Week 12 - Cambio 1 (1st transfer)

September 19, 2018

Week 12 - Cambio 1 (1st transfer)

Alright! So I'm finally not the youngest in the mission! It's really weird to think that I've already completed my first change in the mission. So Elder Hernandez and I are staying together here in Barrio 7. Other fun news, I bought a guitar this week, so I'll finally have something to do on P-days and after night studies until I have to go to bed, so that'll be fun. Also, Elder Hernandez and I have been reading the Book of Mormon together in Portuguese because we have a Portuguese speaking zone, so just to be safe, why not?

So this week has been the week of continual P-days, let me explain.

Monday- Actually P-day

Tuesday- Divisions where I was out of my area. This is basically P-day because you just need to follow someone else around all day.

Wednesday- We worked in the morning, but then the other district started having some more argument issues so we had to call them to Barrio 7 to have a little district meeting to discuss and fix the problem; after that we had a ward activity.

Thursday- I had to go to Tres Cruces to start working on getting my Uruguayan ID and that lasted until about 5 in the afternoon, so we lost a lot of time that day.

Friday - Divisions with the Zone Leaders - out of my area again, basically P-day. Although I did learn a lot from Elder Hansen, he is a capo! He BARELY has a year in the mission and he's already a Zone Leader!

Saturday - We worked the morning but then Elder Hernandez got sick and we had to return home after lunch and he couldn't leave again after that.

So yeah - but we've still gotten some pretty good work done despite some challenges of time, and not to mention that 2 of my P-days were normal work days for my area, I just wasn't there.

So Michelle attended a ward activity this week that she really enjoyed. This is exactly what she needed, because there's another church justo en frente de (just in front of) (I'm not even sure he realized he was mixing his Spanish and English here!) her house that all the youth have been inviting her to their activities and such, so we had to combat it with youth activities of our own. Then we had an amazing lesson with her yesterday about temple work for the dead and eternal families. This was really important to her because both her parents had died within the last year so when she heard that she was really touched. She has a weird Sunday schedule for some reason, so she won't be able to attend church until Sept. 30, and she lost her baptismal date because of that, but if we can get her to go just once, I am sure she will keep going. Patience is a virtue right?

So when I went to Tres Cruces to work on getting my Uruguayan ID, 17 of the 20 missionaries of my group were there also working on their IDs. It was really great to see all of them again and we all shared some of our best spiritual stories and it was so great just to hear how the Lord is directing his work everywhere, and not just in our mission, but every missionary (that wants to be) is being guided and seeing miracles everyday. We just have to be working for it, and looking for them.

Divisions with Elder Hansen was super great. He is probably my current real life example of teaching with "power and authority." Everything was short, simple, and very direct. The people understood what he was teaching very well and every person was committing to improve and Elder Hansen was helping them set specific goals to improve. I learned so much about what a lesson should look like after just one day with him. It was super great!

This week we found Steven and his niece and nephew, Lucila and Lazaro. They committed to come to church this last Sunday, but both Lucila and Steven didn't want to when we went to pick them up Sunday morning, but Lazaro, who only has 7 years (with permission from his parents) attended church with us and without his family. He really liked it and we think his excitement about the church will help us increase the excitement in the rest of his family to go to church. This week, I'm confident that they will attend. But I guess that is what Christ meant when he said that we should become like little children though no? Lazaro is so capo, and he completed 8 years the Monday after he attended the church, so he's now baptizable too! They've become a new focus for us.

We also found a family in our easily sketchiest area, Verdisol. I actually really didn't want to go to Verdisol, but on Divisions with our District, Elder Hernandez and Monge went to Verdisol and contacted this family, and after I came back Elder Hernandez convinced me to go to Verdisol because they had already found someone, so I caved. They are super great though! They already have decent church attendance habits with their church, and they read the Bible with decent consistency. They are the perfect example of not changing beliefs, but we are really just increasing their faith and giving them further knowledge, and they really like it. Jonathan smokes though, so that might get a little difficult, but I have really high hopes for this family.

Well that's pretty much all for this week.

Nos vemos!

-Elder Martin

WE GOT PICTURES THIS WEEK!!!!