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.