April 12, 2011

Hey family!

This week was great. The Pio family and Claudia were baptized on Saturday and confirmed Sunday. This next week, the entire Eijo family will be baptized, along with Freddy Rosa, Nacho (Marìa Paz's nephew) and the son and daughter of a recently reactivated family. It will be an incredible service...that I won't be here for. :( I got the call yesterday morning that I'm off to a city called Fray Bentos.

It will be good I guess, but I was pretty disappointed to have to leave here after the culmination of a lot of time and energy, prayers, etc... a lot of families I've been teaching for a long time are finally coming around, and we have 2 marriages next week...man. Elder Barrios is staying with a Paraguayo named Elder Leiva, who's about to finish the mission, so it should be great. I really hope they keep pushing hard the area. The ward is excited and working so hard, they ought to see many miracles now :)

I am going with a missionary named Elder Schumann. I have seen him before, but don't really know him well, but only heard good things, so I'm excited :) Fray Bentos is a small town, but has the biggest paper factory in Uruguay (woo hoo haha) so there's lots of hard workers there, so thats good. I have no idea what to expect, so I'll let you know more next week heh.

Today to finish out the change we had a big asado with tons of meat. It was delicious :) I am going to miss Tacuarembo, home of the gaucho and the Guayan cow. Pah.

When Ammon got to the Lamanites the first time the king asked him his intentions with his people and he said that he would like to dwell with them, perhaps until the day he dies. I'm starting to feel a lot like that here. Many people just have such a higher quality being. Willing to share with anyone what they have, even when they have so very little, while us up there complain we have no time or money to do things, when its our fault we filled up our agendas and budgets with useless things (Elder Uchtdorf).

Congrats to Levi on running and to Kayli on swimming! I can't wait to see you in the fall!

As for the camera, if the way you send it isnt going to touch postal man hands, it's fine to send, but DO NOT send it through normal mail haha it would be way better to send it that way, though, they are twice the price here! Put it in Elder Barrios' box please :) If you can access my account, you can transfer the money to pay for it, if not, I'll pay you back when I get home :)

Congrats to Marcos and Sheena! Are they still in the same house? Did they put a pool out back yet? heh

So its Courtney Peterson that Karl is dating! Everyone keeps telling me Courtney, but noone had said the last name yet!!! Hahaha that's great! Is she living with Julia at BYU-I? I sure hope I'm there for the wedding, but if not, after this last general conference, I wouldn't be surprised.

It's change week, sorry I don't have much to say! I love you all, you are in my prayers. Work hard in all you do and be happy. Take care of one another. LOVES!!!

Elder Magnusson

P.S. My "trunky" papers are coming next week, and I need the info to fill them out, as for which airport I am leaving South America from. WIll it be possible to go from Uruguay to Iguasu Falls and visit the Grau's, and leave from Asuncion to the States? Should I land in Tucson, or should we go straight to Phoenix to pick up the kids from Grandmas, or whats the plan? The time has arrived to plan!!! heh, let me know asap, even today if possible send it in a gmail and I'll get it Thurs.