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