Week 28

HEY FAMILY IN NEW YORK!!!

Well here I am in Minas. It`s awesome here. I love it. It`s really different from Toledo because it is way more city like and there are mountains...more or less. There are hills but in Uruguay they are mountains and it`s nice. It actually reminds me of the little towns we used to drive through in like New England or wherever. Just little shops and stuff...no highrises or anythign like that. So yeah, really pretty. There are 4 elders and 2 sisters in this area. One of the sisters here is from my group in the MTC which is fun. Good times.

My comp is pretty cool. His name is Elder Sluder...I think I mentioned that. He does want to work which is good although last week was pretty crazy. The ward mission leader here doesn`t plan baptisms so we had to plan our baptism last week which added a lot to our schedule. But we did have a baptism...a 20 year old girl who lives with the patriarch here (he baptized her). So that`s my second baptism and the second one that I really didn`t do anything for...oh well, as long as they stay active.

So right now, I`m in a trio. I don`t know if you heard, but apparently every mission in the world is changing, i.e. preach my gospel is changing or something. As such, every zone and district leader is now in Montevideo for a 3 day conference. So my comp who is district leader left yesterday solo to go to Montevideo and now the three of us are working both areas as a trio for a few days. He should be back Thursday. Anyways, some huge change is obviously happening, should be interesting and I think zone conferences are now changing to once every two changes instead of once every change. I don`t know if and how that might affect packages.

Speaking of packages, we just got a box today from the mission office (Minas is so far away from our zone...i.e. 2 hours...that we get our own box of mail and stuff directly from the mission office. and I received two packages filled with socks and I don't know what else. I haven`t opened it yet, but I`m incredibly amazed. I saw that they were postmarked the 8th of July. It is now the 19th and I already have the packages along with a ton of mail, letters 26,27,28, various letters from Grandma, Bishop, Bernie...um yeah, it`s awesome. I haven`t received mail for about 3 weeks now so this is make up time.

Ok, I`m attempting to attach 2 pictures to this email. The first is of our golden investigators in Toledo. As soon as he gets divorced and they get married, they`ll be baptized. They`re more firm than some members. They are numbers 3 and 4 counting from the left. The brother on the far left is a member and their neighbor. He went to almost every lesson with us. :) and Elder Nomani is doing who knows what. The second picture is of a less active family in the ward in Toledo, they are awesome. They are only inactive because some of the members made some very unfriendly remarks to them that kind of drove them away. But the family is amazing. She also has a son who is 10 and taking the picture. The daughters are 6 and 4 and the third picture that I decided to put on is of me. enjoy. :) hopefully I`ll get some pictures of Minas on there next time.

So the work here in Minas is alright. I`ve heard it`s pretty hard, but it`s not too bad. and I was misinformed...the members feed us almost every day. Good stuff. Right now we have this golden family that we are teaching. young guy and his soon to be wife. They have a little daughter. Their only obstacle was getting married (because she didn`t really want to) but we think they`ll get baptized now because they seem to have the desire to get married. We`ll see. Other than that, there were some things I had to adapt to in this area that are different than Toledo, but it`s not been too bad. I`m enjoying it...and it`s my first time moving to a new area so that`s cool too. I`m trying to put into practice the different things that I`ve learned.

Tell Holly to write to me.

Glad you guys are enjoying Rochester. I think that Nana should get the letter I sent her while you guys are there. I assume you are going to Sea Breeze? Um, when do you leave to go back home?

Well I`m doing pretty good. It`s raining right now, but with my boot things, I`m good, not too much to worry about. Oh I am a tiny bit sick...congestion and sore throat, but not enough to keep me from working. The house here in Minas is sweet. We`re up on the second floor and we can go out on the roof and chill and we have a fire place which is sweet because it is cold here. We`re higher up in elevation. Minas is pretty rich overall. It`s amazing to see the difference because Toledo was very poor (overall). So that was a pretty big switch too.

Anyways, I gotta go. Send love to the family. Tell Bernie thanks for the email even though I haven`t read it yet. Travel safely...I don't know when you are leaving. Peace to puppies and banana peppers.

Love always,

DJ