This week in the mission things were aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssooooooooooooome because Im still killing it with the Hermanas Power Puff. I am serious we get along freakishly well and we all kind of balance each other out. I literally feel like Im on missionary vacation because I wake up so happy every day. All my prayers are just like, thanks, God, for giving me every single thing that I could possibly want. I think the key to it all is humility. We are all more interested in the other two than ourselves, so in a way we all get what we want.

We keep on working with Valeria and Gabi, and Valeria is progressing really well towards her baptism this coming week, and we think her dad is going to be worthy to baptize her, and her cousin wants to confirm her and we are STOKED for that.

Francisco also is progressing really well. We taught him the law of chastity this week, and he actually said that he wants to keep the law of chastity but like everyone, the whole marriage thing freaks them out. We´re like, you´ve lived with her for four years, whats the difference in being married? So pray for him that he will have the desire and the means to get married.

And we met a guy named Jose last week in our English class and we sacar-ed a cita and visited him and his (very Catholic) family! And it was a great lesson. He has suffered from depression for a long time and the powerpuff girls know about depression! So we have been able to help him understand the principles of the gospel and he is reading everything we give him like a thanksgiving feast.

So its been good, our english class was good. I still love teaching but its hard when you have limited access to teaching materials. English is a really hard language and it doesnt make any sense either. So Im going to study a little bit more about it and try to make some more organized lesson plans. We are also working with a lot of different levels of understanding and that adds a whole nother dimension of complicated. My portuguese continues advancing. :D

Andddddddddddddddd what else. Oh we had some really great conferences this week, one was a zone conference and interviews with the President, and the other was a special conference with Elder Bragg of the Seventy and his wife. I was loving it until out of the blue Hermana Evans asked me from the pulpit if I would come translate for her for the conference. Ha! She had to give a fifteen minute talk and so I translated for her in front of everyone. She uses a LOT of slang phrases and metaphors and I was really confused on how to translate that hahah but everyone said I did okay so *shrug* whatever hahah

One thing Ive been thinking about a lot lately is service. Somebody told me once that the first thing they did every day was think about the people around them that were in need of something, and then made plans in the day to serve them. Thats a darn good way to live. Because you feel so grateful when you realize others dont have what you have. And you feel great when you help someone else to feel better or to have a good day. Its really humbling, and it makes you happy. And its nice to not think about yourself every once in awhile. ;)

favorite food this week: icecream from Dona Angelas

Funny moment: when we wore pants for the first time in the Office, President saw us and goggled and took our picture "for the history books of the mission." The elders are also jealous and want to wear kilts.

Favorite teaching moment: When we were teaching our recent convert Gina this week and we asked her how she had changed since she has been a member. She shared a lot of really beautiful stuff. I dont remember it all now but it was a really sincere testimony and she shared how grateful she was to have been blessed to know the gospel.

So theres your update from me. Love you allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

hermana Blossom

Right now we are still teaching Valeria, the sister of the recent convert Gabi. Shes sixteen and awesome. Shes reading the book of Mormon, going to church, and basically acts like a member because all of her family is members. We found out this week that she has a business of drawing other kids art homework for money. 4 mil a drawing. We didnt know whether to scold her for helping other people cheat or praise her for ingenuity.

We are also teaching a guy named Francisco, who is living proof of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. When we met him he was a drunkard and couldnt sit still for an entire lesson. Now he is really calm, really happy, and writing pages of analisis for every page of the Book of Mormon he reads. Its really quite impressive. Last night when we taught the Restoration, he said, "just one question, How am I doing spiritually?" Later I said, "take a breath and listen. What you are feeling right now is the Holy Ghost." And he was like, "I thought that is what I was feeling." hahaha it was cute. And awesome, because it was a direct result of what I asked for in the opening prayer.

The coolest thing about this week was that we got to teach our first english class. 13 people showed up, and man, I love teaching. I love it so much. There is nothing that sets a little fire in my soul like teaching. I love it. Seriously. I dont really even care what I am teaching about, I just love teaching the things! So yes, I think I want to pursue getting a degree to teach. But I also want to be a cosmetologist so we will see if I cant do both ahhaha

New pants.

Spiritual Thought

So this week I was reading in Alma 34 and something really stuck out to me.

I realized something that I should have always known but just now I get it. So like, the whole purpose of the Plan of Salvation is progression. God wouldnt have sent us here if we didnt need this experience to help us progress. All Earth life is is progression. Progression can only come through adversity. So when God gives us adversity, what He is actually doing is loving us ENOUGH to give us problems. If we never had adversity we could never progress and therefore never fulfill our personal purpose as spirits.

So every time we have a lot of problems, what God is really saying is, Kid, I love you enough that I will give you this problem. Its not going to kill you, or ruin your life, because We are all here to help you. But you need to progress. So that you can be happy eternally.

MIND= BLOWN.

Love it.
Hermana Scott

 (From her Mom letter)

 Well this week we met this lady named Marta, and shes like 28 and I walked in and the Spirit testified some stuff to me, and I told her, Man, i feel like we´ve been friends for a really long time. And she said, you know what? So do I. So that was cool and awesome. We talked about testimony, and how I got my testimony and how it was so hard for me because I had been feeling the Spirit confirm it to me over and over but it was nothing new or special so I thought I wasnt getting an answer. Well Marta has been investigating the church for SEVEN years and her husband is a faithful member, they have a great family, read the scriptures together and everything but she never got baptized because she wanted to be ¨sure.¨ Im like, look, Marta, you know its right, and sometimes you just have to do it. Youve felt the Spirit a million times.

And so Im pretty sure shes gonna get baptized. hahah

And we taught some drunk guys, and we met some cool people. And we talked to a Catholic guy who found out the his church has a different 10 commandments than whats in the Bible and was in a spiritual crisis, and we met some guy in the park, and we just started crying with him because he´s going through so many trials and we taught him about the plan of salvation. Also we´ve enjoyed a lot of icecream trips and random spaz moments and the Cranneys are here in asuncion because they are going to finish their mission here soon. So they took us out to lunch and its been great to catch up with them. All in all a really successful week and I keep begging Presidente to let us keep Hermana Granados the whole change hahah.

Its been good. Been the best two weeks of my entire mission and I hope it doesnt change anytime soon.

Hey all the people in my life I love,

SOOOO SUPRISSEEEEEE Pday is now Saturday!!! We had changes and the results were -drumroll-- another pinkwash in San Jorge!!! So me and Hermana Alexander got tossed out and she went to someplace called Yucury and I went to --other drumroll-- Campo Grande!!! AGAIN! Wooohoo! Yay for the only apartment in the whole mission that has a washer and dryer!!!

Soooo we packed up and I moved in to my new/old chuchi apartment! But there are other news! I dont have one companion, I have two!! YAY TRIO! So its me, Hermana Granados, and the nurse of the mission Hermana Christiansen! And since hermana Christiansen needs to do mission stuff in the office all day Monday, we have Pday on Saturday. So I´ll be here on Saturday for the next six weeks at least. Sorry, I know its not as easy as Monday but you know.

And can I just tell you, we have had a grand old time this week!!! hahaha its literally been SO fun. We get along way well. We call ourselves the powerpuff girls, because I have red hair, hna Christiansen is blonde, and then of course our little nicaraguan has black hair. We sing the powerpuff theme song every day when we leave the apartment.

The coolest thing about our little trio is that we teach really unified together. Or the Spirit has been helping us teach unified until we can get in some practice. But surprisingly we´ve had some really spiritually powerful lessons. We are teaching a girl named Valeria, shes 16 and her dad and sister are members. She is progressing fast! We gave her a book of mormon and the next time we went to visit her, she had marked every single verse of 3 Nephi 11. We asked her what she liked best and she said, ¨all of it. Thats why I marked it all.¨ hahaah its so cute. She has a fecha for baptism and I think shes really solid.

The other cool thing is that we got this weird reference from the mission website for a man named ¨avoo kohl.¨ After an hour and a half long search, a large man signaled to us from a street corner and he said in a very thick accent ¨voces sos dela igreja?¨ and we said, ¨uhh... yes?¨ and he starts to speak to us, but to be honest we did not understand much. He said something about his daughter wanting to learn english... well anyhow his 16 year old daughter let us in, and we said, we are the missionaries. And she said, how cool. And we said, do you believe in God? And she said, I dont know what you mean by God.

WHAAAT?? In a catholic country, we NEVER hear of people who dont know about God. So we are like, where are you from? And shes like, Im from Brazil, but my parents are from Libany. WHAAAAAAAAT. So these people speak arabian, and portuguese, and english, and spanish. Except the dad. He only speaks arabian and portuguese (Thus we didnt understand him)

So we talked to her and her sisters about the church and they were so excited. And we were so out of our element! God led us to their house though, I know that for sure. The Spirit was really strong, we talked about prayer and in the end we prayed on our knees. For them it was the first time in their lives that they had really prayed. SO COOL. We set them up on Mormon Messages and I think they are sold on being mormon lol.

All in all we´ve had a crazy week. But its been awesome. We will see what Campo Grande holds for us, because its a hard area. But evil will be stopped with the powerpuff...hermanas... on the job!!!

Also hahah today we went to the zoo and thats where all those random pictures come from. We have a zoo like 30 minutes from our area and I didnt know?!! Way cool.

So thats the update from me. Washing machine, three companions, and some portuguese studying. I LOVE ALL OF YOU. Have a great week. The Lord is awesome.

Hermana Scott

General Conference Crazy

Hey yall, long time no talk!

This week I wanted to share a funny story that happened with Conference. Well, we watched conference all day saturday and that was great! Sunday morning we got a call from our district leader and he´s all, Hermanas, what time is it?? And we said, 8:53 sir! And he says, no... its 9:53. It was daylight savings time and we forgot!! So we ran out the door to our lunch, and then we went to the meeting house.

But when we got there they were showing the Priesthood session, so we ran up to the front of the stage and talked to the hermana in charge of the tech stuff. We were like, this is not it!! The live session is supposed to start at 12!! And they were like, Hermanas, its daylight savings. The meeting will start at one!! And we were really embarrassed because we forgot daylight savings twice in one day!! But awh well, we watched it all, and it was great!

As a missionary theres nothing I want more than for people to accept Jesus Christ, to accept His teachings and ACT on them. I loved in General Conference how everyone was talking about faith and trust. We know that we are children of a Heavenly Father and we have a divine destiny to accomplish here on earth. We also know that Satan is only going to try harder to destroy us and the principles that we live.

PLEASE dont forget who you are and what your real purpose is! We are here to follow God and to have joy! Real, lasting joy-- its something that the world can never offer us. So go forward, people of faith! Do all that good that you always do, bring your light to the world! Talk about the gospel with your friends! Love the gospel! God will never abandon us, and we have no need to fear!

Francisco stopped smoking this week and loved the conference. We are excited for him. He will be baptized on the fifteenth of this month. Weve had some really great spiritual moments with him and we know that the Lord has prepared him to accept the gospel.

The work goes on! Its our blessing to be a part of it! Besos y abrazos Hermana Scott