January 25, 2010

Hello!!!
Holy smokes, those Haiti statistics are nuts. But, things like that bring people into the spirit of service and open up missionary opportunities more than anything else. War, famine, plague, disaster, etc... are the biggest progressors of missionary work, strangely enough. We could use one down here. ha
As for those family names I was given, they are not active at least and I didn't see them among names of people baptized into the ward (theres several hundred inactives of course), and the patriarch doesn't recognize them, could you ask her for the name of someone else that might remember them? A street or something?
This week was way good. On Tuesday after district meeting we had a choque de fuerza where all the missionaries in the district go to one area and search all day for new investigators for the missionaries in that area to teach to later and we found a young 20-something Brazilian lady who said this is what shes been searching for! So...hopefully that will be a baptism for those elders because they live in one of the hardest areas in the mission. One of the comps there is on his 4th change in the area and just had his first baptism there. eesh
The rest of the week was wonderful, we got 3 new people at church, and have 2 set baptisms for Saturday and a few more in February. I REALLY hope I'm here for a 3rd change at least I LOVE this area!!!
This one dude we've been teaching has been an investigator for 11 years. You should ask Sis. Horton (which sister, Sis. Marshall?) if she remembers Hmo. Torres. He subscribes to the liahona, has read pretty much every church book I've ever heard of, and every time we visit he shares with us a section of the book of mormon hes most recently been analyzing. This guys is one of the most active members of the church I've ever heard of and he won't be baptized because of the examples he's seen in the ward of people not living what they preach. His biggest fear is falling into hypocrisy. So....yesterday we decided to take things back to square one and talk about the restoration of the church. I felt moved to go into lots of detail in Christs ministry and the Atonement, and stuff that I'd been thinking and studying about it, and started talking about how I felt the Father must have felt seeing his son like that, and just went on for like 15 minutes of hardcore testifying, and we got him to cry!!!!!!!!!!! WOOT, getting people to cry is the best thing in the world. Then his daughter, who was baptized 8 months ago testified hardcore too and he said he will be baptized!!!!!! He will be an INCREDIBLE leader in the church I know. He said it may take some time still, but he said he won't be baptized unless we are there to do it, so I may be paying a visit back to Oeste soon, or back to Uruguay if it takes longer than 20 months!! YAY!
Carmen gets back from her house in Colonia this week, and Nelida too! I can't wait to see them, I miss our daily juice during siesta when there's noone on the streets to contact and noone will let us in haha
Also, this week Pablo and Christopher (Elena's grandsons) got their buddy Yonatàn (pronounced Jonathan without the h with a spanish accent haha) to play fùtbol with us cause every Friday night we have a fùtbol night at the church to find new investigatos, and he came to church on Sunday and asked to be baptized next month. Another really good young kid. All we can baptize is old women and young men! haha His mom came to pick him up from the church building and she was looking around saying how lovely everything was and so I think his family will be as well soon. So many good people.
Ah well, before he leaves (meaning like today haha) tell Andrew that I love him and he has a TON to look forward to in the next 2 months at the MTC, if he works his butt off there, the first few months in the mission will be SO much easier!!! Please send me his address when he gets a box number there.
Your packages and letters should be here tomorrow I hope.
I love you all so much and I'm having a BLAST working through the heat haha. Today we went to the beach. Sort of haha as close as possible, we went to a pier that overlooks the river next to the port where a buddy of mine here works, Julio Olivera. I got some more cool pictures in this part of town where everything is crazy old.
Work hard in all that you are doing and pray ALWAYS. Be happy with whatever happens and read How Firm a Foundation vs. 4 and 5 every day. Thats how I start my day every morning. The Isaiah verses referenced are about those verses and are crazy good.
Nope, I still haven't gained or lost weight, but I've started collecting all the different alfajor wrappers and so I have something deliciously bad for me to always look forward to. If I get fat, it will be a very happy and worth-it sort of fat.
què pasa bien!
Elder Magnusson