (Possible Resse's Peanut Butter Cups, but the other three are more important).
If it will keep, I want some canned Tomato Sauce. The stuff they have here mostly looks brown and just doesn't taste right... If you think it can last a plane right and 6-8 weeks of travel, send me some! Not too much, but a couple of cans.
Pens! I'm running out fast. Mostly crappy ones, but if one or two of you has found a cool pen you want to give me, I'd love that too. If you can find any, it'd also be cool to have a few color changing pens that include the colors blue, green, orange, and purple. I need those colors specifically.
Small Amounts of Money..... It's kind of dumb, but if you could slip it into a package... I just realized I don't have much money for cool recuerdos, like buying anaconda and crocodile skins and then getting people to make me stuff out of them (that's popular amongst missionaries here).
100% Cocoa Powder, the highest they have here is 50%. Also, if anyone could send me some holiday-cooking spices (nutmeg, cloves, cream of tartar, ginger, etc.) Not brown sugar, we've actually started making our own. But I want to make myself holiday goodies!
And yeah! Send it to the address I first posted! You guys can coordinate with who's buying what in the comments section..... I feel selfish posting this, but if it so be that I am, then I am! I love you all. The gospel is true; I see it every moment of every day. I'm so glad to be here.
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