Week 34

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a great week! We are a week away from changes here in Uruguay and its most likely that Sarkady will be leaving and that I will stay here, but who knows? 

So this week has been pretty good. I had an intercambio on Tuesday with one of my ZLs Elder Campos from Peru. It was interesting because we started the intercambio at lunchtime and after having lunch E Campos told me that the Wankiers (the senior couple in our mission) we coming to pick us up because the ZLs are searching for a new house to move into. So we drove around with the Wankiers for like an hour and a half looking at different houses and what not. Then the Wankiers dropped us off and left and we went to a big apartment complex and knocked a bunch of doors and nobody wanted to listen to us. We then went to an investigators house and we set a baptismal date with him and afterwards that was the end of the intercambio.

Then on Thursday we had a service project with a member in our ward and her entire family (but she is the only active one). We had to fix her roof and rearrange the tiles on the roof. Then afterwards she made us some of the best Milanesas ever! And we had lunch with her less active family and turns out that one of the kids isnt baptized and on top of that the family said that they would be fine with doing a family night sometime so we are really excited to start working with them. 

Also Ciencimino came to church again! He still doesnt want to commit to be baptized but he is slowly progressing and the last time we taught him we were talking more about the Book of Mormon and he is starting to understand the importance of the book and he is starting to believe in the Book of Mormon! It is unquestionably the most correct book on the earth and I know that it is the word of God.

Well the rest of the week was about the same. Also E Soriano who lives with us bought a Uruguayan version of Monopoly using soccer teams. Its probably the worst board game I have ever played. The instructions are really short so theres parts of the game that we just had to make up our own rules. Also over the past week we have put in 10 hours into this game and we still never finished it. We all just quit because it was never going to end and the bank kept running out of money for the players, so yeah.

Well hope you all have a good week! Also I do have some pictures if you were wondering.

1. I found the stone deposit for the Golden Plates in the Sacred Grove

2. Crappy board game

3. us playing the crappy board game

Week 33 King of the Trash

Ok so this was a very interesting week. 

On Wednesday we had a multi zone conference with Las Piedras. Normally there is a van that drives by all of the houses to pick up the missionaries in our zone in Norte and take them to Las Piedras. So on Tuesday night we called the ZLs to ask what time the van would come by the house- to which they said they had no idea. They then called us later at like 930 pm to tell us that there wouldnt be a van to take us and that we had to take a bus and be there in Las Piedras by 9 am. None of us in the house had ever been there and we were all basically out of money (we had to put together all of the spare change we had to get enough for the four of us to take the bus) and didnt know how to get there or where the stake center was there but somehow we hopped on a bus and an hour later it drove right in front of the church and we arrived on time- luckily. 

Also after the conference we got back on the bus and I saw Uruguayan Spiderman (quite possibly the creepiest spiderman ive ever seen. Just a stalker in a spiderman costume). Also the next day our investigator Ciencimino called us and told us to come to his house asap because his mom is absolutely insane. His mom is 92 yr old and was having a mental breakdown and just shouting crazy things at her son and throwing things at him and wouldnt let him inside the house. It was quite a sight. She should be in retirement home but then again were in Uruguay.

Also me and my comp went exploring in our area. We found an abandoned house and also a huge pile of trash with a comfy chair sitting in the trash and I went and sat down for a bit. So I guess im the King of the Trash now.

As far as our area though we have a lot of service projects planned for this week and we are just trying to work with the members as much as possible because its one of the best ways to find new investigators. We are also working on some pass along cards to hand out to members that will encourage them to give us references.

Also Happy Valentines Day to you all! Hope you all have a good week!

-Elder Welker

1. In the abandoned house

2. Sitting on a chair

3. In front of the abandoned house

Look Out! Here comes the Spider-Maaaan!

Week 32 Intercambio with the Assistants

Hey Everybody! This past week has probably been the most exciting week here in Lezica so far. So last Friday I went on an intercambio with Elder Richmond and my comp went with Elder Palomino who are the assistents to the president. We worked in our area so we had to fill our schedules for Friday for the both of us to work in our small area. So my comp and Palomino went out and most of their charlas fell so they went out and actually found 4 new investigators for our area! Turns out that they (a father, wife, and 2 kids) live right next to the church here in Lezica (which is suprising that they have never talked with the missionaries before but they were actually a reference from some members in our area)

I went with Richmond and we had a few charlas. We had a charla with Ciencimino and he just had surgery on his face because he had a tumor). The operation went through well but part of his face looks like it was just cut off (cause it was but they stitched it back in place) but hes fine and he came to church on Sunday!!! Hes really been progressing pretty well. Hes been asking a lot more questions about the Book of Mormon and as weve answered his questions hes coming to believe that God exists.

So we learned a lot from our intercambio and we are excited to see the difference it makes on our area as we both apply the things we learned from the assistents to our area. One of the things that the assistents want us to do better is just talking with everybody in our area as we are out in the streets.

Lets see... Today we had our first zone activity in months! We havent had one in so long because we werent allowed to for a time but president told us last week that we can do zone activities again as long as we do them in the church. So we and zone went to the stake center and cooked pancakes, waffles and breakfast burritos and then played basketball, ping pong, frisbee and cards after so it was fun being able to do activities with the zone again.

Well I hope you all have a good week. I think the #1 thing that I learned from this past week was that if you want to find people to teach then you just need to talk with everybody about the gospel and eventually you will find someone to teach. Also E Richmond told me that as we go out to work we need to listen to the promptings of the spirit to tell us which doors we should knock in our area.

So yeah hope you all have a good one!

-Elder Welker