July 3, 2010

Whew, this was a CRAAAAZZZZYYYY week!!!
Changes were crazy enough, but this week we had to say bye to Pres. Peterson and his family (the temple President and wife took them to the airport) and we got to pick up the new President and his wife. Next week me and Elder Bell, the Financial Secretary are taking the President and his wife to Punta del Este to get all 3 of our licenses (and maybe convince the Pres. to splurge for lunch at a nice place) ;-) hehe It'll be a blast going on a mini roadtrip.
President Heaton is GREAT and so is his wife. She's such a sweet lady! He's very very quiet, humble, thoughtful man from southern Utah. There are already some HUGE changes happening in the mission (and in the area as a whole as the area presidency also changed) so we'll see how things turn out in the next few months. It'll be interesting for sure. Maybe I'll get to tour the country with some general authorities!!!!!!! That would be a SWEET roadtrip hahaha
The first day the President was here we spent half the day showing how to work all the systems and everything since when the President of a mission changes, they only see eachother for about 1.5 hrs and cannot talk about problems or give hints or anything. They start with a blank sheet of paper. It was a sad day because missionay after missionary kept calling with problem after problem while they were just trying to settle in. I guess God truly qualifies the called!!
Last night was the most exciting of my life I think. Uruguay beat Ghana in the World Cup and now we're in the top 4!! It's a position not reached in like 40 years. The President gave us permission to watch the games if it helps in some way to missionary work, since it's impossible to talk to anyone during a game, and proselyting is a waste of time, SO...we got to see the second half at an inactive members home. It was incredible!!! Ghana took out the US last game, and this one they were playing SUPER dirty. It was tied in the end so it went into an extra 30 mintues and since they were still tied, it went into penalty kicks. Uruguay has some of the best hard hitters in the world, and THE best goalie in the world, so we beat them and we're going to the semi-finals. We play Holland next game.
Afterwards, it was REALLY unsafe to be outside, so we sprinted back to the house early and worked on our map of the area. The entire population of Montevideo was throwing confetti, fireworks, screaming in the streets, running around crazy, screaming... it was the most exciting night in the history of my life. Crazy crazy crazy... I wish I'd had my camera on me. We were dodging fireworks blowing up constantly everywhere, people dancing on top of cars, taxis filled with 10 people hanging out the windows and on top flying by holding their horns, etc... It was just absolutely insane. Look up on youtube a video from Plaza Independencia when Uruguay won and you'll understand where I was, I'm sure there'd be one up now.
My comp is great, we're having a blast working on a number of projects for the mission. It will be a fun 6 months, although really tough maybe. We'll see :)
COngrats on swimming and all!!!
FYI, I'm in Barrio 5 at Bulevar Artigas y Suarez. The church is called Deseret because it's the oldest church building in all of uruguay, and some say the oldest in South America, although I don't know if that one is true. That could just be Uruguayo pride speaking. The mission office is now connected to the church building behind it.
We found a lady that will be baptized in 2.5 weeks if all works out, and another family that is progressing. We should see lots of success here if only we can get enough proselyting time in (last week we got about 4 hours the entire week, this week about 10). Things are just crazy busy, and this part is all European, so the whole zone usually has single digits baptisms each year. It's WAAAAY different than inside the country.
Yep it's been pretty cold here, except for this last week its been strangely warm :( I havent worn a coat in 4 days, but once the heat wave passes it will be freezing again. All say that the end of July and August are the coldest part of the year, so we'll see how it is.
Keep up the good behavior Colton!!!! Sorry I don't send more letters home to you guys, I really never have time to write letters, so when I do I write to grandma or people that don't get this email :( I'll try to get better at that for sure!
Love you all! Build your testimonies day by day, the best way to do it is to share it!! Work on getting Elder Cypers lots of references. Prepare your friends and co-workers this week to receive the missionaries!
Elder Magnusson