Hello Mom,

Thanksgiving come and gone for a second time! Can you believe it? Pretty crazy. Last year I was with Elder Richins in Trinidad. I am glad you got to meet him this weekend. By the way, my suit cost 75 dollars, is man made, and will have the Paraguay flag inside. I am supposed to get it tomorrow, just before zone conference. Let us pray! Because I still don't have my suit back! I lent it to my branch pres when his daughter got sealed in the temple. Hahaha I could be getting some cane dropped on me this week...

Well guess who is back? Elder Johnson. He is in my district again. I couldn't believe it, hahaha. He is a good kid. Elder Willes will have a great time. That means my good friend Hill is now gone. He is a zone leader in the La Paloma zone, out in Santani. I miss him. That picture is a picture of our zone. Of course, Elder Hill and I are the 2 in the back... The rooster is Hank, I will try to send a picture of Little Jerry next week. And that is my Thanksgiving night. Oreos, oreo pudding, and Argentine Doritos. 

Well the week ended pretty good. We had a total of 6 people in church, Hugo and Natividad, an awesome guy named Nestor who will complete his family, the Gimenez family, and my Grandma Sinfo. It was pretty awesome, but sad because we had lots more committed to come. But we are going to keep working hard. My goal is to have a consistent 10 investigators in church every sunday when I leave. Grandma Sinfo's baptism will be a week from Tuesday. She is awesome. My Paraguayan grandma. 

Well I want to tell you about an awesome experience we had. But it came after the fact. Way after the fact. Like a week and a half after. We found this really awesome guy named Dario from Argentina. He was looking for work, and if he didn't find it he would be heading back to Argentina with his family. We promised him he would find work if he read, prayed, and went to church. Well God knew his heart better than us, and 15 minutes after we left his wife came home with a job for him. He couldn't believe it. But when we went back we couldn't find him because he was working! And he is pretty new to the area so he didn't know where the church was exactly! So we finally found him again and he told us about that. We took a member over right after that would be able to take him and his family to church, but then the member didn't show up for church yesterday... So we don't know what happened, but isn't that awesome!!!! I love making promises as a missionary. I also love the Priesthood. We went to give a blessing to a member that can't walk the other morning while it was raining, her yard sucks up all the water and in order to get to it we had to walk through shin deep water. When we got there I got a huge smile on my face and looked at my comp, he was smiling too. "This is awesome" is all we could say. We came away from the experience super grateful for the Priesthood that we hold.

I am having the time of my life. The Gospel helps us be better. I love you Mom.

Love, P

Email November 19, 2012*

Hello Mom!

Well it is the end of another change. Nothing is going to happen though, I will be another here with Elder Phippen due to the training program. 5 changes in Paso! That will give me enough time to see a bunch more weddings and baptisms!

Today I was able to hang out with Elder Richins for a bit. It was really great. It is weird to say goodbye to your best friend in the mission... But it wont be long before I see him again and all of my friends from home. That also means that Benny is going home! They went into the MTC the same day. 

Havent had a chance to listen to your talks yet, but I am sure you and Niglet did great. I am giving another talk this week. I have given at least one talk every single month of my mission with a few extras thrown in... That is a lot of talks, all in Spanish! I dont try to throw in Guaraní cause I am too afraid of saying something dirty over the pulpit... hahaha

Thanksgiving!!!! I will be eating watermelon here. Watermelon season here. It is awesome. I love it. I am so grateful for all the many blessings that I have. I am feeling much better, so I am very grateful for the bomb. Oh the gross things I have seen in my mission!!!!!

Well this week was kind of disappointing in church, but we worked hard. We found an awesome new investigator named Diego. He accepted a baptismal date without a hitch, and when we went by to make sure he was going to church he told us he had received an answer to our message and wants to be baptized for sure. he didnt go to church, I think he had some verguenza, but he will be there this week. He is 20 and he loves talking to everyone about Christ. Aka, future missionary! He is really awesome.

I love my Savior, Jesus Christ. I love Paraguay so much. I am loving it here. I love sharing the Restored Gospel with people. 

Have a good week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Elder Naegle

                                                        Elder Richins and Elder Naegle

Email November 12, 2012

Hey Mom,

 

We have a window in our room now!!!! I slept nice and cool last night. That is cool that you saw Johnny Holmgren. France for James huh? That is cool. Good for him. Speaking of suits, I am probably going to burn 75 bucks on a suit here soon because mine is a disaster.... Just so you know. There is a guy that makes them and they look pretty classy.

 

Well this week I want to tell you about a miracle that happened. My white whale. Grandma Gonzalez. I have been trying to get her to go to church and get baptized since I got here. She finally went last sunday, but she still wasnt super excited about baptism. Her health has been failing, so she always asks us for blessings. I was on a division with Elder Hill and she asked us for one, going into the blessing I was praying that Heavenly Father would bless her so she could understand the importance of being baptized, we gave the blessing, as soon as it was over she says, " I will be baptized whenever you guys want". Oh yeah! It was awesome.

 

Our investigator that was going to get baptized this week, Carolina, ran away from her aunts house.... So.... Not going to get baptized... I am sad, but we carry on.

 

That is about all for this week. Sorry this letter is short. There is not a lot of time. Life is going great here in Paso. I am super happy. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.

 

Love, Elder Naegle

Email November 5, 2012

Hello Mom, 

I figured out how to take the virus off my camera!!!! You get to  see my beautiful face!!!! yeah!!!! So anyway. You are looking at the wedding and baptism of Manuel. It was so stressful. But I will tell that story another time. The good news is that it happened. Carolina was unable to be baptized do to some commandment issues.. But it helped us narrow in on her real doubts. So she is on the right track now.

We had an awesome lesson this week with our investigators Hugo and Natividad. I was with Elder  Hill on a division. We talked about the question of the soul, Does God really exist? We read in Alma 22 about Aaron. Aaron was a stud, first of all, second, the Spirit was there super strong and it was an awesome lesson. They already had testimonies of the reality of their Father in Heaven, but we were able to apply it to them in a way, well you just had to be there. Sorry...

As far as my health. I have felt better this week, but I will figure it out. I will talk to the Hna Madariaga probably. I have eaten some sketchy stuff in my mission and while my stomach is a champ, I think it is finally telling me, ENOUGH!!! hahaha I have one heck of a mission body though. Skinny limbs with this weird gut thing... I am not proud of it. Humility is key...

I also saw the craziest looking centipede while we were tearing down a house this week. The type that you see in movies. The scarier thing was that we didn't know where it went and it popped out again when I was tearing the wall down. I am glad I live in Utah...

Well I will finish with an awesome spiritual experience we had yesterday. We were walking and I saw this guy. Kinda far away, so we kept walking cause we had somewhere to be. The thought came when I saw him that i needed to contact him, but I didn't. Then I thought, wait, I can't ignore this one. So I told Elder Phippen we needed to turn around. We found gold waiting to be refined! Probably  more like oil in Saudi Arabia and you just touch the dirt with a shovel and it shoots out! He had been to church about 6 years ago, and he has been telling his really catholic wife that they need to go to the Mormon Church. He doesn't want to go without all of the family. He wants everyone there. He said, "we'll help my señora repent" haha it was pretty funny. We helped him understand his need to change as well, and then the trust will come from his wife as well. It was awesome. Follow the Spirit!

Love you all! Have a good week. Thanks for your prayers! I pray for you all as well.

Love, Elder Naegle