Monday, March 31, 2014

Getting Cold....

This week was good. My companion works different than my trainer. Which is good, I like how he works, its more effective and straight to the point. This last week started to get cold. Really really cold. When we wake up in the morning to take a shower we can see our breath in the bathroom. And I have no winter time clothes, then I remembered that we just said I would buy some down here. So I did this morning down at shopping. It was like 100 dollars worth of winter time clothes. All the stuff is pretty expensive, the uruguayos are always complaining about how expensive all the stuff is here. But I really like my new clothes. Speaking about bathroom, our septic tank has been filling up really fast and its gotten to the point where we can see the poo through the grate in the bathroom floor. We need to get it pumped this week. Still havent moved houses but we are planning soon. the locals are always burning their trash, big fires in the streets, because its more effective than the people who pick it up, but its gross and smells like buring diapers and we have to walk through the smoke.

We started to teach english classes this week, to help gain the trust of members, investigators and to find new people to teach. Its fun, but really hard, english is a hard language to learn and to teach. But we got a few referals from this and we visited one and it was like a step into some weird dimension. We clapped the door and this old man came out with no teeth, he had at least 25 dogs and even more cats running around in his house and out his front door. He didn´t say anything to us but opened the door and yelled to his mom, who is a grandman that the people from the church were here to teach her. He then took us inside and when this lady saw us she said, these aren´t the Jehovas witnesses. So we explained that we were mormon missionaries and she told us that she had started taking the lessons from the JWs. She showed us her pamphlet and everything. So when she turned her back my companion pointed at the pamphlet and I snatched it off the table and put in my bag and he replaced it with our pamphlet. We dont know where she went, she dissapeared and we had to find our way out of the house with all these dogs and everything. We tore up the pamphlet. 

This weekend was stake conference. Which was good, but at the same time bad. Because the investigators didn´t want to go. But we had 3 investigators and 2 will probably be baptized this week. Our mission president spoke at the conference. Hes really ¨cool¨. Bald and has the face of a rocky mountain. Imposing, that is. But cracks jokes and loves the missionaries. We talked to a less active family this week and during our lesson they were selling drugs. It was ridiculous. They´d grab their electric scale and a knife and go talk to random guys that came and knocked on their back window. ughhhhh Other than that all is pretty good here.  I have not gotten your package but it should come in the next couple weeks. And I hope before cambios. Gracias for everything.

Elder Webber

Doing Well...

 If you guys could send some attachments of some good prophet talks, in english. Like the ones that dad likes, and the josh and aaron. I think one is called profile of a prophet. And a recipe for carmel corn and maybe cheesecake. My mickey mouse watch finally broke. It was stopping and starting and being all weird for the last week and then the minute hand just died and went all floppy. We saw more fireflies this week. A bunch of them in a big field flying around all green and what not. 
We spent alot of time out in the wilder part of our area, in the campos, fields, and bosques. forests. We had our 2 baptisms, two kids, and we will work on baptizing their parents the coming weeks. Then the zone leaders told us that we needed to find a miracle baptism this week and so we fasted and prayed and sure enough we found him. Another kid about 14 years old, who had come to church once before and we talked to him about being baptized. He had desires so we called the zone leaders that day, saturday, and set up an interview for him 45 minutes later, we sped taught him all the lessions, which he already knew, we finished and prayed and just then the zone leaders walked in and interviewed him. He was prepared. Then sunday came and he didnt show up to church, which he needed for his second assistance, so we went out searching, in our suits because it was sunday. And it rained, it poured. We couldn´t find him so our baptism fell through. We were soaking wet and it got to the point where we didn´t even care anymore, just laughed and walked in the mud back to church and sat down soaking wet just after sacrement had finished. It was a rough day. But we did have our 2 baptisms which was good. 
We visited an area this week, out in the campos, the feilds. That´s called Barrio Humidad. Which means the humid Ward. The poorest area I´ve seen so far. they just live in little huts made of sticks and logs and whatever trash. Theres a little river that runs through the shanty town with this makeshift bridged over it. It was bad. We will go back some time. 
All is good, just alittle frustrated with my room mates. They´re so ridiculously dirty. And its not just disorganized like I am. Its dirty, they just leave their food and dirty plates everywhere. Never clean or organize anything. I will talk to them about it today. But this month we destroyed the mission record for baptisms that the mission just set in january. it was 156 I think, and we just finished 178 baptisms and think there are two more planned in the mission for tomorrow. The zone reached our goal too, it was 17 and we got 20 as a zone. Good stuff. Good ole jajiva y benji. Aaron getting all ready to marry himself. That´s kinda weird. good luck with mariahs situation.

Elder Webber

Monday, March 17, 2014

A New Companion

 This week was pretty tranquilo. It was cambios and my trainer, elder contreras left, to durazno, that is to say peach. And my new campion is elder rodriguez, and we´re still in this area, autodromo A, he´s from peru, speaks alittle bit better english than elder contreras. Hes a cool guy, doesn´t talk a whole lot, which is nice, but when we started talking he was telling me what he liked to do and its video games,  like age of empires, and world of warcraft. Haha yeah... hes pretty relaxed, but works hard and we have some big goals for this cambia.

 One of the assistants to the president had his parents come down to pick him up. But he extended his mission an extra 30 days and his parents didn´t change their plans, so they came down and he visited our area, which was his first area too, and they were super uncomfortable, because their son is still a missionary with his plaq and everything, and he still had to do work part of the day, and they were sitting in our neighbors ¨house¨ yup, welcome to uruguay, this is what we mean when we discribe this place. But yes. 

The church is really irreverent here. We tell our investigators that its a place where we can really feel the spirit and its a place sacred, and when they come and see that all the kids are running around, not just below but up on the stand, during somebody´s talk, and the parents are just chatting, not even trying to whisper, or to control their children. Ugh uruguayos. We had an investigator tell us that she was really uncomfortable in the church because of all the noise and distractions. Its hard. So I´m probably looking at another 6 weeks here in autodromo A. 

hmmm I do believe thats everything. And thus ends the third cambio in the reign of autrodromo A. Bien de Bien. Spanish is always getting better, well my castallan is getting better. Its not spanish here, if you say its spanish, the locals get mad. Its castallan.  Cast-ah-shawn.

Muchos loves. 
Elder Webber

P.S.   Whoa, that´s weird, after I write you guys, I have to write the president of the mission, and I totally forgot how to spell enemy. I tried, enamy, animy, anami, anemi, and just about every other one. I ended up having to ask another elder who is here how to spell it. wooo 

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Getting New Companion...

We had intercambios again and I went with zone leader, Elder Valenzuela, and everybody, everybody, in his area complimented me on my spanish. Which was a real confidence booster, one even said, so if I go to the states for 12 weeks I can speak perfect english?  
And Somebody somehow figured out that I was good at rugby so we took a picture with them on their couch. cool stuff. Last p. Day we went to parque de plata, which means park of money, or park of silver. its a really really nice beach area, and this cool bird statue I´ll send a photo, super gooney in the photo, its with elder arnet, and in the back is elder plauts and my companion. We found our new house and everything, the paperwork is being done now and we might move in this week. Its really nice, with fruit trees and grapes in the back patio and everything. 
I dont know if I wrote about the investigator who prayed that he would get a new motorbike before school, but we had an investigator ask that like 8 weeks ago, then we dropped him, because he wasn´t progressing, then we saw him the other day in front of his house, with a new motorbike. haha, he said that now he had to come to church with us. we will see if he actually does. 
Our sink is always clogged with food and stuff so I just use my finger to push it down the drain but one time there was a shard of a broken bowl that somebody broke and didn´t clean up because they´re pigs, but anyways, sliced my finger. Lots of blood all down my arm and everything. 
Changes are tomorrow, and my companion and the colombian are both getting moved, so we visited all our investigators and they all gave us food and we were taking pictures and what not. Lots of fun.


Love, 
Elder Webber

Monday, March 3, 2014

Rats!....

 But yes, we saw the rat again, and this time we destroyed our house looking for the rat that ran under the stuff in our kitchen, while our house was destroyed and we´re all yelling and screaming half dressed, the assistants to the president walk in our house, for a random check. It was bad, our house was a mess and they got pretty mad. We never found the rat. But we explained what happened and its soooo disorganized because we have 4 people and none of us have any room to put any of our stuff. 

One of our investigators has a pet sheep, which smells like new Zealand. and the familia Sosa, who are investigators visited the temple this week? which is a promising sign, we are hoping, they are awesome, always giving us food, like we had crepes with dulce de leche last night. Had a less active member tell me that of all the missionaries that she has talked with, I have the smallest american accent. wooohooo, so thats promising. 

We had a multi zone conference this week in montevideo, and the mission has a goal to double the babtisms this year. Which is huge but we can. There was a video of Elder holland that said that the mission isn´t easy, or converting someone isnt easy, because the atonement was not a cheap experience. pretty cool. 

Last night, we talked to our neighbors about our laundry machine, because its been broken and really stinky, so he took it apart and found that rat inside, that was dead and rotting. pretty gross. Took pictures and all but I dont have my camera right now. 

We had an emergency meeting with the assistants last night too, at like 10 until 11. Because the other elders in our house really arent getting along at all. but yesh, all good here. Our baptism, mirta told us again that we were like messanger angels sent to her for a reason. Shes awesome. Anyways, suerte con su cara Mariah, estoy orando por ustedes todos las dias. 

Elder Webber