Elder Acor: 10/23/23

 Choose Joy!

¡Hola mi familia y a mis amigos!

This week like pretty much every week here on the mission was crazy. So much happened and we saw so many miracles so, like always, let's get right into it.

After P-Day last week we were able to go to Elder Fernandez's area which is Ciudad Del Este 6. We went to go to the baptism someone he has been teaching who's name is Jon. He's fifteen and he was so ready to be baptized. It was such a fun and spiritual experience like always.

Tuesday I was able to do exchanges and go to an area called Presidente Franco. I went with Elder Vilches who is from Argentina. I had a really great time with him and I'd say a highlight was doing service for a really old couple that couldn't really help themselves. We decided to clean up there front and backyards. That turned into us also finding a huge tree branch that had almost fallen into their bathroom. That was fun moving that and breaking that up. It really made me feel the true love of Christ for this couple. Also we couldn't really understand them because they only spoke Guaraní. What can I say just Paraguay things.

Wednesday we finished our exchanges. We went out to work and found a bunch of new people. We really found a lot of people this week to teach. We've kinda been making it a game to talk with everyone and it's been awesome. We also had a really fun ward night where it seemed like more than one hundred people showed up so that was awesome. We got to see some intense soccer games. We also had a really good family home evening with Hector who in a month should be getting baptized!

Thursday was a really fun day because we got to go do some visits with the service missionary that serves in our ward. I don't know if I've explained that before but she's awesome. Her name is Hermana Veloso and she super awesome. She always so willing to go on visits with us to help. It's nice too because she's from Paraguay so the people open up a bit more. We were also able to go with her cousin on Thursday and that was super cool because she's been inactive for a bit. She was able to share her simple testimony and grow it.

The rest of the week kinda just blends into each other. We had some super good lessons. We really were able to teach with the spirit and help them with their specific necessities. Some people even cried because we just simply shared about the love of Christ. Sunday I went to Elder Fernandez's branch because they had a confirmation that we needed to be at.

Well that's kind of the play by play that happened this week. Now first off shout out to my amazing mother. My mom is always sending me things throughout the week but this Friday I was having a rough day. One of the hardest days in the mission that I've had for a long time. My mom sent me a simple message "Sure love you ❤️ Hope you have a productive, hardworking day." It meant so much to me and I know my mom was listening to the spirit to send me a message and make me feel good. You all better act on the impression of the spirit. No matter how weird or how out of the blue act on them. You could be the answer to someone's prayer.

Something that I really learned this week liek the name of my email is "Choose Joy". There was so many times during this week that I had to choose joy, and sometimes I didn't. I saw the major difference in the two experiences. I also saw people like my companions or members in the church or even out friends who didn't choose joy this week. It just makes life so much more miserable and difficult when we just choose to be offended, sad, frustrated, disappointed, or whatever feeling like that. Sometimes people are going to say something mean, false, bad. All we can do is maybe suffer that comment for a moment and move on or make a big deal out of it and suffer for a long time thinking about that moment. It's difficult but when we choose joy life is better even if we have to suffer a little because of the actions of others.

That's it for this week! Thanks for reading this email and I love you all! If you wanna talk to me I'm one email away!

¡Adíos!

Love, Elder Acor