Bekah was true to her word, and her last email was in Spanish.  I ran it through Google translate and this is what it popped out.  It’s not a perfect translation, as you can tell she talks about cigars and I don’t think she meant to!  But we’re close!  Here it is….

Che family

In honor of my dear Paraguay and all the wonderful people I’ve met in this time, I write today in Castilian and I hope everything goes well with Google Translate. Maybe use a little Guarani well. A michimi. 😉
First, thank you all for your testimony cigars. If there’s anything I’ve learned, is that a witness actually has a lot of power in our lives. It’s wonderful to share a testimony with others. In truth, it is a testimony to share. So my testimony has grown incredibly in the year and a half. So thank you for sharing what is of more value in their lives. It gave me much encouragement to keep working strong in these last days.
How quickly time passes! Like it was yesterday, I remember when my plane arrived at the airport. I was so nervous, but with much encouragement to serve the people here in Paraguay. During my time here, God has commanded me to many places where I have learned a lot from those who are our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. In each area, I learned more about them and the things that bring us closer to our goal of eternal life.
In Mariano Roque Alonso, learned of prayer-of how we actually talk to God and He really listens.
In Villa Hayes, experienced the ennobling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
In Loma Pyta, I realized that faith in Christ is a process of trust, act, and strengthen.
In Piribebuy, felt more strongly that God is our Heavenly Father literally and as their children, each has great potential.
In Streams and Estuaries, I saw literally every day that God is a God of Miracles.
In fact, it amazes me that a person can learn so much in such a short time. I feel like a different person, and I will be forever grateful for the moments we’ve been through, the people I’ve met, and the change that has taken place in my heart. My time here has changed me. As I prepare to leave here, I feel my heart is staying here. I’ll never be the same person. As I reflect on this year and a half I’ve spent, comes to mind my version of Mosiah 18:30.
¨ And now it came to pass that all this was done in Paraguay, yes, by the river Paraguay, on the Paraguay river immediately Chaco, yes, the Cordillera de Paraguay, the river Paraguay, the Chaco of Paraguay, how beautiful are to my eyes because here I come to the knowledge of my Redeemer, yea, and will sing praises forever. ¨
I testify with all the security of my heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior and Redeemer. He is the only way. We have to stand firm because it made Him And give us the strength we need each day. This is His work. Do not leave us alone if we are working on it with all we are. May we continue to be true and faithful for ever is my earnest prayer.
I leave an invitation, which let in English because I want to be very clear.

Here´s the invitation: testify. You have all testified to me with all your heart. Now find someone else who is seeking the truth and strength. Maybe it´s a less active member. Maybe it´s a friend that has questions. Maybe it´s somebody that you just met in the street. But find someone. And let your testimony have an effect in their lives. As they taught us in conference, even one simple line of heartfelt testimony can set into motion the conversion process for someone. You all have such powerful testimonies. And I know that as you share it with someone this week, you will feel your own being strengthened. I´ve been a witness to that time and time again. So… will you do it? I´m gonna ask how it went on Thursday, so I hope and pray that you are all blessed with an opportunity to testify before then. If you´re looking, you´ll find it. 🙂

Los quiero muchísimo. Gracias por todo su apoyo y amor durante este tiempo. Que pasen bien estos días hasta vernos. Vayanse a bendecir una vida hoy. 🙂

Pohayhu!

Hermana Pingel

Hello after another fabulous week!

It´s been another one loaded with awesome moments, investigators,
miracles, and delicious food. 🙂 But first things first… Richard got baptized on Saturday! Awesome, awesome little kid. He is 11 years old and his whole family are all members. They´ve tried to get him baptized a few times, but every time that they started preparations, something happened (a brother got in a moto accident, another brother went to jail… lots of stuff. Satan doesn´t like baptisms..) So really, it was a miracle that nothing crazy happened this week in their family! His parents have been pretty less active for a while,  but it´s been really cool to meet with his dad so much this week. He bore his testimony at his son´s baptism, and it was super powerful. He told everybody that he had been tried in his faith a whole lot and has started to falter in the faith but that he wants to start up again. He really does have a powerful testimony, it´s just that with all the trials, he´s lost sight of things. Richard is super solid and loves everything and has shown that he really wants to follow Christ. The last two Sundays, he walked to church all by himself when everybody else slept in. He was so happy to finally walk into the baptismal font. And he was just beaming when he came out. 🙂

We had an investigator go the the baptism yesterday and to church
yesterday and she absolutely loved it. Her name is Faustina and I love
her with all my heart. We actually found her on our first day here in
Arroyos. Right off the start, I knew that there was something special
about here. She said that she had always wanted to be baptized but for
some reason or another, she never has. She also told us  that ever since she moved here, she´s wanted to visit the Church of Jesus Christ, but didn´t know if she could just go in. We´ve just had a few complications in getting her to church over the past few weeks, but she finally went yesterday and absolutely loved it. We weren´t in there for Sociedad de Socorro (the jovencitas didn´t have a teacher, so they volunteered us… 🙂 so she went in on her own and she told us afterward that she helped out with the lesson- reading and explaining things- and she just had the time of her life. She wants to teach  Relief Society some day. 🙂 She´s super super awesome. A couple weeks ago, we had a family night with some member s and left the invitation to each write down on a piece of paper a goal for something that they wanted to change so they could come more unto Christ. A few days later, she showed us her paper with her goal- ¨I am going to be baptized so I can follow Jesus Christ and be cleaned.¨ So cool. She has really strong desires to make changes in her life. I had a good conversation with her over the phone last night (she was reminding me to talk to President Madariaga.. she wants permission to get baptized with 2 times going to church instead of 3 so I can be at her baptism) and she just expressed her desires to do what the Lord wants. ¨If he says no, I´ll just have to be patient. The thing is… I don´t want to have to wait!¨ I love her so much!!

On Wednesday, we had zone conference in Asunción which was absolutely wonderful. I feel like I always learn so much whenever we have conferences. There was a focus on using the Book of Mormon better and putting more of a focus on teaching better(and more often) repentance and baptism. We talked about how we shouldn´t teach the lessons with baptism as an appendage, rather, we should constantly teach baptism for the remission of our sins while teaching the lessons as kind of means to get there.That´s how the Savior taught. He focused on the steps that the people had to take. So this week, we tried to really put into practice all that we had learned and really put a focus on teaching, in every lesson, about baptism, directly from the Book of Mormon. And it was sooooooooo cool! Man, I love the Book of Mormon so much! It just teaches everything so clearly and powerfully. There truly is a power in that book. But by focusing on baptism with the Book of Mormon, there was a greater power felt by the Spirit. I truly felt guided by the Lord in the lessons as I was able to testify of the need of a Savior and of the simple steps that we can take to be able to be cleansed through Him. We were able to find some really cool people. We were also able to distinguish a lot quicker if people aren´t prepared to accept the Gospel right now…

(¨Whoa, whoa, whoa,

I´m catolico. I like to listen to the Palabra de Dios, but hasta ahí
no más…….¨) Basically, we got to know a great variedad of people
this week. (Funny story- there´s an old man in the cyber right now
trying to talk to us in english… And acting like a cowboy in a
draw…. and saying that he´s basically a big fan of us. I love being
a missionary. ) Anyway, I´m pretty sure we´ve given away roughly 20
copies of the Book of Mormon since Wednesday and I love it. It gives
us animo and it really opens up doors and sparks interest in the eyes
of the people.
To answer your question.. I´m actually doing alright with it all. I
think it still hasn´t really hit me yet. There are moments when I
realize that I do go home really soon, but it just doesn´t seem real.

It seems like a different life, a far away world. Maybe a little more
along it will start to hit me, but for now, I´m content to just keep
working and doing all I can in the here and now. I love the work, I
love my Savior, and I love love love seeing people come to know Him
even more from day to day. Basically, I love my life a whole lot. 🙂
Whelp, I hope you all have a wonderful wonderful week. Be good.
Remember who you are. Brush up on your spanish (next week´s letter may
or may not be in English. No promises). And most of all, go bless a
life today. 🙂
Pohayhu con todo corazon!
Hermana Pingel

Surprise change! We got caught totally off guard this last week with a big change… Hermana Petien is training in Piribebuy after just 10 weeks of being in the field! So cool! The first 19 year old in the mission, and she´s already training. Super cool to see how inspired President Monson was when he made the announcement last Octuber. I am now in Arroyos y Esteros, which is actually in the same zone as Piribebuy, and…. I´m training! Haha I was super super surprised because I only have one change left and the training program lasts two changes. But it looks like this last one is gonna be a blast… My companion is Hermana Whitmer from Toele, Utah, and she´s a fireball. She went to the MTC in Argentina and speaks really well already. She´s got a ton of animo to learn and to work and I´m excited to be working with her. Also, we´re like the same person…

We´re both fanatics of milk and cereal, she loves music, is studying to teach in elementary school, and she totally did pantomime in high school. Haha, we get along pretty well. We´re also opening an area for hermanas, which is super fun. It´s a massive challenge because the area has been on a bit of a down, so we´ve got six weeks to turn it all around. I do miss Piribebuy, but I absolutely love it here as well. The branch is really really little, but the members are great. One sister yesterday in her talk told everyone in Guarani that they all need to help us out and take good care of us. It´s funny- everybody is super worried about us all the time just because we´re the first hermanas after twenty or so years and they don´t want anything to happen to us. I think that their favorite topic to talk about is us… Haha I came across a group of three or four sisters in the hall yesterday talking in Guarani about who´s gonna show us around where and when and all that stuff. Basically, they have all made their way into my heart in a very, very short amount of time.

Mi-ra-cle: (Also see; tender mercy, grace, faith, signs) Extraordinary happenings caused by the power of God.

Who believes in miracles? This hermanita right here. Miracle Number 1: We put the goal this week to meet our daily goals each day. And up through Wednesday, we´d been able to do so.

Thursday morning, I woke up with my eyes hurting pretty bad. Well, we went out and got to work. We did come home after lunch so I could sleep and rest my eyes a bit. It´s kinda frustrating when I can´t even look at the people. Anyway, afterward, we went to work and decided that we´d work hard to meet all our goals early and then come home early.

At about 8 o´clock, all we needed was to find one new investigator- someone who accepts the baptismal invitation. We stopped by the house for something and then were gonna go back out again. But I sat down and just couldn´t bring myself to get back up again. As kind of a last resort, I said to Hna Petien, ¨Hey, let´s find a new investigator over the phone…¨ Haha desperate, right? But she took the idea and ran with it, looking in the Area Book for an old investigator that we could call up. She looked at one of the first registros that were there and asked, ¨Hey, who´s María Diaz?¨ And it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. María is a young single mother that I visited a couple of times with Hna. Quito. She´s super awesome and really likes everything. We stopped visiting her because she never did go to church. So I called her up to see how she was and to see if we could pass by sometime to visit her. She totally set up the appointment on her own and it kinda caught me off guard. So I asked her if she still has her Libro de Mormón and she said that she always reads it, especially when she has a rough day because it helps her a lot. So I asked her if she had thought much about the things we had taught her, particularly about baptism. She excitingly told me that she had and said, ¨Yeah, I really want to get baptized. I want to change.¨ Totally not what I was expecting. So I stammered out a ¨Not a problem. We can help you with that!¨ (Haha.. ´Ask the missionaries… they can help you!´) After I hung up, we just stared at each other, absolutely speechless.

Long story short, God sees every effort we make. He knows the desires of our hearts. And if we do all we can, He will make up the rest. That´s grace. That´s what I received all day long and it´s what we experienced that night. The Lord truly is in the detailes. It is His work. It´s not mine. I can´t do it on my own. I´m human. I have weaknesses. In fact, I could hardly function that day. But the Lord made up the rest. We just have to do all we can to meet Him half-way. And if we do all we can and can´t even make it that far, He´ll come to us. Every single time.

Miracle Number 2: For Saturday, we were planning 3 baptisms- Pedro(an hermana´s 14 year old grandson from Argentina), Blanquita (a 9 year old in the branch that, as it turns out, never got baptized), and Gabriel (an hermana´s little boy that just turned 8). Earlier in the week, we had talked with President Benitez about performing the baptisms because they all want him to do it. Todo tranquilo. But Friday night, Eligia(Gabriel´s mom) called us and told us that President said he wasn´t gonna be there on Saturday for the baptism. Uh-oh. We may have panicked a little. We simply didn´t know what to do. Especially because President hadn´t answered his phone all day. So we stopped by our house on the way to his house to pray. We quite literally just dropped to our knees and pleaded that the Lord would fix the situation we were in. We had done all we could. We had planned, prepared, prayed, made calls, done visits, and there was nothing else we could do but put it all in the Lord´s hands.

After praying, we went straight to President´s house and asked him if he was gonna be able to be there. And he told us that he had just barely sent a text message to Eligia saying that he´d be there and that he´d pass by to give them a ride in the morning. Wow. And just like that, my testimony of prayer was strengthened. God listens. He loves. He wants to help. All we have to do is humbly reach up.

Miracle Number 3: All week long, we had worked, stressed, prayed, and basically worn ourselves out to make things happen. Up until Sunday, we had reached all our goals, had talked with a ridiculous amount of people, and had learned to trust in the Lord more than ever.

In the very last lesson that we had on Sunday, we found a lady who was… super happy to see us clapping outside her house. Weird, but refreshing. Her name is Carmen, and as we talked with her, we learned a little about her story.. She lived in Argentina before, and her husband traveled a lot for work. He worked in a boat and went on long trips and so she never really knew when he´d get back. One day, she was pretty down because her husband had been gone for a long time and had recently advised her that they would delay even more.

She came across some missionaries that started to share with her about the Book of Mormon and the Restored Gospel. They asked why she was so sad, and she explained her situation. They promised her that in that week, her husband would return home. She said, ¨I remember well that not even three days passed before my husband returned home. Just like they said.¨ She loves the Book of Mormon. She said that it has helped her more than anything else. She went to church various times, but stopped when the missionaries suddenly stopped visiting her due to transfers or something. She was excited to accept a new Book of Mormon and to set up a time to visit again. And when we walked away, we walked on air. It was the last lesson.

After a week FULL of working hard to give everything we have, in the very last lesson, we found a person ridiculously ready to accept the Gospel in her life. And I got to thinking- isn´t that how God works? He tries our faith. He tests our obedience. He checks our diligence. And after we prove ourselves faithful, the blessings are showered down. I was in awe. We have truly been eyewitnesses to the goodness and the power of our God in this week.

These 3 miracles are only a portion of the hand of the Lord that we saw all throughout the week. It has been truly incredible. And I can now say that I know that when we do all that we can do, the grace of the Lord is sufficient for us. The question is simply if we will have the faith to see the miracles. That´s what I´ve learned about faith. It is, quite literally, the decision to see miracles in our daily lives.

I hope you all have a marvelous week, and that you all have the opportunity (and the faith) to see miracles every single day. It´s gonna be a good week! 🙂 I love you all! Go bless a life today! Hermana Pingel

P.s. Good news! We now have 2 hours to write to friends and family on p-days! Could you tell? I just wrote a novel… Now I don´t have to stress about time!