Week 57!

hey there my good ol famila!!!

 

well i just found out my change and i'm going to stay in Artigas for this next change!  i'm going to stay with Elder Navarro also, that means that i will have been in artigas for 6 months when i finish this change!  wow time sure does fly!  well this week was another good week of success and lots of miracles!!!!  first off, we had a baptism this last saturday of an investigator that is 9 years old.  her aunt is a very faithful member that is our primarty president.  she was very excited and the girl (Pamela) was also very excited becauser her mom finally gave her permission to get baptized.  so that was definitely a blessing.  we also had lots of fun because that morning we went a completely destroyed a house of a member because he built a brand new house on the same property so he asked like 8 Elders to help him destroy a house with sludgehammers and pick-axes.  i had no idesa that houses down here could fall down so quickly,  it was literally down in 15 minutes so the rest of the time was clean up duty.  haha but it was so much fun doing that.  this week was super exciting for another reason, Vanessa, the convert that was baptized like 3 weeks ago just got called to be president of the young womens!!!  she was super excited to have recieved that calling.  she's super scared but also super happy to get this resposability.  it was super cool she told us a really amazing expirience that she had when she lived in Paraguay when neither her or her father were members.  she told us that she had a dream that she went into a building looking like a really nice church.  exeryone was wearing white and that everyone was greating her with hugs and kisses.  she told us that one day she was driving in a car with her dad and they passed the Temple in Paraguay and she said that that temple was the exact building that she saw in her dream.  and she told us that she just now realized that it was one of our temples.  i let her know that the Temple in Montevideo in excactly the same temple as in Paraguay and she got super excited and is preparing to go to the temple.  so overall it was a fairly super great week in all!!!  i'm excited to work super hard this next five weeks(this next change is only five weeks)  so it will definitely be a great time to work hard and have lots of fun!!!

 

love you all,

Elder Atkinson

Week 56!

hey you guys how's life going?
i'm just living the life down here in Artigas!  it's been super fun and weird this week.  we had divisions this week and i stayed in my area with a kid named Elder Rodriguez from Honduras this is his 3rd change in uruguay and it a little interresting.  hahaha first off he's always walking around like a a vampire (hair slicked back, walkes very upstraight, and always has a sweater that has a big collar like a vampires collar), second off at about 6:28 in the morning (2 minutes before my alarm goes off) i wake up to this kid touching my face... AWKWARD!!!!  but he's a funny guy.  he's a recent convert of about a years and eight months.  he's definitely excited to teach the gospel, and to work hard.  so on tuesday we had a Zone Conference in Salto and it was super fun! especially because i got to see Elder Shaw and a bunch of old Elders that i've known for a while.  it was super fun to talk to Elder shaw and talk about how we were in the MTC a year ago and how much time flies and how NOW we can actually speak spanish.  haha  becauseat this time last year we were completely terrible trying to learn spanish from scratch.  it was super great also because the mission President talked a lot about the missionary work and how we need to go forth in faith to recieve blessings and also to bless the lives of others here.  how we're also here to help each ward, to strengthen them and to give them excitement.  hahha also yesterday we had a family night at the church again because we're trying to unite the ward more.  we watched "The Testaments" and we made tons of brownies and everyone here absolutely LOVED them!!!  everyone wants the recipiet and everything because of how rich and flavorful these brownies were.  haha vanessa and the family went and they saw that i made brownies and died when they saw them.  haha they knew exactly what they were!  hahabut the family night went super well, and not very many people had seen that movie so it was a great opportunity to talk about the Book of Mormon and how we know the truthfulness of the book through the holy spirit.  there were 3 investigatores at the activity and 5 inactives that decided to come to the activity and they absolutely loved it!  but onto a funny thing, last night Elder Siegel (lives in the house now, he's from Idaho Falls) and i played a joke and took off the door of the bathroom and hid it.  OH MY GOODNESS Elder Siegel's comp Elder Almeida got super confused and worried about what happened and the my comp was saying that every now and then he sleep walks so maybe he did it in his sleep or something.  i was trying soo hard to not laugh and it was even more funny trying to get them to go to the bathroom because they were only holding it all in.  i was dying i was laughing so hard.  but... all fun things have to come to an end... Elder Neverro found the door........ :( it was fairly sad but i think i'll get over it.  but hey you know what??? next time i email you guys i'll know what my new change is so that means that i'll email you on tuesday instead of monday.

but hey! LOVE YOU ALL,

Elder Atkinson

Week 55!

yo wussp wussp everboday???

i'm livin it up down here in the guay!!!  it's been a fun week this week,  first off...  Vanessa, Matìas, y Sofìa got confirmed this sunday!!!  now they are officially members of La Iglesia De Jesucristo De Los Santos De Los Ùltimos Dìas!!!  that was definitely the best part of this week that they have completed that tough step.  now comes the even tougher part, ENDURE TO THE END!!!  we've been talking lots with them about that kind of stuff and bringing other members to their house to keep them more involved in the church.  actually we did a family home evening with them, the family of the first councilor, the bishop's family, and some more investigatores yesturday night at the church and we watched the movie "Joseph Smith: Profet of the Restoration"  and everyone actually LOVED IT!!!  that movie is soo powerful showing all of the trials that he went through and all the other saints as well endured during that time.  i think it really affected vanessa and her kids because she just kept telling me about how fantastic the movie was and how shocked she was that all of that happened to Joseph Smith.  but it was a really great Ward family night.  this week we took that dad of Vanessa to a few visits with investigators on tuesday,  we decided to pass by an ex-investigator that we haven't been able to find for like a month.  turns out that Josè and this ex-investigator worked together like 30 years ago!!!  it was super cool because Josè was able to relate to this guy (Carlos) because of this expirience that they had together.  we had no idea that they worked together and my comp had never met carlos before so he couldn't have known that either.  they both worked in the Police of Montevideo.  so that was kiterally the hand of the lord in our lives to hsve us recieve the feelings to go to this guys house that i almost forgot that he used to listen to the missionaries before.  tomorrow we get to go to Salto for a Zone Conference so i'm pretty excited!  but honestly not too much happened this week... that is definitely the most exciting stuff that happened this week.  today we had to clean the house again and we had to bleach the walls because there was mold on the walls so now the house is filled with the sweet smell og recently bleached cement!  hahaha 

love you all and always talk to EVERYONE about the gospel,

Elder Atkinson

Week 54!

hey there everyone out there!!!

 

lot's happened this week!!!  lots of blessings and miracles!  first off last monday after  emailing you guys we went home showered and went to the house of Vanessa, Sofìa, and Matìas and we challenged them to baptism for this week and they accepted it!!!  how freaking awesome was that!!!!  we had to talk to them a lot this week to make sure that they were prepared to get baptized and everything.  it was super annoying because we couldn't find out to see if the father of Vanessa could baptize them until friday night because he had to talk to the Bishop  about a few things in his life and the Bishop wouldn't talk to him.  we had to go by the bishop's house like 5 times last week just to tell him that Jos'e wanted that stinking interview and the bishop just kept giving a bunch of excuses that didn't make any scence to what we were saying!  we had the baptismal service on sunday so saturday we were running everywhere trying to have the baptismal interviews, finding baptismal clothes, finding someone to fix the water heater for the baptismal font, and also trying to pass by our other investigatores for the week.  they ended up having super strong testimonies and are reading the scriptures every day and praying also so by the end of the week thay TRULY had testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  i really have learned a lot while being able to witness their conversions and their lives change.  they really have been able to change their lives for the better and i KNOW that they will follow christ no matter what happens in their lives.  it was a little bit tougher for Vanesa to gain that strong answer about the church but i think that having the example of their dad here who's a recent convert from Paraguay really helped her in her questions and her doubts because they told us how much he has changed from the way that he once was before he acepted th gospel in his life.  luckily this week was fast sunday because i had a TON of stuff to fast for to make sure that everything would go well this week.  they were really ready for this baptism yesterday and here are a few pictures of the baptism this week.  the old guy is the dad (Josè), the older woman (Vanessa), and the two kids (Matìas and Sofìa).  oh and the other blessing is that there were a bunch of investigatores in church that we weren't expecting!!!  we were escpecting 4 and we had 8 in church!!!  this week has been filled with blessings really!  and the other picture is of my one year celebration.  haha it was pretty cool and don't worry nothing bad happened!  I PROMISE!!!  oh fun stuff this week i bought 8 Kilos of fruit loops which is about equal to around 18 pounds!  i'm super excited to be able to eat that!  haha they gave me a pretty good deal for it so i'm very proud of my purchase. i can rightfully say that this week was super tiring but definitely worth it to be able to see all of these great changes in their lives.  but hey gotta go!

i hope you all have a great week and lindsey good luck at COLLEGE!!!!

 

love ya,

Elder Atkinson