Week 105!

dear family,

i'm done.  it's kind of a weird feeling because everyone is asking me how i feel and  crap like that but the truth is that i feel the same... i honestly feel like i'm going to be serving a mission forever.  i'm not saying that in a bad way, but my mind is already in the habit to be a missionary.  so i still feel like i'm ggoing to stay as a missionary.  it was super funny because for changes the zone liders always tell the missionaries their new area and their new comp.  and for me because i'm "DYING" the changes show that my new area is the USA!!! and that my new comp is a WIFE jajajajaja.  we'll see what happens........ jajajajajajajaja but this week went by super fast.  let's see what did we do???  we found a few super cool people that are super possibles to progress and get baptized.  Andrès is a super stud and he wasn't able to go to church this week because he visited his family out of town and he was gone for like 3 days and came home like at 6 in the evening on sunday.  but he's a super stud.  we pased by him this week and talked to him about the church.  he accepted a baptismal date gor in 2 weeks and is super excited learn more about the church.  he's got a lot of very good questions and wants to recieve that answer about the truth of all these things.  he's willing to read and he loves talking to us and absolutely LOVED the church the last week he went. he told me that he felt like he was in a family.  so we already feels comftorable with the members and i think that he will beome a great lider in the church.  jajaja funny story, well kind of a funny story. i almost pooped my pants this week.  we were running late trying to get to the house of andrès and i had to go poop so stinkin bad but i knew that we didn't have time before going to his apartement.  i was literally about to explode, and my pride of never pooping in anyone's house was going strong and i just kept praying asked heavenly father to help me get through the lesson with andrès and then after so i can get to the house and poop.  MY PRAYER WAS ANSWERED!!!!  once i sat down in his apartement al of the urge to go to the bathroom went away!!!!! it was a miracle.  we had a freakin SICK lession and everything.  and once again as we left his door again the urges came back to me!  so i told my comp the we had to go to the house NOW!!!!  so we start walking and we get to about 1 block before the house and i had to go into my full-butt-cheek clench and kind of waddled to the appartment. and then i realized something.... we have to walk up 1 flight of stairs to get to the door!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  i started to sweat.  the urges were sooo bad that it felt like a knife was jabbed into my stomach... step by step..... slowly getting to the door.  luckily i told my comp to runn ahead of me to open up the door.  miraculously i got to the door then jumped into a usain bolt run to the bathroom!!!!!  oh man....  i cannot describe in words how relieved i was to be sitting on my porcilyn thron at that time.  when i came out my comp was cracking up.  but luckily, i don't know how, i have never crapped my pants on the WHOLE mission.  i hope that i didn't just jynx myself for ly last three hours of work.  jajaja but i love you all and can't wait to talk to you in PERSON!!!!!

love you all TONS, signing off for ever,

Elder Ty Atkinson 

Week 104!

Hola,
it sounds like everyone is having fun getting ready to come get me! jajajaja i'm doing pretty good as well.  this week we had a total milagro happen to us at church. we were waiting for investigators to show up at the door and 5 minutes before church starts up a man comes in named Andrés, he's has about 27 years.  he started to talk to us and told us that he's not a member and that he has never talked to missionaries before.  last week he went to another church building because he didn't know that this one was more close to his house.  he then told us that he has a brasilian girlfriend from Brasilia who is a member and they talked quite a bit about the church and everything so he got wuite interrested in the church through her.  he stayed for all 3 hours, participated in the classes and made very good comments.  he told us afterward that he really liked the church, so we talked to him a little bit more and we gave him a book of mormon and we fixed up a cita for tuesday to talk to him more.  he is a SUPER STUD!!!!! i talked to him a lot and he was making jokes and we started to talk about him family and everything and he is a guy with a good christian backround and he's been to quite a few churches and hasn't felt that "spark" and he told me that when he was talking to his girlfriend he started to feel that spark that he needed to start getting interrested in the church and what he believes.  so he is like a super stud and we're going to work with him a CRAP TON!!!!!  once again we had a lot of rain and crap.  but something that i thought was super funny this week is that we had Zone Conference and we had to go to Cerro which is supposedly a dangerous part of the mission.  so we had to take a bus from our area to that area which neither i or elder lopez had every been to.  so we asked our zone leaders for buses that we could take to get there and they told us that we had to take 2 different buses to get there and they gave us the numbers and everything.  to find out where they crossed in our area to take them we had to ask a member and he told us and then told us that there are a few buses that we could take that take us directly to that church so he told us the bus and that it would take about 30-40 minutes to get there and that the church was easy to see from the bus.  so we take the bus to go to cerro and we're waiting and at about 20 minutes i tell my comp to start looking for churches from the bus so that we can get off.  no churches pass by... 25 minutes...30 minutes.... 40 minutes... 45 minutes... 50 minutes... and then we pass a big bridge and we're out in the middle of no where and we finally see a small church. so we get off and there is mo one anywhere........................  jajaja so i just start laughing because we were supposed to be at the church at 8:30 and it was not 8:35 and we were in the middle of no where.  so i call the zone liders and they put me on with a missionary from cerro and i start telling him kind of where we THINK we are. and he askes me "is it a small church with like nothing near it?" i answer "Yeah" and he just says "oh noooooooooo.................." with a super depressed sigh.... we were like 45 minutes away from the church we were supposed to be at!!!! jajajaja so we get on the right bus and we end up showing up to the zone conference like an hour late jajaja i don't think that i could even get mad. i just started to crack up.  so that was kind of our week this week.  some highs and some lows!  jajaja but i love you all!!!

Hasta Luego,
Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 103!

well howdy y'all,
i hope that you all are doing quite well in the united states.  it sounds like you are all livin the life in the fast lane jajajaja.  some interesting things have happened this week. first off, LOTS OF RAIN!!!!! this whole week practically filled with just rain...  but it's all good.  this week was actually quite a hard just because a lot of what we tried to do this week fell through and we have to knock quite a few door and talk to a lot of people through the intercom........  super boring............... but it's all good.  but something interresting that happened this week was that the guy named marcelo that is very interested in electronics and stuff like that and is listening to us told us something super sad.  he was all by himself in the house without su wife or kid.  he started talking to us telling us that his wife (they're not married so i should say the person thathe's living with) is skitzofrentic and has double personalidades and that it's super hard for him to keep going and a bunch of stuff like that saying that she gets mad at him if he comes home 10 minutes late and and she hasn't been letting him come to church and lastweek he was going to go and she sot super mad and freaked out.  so he kept telling us that he souldn't take it anymore and that he's going to leave her and all these types of things thatwere super sad.  we tried to talk him out of it and to try to save the relationship but he told us that he can't and that it's no use.  so that was something very interresting thathappened this week.  today was one of the best days of my whole mission life for p days!!!!  we went to a church building that HAS a WOODFLOOR basketball court.  it was awesome and we played for like 2 hours straight because no one had played a REAL game of backetball in their missiones before.  all of us were terrrible because we were rusty but it was super fun because all of the elders that played KNEW how to play and all of them could play well. jajajaja all of the people that didn't want to play or that wanted to play something else played futbol in the feild outside.  so it was super fun but someone had super long fingernails and cut my hands like 5 times and my lip as well.  jaja but it's all good i think i'll live jajajaja.  but we're doing great and working hard.  don't worry family i'm still working super hard and i'll keeep working hard for these next 2 week that i fault.  but i love you all,
luvs,
Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 102!

well helloooooooooo la la la....hahaha (i hope that at least Christine understood) hahaha

hahahah but this week has been fairly good. no complaints hahahaha just a very random fact that in the last 48 hours i've seen 8 people peeing in public, haha like on dumpsters and buildings and crap like thathahahahahaha.   but we're doing good.  it's beeen kind of raining and chilly these past 3-4 days and there have been lots of fog too.  my area is where the rio uruguay dumps into the atlantic ocean so we've got two big bodies of water on both sides of us.  haha  so it gets a little bit chilly down here.  but it's all good.  something interresting that was actuslly really cool is that we're teaching this guy named Mercelo, he's 40 years old mas o menos and he's living with an inactive woman who was baptized like 25 years ago. but he's a cool guy.  we started to talk to him lots because he's a computer guy so we started to show him movies like the restoracion and other church movies and he loves them. he told us that he's watched every video at least 10 times.  he shows his step kid the movies and he loves them.  which is super good for him because the step kid is scitzofrentic (spanish literally kills english spelling, no idea how to spell that word) and always screams at the top of his lungs cuss words and everything.  but these last couple weeks while he's been watching these movies and stuff like that he's been a lot more respectful to his parents and has been in our lessons and participating in the discussion.  so the little 10 years old kid is starting to change.  but Marcelo (the adult) is super intelligent and in this last month finished reading the whole book of mormon!!!!!  yeah i thought that was pretty stinking cool.  he feels that the church is the true church and wants to get baptized but the only thing is that he's not married to his spouse.... and it's a little complicated what they have to to because she is technically married to someone else and here divorces are expensive,i have no idea how it is in the US but here it also takes like a few monthes to legally divorce.  so he's going to try to keep coming to church until they can get married.  so really that's all that has gone on in theis last week.  our ward is super nice it's got about 70 people going and it's going super well trying to work with the members.  but we'll see what hapens.  we're trying to take a lot of the members out and have them help us with their freinds and so forth.  but that's really all that's been going on.  love you all a super bunch.

luvs,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 101!

hey hey hey errrrrboday!!!

i'm doing pretty good.  not toooooooooo much has gone on this week.  let's see....... first off, i went on divisions with Elder Hendrickson (same group as me) this week.  it was super fun getting back together with him, talking about funny stories from the CCM, stuff that's gone on in the mission and all that type of crap.  another thing that happenes this week that was a little bit interresting was that i finally got robbed.  don't worry, i'm not hurt and nothing too bad happened.  they only took 20 pesos (1 dollar) from me and they left.  my comp didn't have anything and i only had money to buy an alfajor but it's ok i think that i'll keep living.  hahahahaha entonces that's something interresting that passed.  also this friday Elder Lòpez reached 1 year on the mission so we had to celebrate so i made him pancakes and funn stuff lieke that.  we're starting to get along better and now he's starting to open up a little more. i'm trying to teach him how to talk louder.  because he's got a super high soft voice and no one ever hears him say anything.  even when we're in the house just the two of us he talks and i can't hear anything that he's saying. haha so i'm trying to teach him in a non forceful way how to talk LOUDER!!!  he also doesn't talk very direct, like he'll invite people to do something but more like "i was thinking that if you wanted to, and if you had time to be able to read this chapter before the next time we come buy...." so i'm trying to help him talk more directly.  but anyways.... we also found som pretty sick people this week by working in an apartment complex that has 100% peruanos in it.  they are all from Perù and a lot of them are super nice and have been living there for years and haven't talked at all to the missionaries.  so we're starting to see some more success from that appartment building.  so we're getting super excited and everything.  hahaha there's someone in this ward that was actuslly in the CCM with me.  she served in Argentina and last week we saw each other and both of us said that we knew each other but we couldn't remember from where.... but yesterday she brought a picture to church of the CCM and we were both in it.  hahaha weird crap.  but that's pretty much the whole week. we've got a lot of plans for this week to have a lot more success and we'll see hoe everything goes.

love ya,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 100!

why hello there my family,

well it sounds like you're all doing quite wonderful!!!  yay, we'll i'm just peachy here in Montevideo, but i have to admit, it's a HUGE change to any other area that i've had!!!  here there are ONLY buildings and appartments.  to  we have to ring doorbells on buildings  a lot!!!!  hahaha but it's all good.  we actually hav a baptism this wek of a 50 year old guy named Jorge.  super cool guy that LOVES to talk....  hahah and when i say loves to talk i mean it.  after the abptism they asked him to share his testimonio about what happened and he talked for about 15-20 minutes. haha after 10 minutes the mision lìder of the ward got up and wispered in his ear saying that he needed to talk about the baptism and how it was  and then to end. jaja and he kept talking for like 10 more minutes and finally the mision lìder kindof cut him, but in a nice way.  also president heaton went to the baptism and was able to talk to us and stuff afterwards.  the hermana heaton told me "finally you're in montevideo and we get to see you!!! but it's only for like a month more... hahaha" but it was super funny  hahahaha but we've got quit a fewpeople listeneing to us. i'm not exactly sure what the misionaries before were doing but i stopped by like a few of their investigators and they accepted to be baptized and they tols me that the other missionaries hadn't even intived them to be baptized before.....  so we're going to change quite a bit of things here.  my comp is cool, he's from El Salvador, but kind of quite... i've been trying to relate to him and talk and include him but he's like acting super shy.  like even the members have told me that before he wasn't like this... so it's kind of weird.... but we'll see what happenes.  sorry if my spacing is kind of weird in this email... the space bar  keeps breaking and not working or it will space too much and crap like that.  but yeah,  we've got a ton of RMs in the ward, FINALLY!!!  a lot of them are newlyweds because everyone comes here to study and stuff like that.      jaja but one of them that's name is Federico started to talk to me and told me, hey i've been waiting to get a good missionary here and i feel like i should give you a reference of my best friend.  so this week we're going to pass by his friend and his friend is super interested.  we've already talked to him for a little bit, SUPER STUD and is super interested in the church.  he's seen the example of his friend (RM) federiico and has ben very impressed.  so we'll see what happenes.  i'm thinking this ward is going to be awesome.  another random fact: the chruch here isn't even a church. it's a 6 story building!!!!  the church bought a full sized building and now use it for institute and other stuff.  but i thought it was cool because it's a building that has the church's sign on it.  super random but cool.  but thanks for all the emails and love,

luvs,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 99!

hey there,

this has been a weird week. first off about the changes.  SUPRISE!!! I'M LEAVING!!!!!  i'm going to montevideo a Oeste 10.  yeah on sunday night president heaton called me and told me that even he wasn't going to change me but that he went to the temple and felt revelation that i needed to go to Montevideo with Elder Lòpez from El Salvador.  he told me that he's been having a lot of trouble being an obedient Elder and that he wanted me to go and help him.  so i'm going down from Zone Leader and being a district leader for my last change and finally going to go to Montevideo.  it will be super cool to be able to see all the crap that's down there and also i'll be in the same district as Elder Hendricksen my MTC comp.  so we'll be together in the same district our last change!!!  but it i've heard that my area is just buildings and appartments!  so it'll be a HUGE difference from the rest of my mission.  hahahaha but i'm super excited.  but this week went by super fast because i was out of my area like the whole time.  hahaha on tuesday we did divisions and i stayed in my area with Elder Strong from Boise Idaho, super stud and really cool cat! he's in his third change on the mission.  then we had a normal day on wednesday and on thursday i went to the area of Elder Olivares because he was a little worried about his baptism on saturday so i went with him to help him with his investigator and we did mini divisiones for like 4 hours on thursday and then on friday we had to go to Dolores to do a baptismal interview so took up almost all of friday and stuff like that. hahah so for lots of this week we weren't even in our area.  but it was a fun week and we worked super hard.  i'm sending you a few fotos that are a little blocky because i had to shrink them down a tad to send them.  but the pics are of me and my comp after a tiring day, all of the zone liders with the mission president and his wife in front of the temple. and two pictures of our district one on P Day and the other after district meeting.  but i'm doing great and it's stil fairly cold down here.  hahahahaha love you all,

thanks for all the love and prayers,

Elder Tyler Atkinson

Week 98!

well hey there y'all,

well it sounds like you've been revieving blessings in colorado with rain!!! YAY!!!!!!  i'm thinking that it looks completely different than here, here, everything is GREEN!!!  and i mean super green!  haha i think it's because there's always rain and humidity.  hahaha but where do i start.... well this week we went to Montevideo for the 4th of JULY!!!  and it was pretty awesome.  the hermana heaton made us BBQ chicken and home made root beer!!!  it was soo good and because the latins don't like root beer we all drank tons of it!  and then we sang the national anthem and it was freaking AWESOME!!!!!  and everyone (except me obviously) was super trunky. haha the hermana even gave us starklers and we all lit them off and it was awesome.  hahah then the next day (thursday) we had divisions and i went to mercedes with Elder Leininger from Ogden Utah. he's the district lider in mercedes.  haha we werked super hard and it was funny because we had to teach an english class. i was dying laughing because we taught them toungue (don't know how to spell that) twisters.  like peter piper picked a peck of pickeled peppers, and she sells sea shells by the seashore.  they were dying trying to say them because it sounds like the exact same sounds over and over and over. hahahaha  then on saturday we went to a ranch of a member and we did service by chopping wood to use for her fireplace.  she's a lady that lives way out in the middle of nowhere by herself.  so she was super grateful and gave us homemade honey and raspberry jam.  super good crap right there.  we also had Brahian come to church this week and his mom gave us the permiso to baptize him.  so this saterday he's going to get baptized.  he's super excited and he's doing great.  this week there was ALSO special changes!!!!  there was a corto plazo here in fray bentos from Paysandù and he laft and came i kid from Boise Idaho named Elder Strong.  he's in his 3rd change but he's a stud!  he's having lots of fun and he'll help the other elder here.  but we're all doing good.  hahah but we also this next week have CHANGES!!!  so i'll be emailing you guys on tuesday.  but i'm 99.9999999% sure that i'll stay here with Elder Bustos for this last change.

love you all,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 97!

hey hey hey,
it's been pretty good this week! we haven't done too much but it's been fun!  LOTS of rain and lots of humidity, humidity so bad that the floor is covered in water and it doesn't help trying to clean up the water because it just comes right back literally 2 minutes later.  so we're trying to get through the humidity.  hahaha but i went this week to Dolores to do divisions and i was with Elder Elliot.  it was super funny, literally the city is FULL of crazy ladies that LOVE the missionaries.  hahaha so literally during the whole day there were like millions of ladies that kept whisteling at us and saying crap like ¨oh there's a new missionary in town¨ and crap like that!!!  haha but luckily i left there without any problems or anything. hahaha hahaha we bought a pizza together and it was super fun!  Elder Elliot has 4 changes in Dolores and he's ready to leave there hahaha it happens to all missionaries after staying in an area for 4 changes.  but we also have been working in our area with a kid named Brahian ¨bryan¨ hahaha whose tìo is a member of the church that recently recieved the melquisedek preisthood.  he's been helping us a lot and eventhough he's a kid he already has a super strong testimony.  he's recieved a lot of little answers and he's realized something that we all should learn, that we don't need a huge answer to follow god.  just through little things we recieve answers.  so he's got a baptismal date for the 14 of this month.  and he's super excited, now we're trying to work more on his mom who likes to talk to us but she also isn't married and she's living with a guy.... so we're trying to work with her on that. but overall everything is going great!!!  this next week is going to be super fast because we have to travel a CRAP TON!!! to montevideo for a meeting, mercedes for divisions, and dolores for a baptismal interview.  so this week there's lots to do but it'll be fun!  we're getting along good and we're working super hard together trying to help raise this branch up.  but that is pretty much all that's happened this week.  i'll try to write more in this next week.  but i love you all,
THANKS,
LOVE,
Elder Atkinson

Week 96!

hey wazzup guys!!!
i´m doing well now!!! haha these past three days i`ve been pretty
sick... a couple days ago i had a fever but i had to stay in bed
almost a whole day in bed because the mission nurse told me i had to stay in bed but i`m feeling better now.  haha this week has been fun. we did divisiones with a companioship from Mercedes. i stayed in Fray Bentos with Elder Williams.  it was actually pretty cool because he also went to BYU-I before the mission and we actually knew quite a few of the same people. we had fun, he´s got about a year and 3 months on the mission and has dropped over 60 pounds since he`s started the mission.  he's dropped so much weight because before the mission he told me that he did nothing and stayed in the house and played video games and crap like that.  he's hoping to keep all the weight off when he gets home and he told me he'll start to do excercizes when he gets home to keep off the weight.  hahaha but another weird story happened while i was with Elder Williams we were walking at about 8 at night from one lession to another and we were on a super skinny road with no lights.  we`re walking and talking and everything and we see two girls about 16-17 years old ish walking towards us on the same road but on the other side of the road.  when we get to about 30 feet infront of them they start to walk directly at us... i try to look at them to see
if i know who they are and i have no idea who they are.  they come up to us and keep walking closer and closer and they literally get within 6 inches of my face, say ¨HOLA!!!!¨ but in a super creepy vampire type voice and keep walking.  man i freaked out and told elder williams if he say what just happened. and he thought that they were just like two teeenagers from the ward playing a joke and i told him that they deffinitely weren't from the ward and he freaked out!!!!  he was telling me about how messed up they were as we kept walking and elder
williams turned around and the two girls dressed in black were just staring at us!!! creepy!!! so we definitely speed walked out of that area.  haha but all in all the divisiones were super fun.  we also had interviews with the mission president and his wife this week.  it was super funny because hermana heaton was asking me everything that i was going to do when i got home and crap like that.  hahaha but that is pretty much all that has happened this week.  this last saterday wee also went to Mercedes to do a baptismal interview for a 65 year old man. super cool but he definitely looked like he was older than 65
years old.  his name is Carlos Moreira and everyone was super worried that he was going to have a heart attack in the baptism because it was in COLD WATER!!!!  but for now he lives!! hahaha so it all went great! but thanks for all the great emails and letters!!! i love you all
loves,
Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 95!

eyy wazzup errboday?

i'm doing quite well like usual!  this week was  little bit interresting because we were outside of our are about the same amount of time we were in our area. haha  we have been running everywhere! on wednesday we went down to Montevideo for a meeting and we were there for the whole day.  it was actually super good and gave us a crap ton of ideas to do over here.  so that was super cool then on friday we had to travel to Dolores to give a baptismal interview.  we did weekly planning in the morning and at noon we went to Mercedes because you have to go to mercedes before Dolores.  waited there for a little bit and then went to dolores. we got there at three and waited/finished planning until the interview at 4:30.  the investigtor called the elders that we were waiting with that she couldn't come till 5:15... but our bus was going to leave at 5:10...  and the next bus was at 8:00 so we had to wait and the investigator didn't come until 5:45. we ended the interview after a little bit of time and then we halped the elders with a musical number that they were going to sing for the baptism the next day.  and finlly when the bus came we got on... and guess what it was a bus full of 50 sweaty constuccion guys and hadn't showered and all SMOKE... oh man i can't tell you how sick the smell was.. i was dying because it smelled like tabacco with such a strong scent urine... it was quite vial!!!  but anyways this last week has been SUPER cold with lots of rain.  we've been trying to bring investigators to church but because of the rain they are tarting to make up excuses.  so we're working super hard this week.  we'll see wht happens this week.  we also have interviews with the president this thursday.  but thanks for everything!!!

Love you all,

Elder Atkinson

Week 94!

yo everyboday!!!

i hope it's getting warmer up there because it's getting COLD down here!!!!  oh man apparently in colonia, uruguay it snowed!!! IT NEVER SNOWS IN URUGUAY!!!  so i'm thinking that this winter will be a super cold winter.  but yeah i'm here in fray bentos and on wednesday at 5:00 in the morning my comp Elder Bustos got here.  it was soo cold and super windy!  he's from Mendoza, Argentina and has a year and 4 months.  he plays futbol pretty dang good.  haha everyone messes with him because Uruguay beat Argentina in the Copa America this last year in penalty kicks IN ARGENTINA. haha so he's been having quite a bit of learning how to control thoughts and feelings hahaha.  but he's super cool.  yesterday if you didn't know Uruguay beat Perù 4-2 for starting the entrances of the World Cup and Uruguay is #2 in the world in the rankings of soccar.  but besides that not too much has happened this week...  yesterday we talked to a guy that's about 25 years old and is a jehova's witness and is super intellegent.  we gave him the Book of Mormon and he promised us that he will read and pray to find out if it's true.  he's very in to his church but he told us that he's willing to change everything if he knows and feels that it's true.  his name is Leo.  so tht was pretty interesting.  we are now trying to find more people and i think that this week will be a good week for the two of us.  we've got quite a bit to do this week and we've got to go down to montevideo on wednesday.  so that's really all that's going on with me. 

love you all and thanks for the emails,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 93!

hey hey heeeeeeeeeeey,

how's you all doin?  i'm hoping that you're all doing just fantstic!!!  i am!!!  well..... we got changes and like we were thinking Elder Verdugo is leaving to Paysandù, in the same area that i was born! in barrio Obelisco.  so that's pretty exciting!  i got to tell him all the stuff that's going down over thurr.  haha and i'm staying here with a Argentino named Elder Bustos.  he's got around a year and 4 months here in uruguay and he's coming from Montevideo.  so we'll be working quite a bit.  and it's most likely that he'll be the Elder that "kills" me.  haha but that's still a while away.  this week we went to a colony about an hour away in bikes and on a dirt road.  there's a family that are recent converts and we went for the first time to visit them.  it was super cool because it was way out in the middle of no where.  i went on a fairly new bike (10 years old) and Elder Verdugo went on a bike that i think was made in the 70s haha and on the way back started to fall apart.  the pedals were falling off and the seat was breaking but we made it home eventually and no one died. haha something else pretty funny that we did this week was a joke that we played on one of the elders here.  his name is Elder Olivares and he's from Perù.  he's always worried about "going up in misson authority" like senior comp, trainer, district leader, Zone leader, and assistant.  so what we did was that we did divisions with him and said that the assistants called us to do divisions with him to figure out how's he had "so much success".  so i went with him and told him, "hey i have to figure out what you're doing and give a strict report back to the APs." haha he got super nervous but at the same time was acting like "hey i'm soo good that the APs need my help" so for th whole day i followed him around and he was acting super cocky and crap like that.  then at the end of the day i went and pretended to call the APs and told them that he wasn't doing anything and that it was his junior comp that was doing everything.  haha and then he got super mad and started yelling at both of us and we told him that it was a joke and everything but that he needs to work on his pride and crap like that and that he shouldn't think about going up and saying that you don't need to go up to prove that you're a good missionary.  haha he's starting to get a lttle better at that crap and i know that he's trying to not think about it anymore.  so we'll se what happens.  but that's pretty much the last week in a nut shell.

but thanks for all the emails and the love,

Elder Atkinson

Week 92!

well hey everyboday!!!!

i'm hoping that life is doing quite splendid! haha his week has been super interrsting but i'll start with the HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK: haha so it started with this saturday during lunch.  we had a HUGE BBQ!!! ribs, steak, chorizos, drinks, chicken, potatoe salad, and dessert.  haha i ate soo much and my comp practically ate double what i ate.  we went homeand i went to the bathroom (shocker, i know haha) and we left to work.  we went to a few lessons and we were about to go to a lesson at 6 with an investigator to watch the joseph smith movie.  my comp tells me, "hey i think i need to poop! no i think it's just farts!" haha so we went to the house and we started the movie.  i will tell you what he was happened in his words.  we got to the part of the first vision in the movie and he felt the urge to crap but he clenched his cheaks and the urge went away.  then about 15 minutes before the movie ended he felt the urge again but this time he couldn't wait so he asked for the bathroom.  when he got into the bathroom he realized that there wasn't toilet paper and no bidet either so he decided to pee trying to relieve the pressure and also released some pretty ronchy farts.  then he came back to watch the rest of the movie.  the urges were so bad that when the movie ended he said, "well, i'm sorry we're a little late to a meeting we have so we need to go now." we ended with a prayer and left.  he told me that he was about to crap himself and wanted to go to the church 5 blocks away to explode.  we walk about 3 blocks and he freezes and clenches his whole body and i see his lips moving and apparently what he told me was that he was praying to not explode in the street.  by this time i'm dying i'm laughing so hard.  after about 2-3 minutes of being in his "panic clench" he tells me hey i gotta crap now!!!!  he sees a light and thinks that he can crap in the bushes ovr by the light but luckily i was looking and saw a family behind the bush.  i tel him and he sees some other bushes on the side of the road and DIVES into the bushes, let alone did he know that the bushes were super spiney, but he had so much adrenalin that he didn't care.  and he explodes in the bushes.  from the sounds a TONS of dogs start going nuts barking and barking and barking!!!  by nowi was literally CRYING i was laughing soo much.  after about 3 inutes he yells to me, "he pass me a pamphlet or something!" haha once he said that we both realize something, Elder Verdugo is crapping in the back yard of an old mean man tht we contacted about 3 weeks ago.  and we hear him come outside and says, "HEY what's over there? who's over there?" when elder verdugo hears that he ripps up his pants and slides through the bushes like a navy seal with his pants still undone. haha we go to the church so he can clean up and everything is good except on the inside of his pants he's COVERED in DIAHREA!!! well he ended up going home and showering but it was s funny that i had to tell youguys.!!!  haha  that was definitely my favorite part of the week!  by the way Kevin didn't get baptized because he has disappeared.  we've been trying to pass by his house but he's not there.  his mom left to Montevideo for the surgery for her younger son and we'll try to keep finding Kevin..  but we'll see wat happenes!   

alright but i got to go!

love you all,

ElderTy Atkinson

hey i forgot that this next weeks there's changes so i'll write you guys on tuesday.  it's most likely that Elder Verdugo leaves and i go!

Week 91!

hey hey hey!!!

thanks for the emails and everything that you've sent me! i've bee quite well this week but quite busy as well.  so on wednesday we had Zone Conference in Paysandù.  it was super weird going back to Paysandù because it's been like a year and a half almost since i've been there.  it was super cool to see the city but i didn't have time to visit anyone like converts or members that i visited before but it's all good.  i got to see quite a few elders that i've met before in other areas and so forth.  but yeah.  so we had to travel from fray bentos to mercedes at 5 in the morning then from mercedes to paysandù at 6 in the morning and we got to Paysandù at 8 in the morning.  it was lots of fun and i learned a crap ton about sticking  with the basic thing and trying to stay focus on the small and simple things to help others come unto christ.  it was algo super good to have in the zone conference because there are a few missionaries that have had a big problem with that in our zone.  they're just tryiong to do too much and aren't focused on the smaller things.  so it was a really good refresher.  we also had an hermana leave from our zone this week for medical problems because she's got a bad hip and she hasn't been able to work for the past 4 weeks...  so she's heading home to Chile this week.  but this week we also had stake conference in mercedes this week and it was super cool because they asked us to participate in the stake chior so we had to go the the adult session and the temple president from Montevideo came to talk to us.  he talked about the simbolism of the temple and how everything is symbolic.  even the fences of the temple,  on the fences, doors, walls, and windows of the Uruguay Temple there is the same symbol... a circle inside of a square.  i thought that it was cool because i never thought about that symbolizing something.  he said that the quare symbolized the "4 corners of the earth" and that the circle represented "god or in the heavenly presence of god" so the interpretations of the circle inside of the sqaure is something that means "where the earth and heaven come together" i had never thought of that before!  i thought that was stinkin awesome!  but yeah so we'll see what happens because i forgot to tell you guys that three investigators went to church this week and one was a complete milagro because we didn't even intite him.  but he's gone to church before and he accepted a baptismal date for this sunday.  so we'll have to work with him lots.  but that's pretty much all that's happened this week.  so i love you all!!!!

have a great week

love,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 90!

hey long time no talk!! hahahaha

it was great hearing from all of you guys yesterday!  it was cool to see how you are al changing!  but i'm doing great!  this week i went to dolores for divisions and i was with Elder McCraney otra vez and it was super fun. he's a total stud and this is his first change as senior comp and also he's training but he's doing well because he's having quite a bit of success.  so i went with him and his kid (Elder Miranda from colombia) came to fray bentos with Elder Verdugo.  it was super cool because i got to see some new things that he was doing to have success and i think it'll help the zone out.  yeah... not too much has honestly happened i think the thing most interresting that has gone on this week was when i had to stay with Elder Silveira for a whole day in the house because he sprained his ankle... i was soo borred.  it wasnt because i couldn't do anything but it was because i felt practically useless doing nothing and i felt i little weird staying in the house the whole day.......  so i tried to be usefull and tried to set up lessons for us for the next day and stuff like that.  yeah...  oh and apparently a couple of people got shot this last week in Fray Bentos and i knew who they were they are ex-investigators that stopped listening to us about 2 months ago.  super weird.  but anyways we are now in a phase of trying to find new investigators and keeping in contact with them.  on sunday we found a family that lives in a wood/cardboard house and the dad is a carpinter for the elementary schools and she has to stay at home because they have 5 kids all under the age of 12.  we're trying to work with them a bunch and we'll see how well this goes.  but thanks for all the emails and cards and love.

love you all,

Elder Atkinson

Week 89!

heyeyeyeyeyeyeyeyeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,
how's life going for all y'all up thurr????  my life is quite good!
and quite a few interresting things happened this week that i'll tell
you about!!!  first off we went to Montevideo for a meeting and i got
to meet a bunch of my buddies from the CCM from the other mission and
they were in a meeting with their mission and we got to hang out for
about an hour talking about life and crap like that so it was super
freaking cool!  the next day we had divisiones and i stayed here with
a kid from perú named Elder Sheen (his dad is from ireland so that's
why he's got a odd name for a peruano) hahaha but it was super cool
but super weird because we found one lady named Rocio who has about 60
years and we started talking to her and it turns out that she is an
Ex-Prostitute....  hahah strange... but we changed the subject to
something different but everytime we said something she ended up
having a weird story to relate it to those prostitue days of hers...
hahah i was dying and trying to change the subject because she was soo
vivid in her descriptions and stuff like that!!!  but it ended up
being a good lesson and we're going beck this week to talk more to her
about the Book of Mormon that we gave her.  haha we'll see what
happens with her.  the day after that i got back together with Elder
Verdugo in the morning and that same morning the Hermamas call us and
they've got a problem.....  what happened is that some random guy got
a hold of the number of the cell phone of the hermanas and started
sending "dirty messages" and kept sending stuff to her and she had no
idea who it was haha so my comp got super Macho and told the hermanas
to send him a message that she'll meet him in a plaza at a certain
time.  and that we were going to go "undercover"  and that the
hermanas wouldn't really go and we would talk to him.  but i realized
very quickly that he wasn't thinking and i had to tell the hermanas to
not do it and he calmed down and realized that it wouldn't be the best
idea and they didn't reply to him and they got a different fone
number.  so that was pretty much the most interreesting stuff that
happened this week so we had been running and doing quite a bit this
week.haha but yeah can't wait till sunday!!!
i love you all,
Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 88!

hey hey hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well this week was pretty good because we had 2 BAPTISMS!!!  woohoo!!!  hahaha it was pretty interesting because now it's starting to get cold out, like fall time.  and on friday we went to the church to clean the baptismal font and first off it was still full from the same water that there was 3 months ago!!! there was trash, dirt, a dead toad, and toad eggs...  hahaha it took us a while to clean it up but then we realized something else....dun Dun DUN!!!!! (dramatic pause) the water heater doesn't have gas.................................  and to get gas you first have to call Montevideo to ask for the money and then they have to sent it to you so it takes like forever....  so the guys that got baptized got baptized on sunday, in cold water, in fall, on a cold day, with rain... haha i was suprised that the parents gave the aproval of it but they did!  hahaha but it was super cool because one of the mom's of the boys that were getting baptized came to the baptism and she's a less active member and she brought a friend of her's tothe baptism with her.  her name is Betiana and she's about 35ish and she's got a kd that's 18 years old.  she doesn't go to church very much but we ended up talking to her about the church and baptism and stuff like that and it ended up that we gave her a Book of Mormon and she accepted to get baptized on the 26th of may.  so we'll see what happens.  but i'm super excited for this month and iknow that i'm going to have a blast with Elder Verdugo.  yeah we're getting along super well and having a blast working together!  but hey the internet is being really dumb this week so i got to send this now.
love ya,
Elder Tyler Atkinson
PHONE CALL:  haha i'll call you guys on sunday at 7 at night guayan time and then you guys can call be back!!!!

Week 87!

¡hola hola!

¿como andàn todos?  i'm hoping that you're all going great over in the United States!!!  i'm doing quite well as well!!!  hahaha sorry that i forgot to tell you guys that this week has changes.  but as i was expecting Elder Verdugo and I are staying the exact same and we'll be together for 6 weeks more.  but this week hasn't been TOOOO exciting but there have been a few things.  this teusday pasado we had divisiones with a companionship.  i stayed here and elder Verdugo left, i stayed here with a kid named Elder Webster from St. George, UT.  the sad thing is that we almost lost him before he got to the us.  haha he was on the bus from mercedes headed to Fray Bentos and there are two stops that us as missionaries siempre use, the terminal and a plaza next to our house.  this time we had told his comp that he needed to get off at the bus terminal.  we waited for his bus to show up and when it got there he wasn't on the bus!!!!  we asked the bus driver if a missionary was on the bus and he said that he had already gotten off the bus!!!  so we were like CRAP and we took a taxi to the plaza that he may have have gotten off at.... HE WASN'T THERE!!!!! so we went back to the terminal to try to find him and we tried calling his comp in Mercedes and everything but after 10 minutes he finally shows up in the bus terminal.  hahaha i almost crapped myself thinking that we had lost a missionary.  what apparently happened was that we got car sick on the bus and had to get off the bus because we was going to throw up and just started SPEED WALKING in the direction of the bus!  haha at least he's safe now!  he's got the same amount of time as my kid Elder Duke and barely knows ANY SPANISH.  it was super fun talking with him because he's obsessed with football.  so we got to talk quite a bit about the NFL, BYU, and college football in general.  i remember right before he got on the bus to go back to Mercedes he told me, "thanks for talking about football with me. (he's with a latin comp that is obsessed with soccer) i needed to talk about something other than soccer"  hahah he's a funny kid.  but besides that not too much is going on...  this week we have two baptisms on sunday of two cousind named Santiago and Enzo.  so with lots of prayers it will go as planned.  but besides that not too much has changed!

love ya,

Elder Ty Atkinson

Week 86!

well helloooooooooooo la la la (seinfeld),
hahaha i hope that all of you are going great way up there!  i`m doing quite well and this week went by FLYING!!!!  first off i went to DOLORES (pains) on divisions, i went with Elder Elliot who has like a year and 2 months on his mission.  he`s a total stud and he`s super smart, he`s majoring in Neroscience at BYU.  haha he`s pretty interresting, he`s from Kansas.  but it was fun then we did divisions again on thursday with Elder Baer and his comp Elder Chamberlain.  this time i stayed in my area in Fray Bentos but Elder Chamberlain came with me!  he`s a freaking geneous, he`s already made his own app for the IPOD.  just from that one app he told me that he earned more than $100,000 and he`s a proffesional DJ/guitar/synthisyzer/drums player.  so he's pretty interresting.  he's got about 8 months on the mission so far and is struggling to learn spanish.  he's trying a ton and that's the part that is the most important.  he's a great kid.  on other news... Juan Humberto we think is hidding from us... i guess he is having quite a tough time trying to quit smoking...  so we're trying to help him with that but we'll see what goes on... this friday we had a cool service project as a whole town.  we went to a school of music to help clean it up. it was trashed and it hadn't been cleaned in YEARS.  we came as the church and did a morning of service.  we cleaned from 8 in the morning till 12:00. that lady in charge was soo happy to have us come and help clean up.  and we had two people in church who are going to get baptized on the 28th of this month.  their names are Santiago and Enzo.  they're cousins and we have been reactivating their families and they're starting to come back and they want to get baptized!  haha  it's pretty cool.  and also today for P-Day we went fishing.... kind of........  haha we didn't catch anything because the area that we went to had been polluted by "Fecul matter"  haha but we passed by a place that wasn't nearly as contaminated and we got a few nibbles.  haha it was pretty cool.  i finally found a place to send pictures!  so i'ma try to send you a few of today going fishing!
love you all,
Elder Atkinson
P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAUN!!!!
P.S.S. i'm going to try to send some more pictures right now

Week 85!

yo wassup???
i`m doing pretty good! actually quite a few things happened this week first offwe went to Montevideo this week to a meeting and i was able to go through the Temple in Uruguay for the first time!!!!  it was actually super cool being able to go the temple in spanish and feel the spirit.  it`s weird that it took me soo long because they always send the new missionaries through the temple wen they first get to the mission but when we started we showed up a day later then the mission was expecting and our plane was delayed like three hours so we were only in the mission home for like an hour and a half and then we left to our areas.  aand all of the other elders from my group have all served in Montevideo so they`ve been able to go but i`ve never served there.  so it was super cool and the spirit was SUPER STRONG.   we came bck and worked super hard and found quite a few people.  and we have a few people come to church like this one guy named Juan Humberto... no me acuerdo if i have told you guys about this guy yet but if you think about the most HOBO looking guy ever, that`s what he looks like.  he`s 55 years old but because he`s been smoking a LOT he looks lik he`s 70 years old.  he`s balding and the hair that he does have is long and gray.  he`s got a gray un trimmed beard and not one tooth in his mouth.  he`s super funny, and we decided that we were going to bring him to church because we hd been teaching him for 2 weeks.  we inveted him to general conference last week nd his friend (member) went by him and they startd walking together and on the way over he decided to stay in a bar on the way.  but we passed by him this week and he decided to actually come!!!  right bfore we get to the church he had to finish his last cigarette.  he been smoking for soo long that he always has a 2 liter bottle of water and a tin cup that he uses to moisten up his dry mouth.  hee gets into the church without a cigarette and with his water bottle and cup.  he´s drinking and veryone is just watching him because he looks like a hobo.  during the sacrament he takes the bread and he`s all happy and waits for the water and i knew that something would happen during the water...  when the deacon comes around with the water he tries to give juan the water and juan says, "it all good, i alreaady have water" and he wouldn't take the water.  the deacon starts laughing and i tried soo stinking hard to not laugh myself.  after that he was ok for a while...  because he was drinking soo much water he had to go to the batherooom twice.  well because it was easter we had a musical number from our primary,  juan humberto was super xcited because he loves listening to music.  half way through he gets up and i thought that it was to go to the bathroom but NOOOO he got up and started TRYING to sing and stood next to the director and tried to leead the music!!!!  oh my goodness!  obviously we had to get up and take him back to his seat but i was trying soo hard not to laugh but it was one interresting sacrament meeting!  hahaha  so those were probably the most interresting things that have hppened to me in this last week!  but obviously i`ve got to go... but thanks for all of you emails!!!
LUVS,
Elder Atkinson

Week 84!

hola hola

this week has been pretty stinkin fun!! nothing too special has happened but i just have one phrase to describe me right now,¨i love the mission¨ even though it´s hard, long, fun, happy, sad, etc...  you just always look back on all of it and say WOW i´m so glad to be here.  this week was one of those weeks.  Elder Verdugo and i went to mercedes this week to settle a few problems with companionships being truchos and stuff like that then we did divisions on tuesday and i stayed in the area with Elder McCraney and he´s in his 7th change, osea almost a year.  interresting story is that he is from Laguna Hills, CA.  so i asked him if he knew who the McBrides were in Laguna Niguel and he told me that the name is super familiar and i showed him pictures that i have of them and he said that tayor looks super familiar.  small world...  but this week on thursday we had to travel back to mercedes to go to interviews with Presidente Heaton.  it was super good to talk to the predsident and we couldn´t leave till all of the interviews were done so we didn´t get back to our area until 6 in the afternoon.  but once we got back we wworked super super hard trying to get lessions with members and trying to find some more new people.  especially to get people to general conference was super hard just trying to pass by all of them and to get them excited to go.  it was even more difficult on saturday and sunday because it was the beginning of the¨SEMANA SANTA¨ or the WHOLE week before easter is just a big fiesta week.  but we ended up having quite a few imvestidators coming to church and being able to feel the spirit.  it was a GREAT general Conference!!!  i don´t know if it has to do with me getting a little bit older or something but every time there is general conference i get more and more excited to watch it!!!  like seriously i get freaking PUMPED!!!!!  so this week was super good fill with lots to do!!!  i love you all and can´t wait to hear more about what´s going on!

love ya,

ELDER ATKINSON

p.s. hahahaha remember what elder evans said in conference about letters to elders  (wink wink) hahaha

Week 83!

hey there!!!
this week has been super interresting because we´ve been flying everywhere doing things!  first off, on monday we went to Mercedes to do a district leaders meeting with all the district leaders of the zone then we came back to Fray Bentos for the rest of P Day and to work.  the next morning i left at 8 in the morning to go back to Mercedes to do divisions, be there for the District meeting in Mercedes, and to fix a few problems with some of the missionaries that they were having in between each other.  Divisions were super cool because i went with one of the District Leaders Elder Baer, the same Elder that was in Tacuarembó with me a little while back.  i was with him to work on what we`re trying to do as a Zone in Mercedes.  what we`ve realized is that Mercedes is like a sleeping Giant, it`s got all the potential to explode and to have lots of success.  we`re just trying to give it that little spark.  but it was super fun with Elder Baer because he`s a total stud and i know that he`ll help the district go up and have more success.  i came back to Fray Bentos on wednesday and we had a normal day of work.  then thursday we had divisions AGAIN with a companionship in Mercedes but this time i stayed and Elder Verdugo left.  i stayed with a kid from Mesa, Arizona named Elder Burton.  he just started the mission one change ago so he`s still pretty new.  he actually was going to BYUI before he left on his
mission and he saw my pictures and said that Lindsey looked SUPER FAMILIAR.  i got soo confused but then i realized that he was up in Rexburg during Fall Semester of BYUI and he probably saw her at some point up there.  we changed back on friday morning and on friday and saturday we`ve been trying to get meetings set up with the satke president so we`ll see what happens in this next week.  so we`ve been running al over the place but there was one thing that i thought was really cool that happened during divisiones was when i stayed here we took a member to one of our lessons with us and the lesson fell through,  i was thinking ¨whatin the world can we do with this member to help her feel the spirit?¨  so i asked her if she new anyone around here that we could possibly go to to try to share the gospel with and she thought, and thought, and thought....  then she thought of someone named Nadie so we went over and she is an Ex-Jehova`s Witness and we started talking with her and she ended up getting SUPER interrested
when we talked about the importance the families are and how the family can be eternal and she got super emotional and started to cry. it was super cool and SHE CAME TO CHURCH this sunday and LOVED it!!!! we`ll see how far she goes, she`s definitely has the desires to change some things in her life and she`s excited!!!  alright but i gotta go, this week we also have interviews with Presidente Heaton,
love you all,
Elder Tyler Atkinson

Week 82!

yo wassup everybody!!!!????

 

i´m hoping great because so am i!!!  i´m a little bit sick but it´s all good i just have a caugh and a runny nose so i´m sniffing all day so my head is kind of hurting but it´s all good i THINK i´ll live through this trial haha  haha but we´re doing good down here in Fray Bentos!  we´re in a small branch of like 30 members again but i like it that way because then you know you have a lot of work to do!  because i´m zone leader here in fray bentos we do a lot of traveling. because the full zone is actually 3 cities/towns.  so the towns are Fray Bentos(4 companionships) , Mercedes(4 companioships), and Dolores(2 companionships).  it´ll be ful but tough.  random fact, if you didn´t know the word DOLORES means in english PAINS, so in my zone there are 4 Elders in PAINS hahaha.  but being a zone leader isn´t too much different than being a regular missionary.  the only things that you have to do is try to help the district leaders have success in their districts, go to zone leaders meeting every months and try to figure out how to help every companionship succeed.  it´s kind of like a bit mind exhausting role.  this week we are going to have a meeting with the stake president about a stake missionary plan and how we can help him reach what he wants to do in the stake with everything, trying to make sure that the members, bishops, liders, and missionaries are all on the same page.  we´re recently trying to work with the missionaries on how to keep them animated and how we can keep slowly raising the bar and eventually explode the area!  it´ll be lots of hard work but we´re working super hard.  my comp is hilarious, hisname is Elder Verdugo, and he´s from sanora, Mexico.  he said that it´s like 15 minutes away from Rocky Point.  he´s super good and he know how to talk to the investigators SUPER well!  i think we´re going to have quite a bit of success together! so i´m excited and ready to kiid on rollin!

love you all,

Elder Atkinson

Week 81!

hey there everyone!!!

so how's life going????  i'm doing super good and we have CHANGES!!!!  i'm leaving to a town called "Fray Bentos" with a Mexican called Elder Verdugo.  Elder Duke is staying here with a latino named Elder Lòpez.  it'll be super good for him to have a latin comp because he'll be able to learn a CRAP TON!!!  one thing that's interresting with me is that i'm going to Fray Bentos to be a Zone Leader.  Elder Verdugo has one change more than me.  we'll see how that goes.  i think it will be fun but also a TON of responcibility.  but it's been super fun training Elder Duke and i can tell that he's grown a lot being with him.  so that was fun.  this last week was also the Patria Gaucho which is the biggest gaucho party in all of uruguay.  it was super cool because it had a rodeo, random places to buy gaucho stuff, BBQs, and old restored stuff like houses, schools, hospital, church, and ranches there to see how it was way back in the day.  it was super cool!!!  i bought a few things there, a "Rasta" which is a huge gaucho belt and a "Mate de Pata Vaca"  which is a mate but made out of a cow hoove.  it's actually pretty freaking awesome i'd have to say myself.  but anyways, this week was actually super good because we found some super cool people in the area that are total studs!!!  we found this kid named Alvaro who's 15 and looks like a little punk he's got tattoos all over the place but they aren't even good tattoos they're totally crappy tattoos that you would expect from a Pirate to these types of tattoos.  but he actually has super good questions and he's asked us a few times when he can be baptized.  his mom is a member but she's less active so now we're trying to activate her and her family. so it'll be super cool.  the sad thing is that my computer is being soo slow that i don't have anymore time to write... sorry.
love you all,
Elder Atkinson

Week 80!

well hey there everyone!!!
how has life been going for all of you guys??? it sounds like from you email you're all doing great!!!  so have i!!  we've been having quite a few miracles happen in these past few days!  for us, we had been struggling trying to find good new investigators to teach that are actually good...  so this last sunday we fasted to find out what we could doto find some quality investigators.  while in church, one of the recent converts that hasn't been going for the past two months to church decided to come, for some reason i felt that we NEEDED to pass by her house that same afternoon.  without notice we passed by her house and we started talking, her son Àngel (the one that we baptized) asked me for one of the three pictures that i usually carry around to show people a litle bit about my family and he asked me for the one of me riding the dirtbike.  i gave it to him to look at and he ended up runnung out of the room into another room and i hear, "you see!!!  i told you that he likes dirtbikes!!!"  suddenly a 23 year old guy comes out.  i've seen this guy before and it hasn't been for good stuff...  he was a guy that 2 months ago was arrested because he was in possetion of 5 stolen motorcycles in his back yard...  so i was thinking well, let's see what happens.  we start talking a little about dirtbikes and stuff like that,  then i start talking about the gospel.  his name is Atanacio (the guy version of Anastacia haha) but it turns out to be that he's a total stud!!!  he has lots of questions about the church and we passed by yesterday and he shared with us a story.  he said that he was talking to his neighbor about stuff like churches and he said that this guy was saying that HIS church was the ONLY true church and that there was no other choice but wasn't explaining why or giving any sort of reason he just said that he was just going nuts pretty much.  he said that we are different, because we say that we're the true churc but that also we were giving explanations and we told him to not trust in our words but that he could find out for HIMSELF by praying to GOD.  so he's turning into a big stud and told us that he want's to go to the church this week!!  we'll see what happens!  also something interresting that happened this week was that a flood came through Tacuarembò, not like 10 feet of water but literally like 3 feet in most places and the river that passes through tacuarambò that is usually 5 feet deep was 50 feet deep and instead of being a river it was a LITERAL lake!!!  like even bigger than Palmer lake and everything!!  luckily we live on a hill so the flood didn't get us!!!  but this last wee we've been trying to do lots of service projects for people that`s houses were flooded.  luckily it's almost back to normal!!!  all the roads are dry and everything!!!  but thanks for al your emails and also i did get you package mom!!! THANKS and it's a super SICK TIE!!!
love you all,
Elder Atkinson

Week 79!

hey there!!!

it was great to hear from all of you guys this week!!!  this week has been pretty good overall, i decided to do divisions on tuesday with one of the Elders in my District named Elder Fonseca.  he's a total stud!  he's got one more change than i do and he's from Panamà.  he was actually in my first zone in Paysandù and he was there the whole time i was there.  back then we were good friends and i didn't understabd him 50% of the time but now that i can actually comunicate with him it's been super fun to have him in this district.  while i was with him he had a girl that they had been trying to get baptized that next saturday as a lession with me.  at the beginning she said that she wasn't ready to get baptized and everything... it was super annoying, but i started to talk to her calmly and stuff like that and she finally told us WHY she didn't want to get baptized this week..... WOMEN PROBLEMS....  i was like OK we are not going to ask anymore questions and i don't want to hear anything more!!!  but she DID accept a fecha for this next week!  she knows that everything is true and wants to get baptized so we'll see that happen!!!  this saturday was super cool because there was a ward activity that the bishopric set up.  in our ward there are like 140 màs o menos people who go to church every week and on the records of the church... 824 people!!!!  so what the bishop had the ward do was go out to every street with a few names trying to figure out if they've moved, died, or still live there.  and to see who really has intress in the church and having members coming to visit them.  we only cantacted about 200 people, but these people, some of them haven't had people pass by them in 26 years of being member.  it was super cool.  on sunday the bishop asked for a few testimonies of the people who did the activity.  the bishop asked a guy named Josè Prestes who is the dad of Leonardo who i baptized and he has slowly ben reactivating.  WOW i came so close to crying with his testimony, he talked about how for 27 years he had been baptized and for 26.8 years he had been inactive and how going to visit these hermanos he could feel the spirit and he could feel how useless he had been living (spiritually speaking) and how he knows that he will NEVER slack in the gospel again.  it was a super powerful testimony!!!  that same day he was called to be a Young Men's counciler.  he has changed 100% from the way he was when i began visiting the family.  he is going to be a force to be reconned with in the gospel!!!  this 3 hour changed his life and the lives of quite a few others.  i love you all and next week we are going to have P Day on a wednesday because next week is the Patria Gaucha which is the biggest gaicho fiesta in all of Uruguay!!!  i'll let you all know how it is!!!
love ya,
Elder Atkinson

Week 78!

well hey there EVERYBODY!!!!

how's life going for all of you guys????  my life is just dandy and i'm living the real life of a missionary of the LORD here in URUGUAY!!!  not a whole lot has gone on in this week but i will try to talk about as much as possible!!!  first off we had ZONE CONFERENCE with us and the missionaries in Rivera!!!  it was super cool because the whole time they talked 100% about the Book of Mormon and the importance it is to use in the way we teach!  i learned a super lots and it was awesome to see al of the Elderes that i knew in Rivera.  the coolest part was being able to have my whole group that came with me on the mission together.  i know that it's only three of us (me, Elder Shaw, and Elder Hendrickson)  but it was awesome to be able to see all of us together because the last time all of us were together was our first day in Uruguay!  haha Elder Hendrickson asked me "DUDE are you trunky because we only have 6 months left?" and obviously i said "HECK NO" and i asked him the same question and he just kind of stayed quite with a guilty look on his face and i told him "BUDDY we still have one forth of our mission to go!!!  there's NO REASON to be getting trunky this soon!!!  he's promised me that it's not affecting his work but we'll see!!!  hahaha also this week we've been having a BUNCH of rain!!!  like tropical rain storms with a bagillion inches of rain!!!  luckily our house is a little bit higher then the road because if not we definitely would have gotten flooded with like a foot of water.  it's been super fun being with Elder Duke because every now and then he still has those things that you would usually do at home like complain at the heat and the rain.  but i keep telling "just think of all the memories that you've been making to be able to tell other missionaries and your family back home"  and ever since i've said that he's been thinking about that "MAKING MEMORIES"  haha it's super funny and lots of fun being with him!  obviously it's a LOT of work, training and being district leader together but it's super fun at the same time!!!  but because it's been soo rainy it's also been SUPER HUMID!!!  and with SUPER HOT and SUPER HUMIDITY  it definitely makes one SUPER SMELLY and i have to be honest Elder Duke has some of the MOST SMELLIEST FEET IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!  when he takes off his socks at night i almost sufocate EVERY NIGHT.  literally i have come very close to vomitting about 10 times with him.  haha but like i tell him it always makes "MEMORIES"  haha but that's pretty much all that has happened in this last week!  thatnks a ton for all of your emails and everything that you all do for me!!!

love you all,

Elder Atkinson  

Week 77!

wasup everboday????

i'm doing quite great well today.  it finally stopped raining on friday!!!  it's been nice because it hasn't been quite as hot these past few days because it has rained soo much!  but i would like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE!!!  i know that it's a little bit late... sorry...  but this week has been a pretty good week!  not TOO much of note has happened... on monday night me and Elder Duke went to the area of the Hermanas and we did a choque de fuerze just going around doing contacts and visiting ex investigators and we found on old guy named carlinho and he's 75 years old and NEVER learned how to read or write.  the only thing that he knows to do is write his name.  but he was super cool and we invited him to read the book of mormon with his WIFE who knows how to rerad.  his whole life he lived way out in the campo and there wasn't school and he just moved here about a year ago because he's getting too old to live way out there.  so that was pretty cool for this week.  these pasted couple of days i've been soo stinking tired...  let me tell you a few expiriences to show you haw tired i've been.  on thursday, i woke up, said my prayers, and went to start doing excercizes.  i was doing crunches and i finished one set, i looked up at the sealing, i hear my comp ask me a question and i answer "KARATE" i lok at him and he looks at me soo confused; not because i answered his question wrong but because he DIDN'T even ask me a question, he DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING to make me think that he said that.  haha the second one was on sunday, i woke up, said my prayers, and went to my desk because we obviously don't excercize on sundays.  i started talking to Elder Duke about my weird dream that i had the night before.  and i literally fall asleep WHILE words were coming out of my mouth.  but this good kid started snapping and yelling "ELDER" so luckily i woke back up.  i can defenitely say that today is going to need a good nap.  i rarely ever take naps of P Day because there's so much more that one could be doing.  this wil make nap number 3 in my WHOLE mission.  but it's all good.  i'll have lots of energy for the week.  this week we also have Zone Conference!!!  the zone of Rivera is going to come down here which means that i'm going to be able to see Elder Hendrickson and Elder Shaw from my CCM group!!!  it's going to be like a family reunion.  it'll be lots of fun.  we' have been finding quite a few people and we're trying to bring LOTS of members to their lessiones.  so that's pretty much what has happened this week for me... but thanks for the love, emails, and letters!!!

love you all,
Elder Atkinson

Week 76!

hey,

first i wante to let you know that i recieved your package that you sent me with gum, candy, pictures, and the t shirt that the ward signed!  it was super cool to see and to get something like that THANKS!!!wha else hs happened this week?????  well....  we've still eaten 4 more meals of rice but luckily it wasn't the whole week.  but i am getting a little tired of rice...  but oh well it least i's not terrible.  but let's see, it's been raining for thes last 4-5 days like on stop and because our roads are practically all dirt it turned into pure MUD!!!  it's even worse because recently they have been working on the roads, putting water pipes under the roads so all the dirt was super soft before it rained.  slipping and slidding everywhere,  and apparently it's suppsed to rain full on until thursday.... but it's all good.  so this week we already did divisions with te Zone Leaders.  i stayed in my area and elder Duke let to their area.  i was with a kid named Elder Nygard,  he's from Washington,  he's got a little bit less time them i do on the mission but he is a total STUD.  this is his first change as Zone leader but he's doing super well and we had such a great teacher and you can super tell that he absolutely LOVES the people of Uruguay.  the way he teaches is in a way that it's super simple but it is also super personal.  it was super fun.  because it was raining like non other while we were working together we were both slipping all over the place in like 6 inches of mud.  today has been a pretty cool day because we went out to the ZOO and ate pizza together as a district.  it was pretty funny because on te way over to the zoo we walking and it was poring rain, but once we got there it stopped and it was totally great and eventhough everything else was wet and the animals smelled terrible because it's a poor free outside zoo so i don't think they get bathed very often.  but it was lots of fun to be together as a DISTRICT.   but thanks everyone for all the love and support.  can't wai to hear from ya next week!

love ya,

Elder Tyler Atkinson

Week 75!

hola hola hola


sounds like a lot has gone on in this last week!!!  i think that a bit has happened with me too!  first off i gotta talk about the food that we've had for these passed 13 days straight... for every single lunch we've had........ RICE.........  it's not like rice is bad or anything but, having rice for everyday for almost 2 weeks takes a tole on your body... in more than one way ;) we had rice with sauce, rice and mayonase, rice and bits of hot dogs, plain rice, rice with milanesas, and rice with tomatoes.  literally every typre of rice you can make.  haha these past couple of days i've been literally choking down the food just because my body can't handle soo much rice.  i'm hoping that tomorrow it's something different....  LUCKILY today we've got p day so i'll probably make a hom sandwich or something.  but i'm not going to continue in more rice talk.  today are changes, and SHOCKER we're staying the same!  i'm still training Elder Duke and i'm still district leader.  but Elder Washburn is leaving and a few more elders are leaving as well.  but what have we done this week???  whelp we had an activity with the ward and it was a dessert competition.  i didn't win... but i ALMOST DID!!!  i made a cake with strawberry jello in it!  it was actually super good and it won third place-ish.  but the lady who won made a thing called a Chajà which is like a long like rolled up cinnamon roll type thing with fruits and other random stuff on it.  it was SUPA GOOD!!!  haha so that was super cool and also in our ward there was a baptism but by the other elders in the ward.  we had the baptismal service right after church on sunday and it turned out super good.  a lady named Silvia who has around 35 years was the one who got baptized.  when i was doing her baptismal interview i was talking to her about her testimony and i could really feel that she had recieved her answer and this testimony about the gospel and the church.  it was super cool to be able to witness that!  she shared her testimony in the baptism and the spirit was SOOO strong and it was super cool because her 16 year old daughter was there who isn't a member to be able to listen to that testimony and feel the spirit during the baptism.  but that's really all that has gone on this week...  but thanks for all of you writting me and for all your love and prayers,
love,
Elder Atkinson

Week 74!

well HOWDY,

how's everyone doing???  i'm thinking that OVERALL good.  obviously there are stressful times in our lives but we all have to learn to suck it up ;) hahaha kidding.  but my week has been overall good.  we've been working a lot more with the members of the ward and they've been super happy.  this week we're doing a dessert contest and we'll see who has the best dessert out of all of Barrio Lòpez.  i have to try to think of something to do porque Elder Duke doesn't know how to cook anything (or so he's told me)...  but it'll be fun!  but anyways i have a super cool story that happened to us this week.  so we have an investigator named Hugo that is about 75 years old but he looks super young like MOST 60 years old.  he's been an investigator for a whils and he's investigated the church before also abd has a little problem with tithing...  we've been praying and praying trying to figure out what we need to do to help Hugo resolve this problem with Tithing.  we felt that we should bring the Bishop to our lesson with him.  we know that Bishops have an invaluable influence in the missionary work and in the lives of the people inside of their ward.  so he went with us and it was SPECTACULAR!!!! the bishop was talking with him and told him that it even wasn't really a decision of paying or not but he talked to him about how it is way more of a step of really SHOWING faith in our lives.  that if you really know that these things are true and you know that the teachings of Christ are true than you know what you have to do and that you will DO IT!!!  i could feel that spirit so much in the lession it was CRAZY!!!  so we challenged Hugo to really find out if this is the REAL church of Christ and to pray to find that out!  so we'll see what happens with that.  but the lesson was so great and i could feel the spirit BIG TIME!!!  i know that Bishops have the keys to their wards and that if they start working and trying to do visits with the missionaries that EACH WARD will EXPLODE!!!  it was so cool and the bishop told us that he wants to go on more visits with us!!!!!!!!!  we also had an investigador in church yesterday!!!  her name is Mariana and she's 16 years old.  she's a friend of one of the ward missionaries and we just started working with her this week!  we'll see what happens with her because for now she doesn't want to accept a baptismal date until she KNOWS that this is the only true church.  i totally understand that and it'll be fun to see what happens!  but hey i love you all and can't wait till next week!
Love,
Elder Atkinson

Week 73!

hey there all y'all,

how life going with all you guys in the United States???  my life has been quite well down here in the wonderful place of Tacuarembò, Uruguay!!!!   soo... what did i do this week?  we didn't do a whole lot but i'll try to tell you all of the things that i did in good detail.  so on monday Elder Duke and i went and did a "Choque de fuerza" in the area of the hermanas.  that wants to say that we went to their area and we visted old investigators and we knocked doors for a couple hours trying to help them raise up their area and give them the opportunity to get douple the work done in that short amount of time.  we found a guy named cesar, he's kind of an old guy that has about 70 years.  but he just loves to talk and talk and talk!!!!  it was super funny because half way through he went to get us a drink and elder duke turns to me and says, "i have no idea wnat we've been talking about for the last 15 minutes"  it turns out that we keep talking and Elder duke had no idea what we were saying for the whole 45 minutes we were with him.  luckily i asked elder duke a few questins during the lesson trying to keep him involved and saying a few things so that he could share his testimony and things like that.  so it was pretty funny. but on tuesday we had interviews with President Heaton,  i love that guys so much and i really do feel how much he is praying for us and how much revelacion he recieves for us that it's really AMAZING all that he does at the age he has.  he remindes me a lot of Grandpa with the way he talks to everyone and the way he shows his love to everyone through his actions and what he says.  on wednesday i did divisiones with Elder Washburn in my district and we went over to his side.  it's just the other side of the ward but it was lots of fun.  we went by this one guys who is an investigetor of them and who is super poor.  what he does as a living is that he makes jewelry out of old coins that he finds; he makes that into stuff like rings, key chains, necklaces, earings, and other stuf like that.  we both decided to buy rings from this guy.  they weren't too expensive, only 100 pesos ($5 in USA) and it's actually pretty cool.  but we visited quite  a few of their investigators and it was lots of fun.  we also this week did divisions with the bishopric of the ward.  i went with the second councilor "Hermano Cuadro" he's a RM that served in 2004 in Paraguay.  he's soo cool and it really is so amazing getting the bishopric to do visits with us to visit our investigators because the investogator really does feel the spirit everytime thay talk aand it helps them realize that the members are normal people that obviously LIVE the standards of the gospel.  so i had a wonderful time doing divisions with the bishopric and we're going to try to do it once a week if possible.  but honestly besides that we didn't have anything else special happen here in Barrio Lòpez.  i'm still having a BLAST and i'm learning something new every single day and that is the most important.  i love you all and can't wait to hear more,

LUV,
Elder Atkinson

Week 72!

well HOWDY,

this week was a lot better talking about success wise.  first off i did a mini division with the other elders of the ward Elder Washburn and Elder Tyree.  this time i decided to go with the Elder Tyree and work with him.  it was pretty interresting not because of who he is, but because of the people we talked to while we were with him.  we first went over to an investigador named Blanca.  she's a 60 year old woman who has been listening to the missionaries for about two months without results...  we started talking to her, trying to figure out why she didn't want to get baptized.  when halfway through the lesson she says, "i i've been needing to tell you guys something, i was talking with my granddaughter these past couple of weeks and i realized, i'm already a member of this church!"  HUH????  i asked her if she knew what church we were from and everything to make sure that she wasn't confused or anything and she wasn't mistaken.  she whips out a picture and it's a picture of her baptism in the church!  with the elders and everything.  i was trying soo hard to figure out how she had forgotten something that BIG.  she's not even old enough to forget things like that!!!!  but oh well..  i also did divisions with the Zone leaders this week.  i stayed in my area and elder duke went over there with Elder Sheppard.  Elder Vilchez came ands worked with me for the day.  it was super fun and it seemed like for the first time in lots of time that all of our plans worked the exact way that we wanted them to.  we found some super cool people and we were able to get a lot of things done.  we also found quite a few good investigators.  almost all of them are friends of the new convert named lourdes.  she has been so stinkin excited after visiting the temple because now this is what she wasnts to do, help all of her friends feel the eternal blessings that the gospel brings!  it has been a great opportunity for me to be able to see the great change in her life trying to follow christ in everything.  she is now trying to change her work because every now and then she has to work on sundays so now she is trying soo hard to find a job that she doesn't have to do that.  but that was kind of my week in a nut shell...  this area has been getting better and better so i can't wait to see what else this area has in store for me.

love you all,
Elder Atkinson