Whew! What a week!

As the title implies, we had quite a rough week this past week, and kind of humorous. It started off great. We had lots of lessons, and we have been starting to see some people who finally might be willing to make the changes in their lives to find out the truth that Heavenly Father wants to give them. Anyways, as we were about doing this, I got a little sick, but it wasn't too bad and I was getting better.

We had a zone conference on Wednesday with Presidente and Hermana Da Silva. They gave some GREAT talks and comments. Here is where we made our booboo. We had lunch together. The Zone had ordered these giant hamburger like things called bauros. They were very tasty and we continued with our week. However, my companion the day after got REALLY sick. He had diarrhea and everything. We stayed in the next day and I took care of him. We soon found out that our zone was getting sick and dropping like flies! The next day I wasn't feeling to well. I was working with another companion while mine and his were recuperating. We worked, and I started to feel bad. I got the bug, but not as bad as my companion. We had told some of the people we visited that some of the missionaries were sick. We began to think it was the food we ate on Wednesday. When we told them, they freaked out and said. "No No, you can’t order food from there. They put on old ingredients. It's not clean." So, this week almost our entire zone was sick from eating a couple of bad bauros. But don't worry. We're all feeling a whole lot better. We drank lots of water, and are now cleaning up after things piled up to do around the house, and we are going to work twice as hard to catch up for lost time.

OH one more funny story! It rained REALLY hard again yesterday. The holes in our roof were really bad and my companion-s bed got all wet. Thankfully my side didn’t have as many leaks. It was pretty frustrating, but also a fun reminder that the mission really is an adventure. Thankfully we don-t have any giant bugs like an Indiana Jones movie.....yet. Anyways, It-s hard to believe I’ve been here almost two months already! I have been growing a lot since I’ve been here. I am so thankful to be out here, though it gets really hard. I recently brushed over the verses in ´Doctrine and Covenants 89 about the oath and covenant of the priesthood. I-m going to work as hard as I can to magnify my calling and develop true Christ like love for everyone, even though it can be hard sometimes. At times, I still get a little homesick, but when this happens, I just work and remember why I-m out here.

COVENANTS

My new companion is Elder Painter from Texas. He has about a year, and he speaks the language VERY WELL. It's been really nice and I have to be careful not to rely on him too much when we teach. However, I have been improving a lot on understanding, which was a challenge for me at first. Now comes the next step. I can teach basic things, I just need to work harder on grammar so I can convey my feelings a little more clearly. Elder Painter is very knowledgeable in the scriptures, and though at first it was a little intimidating, we have had some really interesting discussions.

I gave my first talk in Sacrament meeting about baptismal covenants. I talked about what a covenant was and cited scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants. It talks about how blessed are those who keep the covenants they have made with the Lord. As I have been out here, I have come to realize little by little the importance of these covenants. They literally bind us to our Heavenly Father in the sense that we receive blessings in this life and have the opportunity to live with Him in the eternities. Elder Bowen in the last conference told us to ask those we talk to the "disturbing question" or "questions of the soul." Disturbing in the sense that they lead us to have a thirst to satisfy and answer the question that is burning within our soul. Who am I? What is my purpose here? Those are just some of the cliche examples, but really I think we take for granted sometimes how much comfort we have in knowing the answers to these questions. No matter what happens, we ALWAYS have a loving Father in Heaven, bound to us by our covenants and promises we have made with Him. I love that talk that Elder Christofferson gave last general conference about the comfort that our covenants give us. They are truly more powerful than we can imagine, made by the same power that created worlds without number.

An Awesome Goal

Guess what? We have our first confirmed baptism date set up! October 11. His name is Willington, and he is I think about 21 years old. He’s really awesome and has already come to church! He still has a lot to do before the baptism, one of which is quitting smoking, but we told he and his wife that if they read and pray, Heavenly Father will help them to quit. He is so cool. He loves to talk with us about home, and about gospel things. For instance, I showed him the pages in the back of the scriptures where all the pictures are. I showed him the ones of Jerusalem and of the sacred grove. He liked it and kept asking questions about where all these things happened. We’re so excited and continue to pray for him that he will follow through on this wonderful decision.
We had an awesome Zone Conference last week in Treinta y Tres with Elder Bowen of the Seventy. I don’t know if I have told you this, but we have a goal in the mission to baptize weekly. It is really bold. Presidente Da Silva shared his thoughts with us as well and shared D&C 4 with us. "The field is white, already to harvest". That seems an appropriate theme, especially since I have been studying about the Savior’s Parables. I find it amazing how much the world truly can be used as a symbol of the Kingdom to come. The simple truths of the Gospel can be compared to the simple truths of nature. I love the Savior. I love His teachings. It’s sad when we find those who are so overwhelmingly confused by how much the world has changed His simple pure doctrine. I am so happy to be here spreading His pure doctrine and gospel to fill the earth. I just love it! It is profoundly and deeply simple. It has been a little discouraging to try and start this trend, but the more I get into the work, the more I realize how possible and tangible this goal is. It’s not just a goal, it is a miracle. I know that if we continue to pray and work diligently, that we will find those ready and willing to accept the pure and simple message of joy and eternal peace.

Sleeping on the ....bus?

Well, It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been in the mission field for a whole month! I’ve been on a mission for three months! Time has really started to fly and I can already tell that I’m REALLY going to take Elder Holland’s advice to heart and enjoy every moment. I love this area, though at times of course it can be a Little frustrating. We have met some awesome new investigators this week, and continue to hope and pray for them to feel the spirit and come to Christ.

Anyways, now for the funny part. Some pretty funny stuff happened this week. As I have explained earlier to you all, we have an extension that is about an hour bus ride out of Melo towards the Brazil frontera. It’s only like 15 minutes from Brazil, so the people talk in a kind of Portuñol mix sometimes (Oh by the way, we met this guy on the street one day from Italy, and he spoke in like a mix of Italian and Spanish. It was pretty funny). ANYWAYS, we were on the bus, and of course as usual we were pretty tired. I was reading “Jesus the Christ” and my comp was trying to study, and well as usual, we fell asleep. This usually happens no matter how hard we try, but we usually wake up before Noblia. However, this time we missed our stop and Continued on to Aceguà. The good thing is that the bus attendant helped us out a ton and a bus was headed back the other direction and after a quick change we were headed back to Noblia. So yeah, that was pretty funny!

Also, I ate some pretty new and interesting things this week. We went to member/investigators house and ate something that was close to a Cow’s intestine and Hígado con arroz. I felt like Doug from that old cartoon Tyler and I used to watch! It was actually pretty tasty and I still consider myself fortunate that they usually eat pretty well here as opposed to the chicken feet Nate had to stomach. Especially since we eat every night at Abuela’s. She cooks the BEST food. Alfajores, Arroz con leche, pollo, etc… We’re going to make Gnochis today. I’m SO EXCITED!

My first change is already almost over (next Wednesday not this one). I have learned so much, and continue to learn a whole lot more. Keep the faith, and don’t forget to do your part to spread the good news.

Spring has Sprung

Well, it's getting pretty hot now. Winter is over, and spring is here, and it is very very humid! Seriously, like around 90 percent humidity. So, it's only like 80 degrees, but it's hotter than blazes!
Anyways, where to begin. I guess I'll start with that a lot of the mission reality has set in a little bit lately. A lot of our new investigators from last week flaked and they are kind of scared to talk to us again, so we are kind of back to where we started. However, throughout the course of the week we found a lot of cool new people who were actually very nice and open minded. We're going to try harder this next week to try to get our investigators to come to church and keep their commitments. That's the hardest thing to do. I guess we just have to show them why. Anyways, I've been learning a lot, and we even set a baptismal date for two people, a mom and a daughter named Ilaria and Mariana! They are awesome and they go to church when they can. She has another son who is mentally handicapped and has to get someone to watch him. Luckily, her daughter and her husband are members, and they have come with us a couple of times to teach them. We had an awesome spiritual experience committing them to baptism, but they think they need a little more time. We visited them again one day just to remind them to go to church, and I could just feel this peaceful spirit in their little dark cement home. They are awesome, and we continue to pray for them.

Let’s see, what else happened this week? Oh yeah! We went to Noblia last Saturday and we had to bring a box to the children’s activity, but we left it on the bus that goes to Aceguà! We had to wait for like two hours for it to come back to get it out (because we asked people for the times the bus came back and we got like three different answers…) Anyways, we got it back and no one found out, though we kind of still felt stupid… Oh well!

We visited a woman in Noblia whose name is Marisa. She has been a member for a while, but she had been a little inactive. When I came, she had started to go back to church a little more frequently. Over time, as we came back, she seemed a lot happier, and our discussions more focused on spiritual things. This last visit, she had been going to church every week, praying, and even, reading her scriptures. I was going to share a thought when she said, “I have a question, what does the spirit feel like?” My comp shared the scripture in Corinthians where it talks about the gifts of the spirit. She commented that she had read, and just felt happier. We told her that this was a gift of the spirit. It was neat. We talked for about 20 more minutes about it. The simple little commandments truly are the support for the larger things the Lord asks us to do. Those little “primary/seminary” answers like read, pray, go to church. It’s so easy. I only regret not finding this out earlier! Oh well, better late than never right? I am so happy. This has already been such a learning experience for me.

Hello from Melo!

It’s been a long first few days, but they have been some of the coolest I’ve ever had and I look forward of course to experiencing many more. I have an awesome trainer named Elder Castillo from Sacramento. He has been very patient with me and I have been trying my best to keep up with him and all the members and investigators names. It’s kind of overwhelming, but I know I just have to be patient. My Spanish is still improving little by little. The people of this area are a little harder to understand because they speak in kind of a Portuguese accent, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. I just got to “keep swimming”.

In addition to having an area in Melo, which is pretty big and takes a while to get from place to place, we have an extension in a little town only 20 minutes away from the Brazil border called Noblia. We go to church there every other Sunday and went there this past Sunday. It’s a small little farm town, but there are 100 members. However, they are all for the most part inactive or want nothing more to do with the church. There are about 20 more or less who come, and there are only about 15 that are there on a given day. It was a very interesting Sunday yesterday, but it was really awesome! We met and had the Sacrament regardless of how many people there were. It’s hard, but we are always trying to encourage the people to go back to church. I guess we’ll just have to keep at it!

Melo has a lot more regular members and about 4 wards. The chapel we meet in here is HUGE! It’s really nice, but it’s in the middle of this really poor neighborhood. It has been really humbling to see the way people live here. Though they still have what they need and I know there are plenty of people in the world less well off than them. It is amazing to see how they cope with what they have. I am so excited to get to know all the members a lot better.

One of the members is our landlady. We live in an extension of her house, and she cooks dinner for us , which is AWESOME! She is a recent convert, and she is so stalwart in her faith. Her name is Sonia, but everyone just calls her Abuela. She has the funniest attitude.

My feet have never been so sore, but I don’t even care! I’m so happy to be here! I’ve never been happier than right now. Thanks for all the prayers, they have helped A LOT!

Hello from Uruguay!

President and Sister Da Silva

Well, I’m here, and I don’t really know where to start. First off I guess, I’m safe and have a trainer. His name is Elder Castillo from California. He actually lives near Sacramento, which is kind of cool.

We’re in the bus station right now in Montevideo waiting for the bus that will take us to Melo, my first area, which is about 6 hours away… its really far out there! I’m so excited! Just a quick description of my area that my trainer told me. Lots and lots of cows (vacas). It is in the country side and it looks like its really gonna be pretty. The past few days have been very spiritually uplifting and I have grown so much in my testimony. I am so excited. I was so ready to leave the MTC, and now I am so ready to get to work.