Week 23!

hey hey hey there my PEEPS in Los Estados Unidos!!!

 

how's life going? first off, i got your two packages this last tuesday!!!  thanks soo stinking much for them!!!  i love the shirt, shorts, all the candy and the new pictures!!!  I ABSOLUTELY LOVE all of it!  oh by the way, Elder Segura says "Muchìsimo Grasias" for the stuff you sent for him! hahaha  i also got one letter from you guys with the stamps and stuff,  haha i came in a plastic beg because it got soaking wet!!  it was stikk sogging wet when i opened it, haha dad and mom's pen ink seeped through everything hahaha but luckily i could still read it all! thanks a butt load!  this week has been a lot of FUN!!!  my spanish is getting better and better everyday!  haha it's actually not too tough speaking spanish 24/7haha it's funny being with him, yesterday at church i was talking with some of the youth of the ward and they said that they didn't like him, so they only like talking to me hahaha so i talk with them all the time.  ;) hahahahahaha hey you guys know what those rhino bugs look like right?  well they're everywhere HERE!!!  yeah i know i thought it was the weirdest thing i had ever seen in real life!  i thought they were only in like africa and stuff like that!  i was definitely suprised to see them here.  we found a lady whose name is Katy, she's about 32 years old, single mom with two sons, a 6 year old and a 2 year old.  she listened to us and told us that it seems really interresting.  so we came back the next time and she was super sad and it turns out that she was super confused on what to do, apparently once a week the Jehova's Witness' come over and do a Bible study with her, and she is a Catholic.  so she was just like super confused on stuff like that,  so we told her about Joseph Smith and his story and how it's kind of like her situation trying to find which church is the true church and we showed her the Restoration video and she was said something like "wow his situation was like my situation" it was really cool, she ACCEPTED a baptismal date AND she came to church this last week!!!  her date is for the 26 of february!  i hope everything goes well with her!  so every week we play futbol with our youth and the local kids in the neighborhood and all of them are having a blast and i am too and i'm getting better and better at futbol.  it's pretty cool! MAN this last week we had a lot of rain AGAIN!!!  i mean like this last wednesday the road next to our house had 2 feet of water going down the road!!!  no joke it was like a real river in the street!  haha and we had to deliver something to our Zone Leaders so we had to cross it!!!  definitely got a little wet from that! haha but's it's all good!  the only bummer is that when it rains here it's still like 85 degrees outside so it's super hot, if you wear a jacket you end up being dreanched in sweat!!!  haha so you're either soaked i rain without a jacket, or drenchet inj sweat and wear a jacket!  haha so it's annoying either way hahaha

 

but thanks for everything! packages letters and emails!!

THANKS A CRAP TON, much love,

Elder Tyler Atkinson

Elder Atkinson's Testimony

Elder Atkinson was so nice to send me his testimony in an e-mail and this is what he said:

i have felt the spirit so strong in my life since i've been gone, i know i've only finished like 1/5 of my two years but i have felt the blessings of serving already in my life. i know that this gospel is the only true gospel on the earth and that Josè Smith restored this church throught the power of christ and heavenly father. i know that Thomas S. Monson IS the prophet ment for this time in life and for all of us. i hope you know how much i love you and how much i am HONORED to call you my older sister. i love you so stinkin much that i can't even express it in words.

I can not believe how much he has grown already!

Week 22!

YO MY FAM!!!!!

 

how's life going? i'm doing great right now because i can write in english for a little while!!!  haha ;)  ha i'm actually having a blast with Elder Segura,  he's from Peru and i can already tell that it's helping my spanish because i HAVE to speak it 24/7 haha but before i really get into the email let me tell you something, a missionary's life really doesn't change from day to day, what i mean by that is that you are either DYING of hunger or DYING because you cannot stuff anything else in your stomach!!! haha right now i'm starving!!!! ;) elder segura is a cool guy, he works hard, is funny, and we get along.  haha one thing that's a little interresting is that he came here from being a Branch President in his old area, so he's kind of riding on a "High Horse" so he's kind of cocky and hewants to change a LOT of things that he doesn't have control over (as in Bishop Responcibilities and so forth) but he's still really nice and we work good together.  i don't think that the bishop of our ward likes him very moch because of his kind of cocky attitude so he always talks to me instead of him ;) haha  this week a got a little bit sick again because someone gave us some rotten water that i drank... oh man i had some BAD DIARHEA (i don't remember how to spell that) hahabut i'm completely fine now! hahaha it's great to hear how people are getting ready to serve missions thanks for the updates!  this week i got pooped on by THREE different birds on THREE consecutive days haha it was annoying because we don't have anyone that will wash our clothes for this next week so i had to wash it by hand in our house.  but my spanish is deffinitely improving people started asking me stuff like "how long have you been with your new comp?" "since wednesday, why?" "Because your spanish is soo much better ALREADY" haha so it's great to tell that having a latino comp will help my spanish.  thanks for all your prayers and your emails!!!

 

i LOVE all Ya'll

elder tyler Atkinson

Week 21!

my fam!!! HOW'S IT HANGING?????

 

i'm having a great time here!  last night we found out what is going on with my 3RD CHANGE ALREADY!!!  elder ashby is leaving to taecuarembo and i'm staying here!  guess who my comp is going to be???  A LATINO!!!!! yeah i know!  his name is Elder Seguda.  i'm not sure what exactly is going to happen but i'm super excited to learn spanish super fast!!!  Elder Ashby said that i'll probably be fluent by the end of this change because it will be 24/7 SPANISH!!!!  hahaha but anyways, back on to this last week.  the Choir Concert went AWESOME!!!!  my solo went pretty good actually!  so it was lots of fun!  there were a lot of people that came  to the activity and the church was just FILLED with the spirit and a TON of people were crying because of the spirit in the room.  a lot of the men members of the stake were all giving us hags and telling us how great it was to have this happen and how we involved the stake youth and everything.  so that was great to hear :)  we worked a lot on that and tried to get as many people as we possibly could to come to it.  we ended up with the chapel completely FILLED with people.  this week we've hit a lot of rain...  and i mean a TON of rain like 3 days straight of just raining.  haha which makes it a lot tougher to find people because they end up sleeping for EVEN LONGER than their normal 1-5 o'clock siesta.  haha so it was pretty tough but oh well we've been trying our absolute best.  we found a really great couple this last week named Oscar and Jeni,  he's about 27 or 28 years old and she's somewhere around there as well, but the one problem is that they aren't married....... yeah.... i was pretty disappointed because he is a total STUD and he is genually interrested in hearing and learning about the gospel.  but we just need to get our investagators to church.  we keep trying and trying to get them there but the just don't ever show...  it's difficult but it's a blast working here!  i'm super excited that i get to be here for at least 6 more weeks!!!  thanks for all of the letters and emails and all for sending me!!!  it's great to know that people are thinking about you even though you are pretty far away.

 

¡VAMOS ARRIBA!

Elder Atkinson

Week 20!

hey there my FAM!!!!

i just got you letters with all the pictures in it!  thanks soo stinking much!  I LOVE THEM!!!! FAH! it's awesome to see how much fun you're all having and how much Zoey has grown! it's CRAZY!!  lots has happened since i've talked to you guys!  first off I HAD MY FIRST BAPTISM!!!!  it wasn't for my ward though... hahaha it was for the hermana's ward which shares the church building with us.  haha but the interresting thing is that we cantacted her FIRST because we talked to her in the street and she was really interrested but she didn't live in our area...  haha that seems like it always happens down here... stinkin hermanas... hahaha just kidding, but seriously. hahha but it was awesome!  (i'll try to email the picture to you after the email)  number two: i think lindsey will be very interrested to know that i finally threw up... yeah... haha it was yesterday... haha it was because every sunday we have at 3 o'clock a lady that always gives us a little dessert and it is always NASTY stuff.  and i can usually choke it down but today i just simply could NOT!!!  so i calmly asked the sister if i could use her bathroom and i walked over and chucked.  it was aweful FAH! GROSE!!! haha another thing is that i am the lead singer in a song that we are singing for a choir we are doing for the stake.  haha yeah i know!  we're singing "be still, My soul" we're performing this next saturday! haha we'll see how well it goes! hahaha haha we've been averaging playing futbol here about twice a week (one for P Day and once with the youth) i think i'm starting to improve so it's getting really stinkin fun!!!! haha haha today was pretty special because the mission president approved us to watch a movie!!!! because he didn't for christmas!  he approved us to watch Night At The Museum 2!!!  oh man i was stinking Dying laughing the entire time!!! hahahaha it was pretty weird watching a movie though haha.  hey thanks for all of your emails and everything!!!!

MUCH LOVE,

Elder Tyler Atkinson

oh yeah!  PS my next change is next tuesday! so i'm not going to be able to email till tuesday!!! so we'll see what happens for this next change!

PICTURES and a Phone Call for Christmas!

We had the best and fastest 45 minutes ever being able to talk to Elder Atkinson on Christmas day! Christine, Scott, Zoey & Melissa, Harris joined us (mom, dad, Lindsey, Shaun) on a conference call to Tyler.  He's doing GREAT! He's starting to speak super fast like a true S. American and LOVING every minute of hard work in Uruguay...zillions of bug bites and gallons of sweat don't stop their excitement to further the Lord's work!  Him and his comp, Elder Ashby, are dying of heat...so are loving wearing their cowboy hats they purchased to shield some of the sun off them.  Uruguayans make fun of their hats all day long! So, that makes missionaries that more excited about wearing their hats proudly! :) It was a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS for all of us!!! Ty sent us a super great letter for Christmas and included these pictures--here are some photos for everyone to see how much he's loving his mission!

In the CCM we created a new sport.  It is called Smash Ball.  These are all the players who played on the teams.

Me with 'Hermano Lisandrelo' one of the CCM teachers I got to know really well!  He doesn't speak ANY English whatsoever.  But he was stinking HILARIOUS!!!

Me with the CCM President and his wife, President & Hermana George.

Paysandu, Uruguay.  This is my whole Zone 'Paysandu'.  In case you're wondering, the big guy in the middle of the second row is the nephew of the Longshores.  This change was his very last.

The 1st time meeting my Trainer Elder Ashby from Beeverton, Oregon in the Mission Home in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Argentina CCM.  My District with 1 of my teachers 'Hermana Tavares'. Just having a lil' fun the last night of classes.

My District in the CCM.  The 2 Elders were my 1st companions and the 1 in the blue was my last comp in the CCM.  He's the one that left the CCM 3 weeks early and went to the other mission in Uruguay.

Week 18!

hey hey hey there my good family!

 

sorry but i wasn´t aloud to email till today.  just a heads up, the next time i will be able to email will be the 10th of january. so on to the fun stuff!!! thanks for the letters and everything and i REALLY enjoyed the call as well!  it was awesome to hear from all of you guys!  it´s great to know that you are doing so stinking great!  fun story, Elder Ashby and I were on the news in Paysandú yesterday! yeah we were in the center of the city and we had to give our district leaders our keys to do clean checks and while we were walking a camera guy got us walking down the road and i guess they talked about how we wore hats to protect our heads from the sun.  haha so now we´re FAMOUS!!! hahahaha fun story number 2, on thursday we decided to mix it up a little bit in the morning and we took out the big Book of Mormon that we made and used it as a prop and went out to talk to people in the street!  haha it was pretty interresting and it definitely brought some attention to us so it was pretty interresting.  haha just a heads up on my ¨Crochet status¨ i just finished my first hat! it´s awesome!!!!  hahahahaha this week we have been trying to find new people to teach and also trying to reactivate all the young men in the ward.  all they young men really like us so it wasn´t too hard to get them to come to church this last week but the challenge will be getting them to come EVERY WEEK!  haha because it´s just not ¨custom¨ for the people of Uruguay to go to church.  or at least that´s their excuse haha  haha the past week has been averaging around 105 degrees every day not including humidity and averaging around 95 degrees at night oh my goodness where ever you go you can´t excape the hotness!!!!  it´s crazy!!! haha hey that´s about all the time i have for today... but thatnks for all the emails and everything!!!!  thanks for all the prayers and support!

 

LOVE,

Elder Atkinson