Week 16

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Monday, April 26, 2010 6:28 PM
Hello fam fam fam family!!!

It`s another week here in good ole Uruguay! can I get a woop woop baller?? Thank you.

Anyways, I`m super stoked that you guys sent some boot things...you have no idea. I`m like having a party inside my brain right now. Woo! I haven`t received them yet, but it does sometimes take a while to get from the office to the zone leaders home. I`m excited. I also received the card from Dad with the pics...sweet times. Also letters 13,14,15 with the card thingy. Woop! Also an email from Bernie. That`s cool and a letter from Grandma and a letter from my roommate Ben! He got his mission call to Frankfurt Germany and leaves June 23rd. It`s super exciting. Also my friend from my ward last semester who is here in the mission with me is actually in my zone so I’ll get to see him every week at district meetings. Sauce.

Speaking of district meetings, they were switched to Mondays and then pday was extended to include the rest of the day (we used to leave at 6 to work). Thus I can open my mail right away but that means an extra week for response on my end because I can`t send them out until the next Monday. Cool beans though.

So my new comp is awesome . Yes he`s from Oregon and before the mission, he played O-line for Oregon State. He`s huge. He`s about 315 pounds and a couple inches taller than me. His feet are size 17. Heavenly Father sure knows how to bless us. My biggest anxiety down here was clothes really, but now I have somebody who has the same problems finding shoes and whatnot to ask different questions. I guess his parents had to send him a pair of shoes somewhere along the way...I suppose you guys will have to do the same eventually, but all is good now. I glued my shoes using pretty much super glue (it`s novopren) and so far so good. It`s sweet. but yeah, comp is sweet. He is laidback like I am so we get along really well, and I have high hopes for success this change (hopefully 2). We set a couple of baptismal dates as goals more or less last week, but at least there are goals. We also found some really good potentials. My biggest fear is that we won`t have enough time to visit everybody as frequently as we want/hope to. Our area is huge. I have a feeling that this change is going to fly by.

Hey there is a new address to send stuff to, here it is:

Elder David Joshua Thornton
Uruguay Montevideo Mission
Dalmiro Costa 4635BIS
C.P. 11400
Montevideo Uruguay

Something like that above. Basically the first two lines are the same and then the middle part changes. So yeah. Send letters and packages here. :)

Oh, so also my comp has been out for almost 19 months...he goes home in October. He`s on his 4th pair of shoes I think, so that might give you some idea. He speaks pretty good Spanish too. He is an anomaly in his family as both of his parents are short and huge...like his Dad is 5`4 and his Mom 5`0 or something, but they are wide. My comp is just huge.

I have no need of anything this week, except for a box of small envelopes would be nice whenever you send the next package out. I don`t know how easy it is to get envelopes down here and I`m conserving right now.

We had a little rain last night but it`s been pretty nice. On change days, it is just a huge mall really and we just pretty much take over a small part of it with luggage and missionaries and stuff. We got there last week at like 8 or something and left at 3. So we have time to just hang out as missionaries and do shopping, email, eat, and whatever we feel like.

Glad to hear that things are going well back at home. I think I`ll be ok for jackets and warmth and whatnot...things should be alright. luckily, I don`t tend to get cold as easily as others do. Glad you have apricots. that`s always good. I`ve had peaches here a couple of times like we have back home,the canned ones. It`s nice.

Things are going well here. I`m having a good time at least. Although I`ve decided that it`s going to take some serious self control to not spend all my college money on American things when I get back. ;) Nah, just kidding, but sometimes I do just want a nice box of macaroni and cheese or some small Reese`s. Oh well, the sacrifices we make for blessings. :D

Have a great week all. I`ll be back again in no time.

Love always,

DJ

PS Congrats to Angela and Trevor
PSS Oops! I forgot a funny story. There are a lot of animals around here. Anyways, we were at a house clapping the other day and there was a sheep. So Elder Nomani went to play and the sheep wanted to avoid him. Elder Nomani was stepping on his rope and the sheep decided that jumping would be a good way to avoid him. Hence, the sheep took a jump and cratered himself into a ditch. seriously...cratered. It was the funniest thing I`ve seen in a while. He didn`t realize that a) Elder Nomani was on his rope and that b) his foot was caught in the rope. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHA....dumb sheep. I also saw a dog faceplant when it slipped on a wet bridge. good stuff. peace

Week 15

aupa

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 11:56 AM

hello family who lives in Colorado.

I am here in Uruguay sending messages of greetings via this thing they call the internet. Sweet times. Anyways, this past week was pretty good, I suppose. The weeks and days kind of just blur together...that`s what happens when it`s the same routine day after day. Anyways, Elder Apaza is getting transferred and my new comp is Elder Nomani...I haven`t met him yet as I`m currently at the huge bus station/mall/whoopie doo with a ton of missionaries. We all meet here and then break off for our various destinations. The other two elders in my house did not get changed. Anyways Elder Nomani, from what I`ve heard, is taller than I am by a substantial margin and from Samoa. He is awesome everybody says so I`m excited to meet him and start. We have a couple families that have a very good potential to be baptized so we hope to set some dates within the next week or so and give them a goal to progress towards.

Okay so this past week has been filled with water. Tuesday night at about 8:00, it started raining and didn`t stop until 3:00 Thursday afternoon...and then rained periodically throughout Thursday evening. On the plus side, my rain jacket is awesome with a capital boo yah. It`s amazing and all of the water just flows right off of it. Consequently, my entire upper body was warm and dry (thanks to the other jacket I bought). From my knees down, I was completely drenched and I pretty much walked around in puddles of water all day in my shoes...and I kind of have a tiny fear with regards to wet feet all day but it hasn`t been a problem. I`m beginning to think about boots...they said they were optional and could be bought down here, neither of which are really true. I haven`t decided yet how necessary boots are, but I`m thinking it might be nice to have some. The thing is that days of rain result in me putting wet shoes on day after day because it makes no sense to get both pairs of shoes wet, so I use the same wet pair day after day.

And speaking of rain, I think it gave me a cold. so consequently I have/had a ridiculous hard time breathing...shallow breaths and my resting heart rate is somewhere around 80 or 90, as opposed to 55-60 like usual. It`s getting better though.

Now it`s just about 304% humidity with clear skies. I woke up last night so wet and sweaty that I could have wrung out my clothes and produced enough water to satisfy all of Africa...it was horrible, so yeah.

Anyways, I got some mail...I got the letter #12 with the case, thank you, as well as 3 letters from Grams...they finally caught up to me, 2 dear elder letters from Bishop and a letter from Cy. Oh and a postcard from Dad.

That`s cool about Travis. Glad he`s doing well. and Grandma did tell me about Brennan. that`s cool.

There`s not much to write about this week...it was mostly filled with rain, humidity and hard breathing, but it`s getting better. It`s kind of hard to believe that one change is gone.

Have a great week. Next week it`ll be on Monday again. Only on Tuesdays every 6 weeks during transfers.

Love always,

DJ



P.S. My new comp is great. He`s about 2 inches taller than me and huge. He played football for Oregon State. Anyways, peace out until next week.

Week 14

Monday, April 12, 2010 4:57 PM

Hello all,

How is everybody in the good ole northern hemisphere? Doing well I hope. I have no idea what the southern cross looks like for certain but I`m pretty sure I know what it is. There is a big "cross" looking thing that is pretty much the brightest stars in the sky. So yeah, that`s pretty cool.

Yes, I am healthy. I have adapted to the smoke I think, and it no longer gives me problems unless it is really heavily concentrated and even then it is not too bad.

Let`s see, investigators...we`re actually teaching two families right now. A younger couple with 4 kids, they seem really interested and if we can get them to church, I think they`ll be baptized. We`ll see though. And the other is an older couple (no kids at home). They are a reference from the branch president and they are golden. We taught them twice last week (the first time on Tuesday) and they already attended church (yesterday)...so I`m hoping that they will get baptized. I think that they definitely have been prepared...we`ll see. We have a couple of other really good investigators who have a potential to be baptized if we can get them to keep commitments, so time will tell with those. But yeah, we`ve got some good investigators and we also teach a lot of recent converts and less actives. This area had, in the past, some issues with missionaries baptizing for numbers and not for souls so there is a fairly large number of people who got baptized to promptly go inactive. Not good. That`s the proselyting side of things here...pretty much.

Thanks for the sending the packages. I`ll get them some time in August, I think. Nah, jk, but seriously I don`t know when they`ll arrive, but good stuff anyways. Next week is transfers...we`ll find out next Sunday night who is getting transferred (or if we`ll all be staying). More than likely, I will not be getting transferred, but you never know.

Um, Elder Apaza has been out just shy of 13 months. He passed his 1 year mark while I was here. He joined the church about 4 years ago. And half of his family is in the church. Other than that I don`t know much. Really, I just know that he is really trying to learn English so that he can get a job when he returns home. (a good job). He told me that there aren`t too many jobs available in Peru. So yeah.

Also, we had interviews today with President. He`s awesome, so yeah. good times.

That`s all for the email I think. Glad everything is going well at home. Next week Pday is on Tuesday I believe because of changes. Just fyi. Have a great week. Thanks for sending stuff (even though it`s still in transit). Say hi to all.

Love Always,


DJ

Week 13

word up family,

Another week gone by and a good week it was. For the first time in my life I watched all 5 sessions of conference and it was awesome with a capital sauce. I think it`s the missionary spirit or something but I was super excited for conference. They broadcasted it at the stake center about 30 minutes to an hour away depending on how many stops the bus makes. and by direction from the area presidency or something, they always have an English room. So there were the 12 English missionaries in our zone of 20 in there. Just as a quick side note, I see the zone leaders every Tuesday at the very least for district meetings, because we meet together as a zone before breaking into districts. Anyways, conference was awesome. We would eat, study or go do contacts in between sessions. The two overarching themes were definitely the Savior and the family. There was some super good stuff. I loved the Saturday session a lot because it started off with Elders Perry and Christofferson and then finished with the 1-2 punch of Elder Bednar and Elder Holland. They`re my two favorites I think, even though I love all of them. so yeah, I took 14 and a half pages in my little journal (the one from the MTC). Good stuff.

Um, no cars here, and no we don`t get rides. Not a problem. Each day I can understand a little bit more and depending upon how much I actually focus, I get more or less out of each conversation. Yes, weather is cooling down which is not good for laundry. Today it is fairly chilly, windy, kinda humid, and mostly cloudy...not very conducive for drying clothes outside. Fail. As far as lessons, we teach recent converts and less actives in addition to investigators. We teach a fair amount of lessons each week, but I feel like we could be doing more.

I feel kind of sorry for my companion. His parents are both dead and he is the oldest. He is trying to learn English so that he can get a job when he returns home and help his 6 younger siblings.

Anyhoo, the church building for Sundays is about 15 minutes walking away from my house...not too bad at all. No we do not do splits with the members, or have not yet.

Yes Easter is down here. They have huevos de pascua or easter eggs like us. I don`t know too much about the whole thing, but it doesn`t seem all that different from us.

That`s really cool that Patrick and Chris got to go to the session (at the Conference Center). I thought of you guys as I was watching priesthood and at various other times during conference. Sauce. Oh, mail. yeah, I got a letter from Grams, Aunt Margaret, #11 from you, Nana`s letter, and a letter from Cy. Good times.

So did you see the Sunday morning session...if so, you remember the story that Pres. Monson told about the boy James and his unwavering faith. remember the picture they showed of him in the hospital room...yeah his brother, Kyle? I know him. He was in the MTC for 3 weeks with me and is currently in my mission. weird huh. One of the guys who came out right before me and who is in my district was like "whoa that`s Elder gurr" when the picture was on the screen. Bonanza tires.

So this next part I have been meaning to tell you since I got here, but there is an email dedicated for missionaries in this mission. Anybody can send an email to this address with my name as the subject. They`ll print it off and give it to me. Anyways the address is urumontemission@gmail.com Remember that my name goes as the subject. Elder David J. Thornton will be fine.

I hope Patrick is feeling better. Tell him I got his email and note from Kyle. Thanks a ton. I`ll be expecting a letter in probably 2 weeks then. I think it takes about 3 to get here.

So quick funny story and then I`m off like a wedding dress. :P Anyways, Cy`s letter had all of 34 cents of stamps on it. I haven`t a clue on this planet how that letter managed to get to me. I`m fairly certain that that letter wouldn`t even make it in the US. Isn`t the stamp price like 44 cents or something retarded. So yeah, I don`t know how he managed to send a letter with 3 sheets of paper across the world for 34 cents. Don`t ask. I don`t understand. but it`s a good story and it made me giggle (tee hee hee).

Cheese and butterflies. Hope this next week goes well. You`ll hear from me again next week . chiste (spanish, look it up). Peace out all. Till next week comes. Word.


Love always,

DJ

Week 12

Word word word, family!!


Thanks for the emails and whatnot. Good stuff. I also got letters 9 and 10 last week at zone conference (that was really nice, Two zones met together, and we had some good messages and good times in general) as well as a letter from Dad. Hopefully the mail is trying to fix itself. I still am not entirely sure how it all works here. I assume that Grandma is still writing at least occasionally, but I haven`t heard from her in about a month. Just let her know it`s not my fault and I`m thinking of her. I`m sending a letter to her today.

Cheese.

So I`m not afraid of getting mugged...but there have been issues with robberies. Not a huge issue, I just want to be prepared. Also, I`m praying that Heavenly Father will protect my stuff (especially journals and pictures) as weird as that sounds, it`s a righteous desire I feel so yeah. um. Speaking of robbers, we have one kind of shady spot in our area that is fine during the day but can get shady at night. The other night, Elder Apaza just had a feeling to go home a different way. Come to find out the next day, there had been some armed robber in the shady area. He had broken into some recent converts house and apparently tried to harm her or something...I didn`t catch much of the conversation. It`s nice to know that we are protected if we are righteous.

So this message is really scatter brained because I have a list of things to mention.

So something interesting. In addition to water going the opposite way here, the moon is backwards. In the US when the moon makes a C, it is getting smaller "Cautious" and a D is "daring" and it`s getting bigger. It`s the opposite here. Good story.

So I think they only have one law here for drivers and that is that as long as you don`t kill anybody or get in accidents you can do whatever you want. It`s crazy to the extreme.

The baptism was Saturday night and it was nice. I performed the baptism. Good times. It was nice and spiritual of course.

Um, so there is a lady in the branch who is Janice`s twin, I swear her mannerism, her appearance, her voice, her actions, everything reminds me so much of Janice. It`s uncanny.

The members here are awesome, but I feel so sorry for some of them. Some of them have next to nothing, material wise. One guy, Hermano Diaz is one of the nicest guys I`ve ever met. He feeds us every Sunday even though he has so little. He lives in a small house made out of cardboard and sheet metal. His faith is amazing though. I`m so glad that the Lord can bless people spiritually even when they don`t have a lot of material stuff. This Hermano is one of the most spiritually rich people I know here. That`s all; it`s just hard to think about how much we have that we take for granted.

Happy birthday to Velvet a couple of weeks ago. I forgot to mention it last week, but it is in my journal on the 18th. Cheers to her.

In case you are curious, I am inToledo right now. I suppose you can find that on the map. It`s about an hour north, northeast (I think) of Montevideo.

Oh, so I`m pretty sure the first thing I`ll buy when I get married is a washing machine. I have to do all of my laundry by hand here. Well I could take my shirts to members but if I do, then they`re not on my timetable and I may have to wear a shirt for a week like my comp did. So yeah, I do it all. Fun times.

Ok, that`s all of my stuff for now, let`s answer questions.

No, no new pets this week, although there are animals running around everywhere. It`s crazy. The computer is in a public location. Yes, I was dry. we had absolutely clear skies all week until today and now there are some clouds. But yeah, it`s nice. Thanks for the prayers and everything. I`m trying to just go with the flow and learn as much as possible. It`s crazy sometimes. rawr.

The assistants and secretaries have cars but that is it I believe. There are lots of buses that we take to district meetings and transfers and other boogboogboog like that. My district leader is from Roy Utah and his comp is from Tooele Utah. Yep, good story. They`re both really cool but the district leader and I get along really really well. Both sarcastic people ;) pdays, not much by fun except hang out and talk and clean and write letters and do laundry. Other areas sometimes play basketball or something. No restaurants yet, haven`t really seen any at all in our area. Yes people are friendly.

I don`t have enough time, I think I`ll write you guys a letter or something, possibly.

The shower sticks out of the wall in the bathroom and it has some pressure and we do have a little bit of hot water. It`s definitely not as bad as it could be. It could be a trickle of cold water. so yeah.

Thanks for the emails, the letters, the prayers and everything. I gotta go. Have a great week. It`ll be gone soon, I feel.


Love always,

DJ

Week 11

RAWR

Monday, March 22, 2010 6:28 PM

hello all!

Well life is good here for the most part. Let`s answer some questions first. I only got one piece of mail last Tuesday and it was Dad`s blank inside card (thanks for the pic). I think my mail is still kind of in limbo between the MTC and here. Hopefully the system will get fixed. I know I have mail somewhere I just don`t know where that somewhere is. In other news, we did not actually have the baptism last week. There were some complications in holding the interview which is alright since we didn`t feel she was completely ready yet. This week it will be. Yes, I am getting more and more adjusted to life here. I feel like not much surprises me anymore. We found a dead mouse on the floor in our house, a large spider in my suitcase, and a cockroach the size of Connecticut, so things just happen and I just say "huh, that`s interesting"

For food, I eat breakfast in the morning, lunch in the early afternoon, and dinner at night. ;) for breakfast and dinner I have a bowl or two of cereal and most every lunch is provided by members and they are really good with a lot of food. Wow, it`s good stuff. Mostly so far, it has been pasta in or with a kind of sauce (with meat, veggies, or whatever) good stuff, seriously. The grocery stores are all different kinds...in general, they aren`t a whole lot different from us, except more outdoor like and you can`t trust the fruit too much.

Anyways the weather has cooled off a little bit, which is nice. I`ve been having some small issues with respiration because of the load of smoke here. Compared to here, Colorado burns nothing. So that compounded with the change of season and general acclimatization is kinda getting to me. I`ve used my inhaler a couple of times. Nothing to worry about and it`s going away, so yeah. um, we do a lot of teaching and some tracting. We`re supposed to have at least 20 contacts a day so sometimes we do tracting for those. We found several good investigators last week so hopefully they will continue on with lessons and whatnot. The area book seems well-kept, at least ours from what I can tell.

Ok, I think that`s all of your stuff. Uruguay is really interesting in that there are motos everywhere. for every car I see, I see about 5 motos and 3 buses. It`s crazy. Oh, so crazy story, my shoes have decided that they are going to start splitting a little bit along the bottom. nothing to worry about though because I purchased epoxy and plan to cement them back together. :) They`re in great shape except for the split between the rubbers. I think it might be the humidity.

Oh they also have pretty much all carbonated drinks down here (even carbonated water, they call it aqua con gas, which is really bizarre tasting) so I`m kinda erupting inside all of the time. I didn`t hardly drink any carbonation before here. So yeah.

Oh, so Uruguay is generally beautiful and the people here are wonderful, however I think everybody here is missing at least one tooth, many are missing many many teeth. :)

Yesterday we got a huge rain storm...there was a little bit of lightning and thunder, but it was straight rain for about 3 hours. when we got back to the house, there was one spot about the size of my fist or so that was dry on my top. the rest of me was completely soaked. everything. I had been carrying my rain jacket around for a couple of days but it hadn`t rained. so I took it out and then got drenched. Not smart.

Life is good here in general. I`m learning lots, it`s all good. We had a medical exam for visas today and I got to see my old district so that was fun. Good times. They have really good trainers it sounds like. It`s good stuff. Have a great week, sauce monkeys.

Love,

DJ

Week 10

ooglie booglie

Monday, March 15, 2010 5:05 PM

Cheers All!


I hope it`s been a good week for all y'all. Things have been interesting here, but nice at the same time. I`m starting to get the hang of things around here, more or less. It`s way different than the MTC because there is so much more to worry about.

Dad: Thanks for your email, as always. The last part was really timely. :) There are definitely some differences in idealogies and whatnot, so I`m definitely trying to learn everything I can (what to do and what not to do). I decided to keep a list of things I want to do differently in case the time comes that I am a trainer.

Mom: We get mail on Tuesdays here at district meetings so everything that arrived this past week, I will get tomorrow. It`s only the 4 of us in the house. It`s interesting. I`m pretty sure this is pretty relevant to my blessing from Pres. Summers when he said "be flexible and adjust to different living situations." I don`t think I`ve ever been in somewhere so dirty and rundown. Anyways, it`s nice to have a place to live. I found an enormous spider in my luggage today, chillin like a villain. We had a little talk and then I threw him next door. Church was good. Of the four of us, 2 are new to the area, so the Branch President had us get up and briefly introduce ourselves and bear a short testimony during sacrament meeting. But the Branch is really nice...and pretty tiny too. But all is good. Actually, funny you should mention it, we moved our clocks back an hour on Saturday, so yes we should be three hours apart now (we were 5, Uruguay is one ahead of Argentina). Something like that. As I am writing it is 1:55 here, and I`ll be sending this within the next 20 minutes to be sure.

Ok, so other info time. The first week was good. I haven`t had any problems with all the walking (and it`s a load because our area is about half an hour away from our house and also it is the size of a small planet...lots of walking, so that is good. And in general, I`m adjusting to missionary life pretty well what with all the studying and lessons. We have a baptism scheduled for this Friday. I`m still trying to figure out the area (as far as directions and locations) and knowing who the members are.

So I`ve decided that they should let you go on your mission for a month and then let you go home so you can pack for your mission so that you know what you need to bring. Because seriously, I have a fair amount that I won`t be using for 2 years. For instance, I just put one of my suits in a bag and it`ll sit in my suitcase for 2 years. That way I`ll have a nice suit for when I get home because I really don`t need it here. I can get by with one. Also, the camelback is not being used. There`d be the issue of purifying all of that water before putting it in the bladder. So yeah, that`ll sit in my suitcase. But yeah, life is good. I`m glad that the President sent you an email and pics. He`s a nice guy.

Spanish is coming along well enough...especially for only one week. I`m probably just not being patient enough with myself. My companion says I speak really well, but I want to be fluent now...you know how it goes. Anyways, it`ll come with time.

Say hi to everyone for me. It`s time to go. Hope this next week goes well for all. Sauce.


Love,

DJ