Week 40!

¡Hola! ¿Como andan?

i'm having a great stinking fun learning the new area of Artigas 4!!!  it's once again a small area and has a few problems with finding some baptisms.  i get along really well with my Colombian comp Elder Vega.  haha he's super funny and fairly short. about 5 foot to be exact.  i live in a four elder house and ALL of them except me are latinos 2 Colombians and a Uruguayan (he lives in the other mission).  it's helping me a lot with my spanish.  not only with learning the words but also with the pronunciation.  this last week we had a ward activity on saturday, it was an open house talking about all of the organizations of the church, relief society, young women, young men, primary, etc... they also had bunches of food that i was more than willing to eat ;) haha  sunday we had ward conference,  we actually had a FANTASTIC turn out  for sacrament meeting, 62 PEOPLE!!!!!  haha they said that was the most people that they've had in their ward in years!!!  the usual average for this ward is between 35-40 members for sacrament meeting.  this week we've been trying a lot to find some new investigators to bring to church, but the same happened like what always happens, no one showed...  we try going by them to pick them up but for some reason it doesn't work...  but we did have two investigators in the church yesterday, a couple that elder vega and his old comp found and have been teaching for a while but as of right now they're not progressing because they aren't married........  if you haven't known yet Uruguay has a problem with people not getting married... EVERYONE practically that is young and together aren't married.  here it takes at least 3 monthes to be able to get a marrage license and then you have to schedule a date also to go,  and to make it worse is that guayan law states that if you have been living with someone for 5 years straight, you have the same rights as IF you were married.  so people here don't have as much drive to get married here.  but we're working hard with them trying to get them married so that they could get baptized.  today i'm actually in Montevideo because Elder Vega had to go to the dentist to get one of his teeth ficked.  from Artigas to Montevideo is about 7 hours on a bus...  hahaha but it's all good lots of "pondering time" haha  i'm actually suprised how well me and my comp get along!  we work well and we teach well and i can feel the spirit in every lesson that we teach.  it's a lot of fun being able to work hard and feel the spirit when you're "on the Lord's Errand" hahaha but it sounds like you all are doing great!!!!  mom i've got PLENTY of stamps for now thanks!  i just get your last letter with lindsey's prom pics and stuff in there! thanks a ton for all of your guys' letters i love them all!!!  and christine my mission rules are that as of right now, we can't recieve videos from family...  i'm sorry.  but thanks for asking!!!
i love you all and have a great week,
¡VAMO ARRIBA!
Elder Atkinson

Week 39!

hey there my good ol' family!!!!  how's life?  i'm great and as you can see because today isn't monday it is obviously changes!!!  hahaha guess what????  I'M LEAVING!!!!!!  yeah i'm going to Zone Artigas and area Barrio 4.  AND i'm having my 2nd latino comp.  his name is Elder Vega, he's from Columbia and is in his 12 or 13th change and this will be his first change as senior comp.  haha so once again i'll have another new senior comp. but this week has been stinking CRAZY!!!  first we did divisions with our district leader and his kid.  i left my area and went into their area for two days with the district leader's kid Elder Navarro.  he's a cool kid but for some reason  him and his companion don't get along very well, i tried talking to him about it and why they didn't get along and it turns out that Elder Navarro is kind of just a little TOO MUCH.  he's always talking, doesn't stop, but i talked to him for a while about it and i think he's getting a lil bit better.  i told him about how we need to learn something from every comp we get on the mission and he had never thought of learning from his comp.  he always just focused on the negative in his comp and how much he didn't like his comp.  but i kept telling him stuff like "there's a reason that he's YOUR trainer and not someone else's.  i think that he's getting better.  Elder Navarro is a super nice Chileno and wants to work hard he just doesn't know how.  haha so once i got back to the Vich on thursday i talked to Elder Fikus and he told me the President Heaton had called him about the area.  i guess that he said that he was worried about how there hasn't been like any baptisms these last two changes.  he asked why he thought that was and what they could do. he also talked about the possibility of closing the area and everything.  i guess that they're thrying their best to turn around the area and it's on it's last leg.  preasident also said that that was why he brought me and elder fikus together for that area.  but we'll see what happens for that area.  elder fikus is finally getting his first latino comp EVER!!!  this is his 11th change and his first with a latino.  haha  but this week has been crazy.  we also found out that one of the recent comverts isn't going to come to church anymore because her 14 year old daughter is CRAZY and won't let her go to church.  that was one of the more annoying parts of the week, we tried talking to the convert about what the crap is going on but nothing is going to change for at least the next month or so.  but this new area i heard is about as problem filled as the one i'm in right now and was in when i was in Paysandù.  they struggle getting people to church but it sounds like they've gotten some recent baptisms in the area to keep it going a little bit!  haha so i'm super excited to find out what's going to happen this next change!!!  WOOO!!!!  back to 100% spanish!!! woo i'ma get way better again!!!  super excited! can't wait! hey gotta go!
i love you guys and thanks a ton for all you've sent me and your prayers and everything!!!
Elder Tyler Atkinson

Week 38!

hey there my good ol family!!!
how is life in the united states going?  i'm having a blast as uaual down here in uruguay.  this week we had a lot go on!  so last tuesday we went to Taecuarembò for a Zone conference and it was a lot of stinkin fun!  one reason was because i got to see ELDER ASHBY and my mtc comp ELDER HENDRICKSON!!!!!!  funny thing is that they're COMPS right now! hahahaha we had a good time talking about good ol times, jokes, funny stories, and life!  hahaha elder ashby asked about you lindsey (wink wink) hahahaha he asked if you recieved his last letter and if you were going to write him back before he got back! haha  both of them are doing great and enjoying life down here in the Guay.  i always love Zone Conferences because you get to see other missionaries that you've been with again.  it was a crap ton of fun.  oh SUPER FUNNY story headline:  so this last friday our branch president asked us to walk by a recent convert/less active member to ask if we could have a family home evening with her to try to re-activate her.  we walk by, and we hear something........  it sounded like a bunch of women chanting and doing weird things IN HER HOUSE!!!!  we were thinking oh NO!!!!  she turned back to her old evangelical ways and doesn't want anything to do with us.  we notice that a door in her house is open and we look in and we see a lady preacher with about 7 other women in there WITH OUR BRANCH MEMBER!!!! we totally thought that we lost her!  we asked to talk to her but the lady at the door asked us to wait a little bit until the "prayer" was over. so about 10 minutes later the session was over and people started leaving.  finally our member (Anita) came out and asked us "Why didn't you guys come in?" ???????????? umm.... because satan was in the ROOOM DUUUHHHHHH!!!!!!  hahaha that's not what we said but she invited us into her house to talk.  she ended up telling us that she rents a room that is connected to the house to people and this church started renting it.  she said that she's not going to it but for their first session they wanted to invite her being the owner of the room, so she just sat in on it.  haha she ended up telling them that she is a member of our church and she knows that our church is true and that she will only frequent our church and not theirs.  hahaha so that night we ended up having the FHE and everything.  that was a big scare!!!  hahaha i bet that doesn't happen too much in north america.  yesterday was a super good day!!!  for church we had 18 people in church and one investigator.  he's a 14 year old kid who we kind of forgot about.  both of his parents have been baptized within the last year but he always says that he's "not really into religion"  DUH YOU'RE ONLY 14 YEARS OLD!!! hahaha but because he came we're going to try to work more with him on getting him to come more often.  apparently this is the first time in like 6 months that he's come.  so we'll see how that turn out.  hahaha it's always interresting!  hahahaha  so Lindsey AND Shaun graduate this week!!!!!!!!  wow!!!!  time sure does fly!  i remember being in the CCM when you guys had barely started school this year!!!!!  that's nuts!!! congratz guys!!!  hahahaa  you know how you asked what Uruguay looks like? well here's my house (it's super nice), and vichadero!  i love it and it's super beautiful!  i hope you guys enjoy and love you all tons!
love you all crap tons!!!
Elder Atkinson

Week 37!

hey there,

yeah this time we were able to email you guys!!!  WOO!!!  this week was actually filled with bunches of stuff!  we found a bunch of new investigators!  so we'll see how all of them end up.  one of them was a 31 year old lady named Mònica, she is married, and has one 2 year old kid named Joahquin.  she told us that she had only talked to the missionaries when she was in her teenage years because they taught English classes at the church so she went to learn english but never had the desire to come to church for sundays or anything like that.  but we started talking to her and it turns out that she wants to find a church for her little boy so that he can grow up in a church.  she said that she was born Catolica but she isn't too sure that that church is the one she wants him to grow up in.  this last week she was going to come to church but she went with her husband out of town for the weekend because he only comes in from work every other weekend.  but we have a set up appointment with her for this week so we'll see how everything goes.  hahaha funny story, so here in Vichadero (Vee-ch-a-deado haha i loved the pronunciation last night ;) there's this ex-investigator named marta who we've tried to visit several times because two of her daughters are baptized.  but she won't get baptized because she lives with a guy.  but she moved houses and has been trying to avoid us eversince.  because we know where her new house is we try to stop by all the time to try to talk to her.  one time we caught her walking into her house and as soon as she made eye contact with us she took out her non ringing phone and began to have a 25 second, totally fake conversation that goes as follows, "hello, uhuh, yeah yeah ok i'm going now" haha and begins to tell us that she can't talk to us because her daughter is in the hospital and she had to go right then to pick her up.  the only reason that we know FOR SURE that she lied to us was because later that day we talked to her daughter that was APPARENTLY in the hospital and she said that she was completely fine (apparently she didn't plan that very well) hahahahahah  one day we stopped by her house and talked to her daughter a little bit about coming back to church and we ended up finding a new investigator from their neighbor whose houses are like connected and she just came in and was super interested and wanted to know more.  during that lesson i could see marta in the back peaking through a crack in the door and she and i made eye contact like 3 times but she was just too prideful to come and actually talk to us.  but she just stayed looking through tha crack in the door (every time we made eye contact i would smile at her to recognize that i knew it was her)  she just is one of the dumbest people my comp and i have every had.  we started talking about her a little bit after the lesson and elder fikus told me, "it is very clear that she is emotionally unstable and has the mental capacities of a child" hahahaha  oh i forgot to tell you that last week we actually got to talk to her and she started crying about how her boyfriend left her and how she wanted the church to help her with her problems.  obviously she only thought of repenting because she got caught and was kind of forced in to humility and to stop living a life of sin and fornication.  hahaha so as of now that story is still continuing!  i'll keep you updated on her hahaha ;) but hey gots to go!

loved talking to you yesterday!!!

love ya,

Elder Atkinson

Week 36!

hey there my good old family!!!

 

how's life going???  ¿Todo Bien? ¡Espero què sì! so not too much has happened today but i'll tell you that we do have some sad news down in the guay...  do you guys remember Jorge?  the guy that my comp and i pushed to church every week?  well this last thursday he passed away...  last week he feel at his house and hit his head on the floor, he was completely fine for like a day but then it turns out that he had a clot in his head that pushed up on his brrain and caused him to vomit continually and he couldn't talk because of it.  they took him from Vichadero ti rivera and then from Rivera to a hospital in Taecuarembò and he went up and down in health and eventually passed away.  he died 2 months and 2 days after he was baptized.  everyone used to ask him why he actually came to Vichadero to live because he's like 5 hours away from all family and all friends, for me i honestly think that the only reason he came to vichadero was to recieve the Gospel.  he told us many times that thousands of missionaries passed by his house in Montevideo and he always shut them down but for some reason once he moved to Vichadero he finally let them in.  so it's sad but at the same time it's actually a super happy thing that recieving the missionaries was like the only thing stopping him in this life.  yeah right now we're in Rivera because yesterday we had Stake Conference, it was super good!!!  they talked about how every young man needs to go on a mission and also the temple president of Montevideo and his wife came up for it and gave super good talks about the importancia of going to the temple and how it should be a goal to go once a month, even though it is like 5-6 hours away we still need to make it a priority to go to the house of the Lord.  overall it was a SUPER good conference.  after it Elder Fikus and i went on divisions with our district leader and his "son".  this time i went with Elder Navarro "the district leader's son" who this is his first change in Uruguay.  he's from Chile, and in super nice.  he does not stop talking EVER!!!  haha but it's a lot of fun going and geeting to know more missionaries.  he had a lot of questions about how to do things because it was his first time doing divisions.  he's a super funny guy, and we got along very well.  he also knows how to teach pretty well, (better than i could at his time, probably because he actually knew spanish an i had no idea what i was doing) hahaha  but hey!!!  we were working together super well and we had some really good lessons together that was filled with the spirit.  we had lots of fun together.  this week was super fun but honestly not too much happened because this week was the first week after the semana santa so everyone had to go back to wark and make up for time that they lost in this last week.  but hey!!!  this sunday i'm calling you!!!  i figured out that i'm going to call you at like 6:00 Uruguay time!  i'm not sure what time it is now there becuase of day light savings time but i think there's like either 3 or 4 hours difference!!!  i'll call you so you can get the number then you can call me back like last time!!!

 

love ya!!!

Elder Atkinson