The Book of Mormon is True!

Dear Family,

That's fantastic that you have been 32 years married!  It really is incredibly important to have and keep those relationships of the family.  When we arrived here in Republicano, Elder Clark and I both felt like we should work in the Arriba part of our area, and with part member families.  Republicano has a part that would be fairly easy to baptize in, but we both felt that we should be working a little differently.  

So we started to work with all the members, trying to help them be strong in the faith and be united families.  For the first little while it was a little difficult because we weren't seeing a lot of the "success" that we wanted to see.  But as we`ve continued to do as we feel the lord would have us work.  We began to see more people come to church again, and we are seeing families getting ready to be completed in the church.  Husbands and wives and children of members are listening to us and getting ready to enter the waters of bautizmo. And in reality I've come to realize really how important the family really is.  We are really excited to see these people, now as families progress in the church and be the saints of the latter days.  Because if we really do want to resist the temptation that exists in our world at this moment, we need to do it as families, because that's how the lord wants it done, and that's where His strength is.

This week as well we did a "big missionary" for a day activity.  We organized a bunch of the members into companionships, taught them what to do, and sent them out to work for the morning day.  In the first 2 hours of the morning we came back to the church with 65 references to visit.  And then we did some other activities during lunch and the afternoon.  Really when we prepare ourselves to be missionaries, the lord will provide a way for us to share the gospel. We should all follow the counsel of the profeta when he said, "Every member a missionary",  because when we are ready to be missionaries, we will be filled with the spirit and be ready to be tools in the hands of the lord.

Take luck (Dance harder)

Elder McShinsky

Keep Praying for the Missionaries. They Need Your Prayers all Over the World!

Dear Family,

Ya i just got the package from Stan.  THANK YOU.  It's always nice to get something from home.  Oh and the honey is really good!

Can I just tell you that the Book of Mormon is amazing.  I don´t know how to explain the kind of impact it has on our lives.  It really is exactly like Elder Holland said, "When we use the Book of Mormon correctly, it becomes our best missionary".  Recently we´ve changed how we´re using the Book of Mormon.  And with the change I can see how much the Lord can bless the lives of his children through that book.  


For example we began working with Nikos dad.  We basically just presented the Book of Mormon and showed him how it can bless his life.  (He´s really Catholic)  Then we let his interest, and the Lord take over.  Right now he´s read almost all of 3rd Nephi.  Every time we go to his house he´s ready with questions, and ready to learn more and more.  And we have the rest of his family reading all kinds of chapters from the Book of Mormon.  Together they are learning a ton.  Really the promise is there, that if we read the Book of Mormon with a purpose, our lives will be filled with more and more of the light of Christ.

Elder McShinsky

P.S. When is mothers day...?

Hello

Dear Family.

Thats great that your all staying busy.  We are staying busy as well down here in Paraguay!  One thing that we have been focusing on a lot lately is the power of the Book of Mormon.  Basically, the idea is that the Book of Mormon is the best missionary that we have, and the best missionary that we will ever have!  And with that we need to use it more and more in our lives. Like President Benson said, "We need to get out from under the condemnation of God for taking the Book of Mormon lightly in our lives."  

For me that quote is incredable because of just how true it is.  If we really are a God loving people we will be searching for the answers to the questions in our lives that ARE in that book EVERYDAY!  Because they are there and that is why a man will get closer to God by following the precepts in the Book of Mormon then by ANY other book.

About our apartmant?  It's clean.  It's also right above an incredible member family!  

My companion?  My companion is Elder Clark.  He is 2 meters (I dont know how tall that is in feet.... But its tall!) You can see him next to the giant indian statue in one of the pictures that I sent. 

My area?  It's a really interesting area.  We live in the normal part; go one way and it gets really rich, go the other way and the road will suddenly stop and drop 3 to 4 in some parts 5 stories.  It's like a big cliff, and at the bottom is an area really really poor. Then at one end of it all we have a really big hill (Cerro Lambare) (I´ll tell ya´ll about that in just a sec.)  

¿P DAY?  Mostly we sleep... cuz we`re really tired (I think when I get home I might just sleep for 2 weeks...).  But we also get out and do some stuff sometimes.  Like today we went up to the top of cerro lambare as a zone took a bunch of pictures had a litttle meeting, then we went down and played some soccer.

Elder McShinsky

Snowy Easter

Dear Family,

A white Easter... that's a new one.  For Easter here, I bought myself a little chocolate bunny.  They also have these really big chocolate Easter egg things here.  It was really tempting to buy one but it was also really expensive...  So I didn't buy one, but they looked good... :)

With conference this week as well, we had a great opportunity to hear the counsel of our profeta.  This is also a great time to rededicate ourselves to the gospel and especially the Book of Mormon.  As we really search the Book of Mormon, we will find in it the answers to the questions of our soul.  We will find them in a sense of clarity that we never imagined before.  And when we have found them, we should search them out again and again to help us remember the strength of our testimonies and the power of the spirit!

Elder McShinsky 

Chipa week!

Dear Family,

Today we had President Callen and Hermana Callen over at our house.  They are doing interviews in our houses this change.  It was good, and Hermana Callen commended us on the cleanliness of our house.... Thought you`d like to hear that mom.

Other than that, this week is Semana Santa down here.  It's pretty much a big week when everyone is getting ready for Easter...  Oh, and apparently they make a ton of chipa!  Chipa is some type of bread with cheese kind like stuff, its really hard to expain, but it's also really good.  So this week we`re just really excited to eat a bunch of chipa.

We`ve also started working with 3 new familes here in Republicano (2 familys of 6 and one of 4).  They are all great, we had one of them in church this week.  It was great and they're really excited to get to know everyone.  For some reason this week in sacrement meeting it was all about seminary.  Students and their parents got up and shared experiences and bore their testimonies about seminary.  At first me and my companion were basically saying, "Oh no, why can't we talk about some other cool topic...", but the Lord works in interesting ways.  After the meeting the family was really interested in seminary and they got their 15 year old son signed up for it! 
Other than that not much happened this week.  We`re just working hard.

Elder McShinsky