March 15, 2010

Hello :)

This week was wonderful! Elder Enciso has been feeling better, we're more out of the house than in now and working really hard with the members especially! We spent yesterday on divisions with members (actually, I was with a 14 yrd old member of 1 year and his brother 18 that is an investigator) and we got a ton of lessons in! The 18yrold, Juan Rodriguez, is a hero of mine! He has the most profound testimony, and only can't be baptized because he had a baby (Maria Josè) with his 15yrold girlfriend and she wants to wait til theyre older to be married. We're finally teaching her the lessons now, and they should be married soon so we can baptize them! Juan is GUARANTEED a future general authority, I'm calling it now. His 14 yr old bro Dogomar also. Dang, such an amazing family.
We did service almost every morning this week too, and my machete is getting dull, I need to find a sharpener haha, when I get home Ill have to show you how to cut the grass by machete, we get it done in only about twice as long as with machine, which is pretty fast by hand! SO exhausting, though.
We caught a snake during service when it came at me, but we found out it was venomous and the lady asked us to kill it, so instead we bagged it and froze it to see if its true that reptiles come back alive when they defrost. Turns out they don't. haha
O man, the churros filled with dulce de leche are my new favorite food in the whole world. I have no idea what Im gonna do when I get home and don't have them any more.
This week, we nailed down baptismal dates for 8 more this month, and the mission leader is crazy happy. It will be a field of white on the 27th. We also have a TON of people lined up for April, I'm so stoked this area is so golden!!!
Yesterday the gift of tongues was more in effect than any other time in my mission. 16 yr old girl came to church with her friend that was a member and asked us to stop by, so when I was on divisions we went, and the spirit helped me speak really good spanish! The member girl asked me if I was Argentine or Uruguayo! I felt SOOO GOOOD!!
Today, I went to Argentina for a little while. We went to the second largest dam in Uruguay and the bridge above it connects with Argentina. Then we found out that there aren't any buses that go back to Salto from where we were, so we hitch-hiked back. That was a lot of fun haha Took some cool dam photos of all the dam water and everything. ha
Ooo times up, I love you all so much, and I know that this church is true with all of my heart and have found so much joy in service than in anything. Serve others whenenver you have the opportunity! I am so excited that I still have 3/4 of my mission left, I feel so sad to the the missionaries getting ready to leave and returning back to a life without scheduled study, service, etc... I can't imagine how sad that's gonna be.
Our new President is named Ronald and Sandra Heaton from St. George, UT by the way. He served here, and they come the 1st of July. I'm not too excited for tons of change, I don't like change too much, so we'll see what happens!!! I'm gonna miss this Pres. and Hma. a lot.
I LOVE the mission, and hope you are all praying for the Uruguayos. Even though they are crazy.
Elder Magnusson