November 6, 2010

Hey everyone, it was a great week as always!
Right now we just bought a bunch of wood and started a fire, and have a ton of chorizo out in the back grilling Uruguayan style :) I'm stoked!
This week was a lot of fun! We organized members to accompany us every day and we saw a lot of success in finding new people and befriending the investigators that we already have. Theres this old lady we found that is HILARIOUS. She reminds me of the old Sister Peterson me and dad used to home teach. She's having trouble getting over the fact that she doesn't need to talk to God through Saints, but she's getting over it. We taught a lesson on receiving revelation through prayer last night. She's getting baptised at the beginning of December.
Mary is as strong as ever. After having testified before thousands of evangelicals of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, the missionaries up there in that city are harvesting a TON of references. She was invited to speak in a few other conferences around the country, and next time she'll be a baptised member haha.
Last Saturday I talked to a lady about the church at the supermarket on the way out of buying groceries named Rosana, who is a Jew, but after the first lesson she went to church last week, went to the baptismal service and saw a baptism, and now is getting baptised on the 20th. Shes done with 1 Nephi with tons of notes in the margins everywhere and practically has everything memorized and referenced. Shes a college professor of Law. Unfortunately, it turned out she doesn't live in our area, but the other office elders are teaching her and shes progressing like crazy. Another tender mercy of the Lord.
Our couples with marriage plans are still not getting it done, it's a little frustrating at times, but we have a lesson with Gustavo and Daniela today in front of the baptismal font with a 20 yr old convert getting ready to leave on the mission. It should turn out pretty good. Marriage is the hardest thing here. It's hard to get married and nearly impossible to get divorced, and even harder if you have kids, so nobody bothers with it at all. BAH!
Carlos and his wife are progressing well too. They read together all the time, and when he gets up at night he just reads and reads.
We visited again with a man we found last week named Miguel Tabich and he surprised us with a ton of history he had read up on of the church in an old volume of church history somehow he had gotten in the past that was in his HUGE house library (we keep finding super smart, rich people to teach!). He was telling (or rather teaching us haha) stories that I had never even heard of from the Mormon Batallion, etc... random really cool little histories. He reads constantly and is now on his 2nd venture through the Book of Mormon already. Him, his wife, and his son will be baptised in about 5 weeks just before Christmas.
Well, those are our most promising investigators right now. We only work a few hours a day proselyting, but we are seeing a lot of miracles every day. Next Saturday is Mary's baptism and she asked me to baptise her. If women could be apostles, she'd be the next one haha, and she brought another man in her nightly English class to the gospel in another ward here in Montevideo called Pocitos (sister missionarys are there) and this man, Martin, is going to be baptised with her. They both lost their spouses 4 years ago, are super smart, and have strong testimonies, and talk about eachother all the time so hopefully we'll see some eternal marriage here in the next year haha
A good friend of mine went home with his parents yesterday, so when Cory Wadsworth invites me to facebook please accept and give him a few of my lady friends to look up haha He said he loved being able to go around and see everyone with his parents before going home, so I guess plan on that. It will be great!
Elder Crandell is still a stud and we're having fun and working super hard. I love this work, and I hear your prayers. It's amazing that you can knock every door 20 times, and still there's someone waiting for you the 21st time. The ward is strong, and working together finally, I just really hope things keep clicking forever like they are now.
I love you all so much! I am having the time of my life finding happiness in good things. The church is true, Christ lives.
Elder Magnusson