week 21

Dear folks and friends,

We have had another excellent week. This week we fasted with Malaquìas to help him to feel the comfort and courage he needs from the Lord to take the step to be baptized. He was really excited about it and I think we will see some good results from that. We also have a new investigator called Laura. She was on the point of being baptized about a year ago and she is really interested in listening to us again. Our investigator Luìs Told us that he would be willing to quit his Job in order to be able to keep the sabbath day and be baptized, It is Just that he is fifty two and has done nothing but take care of race horses his whole life so he needs to be able two find a new job. That takes a mountain of faith. I don't really know what to do besides pray.

It got significantly cooler this week. I am excited for winter because it is more adventurous and I look good in winter clothes. We did a lot of walking this week, and because I had eaten a bunch of choclate it kind of destroyed my body. I decided that I need more protein in my life so i got some powdered milk. I realized that it is the same stuff they put on the outside of cheese puffs. I felt simutaneously proud of food science and engañared. I also put powdered milk into fresh milk. It was amazing, like milk flavored milk, double milk. I would recomend.

We are at a temple conference in Montevideo today. I am pretty excited because it has been 6 months since I went to the temple and I could use the spiritual revitilization.

Have a great week

Elder Christensen

Attachments are

week 20

Wow everybody I can't wait to tell you about some of our investigators.

One of them is this this guy named Malaquìas ( That's spanishyol for Malachai) His has been taking lessons from the missionaries for months now and has a super strong testimony of basically everything and has had a number of baptismal dates but they keep falling through because he wants his family to join him but they are not interested and that makes him feel lonely. He is kind of old and really smart and loves to learn things and talk all day about them. He reminds me a lot of Victor from back in Lomas.

We have this neighborhood outside of our regular area called Hippodromo because it has a hippodrome and the hermanas messed up and went proselyting there and found this guy named Luìs who was really excited to get baptized this saturdau and we have been teaching him. The problem is that he works taking care of horses for this guy and his boss threatend to fire him because he had been going to the church on sunday morning instead of to work, so we are not sure what to do about that. Suggestions are appreciated.

The sunday before last we had a fast with all of the members in the mission to be able to find the people write now who are prepared to be baptized and I think it is working. On thurday it was raining really hard, and we went to this future investigators house as a back up plan, and the lady named Eh del Vina, let us teach her and she said that she had been waiting for us to pass by and recognized that we were sent by God, and we taught her about prayer and the restoration, and she understood everything really well and liked it a lot and agreed to be baptized on April eighth. Crazy stuff.

I got my hair cut last week. First time in my life that I have ever gone to a barbist. He did a pretty good job but not as good as dad does it.

Today I complete 6 months. It is like I just got done with the first lap of the mile race. To celebrate we went to this little pueblo that is in the zone leaders area and right on the border of Brazil called Aceguà. We went to buy important supplies cheap, like brazilian choclate. I saw a lot of guachos. I would like to be a gaucho. And also learn portuguese.

I couldn't check the pictures today but I am pretty sure they are

1) Me in Brazil

2) Me and Elder Cortez taking an epic selfie

3) La Frontera

week 19ish

Good Morning Everbody!

Wow a lot of stuff has happened this week. I think I will just start from the beggining. I spent My last day or so in Lomas packing and saying goodbye to some folks. It was kind of sad to say good bye to Victor because I will probably never see him again, but he made us chileno completos to say good by. Let me tell you I used to never like hot dogs but they do them right in south america. In the morning a van picked me up to go to tres cruces bus terminal where got on a bus to Melo. It was pretty great because I got to sit on the top floor right in the front where there is a window to give a panoramic veiw of the countryside. Uruguay is so beuatiful I almost wanted to cry a few times. A lot of it looks just like kentucky. A lot of it looks nothing like Kentucky. I saw a number of ñandu on the way, which are like emu but not. I think they are the largest bird in the americas.

It turns out my new comp Elder Cortez is actually from Beni, Bolivia, so Elder Caudle was confused. We get a long really great, mostly because he is hard working and pretty funny and we think a lot a like. He has 13 months on the mission, so about halfway through. I like my new house as well. It has two stories and separate tables for studying and eating which is a nice change of pace. The only problems are that there are bedbugs in Elder Cortez's matress and also I am taller than most of the door frames so I keep hitting the top of my head on them. Our area, Colón is the most urban part of Melo, so we have the center and stuff. It is quite a change because there are actually a lot of stores, and food carts here and things like that. I have had some really good food. Lechón is great except for the foot and the little hairs. Uruguayo mexican food is actually less mexican than american mexican food, or even tex mex. It is fig season here, so I get to enjoy sweet of fig. It is divine with ice cream.

We have a number of investigators and people to teach. Folks here are more receptive so it is a nice change of pace. Two of our investigators have baptismal dates but we will see what happens.

The ward is also pretty good to us. There are about 100 active members, and 400 inactive members, and Melo isn't that big. We have some work to do. I got to present myself in church on sunday but it was kind of ugly because I need to talk more slowly and think about what I want to say. We also have a tomato garden in the little outside space behind our house.

Well thanks for listening and have a great week.

Elder Christensen

1) Me with my eyes closed, Elder Cortez, And brain damage waiting to happen

2) A horse

3) some campo

Week 18

Compatriot Human Persons,

Well I have now spent a full three changes in Lomas de Solymar and I am being transfered. I am going to the city of Melo to an area called Colón. Para que sepáis Melo is way out in the campo close to Brazil. It is pretty much the farthest away you can get from Montevideo in the mission, like an eight hour bus ride so I will probably get there late tomorrow night. I am going to be companions with this guy called Elder Cortez. Now you might be thinking "Wow he is finally going to get a Latino comp and learn spanish" but think again. Elder Caudle who was in the offices as a financier and knows everbodys account history says that his first name is Jason and he is from Americaland. There you go. He might be wrong though so we will see what happens.

We got a new investigator this week! It was just this woman we talked to in the street a few weeks ago named Judith. We passed by her house last week and she let us in to teach her. That was a huge surprise and relief. I feel good about that. We did an epic contact this week. We were just walking down the street when all of a sudden I saw the form of a large beautiful friendly red canine creature in somebody's yard. I thought " Could It be?" I walked over and patted its head. I realized that yes it was! I rang the door bell. A woman walked out. I said excuse me but your dog is a Rhodesian Ridgeback, and I adore Rhodesian Ridgebacks. She responded oh yeah they are the best dogs ever they are so friendly and kind and attractive. ANd I said yeah they are I totally need to find one when I get back to my country. By the way  have you ever talked to missionaries? Yeah but I don't believe in anything. I love this country.

We have spent the last couple of days going around saying goodbye to people. That is kind of sad, but lomas will be in good hands. Well I love you guys, have a great week.

Lagomorph of the week: Liebre

Quotable quote of the week: ¡EEh Che Vos Washington! Nos vemos.- Hermano Soba

1: Me enjoying the color yellow

2: Elder Caudle, like most people, not enjoying the campo as much as me

3: Me despediring myself with zone leaders Valqui and Mcmillan

week 17

My dearest friends and relatives,

Well this week has been really interesting in that because we really only have twoish investigators any more and for a number of other reasons we didn't get to do a ton of teaching, but that is alright because It has given me opportunities to work on other skills like not getting disanimated. Ha. But that reminds me of a comment someone made this week that Uruguay really isn't a South American mission, it's a European mission pegged on to South America. That is a pretty good point, but there are still obviously a lot of diferences between here and Europe.

This week I got sick for the first time! It was pretty fun. I woke up and started throwing up and couldn´t eat any thing all morning, but then we went to lunch with this Hermano and he gave me some sort of science potion that made it so I could keep stuff down, so after drinking one point two five liters of red gatorade I was able to leave and work in the afternoon. It rained on us but that was allright because there was this giant epic rainbow that was double for a while. I think that was probably my favorite part of that day. Then what happened is that Elder Caudle started throwing up in the middle of the night that night, and he ended up a lot worse then me, or maybe just a lot wimpier, so we were stuck in the house all day.

Elder Caudle bought a super man comic book as a souvenir for his uncle because he leaves in a few months, but the thing is that it was translated in Buenos Aires so the whole thing is written in Vos form. It is a beautiful thing.

Something that I have noticed is that if there is somebody who needs a job or more work and they start listening to the missionaries they are swiftly blessed with a good job or a ton of work so that it becomes difficult to schedule a teaching appointment. Not really sure how that happens but if you are a non member and you need a job you might want to consider that job hunting tactic.

Quote of the week: ¿Qué me decís Bert? - Clark Kent

1) me hanging out with Ronnie and Phil

2) The first time I ever solved a rubix cube by myself

3) the second time I ever solved a rubix cube by myself

Vamo Arriba La Costa Peñarol Uruguay !!!!!

Week 16

Happy February!

Well I don't really have a lot to say this week. I guess the first thing is that today I hit my five month mark! Exactly five months ago in september I was probably on a plane somewhere over the gulf of Mexico. That means that in another month I will be a quarter of the way done with the mission. Crazy stuff. Crazy crazy stuff. Also this week on wednesday is my mom's birthday. If you see her, wish her a happy birthday. The weather this week has been much cooler. You can actually go outside and it is nice and you don't feel like surviving untill the end of the day will be a miracle. I don't think that is an end of summer trend though, it will probably get really hot again soon. As far as missionary experiences, this week we were teaching this 79 year old español named Manuel, the plan of salvation, and he was telling us how he didn't want to take more of our time, and we said " just one more thing" and we bore our testimonies about how in God's perfect plan families can be together forever, and then it got really quiet, and the tone of the room changed, and he started showing us pictures of his wife who died in her fifties and thanking us for coming and taking the time to share things like that with people like him. Pretty cool stuff.

This week I tried Celestial Mate for the first time. More on that later. I also filled a Mate with cocoa husks and drank that. It was pretty amazing, but don't put sugar in or the yummy bitter cocoa will fight the sugar and it won't be very good unless you use milk to moderate the flavors. I want to throw out a peice of advice to anyone preparing to go on a mission. Spend as much time as you can developing your skills. I have observed that almost anything can be used in furthering the mission work in some way, art skills, music skills cooking skills, lo que sea. I feel like the only skill I brought to the mission is willingness to walk ten miles a day every day, but we aren't called to walk we are called to teach repentance and baptize converts, so it would be cool to have some other skills as well. Enjoy the end of winter and I will enjoy the end of summer. Bye.

1) Celestial mate- Step one: fill the mate with shredded coconut and cinamon. Step two: pour in sugary milk. Step three: achieve nirvana.

2) A couple of Mormons I took a picture of.

Week 15 or something

Eh, Che Vos, ¿cómo andás?

Well I hope. Wow it has been quite a week. I feel like we just did a ton of things but then when we tallied up our key indicators last night they were kind of low. Just have to do better next week. We had a three zone conference in carrasco this week about working with the members in the unit where you our serving it was pretty revolutionary and We learned a lot. Afterward we had interviews with President Eddy. This time I came prepared with questions written down. He is a super great guy who really cares about all of the missionaries, so he was able to answer my questions really well. Then we had divisions in the zone leaders area until Monday morning so that was like half of our week right there taken up. Me and Elder Caudle have been trying to get the ward animated to accelarate the Obra Misional. We are having a lot of Ideas, and I can see the boulder just starting to roll forward. The best part was this sunday in fast and testimony meeting  when a lot of people bore their testimony about sharing the Gospel. We had our recent convert Victor, who is probably the coolest 70 something Chileno that lives in Uruguay, Share his conversion experience, and it was super special because everything got really quiet, and I could feel the spirit and the sincerity that illuminated from him.

Even Though It hasn't been the easiest to be able to teach people this week we have been seeing some miracles. One day we weren't able to teach a lesson to anyone, and it was about eight fifteen at night and I saw this young guy siting in the grass on a street corner, so We were like well We might as well, so We asked if we could sit by him, and he was like sure. He was this 20 year old guy who had never talked to the missionaries before. If you are living in Uruguay and know how to talk you have talked to the missionaries before. That was the first miracle. Then we were able to share the restoration right there in the street, and he prayed right at the end! He was like thanks for sending these guys because it is really great to talk to them. He wants to me with us more to see if he can recieve a testimony from the Holy Spirit. Crazy stuff going on here. Tons of blessings.

Quote of the week from testimony meeting: ¿Sos Mormona? -The doctor of Hermana Risso

 1) All the Elders in my zone waiting while the Hermanas cook tacos

2) Cooking tacos

3) Actividad de zona