A Swollen Face...

What a week. Again, I just have no idea where to start. I guess tuesday was the only really normal day we had to work. I feel like there isn´t enough time to get the stuff done in my own area anymore. Wednesday was pretty hectic because we had the elders coming down from Chuy to stay in our house and we had to find something for them do while they waiting here. We just assigned them to work in the struggling areas around here. Wednesday night we had 12 elders sleeping in a four elder house. Yes, we do have two extra mattresses for when missionaries who are traveling have to make a stop in our house, but we still were missing ten. Looks like we kinda had to bend the rule that says,

 ¨companions should sleep in the same room, but NOT the same bed.¨ ehhh. 

We didn´t sleep too much, the elders arrived around midnight because they got lost and of course its the zone leaders fault, so we have to go find them. We got to bed around 1 in the morning and woke up at 4 to get everybody showered and ready for the bus that would take us to the multi zone conference. Very little sleep and a full day of conference after that gave me some pretty bad bags under the eyes. Or so I thought. The next day I woke up and the left half of my face was swollen and my eye was hard to open. I don´t know what happened, but we had to do divisions with the assistants to the president that day so I didn´t have time. The swelling went down and we did the divisions and I feel like the assistants were pretty happy with how we were working. I slept again and my face got worse. We asked a member who works in a pharmacy what was up because everybody was asking what was wrong with my face. He said it was probably just an allergic reaction. So he gave me some pills. Which did nothing. Its alot better now, this morning it was just alittle swollen. We will have to see what happens tonight. But anyways, thanks for the photos! I had some investigators that wanted to see that I went bungy jumping. yeah yeah. I´ll try to include some photos from these last couple of weeks and I´ll be thinking about things for ben to be doing to prepare. 

Bem vindo au Brazil.

Luis

Elder Webber

Went to Brazil..

This week went by so fast. So much happened, I´m going to try to remember it all. Well tuesday we had district meetings. Part of me misses being district leader because I had more of an influence on the individual missionaries and not just the zone as a whole. But oh well. I sat in on a district meeting of Elder Romero. It was good. 
Wednesday we worked and thursday we only worked a half day because the stake president came to pick us up to go tooooo... Chuy! yeah. We had a little suit case and everything all packed up and ready. The stake president is a bro. Its about a 2 hour drive to chuy. It was the best 2 hour drive of my entire mission. Air conditioning and we went through some of the coolest territory. We drove through the hills of uruguay and then into this perfectly flat feild. Think Kansas. But with hundreds of thousands of palm trees. It was cool. 
Chuy is half in uruguay and half in Brazil. There is a street that divides the two countries and you can just walk back and forth. The street is called Brazil by the Uruguayos and Uruguay by the brazilians. The stake presdent took a little detour so we could go through brazil. Yeahhh. It was weird. Just cross the street and everything is in Portugese. I was pretty amazed that it could change so dramatically just by crossing the street. We did our capacitation with the stake president to the bishop there and then slept on the floor with the elders in their house so that we could do some inter changes the next day. 
As zone leaders we have to do inter changes with all the district leaders in our zone. I went with Elder Ellet from Loa utah. Down by boulder mountain. We worked in brazil. Half of the ward is in brazil and half in Uruguay. So we put a baptismal date with a brazilera. Yeahhhhhh. Me and aaron both preaching to the brazileros. I don´t have my camera with me, but I will send some photos next week. Me and companion bought some junk in brazil and then caught a bus back to 33. We had to stop in a city called Lascano for a ¨layover¨ for about and hour. Having to do the verifying calls on the bus isn´t very fun. We got home around 11 friday night and had to work the next day. Sunday we didn´t have quite the success we were waiting for because most of our investigators our on vacation. 
Oh well, our next baptism will probably be a man called Luis. He smokes, but when we met him he was smoking something like 30 cigarretes a day and now he is down to one or two. And that was saturday. We will go by him today to make sure that he´s quit. I need to send a photo of him as well. Next week. I can´t really remember what else happened this week. I´m sure Ï will later in the day. But thanks for the photos and the family history. That´s super useful.  I spent a good lump sum of money in brazil. sooo. haha. 

Tired...

This week was busy. I don´t think I´ve been this tired since I first got here. Monday night we went to bed at 1030 like always and we had to wake up at 1130 to catch a bus. A good hour of sleep and we were off into the city to find our way to montevideo. We bought some bus tickets that were about 50 dollars a round trip. And the bus ride lasted from about 1 in the morning until 630. We got off in a shopping mall/buss terminal called Tres Cruzes. Three crosses. Its the biggest in Uruguay. Luckily, both me and my companion know Montevideo pretty well because we were there together and we knew which bus would take us to Carrasco. Good ole Carrasco my old area. I do not miss it. The mission council started at about 9 in the morning and lasted until 5 in the afternoon. With breakfast and lunch of course. But it was loooooong. Important but loooong. Just setting goals and making plans for the mission. We also got a sneak peak at the "meet the mormons" movie. Pretty neat. Then we had to find our way back to 33. We got home around midnight and got to sleep around 1 and had to wake up at 630 like normal the next day. It was rough. Especially because we had to do my first zone Conference. I really liked it. I feel like it went well. Just enough love with the right amount of cane to make sure they stay obedient and working hard. Our zone has 24 missionaries and it is really hard to keep track of how they are working especially now that we have so few numbers. We have nothing to see their progress, we just have to trust what they say and wait for them to baptize. Sacred Saturday came around, sacred because it is the day we spend the whole day going by everybody to invite them to church and making plans for that. If they don´t come to church, they dont get baptized. We had a good few in church. We have sooo many potentials in this area, with alittle time and some work me and my old working companion elder Rodriguez should have a good amount of succes. We hear a lot of portugese here. We were even with some members in a house and one offered us some cake that looked alittle funky so I asked what it was and she said something that sounded like "a bok a shee" abacayi. I think. It sounded so familiar so I tried it and sure enough. Pine apple. It sounded familiar from Tucanos. The grilled pineapple. Yup. As zone leaders we are giving the responsibility to go around with the stake president to give capatication to the bishops about the new initiative. We´ve been doing alittle traveling this week but next week we should be going up to Chuy, a city that is half uruguay and half brazil. That should be interesting. 

A New Zone and Burnng Soccer Balls?

Well so much happened this week. I don´t even remember it all. I guess tuesday was p day so I just spent the whole day packing up. We went around in the afternoon to say goodbye to a few converts and members. The change bus came around at about 7 in the morning so I had to be outside waiting at 630. Changes were crazy as always. Even more so this time because I was given the responsibility of making sure that all of the bags of changing missionaries were out of our bus and the missionaries coming to our zone had their bags put into the correct bus. Elder Rodrigues gave me a hand full of papers that he said I had to read. Including a few rosters and schedules and information about the zone. I finally managed to get everybody on the bus and a moment to read my zone leader packet which tells me how to be a zone leader and my specific responsibilites. The bus ride lasted about 4 hours into the middle of nowhere. Triente y tres. 
I got there wednesday night and thursday morning we had a mini zone conference which had to be prepared that night and the following morning. A third of zone lives too far away to come to anything that isn´t a big zone conference so we did it without them. We have a great zone and we think we will have a lot of success. The area is great, the house is dirty and the companion is the same as he was the last 2 times we were together. 
We have a few potential baptisms coming up for this weekend if we can pull it all off. One is called Luis Alberto. He is so funny. He laughs at everything and his laugh is ridiculous. He isn´t the most wealthy guy on the block so the missionaries who were here before gave him a shirt and a tie and he showed up church on sunday looking like an executive. ohhh yeah. He felt so good. The only problem is that he smokes. So we are going to do everything we can to help him quit. He has already made a lot of progress. 
I really like this area so far. I can really see myself staying for a while. Tonight we have to get up at 1 in the morning to travel to montevideo to have the mission council. Which is president his assistents and all the zone leaders from the 13 zones in the mission. I´m excited to see how this all goes down. 
Well that´s about it for now. Just burning hot, we spent a few hours today playing soccer. I cant wait until the millenium and all the soccer balls are burned. A waste of time. 

Loves,.

Elder Webber

Christmas Week and a Transfer....

What a week. Went by wayyyy too fast. I quite frankly don´t even remember what happened this monday and tuesday. I know that monday was p day and tuesday was my district meeting. My last one for this change. We took some district photos but I didn´t bring my camera with me to the cyber so I will have to send those next week maybe. Wednesday we had a pretty full day, mostly because they celebrate la noche buena, (christmas eve) more than they do christmas. We had lunch with this really cool family called the family Gonzalez. They help us out so much, so we wanted to spend it with them. Then we worked for a while, visiting lots of less active families and converts and then we had dinner with a recent convert called Blanca. We never get dinner! Lunch is the bigger meal down here so we eat lunch at around noon and then work until 9 and maybe have a quick snack while I call the district, but since it was christmas eve, we were going to have a dinner. We showed up and there were a few non members so we talked with them but they didn´t want anything and then there were complications with the bbq and we ran out of time and had to run home without eating. Blast. Oh well, president gave us permission to stay out till 1030 and we got back at 1028, running. We planned and stayed up to watch the fireworks. Gee wiz, fire works a full. Everywhere we looked was just explosions. Super awesome. Christmas had lunch with Christian DaSilva. He is a boss, simply stated. Then we went to another family to skype. Good to see errybody. Josh is still a bum. My companion was kinda shocked at the amount of naked butt haha. That´s what I´m talking about. Friday saturday and sunday were normal days and we had 5 investigators at church. Most of which cannot progress because they are not married but oh well. Laticia didn´t come to church, so her baptism will have to be postponed until next week. Again. ugh. We spent sunday night with the zone leaders where we had a fry sesh with elder Wilson from Georgia. A real life hick. A big pot of boiling fat and we just fried all the junk we could. Oreos, alfahores, pop tarts, cookies, cheese, etc. Needless to say me and companion couldn´t handle it and we got vomitous and the runs for the next two days. My companion is still recovering. That same night I got a call from the assistants, asking me if I wanted to be Zone Leader. Uhhh yeah I do. So now I will be leaving here and going to a zone called treinta y tres. Which just means 33. I don´t know why its called that. I don´t know what my area is called but my companion will be....... Elder Rodriguez! Yes, the same Elder Rodriguez that I was with in my first area, and the same Elder Rodriguez that I was with when I was in my second area, reunited for the third and last time to zone lead together! The dynamic duo. I don´t know how I feel about that. We work very well together and all and hes a great missionary and we´re close friends, but 3 times in 3 different areas? That´s strange. Oh well. So I am excited to be zone leader, lots of responsibility especially now that they changed the missionary world. So listen to this, 

Normally everyday, the district leaders have to verify with all the elders in their district, which composes of about 8 different stats. Then sunday rolls around and they have to collect an the total of 20 numbers. Then all that is reported to the zone leaders and the zone leaders to president and his assistents. Its alot of numbers. The mission has been numbers. As a district leader we are instructed to teach about the importance of the numbers and how they help us, until yesterday. They came out with an announcement that there will be no more numbers. No more. I have no idea how we are supposed to know how well the missionaries are working and what they are doing. I guess we just have to trust them on what they say, because we have no numbers to reflect how they are working. It will be hard, because not all missionaries have a whole lot of integrity. So now if there are no numbers, there is no way to know if they really are working as hard as they should. I knew about it alittle bit before, because I have friends in sneaky places, (my zone leaders liked me). But now I will be zone leaders and will have to deal with this stuff. oh well. 

Well that´s about it for now, Thanks for the photos! That pool looks ridiculous. haha.

love,

Elder Webber

Christmas Week

Well christmas week. not a whole lot to say because we´ll just talk over skype this week. We had the mission christmas conference which was fantastic, they sent us a link, we had to give a special musical number as a zone, all the zones did (some better than others) and the choir was fantastic.(you can tell who the choir is)  If I can, I´ll try to attach the link to youtube. Yes they gave us permission to go on youtube and watch the christmas conference if we wanted too. We also had the zone conference with interviews with president. Those are always fun. That same day, thursday, I had to do an intercambio with one of the elders in my district. Elder Gordillo from peru. He is a pretty interesting elder. We had a good time and I had to do an interview for a baptism while we were there. We were walking in the street and I got a call from the sisters who are in my district saying they were still at the bus stop. It had been a good 3 hours since the conference ended. I guess there was another protest at the bus company so I had to come down to the bus stop and call the offices to see what we could do. They were all pretty hungry so I left to get them some chips and drinks, but when I came back, they were getting on the bus. Oh well. So we just had junk for dinner that night. Glad it all worked out. We are working on the skype thing, we are pretty sure that we will be getting on to skype here at about 5 uruguay time. I don´t know what time that is there but ok. so 5 christmas day. If anything changes, we will probably email you the day of. This week the little children started to bring out their Judas´s. I dont know if I already told you, but they have a tradition here where you make a life size effagy of judas iscariot, beg for money, then burn him on christmas eve. I don´t know. I dont really understand it, but there always little kids coming up and going through our pockets looking for coins for judas. Sunday we didn´t have the turn out we wanted because it was pouring rain. In a ward that has close to 550 on thier list we only had 36 show up. Ugh, its hard to get the investigators to church when the members dont even want to. Its what we got. Laticia didn´t come to church, who is our most firm investigator right now, but I´m not too worried about it. She wants to be baptized, I´m just not sure if I will still be in this area when she does because changes are next week. I think that´s about it for now.

See you on christmas!

Elder Webber

The "Stick-Up"

Yeah! I got both packages! woohoo. I´m yet to hem the pants but I will today during p day. I told my self I was allowed to open one present, so we opened the two small planes and the fridge rover car thing. Then I opened up one more which was the sketch pad and then I figured I had to open the pencils as well to finish it off. Then my companion wanted to see what was the one that sounded like a box of nails so we opened that one too. The puzzles were super cool. Took us a good half hour or so to figure them out, then we used them in our lessions this week to explain ¨the mysteries of god¨ yeah yeah. Well monday we didn´t really do a whole lot, p day so we just played soccer with some of the other missionaries and went home to clean and sleep. I guess I fell onto my bed alittle too hard and broke the bed. Now it is being supported by a pile of old ensigns and friends. Woohooo. I also received a letter frommmmm MIRTA!! my first convert! she´s getting ready to go to the temple and my trainer told me it will probably be this next saturday! I´m so excited for that because we will get to go with her. Good ole mirta. But yes, we are teaching english classes here now and wednesday we went to the church to wait for people to show up, half an hour goes by and nobody. Then this stranger comes walking in all dirty and torn up. So we went to greet him and welcome him to the classes but he didn´t want to learn english, he just came in to beg for food and money. Ok dude, well we dont live in the church like you all think, and we never carry money with us, especially not in Bella Italia. So what does this guy do? (obviously on drugs) sticks his hand under his shirt and uses his finger like a gun and tells us to give him everything or he´ll shoot us. Ok man, we know you don´t have a gun, we just saw you put your finger in your shirt, but ok, come with us to the kitchen and you´ll see, because there is never anything in the kitchen. Sure enough, nothing, but he searches the garbage and finds half a watter bottle and two suuuuuuper moldy empanadas, (like a meat turnover) and he eats them and leaves. Well, we locked the doors behind him. He wanted back in, but that´s too bad. Stay classy. Our investigator Laticia is doing very well, we are teaching her the word of wisdom and she is trying to stop smoking. I think she can, she should be down to one or two cigarretes a day now. Woohoo. Maybe her baptism will be next saturday because today she didnt come to church. We will see. She´s great, she will be a great convert. It got really really hot friday and saturday, we got alittle sunburned so we went back to the house to splash water on us and we found some old straw hats in the house. Ohhh yeah. We got called yankees too many times that day. That´s this week, we are thinking of doing Skype on christmas around 3 or 4 our time. We just need to find somebody with a computer. We have a few ideas but we will let you know in the next coming weeks for sure. 

 

A few photos, christmas tree that I´ve carried around with me since my first area, cool hat, and my comp touching a baby cow we found.

Love,

P.S.  Oh I forgot to say my companion had some really bad blisters this week. His shoes have already gone to shreds. Poor guy, but we managed to work and we found this cool flower.