Elder Acor: 10/17/22

 

Reaching Out

Cooper Acor <cooper.acor@missionary.org>

¡Hola mi familia y a mis amigos!

Woot woot everyone 3 months as a missionary today! I am getting so lost in the work that time is so weird here I just go work my heart out everyday. Crash at the end of the day because I am so tired and then do it all again. This week the weather has started to heat up and it is also getting pretty humid and let's just say I should start carrying a towel with me. I end the days absolutely pooped but is so good. Also just this last week I have really been able to see an improvement in my Spanish and it is so amazing! I am starting to understand so much more now and I can follow along in conversation and say some quick phrases. Talking and having a conversation is a whole different mountain I have to climb. This week was pretty with a lot of things that truly were amazing.

This last week I was finally able to have my training as a new missionary! Since I had Covid I was not able to be with my group of missionaries so I went to the mission offices this week with the new missionaries and got welcomed and trained. It was definitely funny being told the rules of the mission and how it is going to work when I have already been serving for a month and a half in the field. It was so good because some of the new missionaries even asked me questions about Spanish and I was able to answer! It was fun to challenge myself to talk with the trainers in Spanish and hold a conversation. This week we went to the office twice, first for this training then another training for health. Nothing crazy happened but it is always fun to talk with other missionaries and see how their experiences are going.

We met with lots of different friends this week because right now we do not have anyone in particular that is progressing really fast. We just meet with a ton of people, find some new people and teach. Now with street contacts I am able to give my part in Spanish and it seems that people are understanding me. We have this older man that we meet with and he asks a lot of questions and has doubts but mostly at the end he seems to want to know more so he is a good one. We talked with this Evangelist priest. He is actually so cool and nice and he gave us ice water and we talked to him for like an hour and we were able to share a lot about what we believe. He loved it and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he wants to read so hey that is super cool. Sundays are some of my favorite days of the week. I get to go to church, talk with the members and most everyone in Paraguay is home on Sundays so we can meet with a lot of people. People also get super drunk. There are three Fúbol teams here: Olimpia, Cerro, and Guarani (Guarani is like the joke team no one actually likes them) Yesterday Olimpia and Cerro played so the whole country of Paraguay was watching this game. Drinking and just partying. Anytime someone would score a goal you can just hear people screaming around you and just so many fireworks and firecrackers going off it is loco. So everyone is really drunk and we talk to a lot of drunk people. We make sure to always invite them to church because without a doubt they will always so yes. Some drunk dude too just hugged me for a good while so that was awkward.

Those are all the updates I can pretty much remember. What I do want to talk about is the subject of my email. Here is our little branch we have started to see little cracks and issues. There are about 300 members in our boundaries and about 30 members come to church and about 15 of those members have been assigned to our branch from other wards. As we are finding inactive members and less active members there is one thing that is always consistent. They always say that they do not feel needed or wanted in the church. This is because no one in the branch has reached out. I do not blame the branch though because the leadership is new. Then half of the congregation is new and the other half is super old. These people can not reach out. What these inactive members do not want to do though is reach out and ask for help. They are stuck in their situation and do not want to fix it. If they simply reached out then they could feel needed and wanted again. What I want to challenge everyone reading this email is to reach out to someone who you may not have talked to in a while and see how they are doing and let them know that they are loved. If you are the one that feels as if you are not needed, reach out first and see that people care.

I love you all so much and how you have the best week ever. Remember that you can always turn to our Heavenly Father when you need guidance in your life!

Love Elder Acor