Week 105!

dear family,

i'm done.  it's kind of a weird feeling because everyone is asking me how i feel and  crap like that but the truth is that i feel the same... i honestly feel like i'm going to be serving a mission forever.  i'm not saying that in a bad way, but my mind is already in the habit to be a missionary.  so i still feel like i'm ggoing to stay as a missionary.  it was super funny because for changes the zone liders always tell the missionaries their new area and their new comp.  and for me because i'm "DYING" the changes show that my new area is the USA!!! and that my new comp is a WIFE jajajajaja.  we'll see what happens........ jajajajajajajaja but this week went by super fast.  let's see what did we do???  we found a few super cool people that are super possibles to progress and get baptized.  Andrès is a super stud and he wasn't able to go to church this week because he visited his family out of town and he was gone for like 3 days and came home like at 6 in the evening on sunday.  but he's a super stud.  we pased by him this week and talked to him about the church.  he accepted a baptismal date gor in 2 weeks and is super excited learn more about the church.  he's got a lot of very good questions and wants to recieve that answer about the truth of all these things.  he's willing to read and he loves talking to us and absolutely LOVED the church the last week he went. he told me that he felt like he was in a family.  so we already feels comftorable with the members and i think that he will beome a great lider in the church.  jajaja funny story, well kind of a funny story. i almost pooped my pants this week.  we were running late trying to get to the house of andrès and i had to go poop so stinkin bad but i knew that we didn't have time before going to his apartement.  i was literally about to explode, and my pride of never pooping in anyone's house was going strong and i just kept praying asked heavenly father to help me get through the lesson with andrès and then after so i can get to the house and poop.  MY PRAYER WAS ANSWERED!!!!  once i sat down in his apartement al of the urge to go to the bathroom went away!!!!! it was a miracle.  we had a freakin SICK lession and everything.  and once again as we left his door again the urges came back to me!  so i told my comp the we had to go to the house NOW!!!!  so we start walking and we get to about 1 block before the house and i had to go into my full-butt-cheek clench and kind of waddled to the appartment. and then i realized something.... we have to walk up 1 flight of stairs to get to the door!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  i started to sweat.  the urges were sooo bad that it felt like a knife was jabbed into my stomach... step by step..... slowly getting to the door.  luckily i told my comp to runn ahead of me to open up the door.  miraculously i got to the door then jumped into a usain bolt run to the bathroom!!!!!  oh man....  i cannot describe in words how relieved i was to be sitting on my porcilyn thron at that time.  when i came out my comp was cracking up.  but luckily, i don't know how, i have never crapped my pants on the WHOLE mission.  i hope that i didn't just jynx myself for ly last three hours of work.  jajaja but i love you all and can't wait to talk to you in PERSON!!!!!

love you all TONS, signing off for ever,

Elder Ty Atkinson 

Week 104!

Hola,
it sounds like everyone is having fun getting ready to come get me! jajajaja i'm doing pretty good as well.  this week we had a total milagro happen to us at church. we were waiting for investigators to show up at the door and 5 minutes before church starts up a man comes in named Andrés, he's has about 27 years.  he started to talk to us and told us that he's not a member and that he has never talked to missionaries before.  last week he went to another church building because he didn't know that this one was more close to his house.  he then told us that he has a brasilian girlfriend from Brasilia who is a member and they talked quite a bit about the church and everything so he got wuite interrested in the church through her.  he stayed for all 3 hours, participated in the classes and made very good comments.  he told us afterward that he really liked the church, so we talked to him a little bit more and we gave him a book of mormon and we fixed up a cita for tuesday to talk to him more.  he is a SUPER STUD!!!!! i talked to him a lot and he was making jokes and we started to talk about him family and everything and he is a guy with a good christian backround and he's been to quite a few churches and hasn't felt that "spark" and he told me that when he was talking to his girlfriend he started to feel that spark that he needed to start getting interrested in the church and what he believes.  so he is like a super stud and we're going to work with him a CRAP TON!!!!!  once again we had a lot of rain and crap.  but something that i thought was super funny this week is that we had Zone Conference and we had to go to Cerro which is supposedly a dangerous part of the mission.  so we had to take a bus from our area to that area which neither i or elder lopez had every been to.  so we asked our zone leaders for buses that we could take to get there and they told us that we had to take 2 different buses to get there and they gave us the numbers and everything.  to find out where they crossed in our area to take them we had to ask a member and he told us and then told us that there are a few buses that we could take that take us directly to that church so he told us the bus and that it would take about 30-40 minutes to get there and that the church was easy to see from the bus.  so we take the bus to go to cerro and we're waiting and at about 20 minutes i tell my comp to start looking for churches from the bus so that we can get off.  no churches pass by... 25 minutes...30 minutes.... 40 minutes... 45 minutes... 50 minutes... and then we pass a big bridge and we're out in the middle of no where and we finally see a small church. so we get off and there is mo one anywhere........................  jajaja so i just start laughing because we were supposed to be at the church at 8:30 and it was not 8:35 and we were in the middle of no where.  so i call the zone liders and they put me on with a missionary from cerro and i start telling him kind of where we THINK we are. and he askes me "is it a small church with like nothing near it?" i answer "Yeah" and he just says "oh noooooooooo.................." with a super depressed sigh.... we were like 45 minutes away from the church we were supposed to be at!!!! jajajaja so we get on the right bus and we end up showing up to the zone conference like an hour late jajaja i don't think that i could even get mad. i just started to crack up.  so that was kind of our week this week.  some highs and some lows!  jajaja but i love you all!!!

Hasta Luego,
Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 103!

well howdy y'all,
i hope that you all are doing quite well in the united states.  it sounds like you are all livin the life in the fast lane jajajaja.  some interesting things have happened this week. first off, LOTS OF RAIN!!!!! this whole week practically filled with just rain...  but it's all good.  this week was actually quite a hard just because a lot of what we tried to do this week fell through and we have to knock quite a few door and talk to a lot of people through the intercom........  super boring............... but it's all good.  but something interresting that happened this week was that the guy named marcelo that is very interested in electronics and stuff like that and is listening to us told us something super sad.  he was all by himself in the house without su wife or kid.  he started talking to us telling us that his wife (they're not married so i should say the person thathe's living with) is skitzofrentic and has double personalidades and that it's super hard for him to keep going and a bunch of stuff like that saying that she gets mad at him if he comes home 10 minutes late and and she hasn't been letting him come to church and lastweek he was going to go and she sot super mad and freaked out.  so he kept telling us that he souldn't take it anymore and that he's going to leave her and all these types of things thatwere super sad.  we tried to talk him out of it and to try to save the relationship but he told us that he can't and that it's no use.  so that was something very interresting thathappened this week.  today was one of the best days of my whole mission life for p days!!!!  we went to a church building that HAS a WOODFLOOR basketball court.  it was awesome and we played for like 2 hours straight because no one had played a REAL game of backetball in their missiones before.  all of us were terrrible because we were rusty but it was super fun because all of the elders that played KNEW how to play and all of them could play well. jajajaja all of the people that didn't want to play or that wanted to play something else played futbol in the feild outside.  so it was super fun but someone had super long fingernails and cut my hands like 5 times and my lip as well.  jaja but it's all good i think i'll live jajajaja.  but we're doing great and working hard.  don't worry family i'm still working super hard and i'll keeep working hard for these next 2 week that i fault.  but i love you all,
luvs,
Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 102!

well helloooooooooo la la la....hahaha (i hope that at least Christine understood) hahaha

hahahah but this week has been fairly good. no complaints hahahaha just a very random fact that in the last 48 hours i've seen 8 people peeing in public, haha like on dumpsters and buildings and crap like thathahahahahaha.   but we're doing good.  it's beeen kind of raining and chilly these past 3-4 days and there have been lots of fog too.  my area is where the rio uruguay dumps into the atlantic ocean so we've got two big bodies of water on both sides of us.  haha  so it gets a little bit chilly down here.  but it's all good.  something interresting that was actuslly really cool is that we're teaching this guy named Mercelo, he's 40 years old mas o menos and he's living with an inactive woman who was baptized like 25 years ago. but he's a cool guy.  we started to talk to him lots because he's a computer guy so we started to show him movies like the restoracion and other church movies and he loves them. he told us that he's watched every video at least 10 times.  he shows his step kid the movies and he loves them.  which is super good for him because the step kid is scitzofrentic (spanish literally kills english spelling, no idea how to spell that word) and always screams at the top of his lungs cuss words and everything.  but these last couple weeks while he's been watching these movies and stuff like that he's been a lot more respectful to his parents and has been in our lessons and participating in the discussion.  so the little 10 years old kid is starting to change.  but Marcelo (the adult) is super intelligent and in this last month finished reading the whole book of mormon!!!!!  yeah i thought that was pretty stinking cool.  he feels that the church is the true church and wants to get baptized but the only thing is that he's not married to his spouse.... and it's a little complicated what they have to to because she is technically married to someone else and here divorces are expensive,i have no idea how it is in the US but here it also takes like a few monthes to legally divorce.  so he's going to try to keep coming to church until they can get married.  so really that's all that has gone on in theis last week.  our ward is super nice it's got about 70 people going and it's going super well trying to work with the members.  but we'll see what hapens.  we're trying to take a lot of the members out and have them help us with their freinds and so forth.  but that's really all that's been going on.  love you all a super bunch.

luvs,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 101!

hey hey hey errrrrboday!!!

i'm doing pretty good.  not toooooooooo much has gone on this week.  let's see....... first off, i went on divisions with Elder Hendrickson (same group as me) this week.  it was super fun getting back together with him, talking about funny stories from the CCM, stuff that's gone on in the mission and all that type of crap.  another thing that happenes this week that was a little bit interresting was that i finally got robbed.  don't worry, i'm not hurt and nothing too bad happened.  they only took 20 pesos (1 dollar) from me and they left.  my comp didn't have anything and i only had money to buy an alfajor but it's ok i think that i'll keep living.  hahahahaha entonces that's something interresting that passed.  also this friday Elder Lòpez reached 1 year on the mission so we had to celebrate so i made him pancakes and funn stuff lieke that.  we're starting to get along better and now he's starting to open up a little more. i'm trying to teach him how to talk louder.  because he's got a super high soft voice and no one ever hears him say anything.  even when we're in the house just the two of us he talks and i can't hear anything that he's saying. haha so i'm trying to teach him in a non forceful way how to talk LOUDER!!!  he also doesn't talk very direct, like he'll invite people to do something but more like "i was thinking that if you wanted to, and if you had time to be able to read this chapter before the next time we come buy...." so i'm trying to help him talk more directly.  but anyways.... we also found som pretty sick people this week by working in an apartment complex that has 100% peruanos in it.  they are all from Perù and a lot of them are super nice and have been living there for years and haven't talked at all to the missionaries.  so we're starting to see some more success from that appartment building.  so we're getting super excited and everything.  hahaha there's someone in this ward that was actuslly in the CCM with me.  she served in Argentina and last week we saw each other and both of us said that we knew each other but we couldn't remember from where.... but yesterday she brought a picture to church of the CCM and we were both in it.  hahaha weird crap.  but that's pretty much the whole week. we've got a lot of plans for this week to have a lot more success and we'll see hoe everything goes.

love ya,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 100!

why hello there my family,

well it sounds like you're all doing quite wonderful!!!  yay, we'll i'm just peachy here in Montevideo, but i have to admit, it's a HUGE change to any other area that i've had!!!  here there are ONLY buildings and appartments.  to  we have to ring doorbells on buildings  a lot!!!!  hahaha but it's all good.  we actually hav a baptism this wek of a 50 year old guy named Jorge.  super cool guy that LOVES to talk....  hahah and when i say loves to talk i mean it.  after the abptism they asked him to share his testimonio about what happened and he talked for about 15-20 minutes. haha after 10 minutes the mision lìder of the ward got up and wispered in his ear saying that he needed to talk about the baptism and how it was  and then to end. jaja and he kept talking for like 10 more minutes and finally the mision lìder kindof cut him, but in a nice way.  also president heaton went to the baptism and was able to talk to us and stuff afterwards.  the hermana heaton told me "finally you're in montevideo and we get to see you!!! but it's only for like a month more... hahaha" but it was super funny  hahahaha but we've got quit a fewpeople listeneing to us. i'm not exactly sure what the misionaries before were doing but i stopped by like a few of their investigators and they accepted to be baptized and they tols me that the other missionaries hadn't even intived them to be baptized before.....  so we're going to change quite a bit of things here.  my comp is cool, he's from El Salvador, but kind of quite... i've been trying to relate to him and talk and include him but he's like acting super shy.  like even the members have told me that before he wasn't like this... so it's kind of weird.... but we'll see what happenes.  sorry if my spacing is kind of weird in this email... the space bar  keeps breaking and not working or it will space too much and crap like that.  but yeah,  we've got a ton of RMs in the ward, FINALLY!!!  a lot of them are newlyweds because everyone comes here to study and stuff like that.      jaja but one of them that's name is Federico started to talk to me and told me, hey i've been waiting to get a good missionary here and i feel like i should give you a reference of my best friend.  so this week we're going to pass by his friend and his friend is super interested.  we've already talked to him for a little bit, SUPER STUD and is super interested in the church.  he's seen the example of his friend (RM) federiico and has ben very impressed.  so we'll see what happenes.  i'm thinking this ward is going to be awesome.  another random fact: the chruch here isn't even a church. it's a 6 story building!!!!  the church bought a full sized building and now use it for institute and other stuff.  but i thought it was cool because it's a building that has the church's sign on it.  super random but cool.  but thanks for all the emails and love,

luvs,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 99!

hey there,

this has been a weird week. first off about the changes.  SUPRISE!!! I'M LEAVING!!!!!  i'm going to montevideo a Oeste 10.  yeah on sunday night president heaton called me and told me that even he wasn't going to change me but that he went to the temple and felt revelation that i needed to go to Montevideo with Elder Lòpez from El Salvador.  he told me that he's been having a lot of trouble being an obedient Elder and that he wanted me to go and help him.  so i'm going down from Zone Leader and being a district leader for my last change and finally going to go to Montevideo.  it will be super cool to be able to see all the crap that's down there and also i'll be in the same district as Elder Hendricksen my MTC comp.  so we'll be together in the same district our last change!!!  but it i've heard that my area is just buildings and appartments!  so it'll be a HUGE difference from the rest of my mission.  hahahaha but i'm super excited.  but this week went by super fast because i was out of my area like the whole time.  hahaha on tuesday we did divisions and i stayed in my area with Elder Strong from Boise Idaho, super stud and really cool cat! he's in his third change on the mission.  then we had a normal day on wednesday and on thursday i went to the area of Elder Olivares because he was a little worried about his baptism on saturday so i went with him to help him with his investigator and we did mini divisiones for like 4 hours on thursday and then on friday we had to go to Dolores to do a baptismal interview so took up almost all of friday and stuff like that. hahah so for lots of this week we weren't even in our area.  but it was a fun week and we worked super hard.  i'm sending you a few fotos that are a little blocky because i had to shrink them down a tad to send them.  but the pics are of me and my comp after a tiring day, all of the zone liders with the mission president and his wife in front of the temple. and two pictures of our district one on P Day and the other after district meeting.  but i'm doing great and it's stil fairly cold down here.  hahahahaha love you all,

thanks for all the love and prayers,

Elder Tyler Atkinson