Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Nov 16.

hey-

well im sitting here in montevideo again... we have changes... i am leaving Maldonado. i was really hoping for one more change with my companion and in the area but i am greatful i will get to experience other areas. I am going to miss my companion SOOOO much!!!! We went around yesterday and said goodbyes to all the great people i was able to teach and see get baptized. man it was a really emotional day, maldonado really became my home away from home and these people have such a big part of my heart. i will definitely be making it back one day to visit. I am going to be going to an area called Salinas, go and look it up. My companion is named Hermana Rodriguez, i am not sure where she is from but i am going to be living in a house with her and two other hermanas... all latinas... bring on the spanish baby!!! haha wow this is going to be really good for me, hard but good. and guess what, not that it really means much but i am going to be the senior companion!!! which means i have more time on the mission than my comp, weird, i swear i am still a baby on the mission.

luckily to end my changes in Maldonado we had the most amazing week and were able to witness many amazing miracles. Last week we found this really amazing woman named Ana. She was sick but let us come in and chat with her, she had recently lost her dad, actually four months to the day, due to medical neglect so she was really torn up that he had to go in the way he did. we were able to share the plan of salvation with her and i cant tell you how amazingly strong the spirit was, my comp and i came out and both knew that we were exactly where we were supposed to be at that moment. my comp and her new comp are going to continue to teach her.

we started teaching a man named andres again, the one i had told you about. i really have never met someone with so much faith and such an unwaivering testimony, talking to him makes my testimony stronger. he will be baptized this next coming wednesday.

we have been working with a family who is less active in the chuch and have a really amzing relationship with them and have been able to see them gradually come back to church throughout our two changes together. the grandmother of the family has decided that she wants to be baptized as well. she is so great and loves learning about the gospel. she is really old and has no teeth, she is so dang cute!!! im sad i wont get to see her baptism but my comp is going to keep me updated.

So Richard and Paola and their family are doing wonderful, Paola is going to deliver her baby this coming week, baby claudio, ahhh sad i wont get to meet him for a while. but anyway their son damian was baptized just a bit ago and has been a huge punk. he recently received some really great responsibility within the church and i cant tell you how its changed him. he is so respectful now and he has undergone a complete change. this last week during church he said the prayer to bless the sacrament or you would know it as the holy communion. gosh i had such a proud mom moment, i am so happy to see the people that i have been able to teach progress and have the gospel change their lives.

we were able to have some really beautiful baptisms on sunday. mario was baptized finally!!!! he overcame his fear of water and he was so proud and excited. the Izaguirre family was baptized as well, they are so amzing i cant even tell you. married couples are super rare here, its really sad. they are such an amazing family and we are really excited for them.

its been really amazing here to listen to the prayers of these people when they are praying in lessons or when we are at members houses, they ALWAYS pray for you as my family. these people have a love for you and dont even know you. so know that you are in our prayers all around the world!! I love you so so much and hope all is going well. -jess

Pictures from november 8.


November 8.

Hola everyone,

For halloween we dressed up.... as eachother.... thats about as exciting as a missionary gets on halloween. we wore eachothers name badges for the day. uruguay, or maybe just south america in general is just now starting to catch on to halloween. there were a few little kids out dressed up, pretty much all the boys were devils, grim reapers, or were wearing a scary mask, and ALL girls were witches, haha they are givin it a try, pretty cute though to see all the kids in their costumes.

we had a really good week and found some really amazing people. i told you about the familia Izaguerre last week who has four little kids, they are amazing and are progressing so great. they are going to be baptized, well the parents and one of thier children, this next week! They have had some changes that they have had to make within their family but their faith has been really amazing and they have really been applying what they learn. they are super cute but super shy so at the end of our lessons we have been playing uno with them to get them to open up a bit and it has worked magic!!! haha, they have a little girl that is two that was so silent for the first little while and now she wont stop chatting, so cute.

i dunno if you remember me telling you about mario a while ago, he was scared of water so he wouldnt be baptized. he has been taking swimming classes, just so he could go through with his baptism and finally this last week... he went under water!!! so he will be baptized this next saturday.

we had a wonderful zone conference with our mission president this last week and the message he gave was really powerful. first his wife spoke to us on improving our personal and companionship study times and how we really need to focus our time studing for the needs of the people we are teaching, and not for our own benefit. she also talked alot about obedience and how when we are disobedient it is like a parasite, we do small things that build until soon it has taken over. Presidente Da Silva talked about the atonement of Christ and how he suffered for each individual pain, affliction, sin, temptation, and sicknesses so that he may be able to understand and succor us when we are in need of comfort.

well i have a really great quote i want to share with you from the church magazine that was given in an amazing talk about the love of God. It says ¨for what we love, determines what we seek. what we seek, determines what we think and do. what we think and do determines who we are and who we will become.¨ and another part i really loved states, ¨Think of the purest most all consuming love you can imagine, now multiply that love by an infinite amount- that is the measure of God´s love for you. God does not look on the outward appearance. I believe that he doesn´t care one bit if we live in a castle or a cottage, if we are handsome or homely, if we are famous or forgotten. Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely, though we are imperfect, he loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God´s love encompasses completely.¨

well i love you so so much!!! keep me updated, sounds like the fam is having a bit of trouble right now. my pictures didnt all load but enjoy the ones that are there!! one of me and my comp and the other is of Andrea who is 25 and her fam. her and her daughter alexandra who is in front of me are recently baptized. love you love you love you!!! -jess

November 1, 2010

Hola!

well I have exciting news.... well for me anyway!! My comp and i had to get up at five to come to Montevideo this morning so i could sign my visa papers, finally, and we were being really quite getting ready because there are two other hermanas living in our house, dunno if i told you that or not, but anyway when we left she was like i wanted to tell you something but i didnt want you to scream while the hermanas were still asleep but you were SLEEP TALKING IN SPANISH!!!! and but of course i screamed because i was really excited!!! exciting huh!!??? and she said that what i was saying actually made sense haha. one step in the right direction i guess!!! haha so ya that was really exciting.

we had a really great week once again and were able to have Cristina´s baptism, it was so special and she was so so happy. she was really nervous that something was going to go wrong again with the baptismal font and said that she was going to take that as a sign that it wasnt supposed to happen if it fell through again haha, so we checked on the font probably five times during the day to make sure it was actually filling this time. i will send some more pictures next week, we are in montevideo right now so i cant hook up my camera

my comp and i are teaching this really amazing new family that is adorable!! they are a young couple that is married (which is really rare here) and they have four kids. They are so so sweet, they just moved into our area. We have only taught them once but ill let ya know more. They have two little little girls that remind me of my murd girls, man i miss them!!

we are still teaching those three women Gloria, Estella, and Karin. We had the most amazing lesson with Karin and she said an amazing prayer at the end of our lesson. She is a really great mom and really wants to make a great family for her son.

well i wanna tell you more but our bus for Maldonado is leaving in like ten minutes!!! But i love you so so much and look forward to hearin from you next week!!!!
Jess