Another Great Week in Cuidad del Este

                                    The Temple!

At the Temple: Hermana Runnels (Utah), Hermana Alvarez (Peru) and Hermana Martinez (Guatemala).

                                 Elder Arévalo

Opening my package from home for my birthday at the temple was pretty awesome! With Elder Vinces (Peru) and Elder Christiansen (Salt Lake).

                                 My Birthday Cake

This past week was Super Good! The first thing that is most exciting is that we had 4 investigators at church on Sunday!! And they aren’t even related! Clotilde came for her third time, Francisco for his fourth time and Victor and Antonela came for their first times! They all really enjoyed it!

Cloti and Fran have their baptisms for the 12 of March. Pray for them, please! And we will set a date with Victor this next week!

This past week we had splits with Hermana Martinez and Hermana Nilson, and again with Hermana Woolf and Hermana Jackman.

When I was with Hermana Martinez we visited Clotilde. Hermana Martinez is from Guatemala and has only been a member for a year and a half. She shared her testimony with Cloti and, oh my gosh, the spirit was so strong! Like there were chills all up my arms and everyone was like amazed! After that Cloti had a lot more desire to follow the gospel as well.

Sunday she told me that she had plans to go somewhere with her aunt but that she didn’t go with her aunt because she wanted to come to church. She also told her friend that she could hang out AFTER the church meetings. She is amazing!

This was at our Noche de Hogar Guazu, the big Family Home Evening, in the ward, and that is Hermano Decio, who lives in the country club and studied for 14 years at Harvard Medical School, and Hermano Sosa.

This past week we had Consejo with the leaders and President. It is always amazing!  This time we had it up here in Ciudad del Este!

We are studying three talks by Elder David Bednar: Seeking by Faith, Converted unto the lord, and Ask in Faith. These are amazing talks and it had made me really think about myself and the type of missionary I am and what my investigators need. I encourage you all to read them and take them to heart! We are reading them to prepare for a South America transmission from Elder Bednar this Wednesday!

I was sick this weekend. I think it was food poisoning, or just an over load of grease and chicken and salt. They use a lot of that... but now I am feeling better!

And yeah, a lot of people here have dengue so we are putting on a lot of repellant and a lot of prayers!

This past week we had a lot of very spiritual days and lessons! Hermana Pitts and I are doing great! This past Saturday she finished 9 months, so half way! So to celebrate for the both of us we took a pregnant foto and we burnt a skirt; it’s weird. Why these are traditions, don’t ask me!

9 months!

My 9 months! And the skirt I burnt.

My skirt in the process....

My skirt after getting burnt... haha

We also got a Mcflurry from McDonalds and fries! Today we had Pizza hut, and it is an all you can eat, haha. Yeah, Paraguay is sweet! Life is going really well. We’re super busy. There isn’t enough time for everything but all is well! Hey, am I getting fat? haha

I love you all!

Hermana Newell

For my family:

Oh, my gosh, I am so excited and happy to hear about Jon’s mom. That is honestly a miracle. I’ve been praying for her, and I’ll continue to do so! The family that lost their son or daughter, I’ll be praying for them too! God really knows what he is doing. It is hard and was very hard to lose Sarah, but also it is amazing to feel what it is like to have someone gain a new life as well!

Ascencion, Sushi and a Bus Ride

Weekly letter!!! Ciudad del Este Barrio 1 [First Ward]! 

So this past week was amazing. These past few weeks have been so good. They’ve been really hard because we started out not knowing anyone, anywhere or anything. It´s all new but I feel like the missionary work right now is exactly what it really should be. We are finding so many people and teaching so many lessons. The spirit has been so strong and Hermana Pitts is just amazing! 

Clotilde and Francisco came to church again yesterday! Francisco has now come three times and Clotilde twice! Tonight we are going to set a date for Clotilde. And Francisco has said that if he receives his answer, he will be baptized! 

This past week we had splits with two of our sisters, Hermana Jackman (Utah) and Hermana Woolf (Mesa, Arizona). They both came to our area and we all worked here. Hermana Pitts and Jackman found a girl, Jessica, who said that she wasn’t happy and she wanted to be. She said that they looked happy and asked how she could have that happiness. They testified of the gospel. We went back to visit her on Saturday and she is amazing. We will see what happens. (: 

We have found a bunch of people and taught lesson 1, the Restoration of the Gospel, and so this week we are going to go back and see if they have prayed and gotten their answers to the truth. It’ll be great! 

Since I have been here I have been eating seafood and chicken. The members started giving me chicken and I felt bad to say no, so now I am eating it. But they know I don’t eat red meat. Yesterday we ate sushi, and salmon. It was amazing. It has been like ten months since I’ve eaten sushi!! 

So this past Monday and Tuesday I was in Asuncion for tramites (sorry, not sure how to say it in English) [visa paperwork] and we got to go to the Temple!! It was just to take photos outside but it was gorgeous! We then ate food and I got this Arabe falafel wrap-- it was awesome! And we got Burger King milk shakes, haha.

But dude, the ride back was the best, haha. (Keep in mind that this was my birthday!)

So it is like a six or seven hour drive. We were sitting down in the bus and about a half hour into the ride the person who works there asked Elder Johnson and Christiansen if they would go downstairs and sit in some “special seats” so they went down. Then he asked if Hermana Martinez and I would go down and join them. So as we go downstairs we are thinking that these must be real nice seats, right? Well, he leads us to where the driver is and as we turn the corner we see Elder Johnson and Christiansen sitting on little tiny wooden stools, like crunched over and super uncomfortable.

There was a really small bed and one seat. So Hermana Martinez couldn’t do it and she went back upstairs. Hermana Runnels came down. So for about five hours I was sitting and squished on a tiny bed and the elders on wooden stools... and it was like 102 degrees. Not joking, like 42 C! The last half hour we got real seats again, haha. We are definitely in Paraguay. That was the story for this week; lovely birthday!

Yesterday, Sunday, we had a special youth missionary fireside. The elders from our ward and Hermana Pitts and I talked about the missionary work and encouraged the youth. It reminded me of when I was a youth and listened to things like that and now it is me that is talking. How weird!!

It seems that most of the American missionaries are in Paraguay. I don’t really know why. We have eight Hermanas in our zone and only two of them are Latinas! I feel like I’m in the states again with all of them. It´s really weird! 

My Portuguese is coming along. Everyday I learn a new word but my spelling is awful so I’m not going to write it for you right now. I know how to say, “I speak a little Portuguese,” and some other things. It´s really fun. I’m learning some Guarani as well! Mishimi no mas means “a little bit” in Guarani. 

Life has been great. We had a zone activity today. Tomorrow we have splits with Hermana Nilson (Oregon) and Martinez (Guatemala). 

I forgot to bring my camera today but next week I’ll send pictures! 

Love you all! 

Hermana Newell

Coke and I received this email from the “sushi” family:

Hi Sister Newell:
We are Family Rolim, your daughter (Sister Newell), had lunch with us today. We served Sushi and Yakissoba. You can see by the photos that they enjoyed it very much. She is very happy here and she is doing very well.

Best regards,
Family Rolim
Enviado desde mi smartphone Samsung Galaxy [sent from my smartphone Samsung Galaxy]

Things are definitely different in Cuidad del Este.