"Put a Date..."

Sure enough we are entering summer. And this week was HOT. I´m talking about sweat dripping down the back during lessions. Ugh. Not a whole lot happened this week with our progressing investigators. Friday we were looking good, we were expecting to have maybe 4 investigators in church on sunday and they had committed to coming and everything. 
Friday was also the first time for my companion that we had rocks thrown at us, by a full grown man and his teenage sons. I wish I could say that was my first time as well. Stay classy Bella Italia. This sunday was the voting for the new president here in Uruguay and the government uses the churches as voting houses so we had to travel to a city called Prosperidad. (prosperity) to have church. Of course that makes things complicated for the investigators and none of them ended up coming. The chapel was tiny over there and we had 3 wards there. It had one big room, about the size of the primary room, for the sacrament room, a kitchen which was the elders quorom and another room for the relief society. No air conditioning and we were in our suits. Wasn´t the best sunday of my life especially because we had no investigators in church. 
This voting this weekend killed the zone, and the mission. We have 4 more days to get the zone goal and it will be extrememly difficult. During this week, I think wednesday we had a fair amount of lessions fall through so we went to the apartment building. We said we would choose one building and one door to knock. We didn´t have much time before our next lession so we went up to the top floor, number 4 and knocked on a door. An old shirtless man answered with a ciggarette in his and and invited us in. We had a pretty solid lession and invited him to be baptized. Of course he accepted but now we are having trouble getting in contact with him again. That´s just the Uruguay lifestyle. Our zone plans are still the same, and I love them. Put a date with every ¨new¨ we find and have daily contact with them. It means we are inviting anywhere between 3 and maybe 7 people to be baptized every day. There is absolutely no reason they should not have a date to be baptized if they are willing enough to give you their address and a day to come back. So we do it and it works miracles. We have become quite the zone. 

Love,

Elder Webber

Happy Birthday "Elder Zach"

Its getting hotter here. I guess to start we had a multi zone conference on tuesday and so we had to travel back into montevideo city. It was great of course and then wednesday we had an intercambio with the zone leaders. The first intercambio of my companion. He really enjoyed it and I learned a bunch from Elder Bilson who is from Orem Utah as well. He went to Mountain View Highschool and we had some mutual friends. With the heat and the slowly progressing investigators the week got pretty long and the house needed a paint job in our room because of mold on the wall sooooooo we painted a giant american flag! Of course we weren´t given any extra time to paint it so it had to be done during our lunch hour or after we plan at night. But sure enough we worked and painted enough to have it finished for my birthday sunday. 
Saturday before my birthday we went to the market place and I bought myself a birthday treat, a half kilo of a wheel of cheese and some fruit preserve to eat on bread. It was really good. My old companion, Elder Williams, before he went home left me a package and I opened that up as well. A cool butterfly knife, my measuring spoons that I forgot in the last house and a photo of Nacho Libre. Pretty good birthday if I do say so myself. We only sang the star bangled banner a dozen times while we were painting our flag. Sadly, sunday we didn´t have any investigators come to church. Its frustrating when they seem to be making such good progress and then they let something little like visiting a friend keep them from coming to church and being baptized. Ugh. The hardest thing to get the investigators to do is get them to come to church. If they just come to church two times they´re already in the water. Right now we are working with a woman called Rusa, who is a friend of the converts here and she told us she wanted to be baptized the first lession we had with her which was with Elder Bilson. We walked away from that lession and he said ¨well that was the easiest baptismal date ever¨ but she didn´t come to church, sooooo. We have to postpone her date for the next week. We are also working with a little boy who is a child of a less active family. Our plan is to activate the family again and then baptize the kid. Completing families. 

My companion is doing great. We both love guns and we got on the topic one day in the street. He has convinced me to buy a silencer/compressor for my SIG. Its alot of paper work and about a year of waiting but I think its worth it. I don´t think much more happened this week. We are doing well, but we can do better. We have so many potentials who are just right there but have silly little things stopping them. We will see. 

20 years old! woohoo. 

Elder Webber

His New Elder has Arrived...

yesh yesh, what a week. Well my old comp packed up his stuff and we were ready to go. Tuesday we said goodbye to everybody and wednesday I had to be in Carrasco early. Dropped off my companion with some other elders with his stuff and then I headed off into the city, alone. Man was that pretty creepy. It was still dark in the morning and I had to catch a bus and find my way to the trainers training meeting. The meeting was great, more or less it was just the assistants telling to be good examples for our new companions and make sure they don´t get too stressed out and want to go home. Then the newbies came into the living room of presidents house, which is where we were. All looking pretty confused. And what to my wondering eyes do apear but 18 new missionaries who all speak english. Yesssss. I was really hoping I would get an english speaker. Then president stands up in front and calls up a trainer and has him point to a big map of Uruguay where we serve then he calls up his new companion and they hug and what not. So I point to Bella Italia and president calls up Elder Olsen as my companion. What a guy. Came straight from the MTC in provo which made me worry about his spanish skills but turns out he studdied for a good 4 years in highschool and speaks very well. Phew. His bags got lost in the miami airport so that made things easier. In terms of moving around. We got lunch and headed to changes. I had to go into a leadership meeting so my comp had to stay outside with a bunch of missionaries that he didn´t know but he did fine. Hop on the bus and we get to Bella Italia and thats quite the culture shock. Elder Olsen is from Kansas City, the Kansas side. I don´t think he was expecting something like Bella Italia. We had a good couple of days and friday we had a trip to Pando again because I had to do a baptismal interview. Sunday was hectic. We had do our confirmations for the baptisms that happened the last couple of weeks and we had to care for our investigators who came and the bishop wanted to talk to us. It was a lot to do. But we survived. I feel some what bad for my companion because he got here right after we had that baptizing spree and we´re in a dry-spell right now, I´m sure if we keep working we´ll get success. He reminds a lot of Cole Pendleton. He even looks like him from a profile view of his face. He´s a good worker and wants to do all he can, which is good, even if it is just alittle. Training is hard, and so is being district leader, and both at the same time is complicated. I´ll try to include a photo of my son. 

Love,

Elder Webber 

Training...

This week seemed longer than usual. Im not sure why, maybe because the anticipation for conference or for changes. Its starting to get hot too, hot and humid. I forgot how hot it gets here. We went to a less actives house this week to see what´s up and tell them to come church and stop being lazy and of course to get confy and gain their trust we show family photos. Almost every time they always say, oh que joven es su mama. Which is to say, oh how young is your mother. Yes yes, so there you go mom. 
There´s really not a whole lot to say about the week. I guess my distric did really really well. We ended the month with 12 baptisms. The zone had 24. My district had more baptisms than most other zones. The zone leaders were really happy. Conference came around and we didn´t have any investigators come. Of course because we have to take a bus 30 minute to the stake center. The ward doesn´t help, we had 4 preisthood holders in the preisthood session. The bishop didn´t even come. And in the sunday morning session we had 8 members from the ward. wooohoooo..... The ward is sad, there are pages and pages and pages of less active/ non active members in the ward. Its hard to work when the members dont want to go to church. Ugh.

But after the morning session sunday I recieved a call from president saying that I was going to be Trainer this change. Woohoo. I´m really exicted. Kinda a bummer that my son will have to be raised in this area, its not the best place to start off, but its good, makes him tough. So will have to leave ALONE, early tomorrow morning to pick up my new companion from montevideo. I didn´t believe the zone leaders when they told me that I had to go alone. Kinda nervous for that. 

Elder Robbins, who spoke in the conference saturday, came to speak to us here in the mission no more than 3 months ago, and Elder Gavarret who spoke in spanish saturday, Is from Minas Uruguay. That´s where I was! dont know if you guys caught that. 

Anyways, I think that´s about it. Maybe for a birthday present or a christmas present, another pair of black pants, and shoes. That would be nice. 

Loves,

Elder Webber