Our new House "has a wooden floor and everything!"

P day on saturday now! So bunches happened the last 4 days. I packed up all my stuff and we went to changes. All four of us from our house got on the ¨change bus¨ and came to the offices for changes. Normal changes, a big meeting with the assistants and president and what not, find our new companion in all the busy hustle and bustle. Got to see my trainer again, he said my spanish had gotten better. Got to see all my buddies from the CCM, MTC. It was cool. Anyways, found my companion, Elder England, hes from sandy utah, blonde hair, blue eyed, hitlers dream. Looks like a nazi and we give him trouble for that. So we met, helped the assistants to the president clean up and do some office work, getting all the stuff ready for those who are going home. It was interesting, all the office missionaries sit in this little room, which Im in now because its free and close enough to the house. After we helped them, the assistants took us to our house, because we live with them right, they call it ¨the enchanted beach house¨ its what I have been praying for. It is sooooo nice, in comparison to my last house, and I guess to all the other houses in the mission, because its the most expensive one. Its got two stories and hot water, wood floors so it doesnt get cold when we wake up. A big fridge and best of all.... a Couch! yes a couch. My room mates are super clean which makes me so happy. The spirit can deffinitly dwell in this abode. It is just great all around. We play a good 10 minutes of Uno at the end of everyday with the assistants and its just great. Our area, yes yes, the area of Carrasco C. 
We live right in front of the beach and we are surrounded by millionaires. With big metal gates and people who work in the different embassies that are also in our area. Its hard, the people are hard, but we went out to work and found some really great people. The ward is cool, from what I can tell, there are bunches of american families, that work in the embassy that are in our ward. Like the family china. We went to their house yesterday for dinner, oh to have american food. Of course they had a big metal gate and electric fences but once you got inside it was like stepping back into the states. honda odessey, a mud-room, a living room, with couches, and cool-ranch doritos, pizza, and jello for dinner. All their Kids dont speak spanish it was so weird, to speak in english to a family again. I almost didnt know how to say stuff. This week was really weird, in terms of p day and stuff, because yesterday the assistants had p day, and because we had a zone conference during p day yesterday we are writing today during lunch, but usually its saturday. Yes yes, we have presidents permission for all of this and stuff, the assistants have a crazy schedule and we just have p day with them because we live with them in the same house. 
But yesterday, we had our preparation, we bought groceries, from the super market, with trolleys and everything, and we went in the CAR to the other side of the city of Montevideo, we drove along the Rambla, which is the street that runs along the beach, and drove right past the hotel that the High school americans stayed in when we were down here, we saw the beach we ran on and everything. Super weird. But we went to this market thing, really really nice market place, and we were all broke missionaries so we didnt buy much, except lunch, which was churipan, which is a sausage on a bread bun. Like sausage sizzle almost, with the poppy kinda sausage that cracks when you bite it. It was really expensive, that and water and ¨grilled cheese¨ which is just that, just a big block of grilled mozerella cheese with garlic in it. Sounds gross, but it was really really good. Then we drove by the cathedral that we visited last year with the HSAA, calvin can probably remember. But yes yes, When I got to the area, I was kinda upset at my companion and the assistants, because of the state of their area, we share the area with the assistants, because they never work, lazy bums. They didnt have their white board filled in with all the members less active and investigators, and didnt have the list of the actions of the bishopric. Which is essential, because it has all the people from ages 9 to 18 who are in member families who were never baptized. Its a gold mine. So I talked to the ward mission leader and he said that he was working on it. 
And this sunday, which is fast sunday, I will get to participate in something called ¨break the fast¨ Ive never heard of something like this before. All the temple missionaries and temple workers, like 1 hour after church bring a bunch of food and dessserts to share, and the missionaries are always invited, only if we get investigators to come. Its good, becuase usually we just eat lunch at the house of a member, but this way we can talk missionary work with all the members, and get people in the church with members. It will be hard this change, but having a good companion like elder England and a clean, organized, spiritual house like the one we have now will help a bunch. 

Long email but it was a good week. And I weighed myself, still a solid 183 lbs. 

Elder Webber

Moving to a Second Area

Muchos gracias for the package! the ties are cool and all the food is needed and appreciated.  I got a letter from the offices that said my other package was stuck in customs so I signed a paper and it should be coming any week now. And thanks mom for the recipes. So yes, we did indeed move houses, the new house is awesome, but its not really important because we got the changes yesterday and Im going tooooo...... Montevideo! Our old house was one of the worst in the mission and now I´m going to live with the assistants to the president in one of the nicest. Elder England will be my companion tomorrow. Last p day we went to this little shack to buy food and we bought bauru. Its a kind of brazilian hamburger thing. With the lot. All the vegies and eggs and what not. real good. We had our zone meeting with president and the interviews, which was fun. We had a few family home evenings, noche de hogars, this week. Played uno, which gets really intense down here. This week was kinda hard, mostly because it was ¨holy week¨and everybody was out on vacations or worshiping their saints. Which was hard to have patience, we just want to bajar la caña, drop the cane, on those catholics who don't know what they believe. Besides that not much is happening. good bye my first area, kinda happy to go, but I´ll miss some of the members here for sure, and some of my conversos.  I´ll include a photo of me and my companion, elder rodriguez with this sign we found, that translates into, ¨don't put trash here you dirty hobos¨ But sounds all good at home. Hows all the boys and mariah doing? Benji is preparing huh, yup yup, thats pretty crazy, and I sent a letter to Joseph and one to mariah, let me know if you get them. 

Elder Webber

Doing Well and Moving house

I got your package today. That was awesome, especially all the cliff bars and food. We (the four elders in our house) spent a good 30 minutes going through all the fotos and trunking in general. Gooooood stuff. Entonces muchos gracias. and thanks aaron for the music and pictures and stuff. We talked with a member who thinks he knows all the geography of the book of mormon, he said that the natives who were here when the first explorers came over, lived in a place called teancum, which is in the book of mormon, one of the only cities with walls that was built along the sea shore, pronounced, tancoom here. Which sounds similar and he says that they confused what the natives were saying and understood ¨cancun¨ hes cool, and he has some interesting ideas. I was just reminded about that when you guys were talking about your cruise. We work alot with our bishop, hes really on board with the obra misional. We had more intercambios this week, and I went with Elder Arnet, we visited a familia whose puppy died so we helped them dig a hole and bury it. It was sad. There is a general authority named Cornish? who looks crazy similar to Mr. Cornish who was the computer teacher in elementary school. Relative? Our baptism fell through, again, for the third week. Its frustrating and we want to baptize him before changes which are this next week. We also have a familia sosa who have 3 daughters who are teenagers and we are praying and fasting that they get baptized this week as well. They all have sufficient knowledge and assistance in the church. I sent a bunch of letters home a few weeks ago, let me know if you guys get them. I could use a cheesecake recipe, maybe and carmel corn recipe, maybe socks if you´re going to send a package in the coming year. We had some ¨house rings¨made they are pretty cool. Just a plain metal ring with the baptism symbol engraved in it. You´ll have to ask aaron and josh how that is. I´m not sure if you (pops) used the same symbol back in your day. Anyways, we have interviews with president this week, and we are finally moving houses! So we spent a few hours today packing everything, which wasn´t much, and cleaning the house. We´re pretty excited. Our house is really good, really obedient and we wake up at 615 to run over to the church and do excersises together. But anyways, that´s about it. Thanks bunches.

Fireflies...

But yes conference was legit. We traveled by bus about 25 minutes to a different chapel and we had a seperate room for those elders so we could watch it in english. Just put a bunch of desks in a semi circle around the tv in the kitchen so we could all hear and take notes. Really cool. But this week we saw more fireflies when we were visiting my first baptisms house, mirta, where we also got eaten alive by the mosquitos, they can bite you through your clothes so theres no avoiding it. But yes, we saw some more, and I told my companion that I was going to catch one, he said its impossible because they´re too fast and its night, but I caught one, two and three. Then we released them in our house so during the night we had some little green bugs flying around. It was cool, all four of us turned off the lights ten minutes early and watched them until 1030 which is when we have to sleep. We´ve been teaching more ingles classes and its been really fun, but its hard to teach. Uruguayos are weird, they just believe anything they find on the internet, a couple weeks ago we went through this mermaid thing, where everybody was telling us about mermaids, and some how used that to fight with us about the existence of an eternal Heavenly Father. And this week was a rumor about a mars colony? I guess they said that they´re making preperations for the year 2019 or something to go to mars and they´re never coming back. Yeah weird, when we were walking to the bus stop saturday for conference, we were stopped by a two men on the side of the road and asked us straight up how they could stop doing drugs and drinking. Then they accused us of being spies, drank some more alcohol and the police pulled up and told them to leave us alone. Just a weird week in general. Didn´t see a whole lot of success, mostly because of conference and zone conference. Its hard to get investigators to come to church when we dont even know where the chapel is. We spent a good 30 minutes searching for the church. Anyways, I think thats about it,  I had some icecream the other day, flan and dulce de leche flavor, that tasted just like hokey pokey without the chunks. woooohoooo. That was good. Have fun on your vacation and luck to josh and ben and mariah and joseph. 

Elder Webber

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

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