Week 70

Bubbles!
Monday, May 16, 2011 7:49 AM
Dear family,

I am once again writing to you because such is my lot in life. :)

So, the lady I told you about is supposed to get baptized on the 28th. How cool is that? Maybe that`s why the Lord sent me here...so I could pass that reference on to the other missionaries. I don`t know.

We were going door-to-door last night and we contacted this older guy who had lost his wife about a year and a half ago. The poor guy has so much bitterness and resentment stored in his heart and he doesn`t want to do anything about it. He stopped believing in God because she died. It was really sad. I told him that we (as missionaries) had no idea what he had gone through or what he was going through, but we were positive that the message we had would help him, but he doesn`t want to accept help. He just wants to wallow in self pity. I really wish people would be more receptive to the gospel. If only they knew how much it would help them.

As of right now, we really don`t have any solid investigators (still), although we periodically find potentials (that is, people who could potentially become investigators). I`ve never seen such a dearth of success with constant hard work and effort. It`s bizarre.

To answer Dad`s questions...there are about 190 missionaries in the mission, I think, in 11 zones. It`s a pretty large mission. Um, well let`s see.

Those are my interesting stories and details for now. Too bad about the Byrd scholarship. Oots. Hope you have a good week. When does Chris finish school? Enjoy life. Love you guys lots.

Love Always,

DJ

ps...say hi to Travis when you see him.

pps...I apologize for the rather dull and boring email. The important thing is that I`m alive, safe, and well....and happy too. :D

Week 69

Hey there
Monday, May 9, 2011 9:40 AM
Hey family,

Well, it was really nice talking to you guys yesterday. Sadly, everything in the mission seems to just come and disappear (including the mission itself). I am super excited to go back to school when my mission is done but I`m going to work my butt off these last 8 months. The huge goal I have is just giving it everything and going home with no regrets. But I`m not going to lie, I`ll be excited to see you guys and get back to school. So no worries there.

Ok, so you`ll remember that I asked for information on Miguel and Natalia. Well turns out that I got a really unfortunate phone call last night unexpectedly. It was the missionaries, Elder Whitaker and his comp. They called to tell me that Miguel had died. And no I`m not making this up. He was 33 years old and they said he died of an antivirus or something. I feel really bad for Natalia. She is 21 years old and now is widowed with a daughter of 3 years and one of almost a year. They called to tell me so I could write her a letter today. I don`t know why all of my investigators are dying. :( In other news, the branch there is doing good. They are now teaching a relative of Javier and Valeria and the 11 year old son of an ex sister missionary that we were teaching as well is going to get baptized.

Did you ever get the letter to give to Travis? Also happy birthday to Chris. WOOOOOOOOOO! What a stud he is. Word.

The candy survived fine. The bunny doesn`t even look broken. It looks like the two milky ways melted and then rehardened, but other than that, no casualties at all.

Well, other than that, I really don`t have much to share today. Hope you guys have a great week.

Love Always,

DJ

PS: What day is graduation?

Week 68

bear bear bear
Monday, May 2, 2011 7:41 AM
Hello family,

As you may have guessed, I am staying here. And I am staying with my comp which I am happy about. We`re pretty excited to finally get something going here. Obviously the Lord has a purpose for us here. We taught less lessons last week in the entire week than I`ve taught before in one day. It was absolutely depressing, but we are working (for as hard as it may be).

Ok so I want to tell about this funny lady we met. We met her about 3 weeks ago. She actually signaled to us in the street because she thought we were selling perfume. She was carrying some heavy things so we helped her. While walking I started talking about the gospel. She said that she thought that everybody should be in one church so she was getting ready to start her own church. Hm. Anyways, we found out she lived in the next area over so we passed the reference to the zone leaders. They went and started to talk to her. Turns out she is way evangelical and her church idea failed two days later, but she showed up the very next Sunday to church with white clothes so she could get baptized right there. Being evangelical, she likes to participate a lot in the meetings. She goes to church every Sunday now, and has a baptismal date. The zone leaders come back all the time with funny stories of her. It`s awesome.

I forgot to tell you last week that I did get the letter with the photos of Japan and last week I got letter 66, I think it was (the one sent by pouch). We got no mail this week because of changes.

WELCOME TO MAY

I have no pictures.

That`s super sweet about Michael`s mission call. Communicate to him my congrats.

It`s been raining like a small baby here. We`ve had this storm for like four days now. It is the booty, so consequently both my comp and I are stuffed up like huge teddy bears. My comp looked like a corpse yesterday in church. I`ve never felt so unproductive in my life as yesterday morning. It was a Sunday morning, in addition it was a national holiday, and then it was raining and cold. Combine all that with the fact that the Uruguayans are generally unfriendly with religion. It was a terrible morning, end of story.

Hope you guys have a great first week of May.

You know what`s sad....sarcasm doesn`t really exist down here. Frowny face. :(

Anyhoo, have a great week. I love you lots. Give loves to Velvet. :D

Love always,

DJ

Week 67

Slimy Hedgehogs
Monday, April 25, 2011 9:35 AM

Dear family,

I am here and I am well. So, I’m glad you guys had a good Easter.

I wish I had more exciting news to tell you, but I don’t. I’m alive and well, but the area is in sad shape and my comp and I can’t seem to figure out what to do to get it running again. Nobody wants to listen to us. :( But Mom is correct. There are changes on the 3rd, but I hardly doubt I’m leaving.

I`m attaching one pic I took of our huge electrical storm we had on Thursday night...or Friday. I can’t remember.

Congrats to Patrick and his team on winning State Knowledge Bowl. That`s cool. Hard work pays off. :D

Oh by the way, Maria did get baptized last week in my last area so that`s cool. I just wish I knew what was going on with the other couple. They haven`t been baptized yet. Sauce.

Oh I bought myself a world cup jersey last week. It`s super cool. I have been picking up a few souvenirs here and there.

Well, I guess I`ll wrap up this terribly informative and positive email. Have a great last week of April. I love you all. Thanks for everything.

Love Always,
DJ

PS....say hi to everybody for me.

Week 66

Boogboogboog
Monday, April 18, 2011 8:03 AM
OOTS!

Hello dudes and dudettes (to be read loving family members). I am still here in Durazno, so you can rest assured that there was no special change. Life is good (to be read, I love life and hope I live a long time).

Um, well let`s start off by giving a recap of last week. It was decent. We had interviews with President on Tuesday. It went well. Then the rest of the week was good. We`re really fighting to find people to listen to us. It`s difficult. And then we found out yesterday that our most solid investigator has decided that she no longer wants anything to do with us. Who knows why. I was talking with my comp (we get along really well and have a bunch of personality similarities, by the way) and we both agree that as far as teaching and preaching, the mission is absolutely awesome.

There are no pics this week. Slap me when I get home.

Boogity

I got letters 64 and 65 this week, as well as letter from Travis. I won`t be replying to him on a mission because he won`t get it, so I`ll likely send a response to you guys, and you can give it to him in a month. Wow. Thanks.

Answers...I see Elder Dinkel weekly at district meetings. That kid is awesome and I miss working with him. We had one investigator in church yesterday.

PS...I`ve decided that it`s not possible to work everyday like it`s your last. I`ve decided to just work hard everyday without regrets and then when my time comes, BOOM. I told President that I have no regrets about my mission right now. So yeah.

SOY SAUCE

It`s amazing to see how much my testimony has grown out here. If I ever go inactive, I`ll slap myself. :)

So shoes are stupid. You may have to send another pair. Sorry. I`ll keep you posted. Ugh.

It`s finally getting cooler here. I love it. I love jacket weather. Saucesaucesauce.

My thoughts are scattered today.

Our ward is good.

Thanks for the news and updates. Moo moo moo..

Speaking of moos. Cows are stupid, but amazingly funny to watch during the day. I think they have depth perception problems too. Oots.

I love you guys lots. Have a great week. Happy Easter next week. Woo.

Love always,
DJ

Week 65

Umk.
Monday, April 11, 2011 9:13 AM
Hi Family,

Well, here we are. Thanks for the emails. That`s cool that Patrick has his housing and everything all set up for BYU next Fall. And congrats to Chris on the track meet.

Anyways, life is good. I can`t complain too much. We played soccer again. It was pretty enjoyable and I continue my streak of not getting hurt. Whew.

Our area is cool (I`ve attached pics of the house and the street where we live). Slowly we`re finding people. Elder Polera and I are racking our brains to try to help the work.

So Durazno is bizarre in the sense the animals walk around free all over the place (I`m talking livestock here). We see cows and horses all the time just roaming and diverting traffic and getting into people`s yards and eating their grass and plants. It`s so bizarre. We get a huge kick out of it. We saw some 90 year old man shooing them away very poorly. I giggled.

Hey thanks for sending the talk. I`ll be able to print it off here. Well, I don`t really have a lot that I want to mention. Life pretty much just is flying by. It`s crazy. Ok, let`s answer questions.

I work in Barrio Yi (pronounced like ´she´). We are the only two missionaries in our ward. In the city of Durazno there are four wards. Then there are missionaries in Trinidad, Carmen, Sarandi del Yi, Paso de los Toros, and Charrua. All of these areas comprise the Durazno stake. There are two chapels in the city here, two wards share each. The stake center is the one that is not mine.

Well, hope you enjoy the rather boring pictures. Have a good week. Love you guys lots.

Love always,

DJ

Week 64

Bowiggity
Monday, April 4, 2011 9:47 AM
Well howdy doody to the fam fam fam.

I`m trying to think of clever (or bizarre) new ways to open my letters. :) First of all, thanks to Dad for sending me that bit about the other missionaries who are there. That was really cool. It`s always nice to know that efforts are not wasted. I`m glad that what we left them is being of use to them. I don`t know if I had told you, but I had left 8 handwritten pages of instructions, directions, and whatever else was important. I`m super happy that things are still going there...which is sadly more than we can say about this area. Sidenote, the Rio Negro that was mentioned in General Conference is a tributary of the Amazon. Um, so yeah. This area is cool, but it is in desperate need of help and my comp and I are racking our brains trying to do something. We`d be happy with just one solid investigator. We have been having some pretty rough days lately so hopefully that means that it`ll be followed by some really good days.

Conference was super good (and super fast) like always. There were some really good talks. It was interesting yesterday and Saturday because we go out and work between conference. It`s so sad that people just downright refuse our message of *joy* and aren`t even aware (nor care) that the prophet of the living God was speaking to the whole world yesterday. In between conference sessions, we just tried to tell as many people as we talked to about the conference, but nobody showed up. Oh well. Their loss.

As far as conference, the only downside was that we had some small issues with transmissions and during the Sunday morning session, the only full talk we caught was the prophet´s (so that was a blessing). Priesthood session was just absolutely great. Word.

Okay, well that`s pretty much all I have for today. My comp and I are getting along well. We`re just trying to help this area.

Have a great week. Thanks for everything. No I don`t need toothbrushes nor money. Toothbrushes were sent to me by Aunt Margaret. Also got letter 62 this week. And I play piano in zone conferences if necessary, but there are a fair number of missionaries who play. Anyways, take care. I love you guys.

Love,
DJ

ps...sorry about the lack of pictures...next week. :)