Elder Justin Welker: Week 6

So its been like 10 days since you last heard from me. So when I got to Montevideo at 1-2 am my mission president- President Eddy, and his assistants picked all of us up from the airport. They took us to the Montevideo temple and we stayed the night there right next to it in a church owned hostil (hotel thing). The next day we kinda just hung out there the whole morning and later in the afternoon they showed us a lot of presentations and talked about the mission and the expectations. We ate some really good food there. It tasted amazing especially because my standards for food had dropped significantly while I was at the MTC.

So the next day we were introduced to our companions at 11 am last wednesday I think. My comp is Elder Harkness from Fresno, CA. He is really cool and we get along super good. He liked to play Battlefield before his mission which is exactly what I was doing too so we get along great. He took me to our area which is Maldonado. It is what everyone here says is the best area to serve in Uruguay. It is a really cool place and our ward has a lot of members and they are all really cool and very active in the church. Compared to other areas in Uruguay it has a lot of jovens (youth). We are however on the outskirts of Maldonado so it isnt as nice as the actual city is. E. Harkness took me to our house which we share with the zone leaders- Elder Gehring and Elder Fernandez. They are super cool and really fun to be around. Our house is really crappy though but I guess thats how mission life is. It is cold and damp like that place we stayed at when we were in Italy. Our shower curtain is just a garbage bag and the bathroom floor is always covered in water because the curtain isnt wide enough to keep water out when showering and also the toilet spills water everywhere because when you flush it water shoots out of the back. Our house is actually always colder than it is outside. Besides that everything is good though. We have a fridge which is nice since we didnt have any at the MTC. And there is always hot water so thats good. Uruguay is so great though. Their Spanish is so different from the Spanish I learned in the MTC and they have a ton of slang that I had to pick up. They also talk like Italians and dont always like to pronounce their S´s. I am starting to understand people more and more now when they speak. My comp is awesome and loves to help me out.

This past week has been so great. The food is really good and I have had some great experiences this past week. I dont have time to talk about everything but me and E. Harkness were clapping doors (they dont knock here, everyone has gates so you have to clap) and we found this family of like 8 who are really young and we were able to go into their house on initial contact and sit down with them and share with them the BofM and talk about prayer and just some basic beliefs for about 20 minutes. It was super cool and they seemed interested. I talked about the BofM and then gave one to them. We invited them to church and said we would pick them up. We went to their house like 30 min before church started but no one answered the door so we are hoping to see them tomorrow and follow up on them. I am hoping that they will allow us over again and that we can talk some more. But it was still a really cool experience being able to talk with them and that I was able to teach them a little about the BofM and bear my testimony on it. Well thats about all I can write right now and I will be sure to let you know how this next week goes. I will send you all some pics that I took. Love you all!