Week 56

Dang.. I feel like I blink my eyes and it´s already the next week. Damon´s 2! I can´t believe that! I didn´t know all those people got married! Congratulations from Paraguay.. :D So yeah, another fast week! This week is gonna go by even faster! Maybe it should go by faster so I can hang onto my hair a little longer... 1.  So, when transfers come, do you think that you will be staying in Colonel Bogado?  Or do you think Elder Wilding will go or both or do you think you will be staying?  I know it is just speculation! Shoot.. I don´t know what´ll happen. I think Elder Wilding will leave, but at the same time, I could leave. I think he´ll probably leave because he´s been here more time than I. We´re like brothers! I´ll be sad if we get split up :( 2.  Did you have good interviews with President Callan?  It's your last one with him before he heads back home right?  I'm sure you are going to really miss him and Sister Callan! Yep, that was the last one! I´m really going to miss the Callan´s. President Callan is going to be a Apostle in a few years, just wait.. That guy´s a stud! 3.  Did you find some new investigators this past week? Yeah, but I don´t know how golden they are.. They´re great people but they gotta have their desires in the right spot to change. Not just to be able to "change religions" but to be able to receive an answer through prayer. If they don´t desire it, they won´t get it. 4.  Is your area still just sooo tough? It´s not killer tough, it´s just small and everyone is Catholic. "Hey, can we talk to you about Jesus?", "NO! We´re Catholic!! Otro día!" I don´t know.. Maybe I´m just having a trial of my faith. 5.  Do you have an interesting, fun, crazy story to tell us? I´ve got a spiritual one.. Holy Moly!! We met this kid named Jorge, he´s 17 (turns 18 next Monday) and he lives with his grandma, 2 aunts, an uncle, and like 3 cousins- they´re all Catholic. Jorge met the missionaries a little over a year ago and was about to get baptized but couldn´t because the grandma wouldn´t give him permission.. So Elder Wilding and I found him again! (thank you area book..) This kid´s a stud! He was kinda scared to commit to getting baptized because one of the missionaries here didn´t fall well with the grandma; I don´t know all the details, but she said no! Solo que tenía una falta de ojos azules ;D She´s like in love with Elder Wilding and I! She calls us her kids.. Anyways! So Jorge was kinda scared.. He has a testimony, he knows its true, so we invited him to pray right there. He offered one of the most heart-felt prayers I think I´ve ever heard. After praying and begging for about 3 minutes to know if him getting baptized was the will of the Lord, he sat there with his head down burried in his hands.. After about another minute he looked up at us. We felt the Spirit for sure, and so did he, so Elder Wilding and I were kinda antsy like, "Well?!" Then Jorge said, "Estoy listo. Me voy a bautizar." So we´re gonna have a baptism! 6.  What was your favorite experience that happened this week?   ^^ :D 7.  How is the work going? Its going pretty well! There´s a couple cities close to Coronel Bogado that are part of our branch.. Artigas and San Pedro.. There´s 3 people in each city that are ready for baptism! So we´re going to have a couple more baptisms this month! We were talking to our Branch President last night and he said that if all these people get baptized, and the men receive the priesthood, we´ll have enough people to have a chapel out here! How cool is that?! So the work is starting to pick up a little bit here. So when that happens, some of the families here will be reactivated and Bogado´s gonna be a stake someday! So we´re good to go for Skype next Monday at 3:00 pm Paraguay time! I don´t know what time that is in the US.. Sorry! I just checked, the computers here have Skype, cameras, and headsets! So tell the family to be there! The internet is pretty good here in this cyber so I think we´ll have a good connection! I just lost my train of thought.. Oh! My debit card expires this month.. My debit card from CapEd. What do I do? Big gulps huh? Welp, see ya later! I love you!! See ya next week! Elder Colby Dane Heiner NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Week 55 Colonel Bogado Spiritual Cigarettes!

What up y´all.. Not a whole lot here, it´s pday again. I feel like it was pday like 3 days ago and that I just wrote. Oh! I think we´ll be talking through Skype the 13th of May! I´ll keep you posted.. Our English Fast didn´t last as long as I thought it would- it´s just so much easier to speak in English! As for stories.. There´s a couple! A gay dude tried to steal my bible from me. I told us to come back and ¨share¨ with him and said, ¨te quiero¨ or, ¨I love/want you.¨ He was a super flamer. There was a lot more said, but I´ll keep it to the shortened version. Yesterday, there was a WHOPPING 19 people in church! 9 have to take a bus for an hour to get here. There are 3 men in the branch with the Priesthood, 5 counting us.. And the rest are women and children. We bought soccer balls the other day, so that was nice. We found some for like 30 bucks USD and they´re pretty sweet looking! Everyone stares at the 2 big white dudes kick their fancy soccer balls around at 6:30 in the morning. Everyone just stares at us here! It would be like a couple of big black dudes walking around talking to people in Melba all day.. Just to put things into perspective :D

Yesterday we went to walk to church with some of our investigators.. We got to their house at 9:00 in the morning and the lady´s son lives with her and 2 of her grandkids (ages 14 and 17).. Her son is like 28 and he works as a garbage man or something. So we got there at like 9 and he had like 5 friends over and they were WASTED. They could barely even stand up. Then her son came stumbling over to me and said, ¨Who´s gonna fight us?¨ I could have blown a bubble in his face and he would have fallen over. Then he was saying something about someone killing us. It was hard to understand him with how drunk he was. The mom told us to just come back later when he wasnt drunk, so we´re going back tonight. I´m sure he won´t even remember that we came over on Sunday. We have another investigator who´s gonna go out to the village and get us some monkey hands to put on keychains. We´re talking real monkey hands, tails too, that still have the tendons and everything.. They´re pretty sweet!

We´re helping another investigator to quit smoking so we made her ¨spiritual cigarettes¨. It was Elder Wildings idea! So we just took some little squares of paper and wrote some scriptures from the Book of Mormon on the inside and rolled them up like cigarettes! Then we made a little box to put them in and put pictures of Jesus all on the outside. Now when she has the temptation to smoke, she´ll just bust out her spiritual cigarettes! And stop smoking :D Scripture power. So its gonna be pretty awesome! We´re excited to see her progress.

I love getting the updates from Haley about the boys! They sound like they´re funny little guys. I can´t believe Damon´s already gonna turn 2! I remember waiting in the hospital all day and all night for him to finally be born. And I´m excited to meet little Rafe! Drake´s email gave me lots of excitement! Thanks bro! Also, the email from Cale!! (he´s still Elder Patterson to me.. weird..) But I´ll write you back, a letter! Don´t worry!

Alright.. I gotta go now. Dang!
Love you all!! Keep it hood.

Elder Colby Dane Heiner

Week 54

I don`t know what to put in the subject box anymore.. Sorry! We had another fast week! It flew by! I still feel like the time is going by faster and faster. Anywheys! Here`s the questions and answers.. 1.  Have you been able to scope out a good place to Skype on Mother's Day?  I think we can call you through Skype and it's cheap.  We might have to go that route.  Please keep me posted. Yeah I think so.. There`s cameras and stuff here, I`ll just have to download the Skype software. I think we`ll be calling the 12th- it`s a Saturday.   2.  Can you tell us more about you area?  Tell us what you are planning on doing today on your PDay?  Do you ever play soccer? My area is a small city.. There`s not a whole lot of people here. It´s probably the size of Kuna, that`s my guess. But instead of almost everyone being LDS, everyone here is Catholic.. And don`t want to listen to what we say half the time. We want to play soccer but we don´t have a ball! I want to buy one but they`re like 50 bucks. We want to go play soccer for our exercises in the morning to help wake us up and give us energy for the day. So we`re going to try to find a cheaper soccer ball today.   3.  Have you set up anymore outdoor movies like in Santa Rita? No not yet.. We don`t know anyone with a projector! I want to do one because there`s a really big plaza right next to our apartment and there`s always people there. So we`re still on the busqueda..   4.  Are you doing lots of service?  Painting any houses or helping with yardwork or anything like that? Yeah, we do lots of weedeating. Paraguay`s still getting the lawnmower figured out, it`s in its early development stages here or something. So everyone uses weed eaters to cut their grass (if they have any..) So yeah! That`s what`s been going on lately.. We found a couple cool families this last week; they`re gonna get baptized probably. So pray for our investigators! We`re going to have lots of success this week, we`re going to find people that are excited to hear about the Gospel! I`m tired of hearing the same excuses and getting the same results from people. We`re going to find the people who are ready for the Gospel! Not a whole lot happened this week.. Nothing out of the ordinary, no rats or giant cockrotches. Sorry! Ok, I`m not gonna lie, this week was pretty boring. Oh! We have interviews with President Callan on Wednesday! I`m pretty excited for that! I won`t be suprised if he`s an Apostle someday.. He`s a stud! Oh yeah, Elder Wilding and I are doing an English Fast.. We`re not speaking English to eachother, only Spanish! It`s kinda hard sometimes, but it helps a lot! I`m trying to remember what else we did this week but nothings really coming to mind.. I want to do a video for you still! Maybe I`ll do that today.. You asked if you could send me something.. IF you could, I would love some Alex Boye music! He`s a stud! You`ll have to go to mormon.org and watch his ``I`m a Mormon`` video.. Maybe some candy. And Peanut Butter.. and Mapeline.. por favor! :D Alright, I gotta go write President! Let me know how Maui is! Luckies!! :P I love you!! Elder Colby Dane Heiner