Week 45 - August 25, 2014

Hey Family and Friends! This week was crazy weather wise. Last monday I was playing soccer with the zone and dying from the heat. Now, we have a tropical storm that is here and we havent been able to stay warm or dry! 

This week I had a couple gifts for my birthday! I got a couple packages, letters, and gifts from families in the ward. The Maldonado family gave me gloves and a beanie that say Uruguay, and the Lopez family gave me a cake! 

This week we had 3 different opportunities to do service. Two of them were painting and one of them was to help move furniture. One of the beds we were moving was too big so the lady asked me to saw off a part of the head so it would fit. It was pretty funny and fun to saw a bed! 

This week we are going to be eating a lot by ourselves because we dont have very many lunches. This week was pretty great though. We only had two days that we werent given food and we ate lunch with the hermanas. One day we made Tacos and the other day we had Milanesas and rice. Both days we had cake from my birthday :) 

This week I was able to do divisions on Friday with our district leader. They were awesome. We had a great day and it was super fun to be able to see that I already know the area and people well. Its super cool to see how I have progressed as a missionary. I feel like I can teach pretty well now and that I can truly help people according to what THEY NEED. In the day of the divisions, we found a new investigator and had a lesson with him, we contacted a reference and we taught him, we got a lady who hasnt been to church in 30 years commit to coming to church this week and for the rest of her life, and we had a awesome lesson with our investigator Flor, who is progressing quite well. We taught Flor the Word of Wisdom and she committed to stop smoking! 

This week was Stake Conference at church. Our ward was in charge of the choir, and we had a whole 4 men participate. Lots of women though. Not a lot of people went to stake conference, but it was very good and fun to ride a big bus as a ward to Montevideo. 

This Monday was a holiday, thats why I am writing today! It also was the day of the strong tropical storm. We walked all day around with beanies, scarves, gloves, umbrellas, and basically all we had. We still managed to get soaked though because the wind blew the cold rain horizontal. Our pants and socks were drenched. One day I probably wont forget! Good to make those kind of days though right!? 

This week I have a couple people I want to talk about. 

First of all, I wanted to name all the people that are less actives, that came to church last Sunday! The Cualgia family, the Desalvo family, and Graciela. We are getting a lot of success with teaching the Doctrine of Christ to less actives and getting them back to church! 

Sonia, hasnt been to church in 30 years and committed to go for the rest of her life after the best lesson of the week in my opinion! That lesson was definitely guided by the spirit and I would say it went almost perfectly! 

Flor. Our star investigator! She is doing great. Reading the book of Mormon, praying, stopping smoking slowly but surely, and invites us over EVERY DAY. Its almost like she wants us to be in her house more than her family! She is super nice and loving. She always has hot chocolate ready for us and she calls me Yankee, and laughs every time she says it. 

Valentina is the recent convert from the area. She has had a lot of doubts lately and has decided she wants time away from church to think. 

Noemi and Juana we have been teaching for a while, but this week, Juana told us that her son told her she cant listen to us anymore. That was pretty bumming after seeing them be so happy every time we visit! 

We had a hard week, but we are still having success. I am doing great and we feel pretty blessed! Thanks for all your support and love! I miss and love you all a ton! 

Week 44 - August 18, 2014

Another week in San Fernando. Quite a crazy, odd, but good week! 

Monday we had couple people planning to go play soccer with us for pday, but we ended up just getting to montevideo and 4 people showed up. We went to a local chapel and played pool and foosball for the day. It was actually super fun. Then we had a FAmily home evening with the Desalvo family. They had a friend over, who is named Flor De Liz. We talked a lot to her and she was super interested in us and what we do here. At the end of the night, we had full bellies, a couple good laughs, and a new investigator!!!!!!!! 

On Tuesday we had probably the best zone conference that Ive ever been to, in terms of what we learned. We talked about converting yourself, the young rich teenager (joven rico and I dont know the right translation) in the bible. The story is in Mark 10 or 15. I cant remember exactly. We talked about the law of sacrifice and the law of consecration and the difference of coming to and following Christ. It takes a lot to come on a mission (Come to Christ), but it takes a lot to be a Consecrated Missionary, someone who leaves EVERYTHING behind, does EVERYTHING you can, and gives EVERYTHING you can to help the Lords work to progress. Awesome conference. 

Today is HOT but besides today, its been pretty darn cold. I gave Elder Morales a couple winter things because he was dying, but we are doing good now. One night in particular, we were out and we were about 40 minutes from our house. We had been out for a while and it wasnt cold, however, a quick storm came in with crazy cold and strong winds. The only things I had were a sweater and scarf. I also remembered that I have the power of prayer constantly, something that we always teach people. We put it into practice and we said a simple prayer asking the Lord to not stop the winds, but help us stay warm and not get sick. Literally we walked less than 10 more steps and I was WARM. I havent had a ton of crazy experiences with prayer, but I KNOW that it was the Lord that helped me, through our faith and trust in a small prayer. (We never got sick either)

Leticia and Luis. They are a family that only the dad is a member, but inactive. They have been having a lot of doubts and we have visited them a lot lately. They told us one night that they wanted to talk to us and teach us the lesson this time. We listened to them and all their doubts, answered all their questions, and we decided to stop by every two weeks or so to see how there are. 

Valentina, the recent convert from this year, had a rough week too. She has had a lot of doubts about the church and its basically because she was offended a couple of times. I have learned a lot about how to be a good member and how to ALWAYS support people. 

Claudio and Karen are a couple that we found this week too. Claudio is a member who hasnt been to church for a while. His wife, Karen is not a member. They are married, and they just moved here a while ago. Claudio is a firefighter in Carrasco, which is about an hour and a half away. He has trouble being able to go to church now but he committed to go next week, because work permits him to. 

One day this week we had two lunches. We have three meals a day and snacks in between from generous people. I will get fat here, even though I walk MANY kilometers a day. 

Oh yeah, my birthday was this week. It felt like a normal day and I dont feel much older though, haha. I woke up and opened two packages that I have received, from my parents and my grandparents. Thanks so much by the way, they were great packages. I have 3 cakes to bake now. :) Today was the dia del niño also. Its literally the day of the child. Just like mothers day or fathers day, but for kids. Church was full of candy wrappers and everything else good for you. I just got assigned to play piano in church, which will be fun. I actually really enjoy it now, and I dont get as nervous. We had choir practice after church, practicing for stake conference this week. I am the only bass that showed up, and it was hard not to get upset with people that dont understand music. I enjoy singing a lot now though. I didnt get any special cakes from anyone from church, but I got a couple nice cards, phone calls, and emails from friends from home, the mission, and members in Uruguay. The Hermanas in our ward told a ton of people and they got me a couple snacks and a nice card. Everyone in church was saying happy birthday to me. It was super fun. 

This was a pretty good week, and I love that all my problems now are with people that are in my area. Its really cool to be able to come unto Christ and try to follow Him every day as his servant. We are leaving everything behind to be able to help other people and bring the world its truth. I love that I can be a missionary and I am super glad that I get to spend my whole year as a 19 year old kid serving in Uruguay. Yeah I am still a kid! I am not sure I want to grow up yet! I am loving that I can get to spend all day smiling, helping people stand up, walk, learn more about Christ, and help them change their lives for the better. Its a beautiful work and I know that its guided by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Eternal Life will be the "greatest gift of God" but the spirit world will be pretty awesome too, being able to preach the OBVIOUS truth to everyone else there, for who knows how long! 

I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!  

Week 43- August 11, 2014

This week has been quite a week. I have really realized how much I LOVE THE MISSION! I also realized, the very first day, how calm life is outside of the office. Its nice to be at home at 10:00 and not know what to do. I really missed walking and teaching all day long, but I have sure made up for that last week. We have had a couple mornings that are HARD. We have a Giant area and we walk just 15 minutes to get to the area from our house. One morning, we were out from 9:10-12:30 without stopping to sit down. Lessons falling through isnt fun. One night, we were on the opposite side of our area and it took us an hour to get home from our last lesson. I have worn the same pair of shoes since day one of the mission, now they have gone about 10 months. This week, I got a hole in the sole. I feel very proud of it actually. I havent shined the shoes for a month now and I want to wear them until I cant anymore. They will be my shoes that I will keep as a memory.
This week we had service that reminded me of working with my uncle Josh about a year ago. We were cleaning and moving furniture in a less active families home. I felt like it was an abandoned home and no one lived there, just trash was thrown. I cant wait for you guys to come see this beautiful country :) I have also gone back to 100% Spanish, which I really like actually. I just live with my comp, and I learn a lot just by listening to people. I feel like I will better my level of understanding here because a lot of people are very poor and they dont speak well, due to lack of education.
The bad part of the week, I have had stomach problems of some sort since Friday, and its still going on. I have thrown up, and been to the bathroom way too many times. I am not exactly sure what happened but I think its the water. We will see and hopefully it will be gone by next week. On Saturday morning I woke up and I had the throw up feeling at 12:00. I took off sprinting down the hall to the bathroom, but I didnt make it. That was the first time I have had to clean up my own throw up. That was an experience I wont forget. I sure missed my mommy that night.
I mentioned the cold, and I mean its cold. Our area is long and narrow, right down 2 parallel highways. Its cold, and windy. I have worn my giant jacket everyday and I have worn my scarves for the first time. Now they are my best friends. 

Lunches in this area are bomb. We have lunches like every day of the week that we ask, besides Monday and Tuesday. Craziest thing I ate this week was OCTOPUS. Yeah. It was actually pretty good. Its a very soft textured but tough meat. ACtually pretty good, too bad my stomach hasnt been happy with anything. 

We have 105 that showed up to church this week. I am the lucky one that gets to play the piano though! That is something that I have gotten to do in every ward or branch now where I have served, despite all of the whining and yelling, I am glad that somehow I kept practicing piano until I did. I wish I was a lot better though. 

The work in San Fernando. WOW! This is where I get really excited. I heard great things about the area before I came, but I saw the numbers every week of what they were accomplishing and it wasnt much at all. In week one, we have made a good start. We found 4 new investigators this week, Worked with members EVERY SINGLE DAY this week, and had about 20 lessons. The week before I got here, San Fernando had 6 lessons and no new investigators. I AM EXCITED!!!!!! You guys, the mission really is awesome. 

Familia Lopez. Okay this family is pretty awesome and they have a crazy story. 

First off, Hermana Lopez, the mom has cancer and tumors throughout her throat and lungs. She is a mother of 5 kids, two who live at home that are about 5. She has a daughter who is named Lucia, who is 16 and pregnant. Lucia is a member, who was baptized when she was 9 years old. Hermana Lopez was just called as Gospel Principles teacher this week. We had two lessons with both of them this week. The first lesson was with just Hermana Lopez, she told us her whole story, and we shared a scripture story, which I forget what it was now. I felt the spirit super strong in the lesson and she actually cried during the lesson, when I was speaking. That was the first time that someone has cried when I was teaching. It makes me feel like I really am helped by angels. Then she told us about her daughter, Lucia who is 16, pregnant, and living with her boyfriend. She thought that we were good elders and that we should go visit her and see if now was her time to come back to church, now that the pregnancy has opened her eyes a bit. We visited her the next day and had a great lesson with her in the home of her boyfriend. We havent met the boyfriend yet, but thats a goal we have. We decided we should meet the next day at her moms house after a good lesson. The next day, we met with Hermana Lopez and Lucia in the house of HErmana Lopez. We taught about the Book of Mormon, just like we would to investigators. It was a GREAT LESSON. Super strong spirit and it was really cool to be there and be teaching. They were both crying at the end of the lesson and they testified that they both KNOW that this is the true church and they want to be together forever with their whole entire family. I loved Hermana Lopez`thoughts because she said she was grateful that Lucia has this opportunity to be a mother and start her own family and raise them in the gospel. Then Lucia shared her testimony, which was amazing. She said she knows that this has all happened for a reason, and she has learned a lot from her mistakes. I am super stoked about them. They are great!!!!!! 

THE MISSION IS THE BEST! I cant believe Ive almost been here for half my time! Shoutout to my boys Elder Opfar, Elder Mott, Elder Loertscher and Elder Argyle who are just being blessed to START their mission! 

I cant wait to tell you how this week goes! I love you all! Have a wonderful week! 

August 4, 2014 - Week 42

Fernando & Joaquin

Okay I am writing my first letter out of the offices! I just got to San Fernando last night at about 11. This week, we had changes. They were super crazy. First of all, we had changes. We had a ton of more changes than ever before. I have no idea why. Then, we had 17 missionaries that had to travel to Argentina to be able to have residency here in Uruguay. The financers ran out of money, and we had an oro that came at a different time from the rest of them. The oros were awesome. Super great group. I slept with the oros and then went to the health test with them. I still hold the all time mission record for push ups and I did the most of the day too :) The health test was really fun to go to because it was just a long wait so I got to talk to all the gringos who were super scared, nervous, and excited about it all. I ate some awesome food too. 

On my last pday in the offices, we had to be at the Charla Fogonera practice for most of the day, so that was a blown pday. I had to go early too because I was in the groups for singing. My ward was super awesome with all my going away festivities. I got a ton of food, and our investigator Fernando gave me a new tie! It was super awesome. I felt like I have really got to know a lot of people and I can speak well enough to have good relationships with them now. 

The charla fogonera ended up AMAZING. We had a TON of people show up, although I dont know the exact number. There were a lot of emergencies and complications right before but it all ended up well. An hour before, we still couldnt get the projectors to work for the video portion. Also, we had a hermana who didnt feel good and couldnt hit her notes, and she had a solo. She rocked it though when it counted. Then when we were going through the final practice, there was a random song that a group put in that I have never heard before. President stopped the song in the middle and said we couldnt sing it because it wasnt good. So... With ten minutes before game time, we made a group and sang Nearer my God to thee. Its a very easy song, and it sounds awesome in parts. I sang bass, Elder Moffat sang tenor, which is funny because he is HUGE. Then 3 hermanas sang the alto and soprano parts. It sounded amazing though honestly. We sang acapella the last verse and it was SUPER AWESOME. Maybe I can somehow get it on video. Afterwards, I said goodbye to a lot of the people from my ward, and a bunch of the missionaries. Then we had to wait for a while.Then I drove my last time to my new house in Ciudad de la Plata. It is not a city of money, even though thats what it means. Its basically just like the interior part of the country again, which I have missed. My new house is VERY humid and gross, but I spent this whole morning cleaning just the kitchen, which looks a LOT better. The house is huge and its just two of us. Elder Morales is my companion. He was born in Mexico, but has lived in Italy for the last 14 years. He is very quiet, but a good kid. I havent been with him for a whole day yet, so I will have more about him to tell yall next week. I have heard a lot of good things about the ward and it will be fun to see how this week goes. I am excited to get out and work. I almost want to stop pday to get out and work! I have had the most calm morning that I have had in 6 months. Its crazy how crazy the offices are and how accostomed I got to the offices. 

I am going to miss the offices, but I am excited to be out to work all the time again. Let me tell you, it is pretty darn cold when you have to walk around all the time. Our area is huge too. We have to walk 15 minutes to just get to our area. We live two blocks from the church, super market, the cyber place, bus stop, and the hermanas in our ward. We have everything super close, but our area  haha. There are no investigators here right now that are progressing. I am interesting to met people and see how hard this is going to be. The Lord never said it would be easy though, he just said it would be worth it. 

I finished the Book of Mormon for the first time in Spanish this week. It was awesome and really cool. President Hinckleys promise I think is true for me, after reading it in a different language, I would consider myself fluent! 

This weeks highlight was definitely the charla fogonera, we had so many people there and the spirit was just so strong! It was a great manifestation and testimony builder of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, and the restoration of the gospel, through Joseph Smith. 

I hope everyone is doing great and I hope you all know that I love you more than you know! Have a wonderful week! 

Love Elder Cordy

July 26, 2014 - Week 41

Saturday Jul 19. Today was a fun Pday. One bad thing that happened was that we were playing futbol in the morning. I kicked Elder Teloma on the shin and we ended up taking him to the hospital because he couldnt walk. Everything should be fine though. We also shopped at a ferria today and we bought a bunch of cheap groceries and other funky Guayan stuff. We had a lesson about "despertandose en cuanto a Dios." I have no idea how to make that sound good in English so sorry about that. 

Sun Jul 20. Today we had ward conference. We had the biggest attendance that Ive seen in the 18th ward. It was 63 people. We had a weekly planning and numbers session after that. 

Mon Jul 21. Today was insane. We finished the bolsa super quick. We had to pick up hermanas from 3C and take them later. They all wanted to write their families. Then we had to wait for their food they ordered. We ran to 3C and told the hermanas to run to the bus. They walked, we drove to go park, and then we saw them missing their bus. They left an hour later though. Then we went to Hermana Smiths house, just thinking we would be there for an hour. Hermana Smith ended up taking us on a shopping spree. We had to get things for the mission but then she took us and had us fill up a cart of things we wanted from a big Tienda Inglesa, which is a big supermarket. Then she took us to Jean Vernier, a nice dress store. She told us to get what we needed. I told her I was doing great but she ended up making me get a tie at least. Starla helped me pick out a nice purple paisley tie. We then had dinner at her house. I felt like it was my birthday with grandma and grandpa! Hermana Smith is the sweetest woman. We actually joked later in the week that we should take her to get the packages out of customs, just because she would be so nice to people and they would give us the packages. 

Tues Jul 22. Today we had a practice for the charla fogonera. The financers had a miss communication with eachother and they ended up missing the big bus ride to the practice. The new financer was NOT happy at all. When we got back, it was all good though. We had a fun lesson with the Varela family later that nice. 

Wed Jul 23. Today we had quite a few visits and lessons, which was nice. I really enjoy just chatting with people. It really just makes missionary work fun! 

Thur Jul 24. Today was a bunch of running errands and then we had milanesas that were made of fish. That was probably the best fish I have had, but Im not a huge fish guy, so thats not saying a ton. We had a lot of lessons today fall through, but we have fun working now together, so its enjoyable. 

Fri Jul 25. Today we got the changes! I am headed to the Cerro Stake in Montevideo to the San Fernando ward. I will be with Elder Morales, who is from Monterrey Mexico. He is very quiet but I am excited. The area has not had success for a long time but I will see what we can do. Elder De La Cruz, who is from Spain but lives in Peru, will be the new secretary. 

I will leave the offices on Aug. 3rd after the charla fogonera. I will get to San Fernando late at night. So just one more week in the offices!

This week I have really recognized that I enjoy being a missionary. Its fun. We have a lot of good times. I enjoy Elder Castellanos, even though no one always sees eye to eye. We are always laughing and joking with each other. We enjoy lessons with people. We may not have had a baptism, and of course we could have always worked harder, but I love being a missionary and I am glad I am here! Of course I am excited to go work full time, in a huge area that has not had much success in the last couple years, but there is a strong ward waiting for me and I am ready to go help the members find their love for the gospel and missionary work!