Week 86 - June 15, 2015

This week was COLD. Its 5°C right now and we are always walking around in it. 

This last pday we went to BRAZIL! We ate lunch there with a member and then we went to visit another family afterwards. I was amazed because I can understand a lot! I cant speak fluidly at all but they can understand me! I just need to practice more! The Brazilians are awesome though. I loved the couple hours we spent there! 

This week we gave two investigators a baptismal date!!!!! Valentina who is a daughter of a recent convert will be baptized at the beginning of July. Eliana is a 19 year old girl who will be baptized at the end of July! We are stoked about them and their progression! 

I did divisions this week in the 4th ward with Elder Eiker from California. I loved the divisions. We had some incredible lessons honestly! We made pancakes for breakfast and this spicy bean and rice thing for dinner. We ate well!!! 

One day this week we had a lunch that was in an area called Tamandua, which is 45 minutes away on a BIKE. It was a long way away. It was a beautiful ride though. We took the highway on the way there and we flew down for a while. On the way back we took a trail and had to cross a creek. It was super fun! I love adventures like that. 

This week the Copa America started. The work is hard when there are big games on. Its cool though because fireworks are going off a lot! 

Our area is awesome. I really like it even though its GIANT. Its super fun and we are always finding people. The people here are so nice here and we have a lot of members that love us! Thats probably the best thing about being ZL- having a AWESOME companion. 

Week 85 - June 8, 2015

20 MONTHS!!

This week flew by. We had a zone pday together, a zone capacitation and interviews with President Smith, which we had to prepare a lot for! I love being able to teach all of the missionaries in the zone! Its really super fun! We studied a lot of the Gathering of Israel, which I am absolutely loving now. We teach it as a lesson to members so they will help us more with the work! Interviews lasted all day. We got to the stake center at 8:15 in the morning and we left at 7:30 in the afternoon. They were great though. I love President Smith. I just wish I could spend more time around him to learn more! My interview went great though. Once again very short but so great. I just asked President how I could help others more. Seriously like every word he said in the interview was just to build me up. He is an incredible man.

We are killing it in our area. We have a lot of investigators now. We are finding people like crazy but sadly most of the couples need to get married, which takes time. There is a couple getting married on the 18th but they arent super excited anymore about getting baptized. We can hardly ever meet them in their house. 

There is a family that I LOVE! Hugo and Estefani are their names. They have two super cute kids too. They are very humble but also very generous too. They always give us something to eat when we go to their house. 

The Bueno family has two kids from Utah staying with them. They got here last week and will stay here for 3 months. Their father is from Mexico and their mom is from Peru. They speak pretty good spanish but they are learning a lot too! The boy Joshua is going to be 17 this month and is entering his senior year. His sister Jessica is 15 and going to be a sophomore. They have both gone to school here and had some interesting experiences with the kids there. They are super fun to talk to though! We worked with Joshua one day this week and he loved it! 

We talked with the stake president and thought of a stake activity that we are going to start this week. Its so the members will read the BOM more! For 15 weeks we will be reading 15 stories from the BOM. This week we will be studying 1 Nephi 4 for example. Halfway and at the end we will have a stake activity in which every ward will perform a story from the BOM in like a skit. Everyone here loves the idea and we will see how it goes! 

This week all of the elders in our house made a pretty crazy compromise so that we will be smarter when we get back and so that we can be the best fathers and husbands possible! I meant to bring it to tell you guys what I wrote but I forgot it... :) 

Artigas is awesome. I love it here! 

Week 84 - June 1, 2015

This week was crazy and awesome! 

Last Monday we made tacos and it was AWESOME! They came out way better than the last time! 

Monday night we left at midnight to Montevideo. We had an 8 and a half hour bus ride and then we went to the leadership counsel. We were there for the whole day and we left at 6:00pm to head back to Artigas on a 9 hour bus ride. It was a LONG day. The meeting was SWEET though. Especially because Artigas is doing the best out of all the zones in the mission!!!!!!! We got to stand up and explain what we are doing in Artigas and what we plan to do to make it even better! It was super fun! I got to see some great buddies too! 

Saturday was incredible. We call it "game day" and its when we just visit investigators and find new people to invite them to church. We found 5 new people just on Saturday. It was incredible. We worked with 3 different members that day. It was awesome! 

We have a couple people that we are working with that are awesome. 

Hugo y Estefani are a young couple that are both awesome. They have two young kids who are the cutest things ever! I love them. They are going to church and they are planning to get married to be able to get baptized. They LOVE the gospel so muich though and its incredible! Thats what converts should be like! I love visiting them because they testify almost as much as us! Its incredible. 

We had a sick lesson last night with the Fukol Family. They are less actives but we just had like a scripture study with them. Nothing was super special about what we said but we just had the full help of the holy ghost which made for an incredible lesson! 

I bought a new Book of Mormon hard back copy just to mark where it talks about the Doctrine of Christ and the Gathering of the house of Israel. I am LOVING it so far and I am just in 1 Nephi 15! 

This week we have interviews with President Smith. We have to have a capacitation the whole day basically so we are planning already to be teaching ALL DAY! I am excited though. Its fun to teach a bunch of people! 

I love the gospel so much. I love the Book of Mormon so much and I know its true. I am so grateful to be a missionary and sometimes I dont even want to go home! I love it here. Thankfully we can ALWAYS be missionaries and always be able to help people know the truth that we know!