Week 53!

wussup ya'll!!!!

 

i'm living it up down here in the Guay!!!  this last week i was able to celebrate my 1 year mark on the mission.  yeah yeah!!!  i will say that i did celebrate but i forgot to bring my camera from the house to send you the pics but i don't want to spoil what i did so i'll just talk to you about it next week!  hahaha but this week was fairly long.....  we didn't have a whole lot of success but it's not like we didn't have any either.  one thing that was really cool was that this wednesday the stake president here (Presidente Bueno) called me and started to talk to me about an inactive member that lives in my area.  he gave me the direction to his house and we went by that day but he wasn't there so we tried passing by a few times that day because we were near the area all day.  that night i called the president and told him that we passed by a few times to let him know that we passed by and the member wasn't there and he told me, "thank you elder for taking this reference seriously, the stake presidency has been praying and fasting to find members to help this ward to reactivate."  so i told him that we were planning to go by the next day.  the next day before leaving to go out and working i prayed that we would be able to find this member (Luciano) in his house.  we passed by his house and he was there, not only was he there but his wife (Noelia) who's not a member was there with their one year old daughter.  we were able to talk to both of them about the familias and how important it is that after this life we can live with them forever if we do all the things in this life that we can.  while we were talking about that the wife started crying.  they told us that they would go to church this week.  i called the president that night to tell him what happened and he started to cry and told me that they had gone to the temple to find inspiration on how to help this ward and specifically told me "DO NOT LOSE THIS FAMILY!!!!!"  they ended up not going to church yesturday but we have a lesson with them set for tonight at 6 so we'll see how that goes.  but this week has been a lil interresting, i had to talk to my comp about having personal space with others.  for me, it's not a big deal but a few of the other missionaries have started to complain about it, that he's always in their face and he's always touching them.  so i had to talk to him about that for a little bit.  today we've been deep cleaning the house...  oh man i cleaned the bathroom and it took me 3 and a half hours to clean that mother!  it's not even a big bathroom, it's about the size of the bathroom in christine's old room!  but it was filled with mold and hatred!!!  haha it was terrible!!!  but now it's minty clean!!!  but that was pretty much it for this week!  Luv ya'll and can't wait to tell you guys more.

Elder Atkinson

Week 52! (ONE FULL YEAR OUT!)

hey ther evr'boday,
how's life going????  i'm doing pretty good! :) this week was actually
pretty interresting.  with Elder Nevarro we have started to find some
new good people and they have some real potential.  awesome story:
last night we passed by a person's house that told us to come back to
talk while we were contacting like a week ago.  we passed by yesterday
and he told us that we could pass into his house.  he's a super cool
guy with about 50 years.  he's a cop and he works in the prision here
in Artigas.  he told us that about 10 years while we was working he
was talking on a phone and got electricuted through the phone!! How
does that happen??? i have no idea but he told us that bacause of it
his hearing is bad, he can still hear but you just have to talk loud.
so we were teaching him about the book of mormon and everything and
then i asked him to get baptized and he totally didn't understand.  ha
was super confused and couldn't understand what i was saying.  so my
comp gets the inspiration to write down the baptismal invitation on a
pice of paper so that he could read it. and he said yes!!!  then we
gave him a baptismal date for the 17 of september also by writting it
and he accepted that also!  it was one of the most interresting
lessions that i've ever had.  it definitely only worked because of the
inspiration that my comp got.  it was a true blessing.  also yesterday
we had stake conference!!  it was super awesome because a few special
people came to visit:the mission president, temple president, and an
area 70!!!  his name is Rùben Alliaud and he's from Argentina!  he's a
truly inspired man of god that was called to help out this area!  one
of my favorite quotes from him this conference was "Lots of people are
willing to die for the Lord, but there are only few that are willing
to LIVE for the Lord"  and i've been thinking about that quote a lot
this last day and it really is true!  we need to always be focused in
living for the lord in every moment of our lives.  it was a truly
great expirience to be able to listen to him speak.  by the way this
week i got to meet the dad of Vanesa!!! he's a recent convert from
Paraguay that moved back to uruguay yesterday to live with them!  he's
actually a super STUD!!!  like within this last month he went to the
temple to recieve his endowments!  and of course when he saw us tha
first thing that he showed us was his scriptures and told us that he
didn't forget them in Paraguay!  i honestly think that he will help
them get baptized!  we just have to work with them to get them to
recieve these blessings!!!

thanks for everything and i love all of you guys crap tons!!!
Elder Atkinson

Week 51!

hey there everybody!!!
i'm doing great here in Artigas and that's where i'm staying for this next change! Elder Vega is leaving for Taecuarembò. yeah i'm super excited and a little bit nervous because i'm going up to senior comp.  my comp is going to be Elder Navarro from Chile, he's the one that i did divisions with in Rivera so i already know him.  it will be fun.  also a lot of responsibility.  but i'm excited and just need to rely on the Lord.  i also got the packeges from melissa and harris, and christine and scott this last week!  thanks soo much for the also for the letters filled with awesome pictures.  i think now i can rightfully say that i think i have sufficient socks for the rest of my mission after this birthday.  haha thanks everyone!  this week was super fun!  i went on divisions with elder Rios and we went back to the bikes and we found quite a few people and we also got atacked a few times from ravinous wolf-like dogs.  hahah elder rios was dying with that.  this week we had super weird weather.  one day, FREEZING COLD with rain, the next 3 days, 28 degrees celcius (don't remember what that is in ferinheit and super humid.  and then to finish the week every day was different.  haha with all of these changes in weather Elder Vega got super sick with the flu...  yeah it was tough for him but now he's great.  this last sunday we had one of the best BBQs i've ever had.  it was lamb that our first counciler killed himself on his ranch the day before.  it was super good and oh so very tender!  so it was quite delicious.  today is freaking AMAZING!!!  we went to a business that sells the rocks that are like rock-jewels like gems and stuff.  Artigas is world renound for these rocks and i found out why!!!  they have the world's largest "amathist" rock that is valued at $300,000,000 american dollars! (the rock that is dark in the pics i sent you)  this company has a huge barn just filled with these types of rocks!  it was one of the most amazing things i've ever been able to see.  he told us that 90% of the rocks they get in their mines goes to one family in China.  Obviously this family has a crap ton of money!  but yeah, i'm super excited for this change to start and to see what is going on in the next six weeks in Artigas!

love you all!

Elder Atkinson

pic number one: we're just thuggin it up

pic number two: me with the $300,000,000 rock

pic number three: another HUGE STONE

Week 50!

hey there everybody!!!!
WUSSUP WUSUP??????  i'm having a great birthday today here in Artigas uruguay!  today we got to play basketball for like 2 hours today especially for my birthday!  haha because usually the latinos never want to play basketball but i pulled the birthday card on all of them and IT WORKED!!!!  can you believe that i only have one more week of this change so the next time i'll write you guys will be on next tuesday!  man these changes are going by super fast!!!!  but this week has been super fun, the first fun thing we did was that we got permission to use bikes and head out and try to find more people.  our area on one side does not end so we could take the bikes and go and try to find some peeps.  we had a friend lend us two bikes.  funny thing is that they gave me a bike from about 1960 and they gave women's bike to Elder Vega.  the road we took was dirt with tonns of rocks... and the seats of the bikes i would describe them as sheet metal covered in a thin layer of material to give it the appearance that it's a nice seat. haha  we road out for about 30 minutes or so and found some super nice people that have never meet the missionaries before in their lives.  it was super fun, we were out there for a couple of hours working and before the sun went down we headed back.  there are quite a few hills so elder Vega was absolutely dying trying to get up the hills.  on a few of them half way up he just gave up and started walking up the hills.  haha but that day, my butt hurt sooo bad!!!!  going down those dirt roads you could feel every single rock and pebble.  for me, my muscles didn't hurt at all but i died of pain in between those two bones in your butt.  oh man it took like three days to recover from that. haha you're probably wondering what the photos are of.  the two with me and a lamb was while we were on our little trip we talked to a nice family and they let us take pictures of it.  the other two are of me and Elder Vega in the middle of where we were biking.  the one picture with him sitting down, what happened is that he set his camera down and set the timer and when he ran to his bike he slipped i was dying laughing so hard because he was sooo mad that the picture didn't work and we had to take another picture.  hahaha  we found some really cool people this week and i'm excited to work more with them.  this week we have been trying super hard to work with our members in lessons and activities to try to keep them excited here.  our best priesthood holder in the ward is definitely our first councelor in the bishopric.  he works in ranching with cattle, sheep, and ostriches.  he is an absolute workhorse.  he got baptized about 6 years ago and has stayed completely active since.  he always asks us when we can go out and work with him on divisions or just visiting members with him.  his name is Enrie Rodriguez and he's about 40 years old.  to tell the truth, and the primary are the only people to are working in the ward.  so for this reason we are trying our absolute hardest to try to excite everyone else.  i'm having fun and i think that Elder Vega is too! We're working hard and need to end on a high note this change.  of by the way, thanks for the Jimmer shirt, I LA shirt, the CD, the Tie, and the basketball hoop!!! i love them all!!!!!  i still haven't gotten the stuff from christine and scott, and harris and melissa tampoco.  but i'll definitely keep an eye out for them!  i love you all very much and i can't wait to hear more!!!
thanks EVERYONE for the birthday greetings!!!!
love you all!,
Elder Tyler Atkinson

Week 49!

WUT UP EVERYBODAY!!!!!

i'm having fun down here and getting wet down in Artigas, Uruguay!  hahaha this week has been pretty good to tell you the truth!  first thing was super funny.  so last week we were in Montevideo going to sign our papers to actually become leagal in Uruguay, it took forever!!!  we were in the migration offices for like 4 hours......  our bus leaves from Montevideo to Artigas at 6:00 and we ended signing papers at 5:45 and we were 20 minutes away from the bus terminal.  luckily the bus driver was fast because we got to the bus terminal at 5:58 and we were booking it to the bus, as we get to where the bus is supposed to be it's not there...  we look around and see it driving around the corner and out of our sight.  i was heartbroken because if we missed that bus we would have to wait till 10 at night till the next bus to artigas.  we hurried and ran to a bus director of the bussing company and he told us to just on to this random super sketchy bus with no name on it going to Rivera.  luckily the bus actually ran down our real bus about 20 kilometers down the road and we changed busses.  oh man it was pretty funny once it was all done.  also this last thursday we had interviews with President Heaton.  he's such a great man!  he gave me a bunch of great ideas of how i can help out this ward.  i talked a lot with Elder Vega after it and he came up with great ideas on how to try to animate the members of our ward.  it's going to be tough but it's definitely not impossible.  oh yeah!  the family that lived in the U.S. (Vanessa, Sofìa, and Matìas) all have a baptismal date for the 20th of august!!!  i hope i don't get changed this next change because changes are in two weeks!  their super excited about the church anf they're loving the gospel and preparing to be baptized.  this past week has been full of rain, rain, oh yeah and more rain.  as i and writting this it is raining.  i'll tell you what rain sure makes everyone in this town just SLEEP!!!  they don't do anything but sleep when there is rain.  hahaha but it's super fun seeing all of these people that are like, "i didn't go to work today because it was raining" "my children stayed at home from school today because of the rain"  haha it's absolutely Histerical to see how different cultures are. hahaha because it's not just a few people, it's EVERYONE that says that.  thanks for all of the prayers and the emails.

love you guys TONS!!!!

Elder Atkinson