December 20, 2010

It was a fantastic week here in Tacuarembo. SUPER hot and humid, but BEAUTIFUL! Everything is so green right now. Unfortunately, however, these last 2 days have been full of rain. AFter 3 months of drought not a cloud in the sky, these last 2 Sundays it has rained! It's tough for investigators to walk so far in mud and the rain with sick children, so I really hope next Sunday clears up a bit. Oscar, who got deported from New Jersey 2 months ago after his wife died, came to church on his brother-in-law`s moto this Sunday and is progressing REALLY well! He's an incredible guy with an incredible story and he's getting baptised on New Years Day!
Before I forget, please call me at 3pm on Christmas (my time). My number is 463-21046. My address is Diego Lamas 921 (casi Rep. Argentina). That road from one end to the other end and everything on either side is my area. It is LONG and there is NO shade hahaha but right in the middle is a house that sells ice cream for 1 peso (about a nickel) that we buy just about every time we pass it (3-4 times per day or more) haha If you can see houses on google earth its a house with lots of land around it, painted pink with red heart metal rejas (no idea how to say that in english) in the windows. Maybe they'll send sisters here soon. heh
We met our next door neighbors yesterday! Its a father that lives along, but during the summers, his 17 yr old son is now here from his mom's in Montevideo. He asked us to pass by and practice english. Turns out he (the son) goes to a private bilingual school and speaks pretty much perfect. We taught the Restoration in english, it was sweet! Amazingly enough, most of our strongest investigators speak english! It's pretty rare haha especially out in the middle of nowhere!
A funny story this week... Elder Harris was showering when he shouted out of nowhere to hurry and come over and when I went there was a tarantula in the shower hahahaha Then we looked over at the splashing coming from the toilet, and a frog had swam up the line and had leaped out onto the seat. All the creatures decided to invade at once.
This week there was a Christmas concert where a choir from our Stake and a choir from the Catholic school sung together, a huge annual comunity event that had a huge turn out! A few missionaries performed on the piano and violin. All in all it was a success and hopefully people will continue softening up to us because of things like that. We are taking a different approach this change to the way I've done things. We don't let people say no. If someone is working shoveling, cleaning, etc.. We take their things and do it for them and serve. We begin teaching right when we meet people instead of taking time to get to know them, and AFTER they've heard the gospel and are interested we bother with the other things. It's turned out great! We are finding a lot of fantastic people that have never heard our message just because they had always turned us down. I guess just walking into someone's house probably wouldn't fly in the US, but it's been a lot of fun here haha
Dang, another funny thing that happened this week came to mind. Our door lock broke in the rain 2 days ago so we were locked out of the house, so I let my companion kick in the door, and now we take turns each time. We can lock it but not unlock it, so we have to break in each time. Hopefully noone else gives it a try!
This week a family we are teaching goes on vacation with a member family. Turns out they've been best friends for years! They are going to the beach together and the members got permission to have sacrament meeting in their rented house on the shore, so our investigators are going to go to a special meeting.
Tomorrow we have interviews with the President! It'll be fun, it's been weird not being around them all the time!
I love this area, and even thought there aren't a lot of people we are working hard and seeing MANY miracles. I love this work, it is the Lord's. I sent off a few letters this week, so finally some people will hear from me. haha.
Love, Elder Magnusson