Week 9!

hey hey hey there grand family of mine!!!!

 

how is life going?  i am wonderfully in URUGUAY!!!  i'm in a city called Paysandu, it's a city over on the west boarder of Uruguay. (you should be able to see it on the map i think) haha it's a really awesome place.  my area has bot rich and REALLY poor and they are all soo nice and willing to listen to what we are saying.  my trainer's name is Elder Ashby, he's from beaverton, Oregon.  he's been out for about a year and three months.  he's a totally awesome guy.  VERY hard worker, excited about the gospel, wanting to do anything he can to spread they gospel.  i can already tell that he is going to teach me a TON about how to work on my mission.  our ward is a normal sized ward for out here, about 40 people attend, but it seems like there is a BIG problem with inactivity...  so we're trying to help the members and find people to teach at the same time.  so we're both working our butts off trying to get people to come to church.  i know that we are going to have to work really really hard to try to change this place but both of us have a positive attitude and i know that we will be able to change this ward :)  so far the weather has been BEAUTIFUL!!!  because it hasn't hit summer yet and it's our of the rainy season of winter! haha my apartment is quite large for here actually.  we have a small room for us, a very small study, a fairly decent sized living room and a small-ish kitchen.  the problem is that the mission president just bought it so there's barely any furniture.  hahahahaha but it's all good.  my mission president is really really nice; he's kind of a more laid back guy but still has a GREAT spirit and knows how to be a mission president.  his spanish is WAY better than mine but because he didn't use his spanish too much after he served his mission he's still a little bit rusty haha but his wife knows close to NO spanish whatsoever haha so i got to talk to her for a while and she is soo nice and sweet and i can tell that she really really cares about the missionaries.  oh man... the first day i got here our flight was delayed for about 2 hours and once we got to Uruguay they mission president threw us in the car and went to the mission home as fast as he could.  we had an opening meeting thing where i met Elder Ashby and had an interview with the President and then we took a bus to our area.  the bus drive took about 5 hours to get to our area!!! yeah it was kind of a long drive and we didn't get to our area till about 11 at night.  i haven't been able to see nick oakey yet but he did call me and say welcome and to see how i was doing, it was very nice of him haha.  haha i think i'm getting a little faster at typing don't you think ;) haha

 

anyways i lov you all a BUNCH,

Elder Tyler Atkinson

 

P.S. my p-days are usually on mondays but sometimes it's going to change due to scheduling difficulties hahaha if you send me letters send them to the mission home.  and if you would like to have friends and others who i cannot email send their email to the urugoests Gmail account or whatever you want to call it because it does it a little different.  i love you tons and can't wait to hear back from you.

**Elder Atkinson's new email address is urugoest@gmail.com and put Elder Tyler Atkinson in the subject line. (All emails go to the mission home and they forward it to the missionaries.) His mission president said that they have to watch exactly what the missionaries are receiving...so i guess that's how they are doing it down there.

Week 8

hey there my dear old family!!!!

how is life in the United States?  i'm having a total blast with getting prepared for leaving TOMORROW!!!  it's starting to hit me that i'm actually a missionary!  it's kind of an interresting feeling.  haha my spanish is getting better and better each day... (or so i think) haha but it's all good.  so are you guys getting ready for Halloween?  if you didn't know, they don't celebrate it down here or anything like it.  my flight leaves from Buenos Aires tomorrow at 8:30.  it's about a 30 minutes flight and i have no idea what's happening after that... hahahaha i guess i'll just have to tell you what actually goes on later.  haha  this week we went to another new area for prosilitismo, a town about 20 minutes away from the CCM called Atalaya.  oh my goodness we were in the GANG LAND!!!!  a few HUGE guys covered in tattoos asked me and Elder Bush what our rings (CTR rings) ment because they were nice looking.  haha they got less interrested once they realized that they were religious rings haha we taught them a small lesson about the gospel and they let us go on our way with some advice about some roads that we SHOULD NOT go down haha.  it was a struggle to find people to teach because we met some members in the area and they said that this area gets a lot of the missionaries from the CCM so it gets fished out pretty quickly.  but we met this man named Vito and he is a strong PRACTICING Catholic and wasn't very interrested in our message but something that the lord did changed his attitude to us while we were talking about the Book of Mormon.  he got soo interrested in what we were saying that we promised that he would read and he was so greatful for the book that he gave us FREE waterbottles haha it really shows how the lord can change someone's attitude for who is ready to hear the gospel.  he promised that he would go to church and that we could send over other missionaries to teach him whenever they feel like it.  i could really tell that this man was TRULY interrested in the spirit of the message and everything.

LOVE YOU BUNCHES!!!!!

Elder Atkinson

P.S. hey i'm going to try to send some pics right now so HEADS UP for a few minutes!!!

Leaving the MTC!

Elder Atkinson will be leaving the MTC on October 22! His new contact information is posted in the sidebar.

Week 7!

hey hey hey there family!!!!!

greeting from ARGENTINA!!!!  life is going GREAT!!!  in case you didn't know, i'm leaving for Uruguay a week from TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!  yeah i know it's crazy, we've been working as hard as we possibly can to be prepared for leaving.  haha i just got your letter that says it was sent here on september 28 haha ALL of you are soo sweet!!!  i have been truly blessed to have such a great family as you are :)  oh yeah because i had a new area with him this last week.  it was still in Ituzaingó but in a different part of the city.  it was his area and my old companions kept my area.  we went and visited this old lady who must have been 90 years old, her name is Torisia.  we taught her a lesson about the plan of salvacion and while we were talking about how through the Atonement of Jesus Christ all of our sins caan be washed away and she started crying and crying because of how beautiful of an idea that is.  when we were teaching her i got sooooo excited to be able to teach EVERYDAY in like a week.  the area that we were in last week was in the total ghetto: dirt roads, tin shacks with spraypaint all over it, run down buildings, and CRAZY dogs.  but when you go to places like that you find some of the most humble people that you will ever meet in your entire life.  everyone is willing to listen and if they're not interrested then they tell you in a loving way.  that was one of the greatest days of works i've had so far.  the new elders that just flew in a week ago are really cool.  their names are Elder Peterson, Elder Barton, and Elder Harris, Elder Barton and harris are from Utah (South Jordan and Salt Lake)  but elder peterson is fron san diego.  they seem pretty cool and they're going to my mission so i thought that was pretty exciting.  my spanish is a "work in progress" i can tell that i've learned a ton but it is still no where NEAR fluent.  haha the Temple here is ALSO a "work is progress" and probably will be for the next two years at the rate they are going. haha the CCM is right across the street from the Temple but the temple just looks like ruins because they're renovating it for it's twenty year renovation or something.  so... it's really not even a pretty site to look at or anything hahaha but it's all good.  hahaha thanks for the love and prayers.

Love,

Elder Atkinson

oh hey P.S. would you be able to send me some white church pants because they say that i need them in Uruguay.  just send it to my mission home or something.  my sizes are 30x30 thanks a ton!!!!

Week 6!

:hey there my super awesome family!!!!

yes i was able to recieve a shower and drink now hahaha.  i got a shower on friday.  guess what???  i have a new companion, yeah i know right? in the class below us (the 3 weekers) one of the elders really knows spanish well so they bumped him from his class and now he's my companion.  his name is Elder Bush.  he's a really cool guy, he's from Shelly Idaho,  i'm having a blast down here.  for General Conference we watched priesthood session live (9:00-11:00 in argentina) and we watched the sunday sessions live too (1:00 and 5:00) because we went proscelyting on saturday we only got to watch one session on saturday that was recorded (the morning session) and we watched the saturday afternoon session on sunday morning before the live sessions that afternoon.  my favorite talk of general conference was probabliy patrick kearon of the seventy, he talked during the priesthood session and for some reason i was really drawn into his talk.  i also really likes elder Holland's talk, he always know how to interest me and get my attention.  we've been learning the finishing parts of our grammar and should finish all of our grammar by the middle of next week!!!  it's not fun learning grammar.... but we've been learning a ton about the gospel and i get soo excited to be able to fly to URUGUAY in three weeks and teach them all the gospel!!!!!  how's everything going back home?  on Tuesday the North American elders that we've had here since i've been here left for the Uruguay, Montevideo mission...  it's kinda weird not having them here because we've grown soo close to one another.  we got some new latinos today, i met one of my roommates so far, his name in Elder Alveréz, he's from a small town in central Argentina.  the other elder in our room hasn't showed up yet but he's going to be a Chileno.  that is sooooooo crazy that lindsey gets to register for college next week!!!!!  man... that was QUICK!!!!!  i'm very glad to hear that all of you are doing AMAZINGLY well!!!  just to let you know, i have some pictures for you but we don't have enough time to send them until the day before we get to leave from the CCM.  so in like 2 and a half weeks or so i will be able to send you some pretty INTERESTING photos ;) haha i hope you are all doing amazing and i love you tons.

can't wait to hear more!!! LOVE YA,

Elder Atkinson