We eat a lot of meat down here! A lot of noodles and meat,
or sandwiches. Yesterday I ate a dog (I'm pretty sure I'm not joking). I was trying not to think about it while I was eating! It tasted alright.
The food here is good. Kind of bland, but I like it. Each day I buy those wafer cookies that are filled with vanilla, or strawberry
or even chocolate. They remind me of home and are good!
Each day we basically just tract. There are no members
here in Noblia, so we gotta find some more people! In fact, yesterday at church our members didn't show up until 10 (although church was supposed to start at 9!). We had an investigator with us (Jorge) and it doesn't
look good when there are only three of us for an hour. It's been tough getting the members
more excited about church but we´re trying our best. We mostly tract
each day and my Spanish is getting better because of that. I´m constantly
talking to people! One day this week I was getting down on myself with
the language. It's been really rough and humbling. I prayed to Heavenly Father in
the morning to help me with my Spanish and to just help me be able to get my
message across to those we teach. I constantly had that prayer in my heart the
whole day. The day was a tough day. A lot of our investigators fell through and
no one was really listening to us. Finally, in our last lesson with an investigator, the VERY
last one for the day, I kept praying in my heart for Heavenly Father to help me and to help
our investigator (Jorge) understand. It was so awesome because our lesson went
great! I was able to speak with him and to understand him better than I have
been before. I taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and even challenged him to
do things that we taught him. He agreed and was very excited about everything.
It was a very cool experience and I learned once again that Heavenly Father
listens to our prayers and is there for us. He just wants to make sure we are
willing to put in the effort and time before he helps us.
There are dogs EVERYWHERE! It is absolutely
disgusting. They all have diseases and it's really sad. Everytime we clap in
front of someone's house there are always 3 or 4 dogs that come charging at
us barking like crazy! It's super annoying. Another day, we were at someone's house teaching a lesson and the mom started
breast feeding her 5 year old daughter right in front of us! It was
crazy and I was trying hard not to laugh ... kinda awkward.
Anyway, I´m doing awesome! Mom, I'm really grateful for the boots we got. I use them basically every day. It has rained the whole
time I have been here and there are basically only dirt roads, so it has been really nice to have them. The first night I was here in Noblia there was a crazy
lightning and thunder storm! It woke me and Elder Jackson up at like two in the
morning. We went to our back door and just watched the lighting. It was awesome! I
have never seen so much lighting or heard so much loud thunder. It was an
awesome welcoming to the mission!
Sorry I am just rambling all over the place. I´m
trying to think of everything that has happend this week. The members are good
about feeding us and we typically go to a member's house to eat every other day.
It's really nice of them and I feel bad because they are so, so
poor. It's so humbling to see their faith in Christ and their willingness to
feed us. A couple of times the family won´t even eat with us. They'll just feed
us and talk to us and go without food. I feel horrible, but my companion said
that we need to eat because if we don't it is really disrespecting the family.
No one here can say my last name correctly! No one! It's
really funny because they will really try to say my name but just totally butcher
it. Some people when they see my name think of the "Garnier" shampoo brand and so they will just call me Elder
Shampoo! They are super nice and funny people down here in Uruguay. I love
them a ton already and I can just feel my love growing for them each and
every day!
Well, I'm doing awesome! I love you a ton and
I can't wait to talk to talk to you next week! I'll try sending a letter and we'll see how long it takes to get to you guys. I´ll talk to you soon!
P.S. I´m sorry, but I forgot my camera today. It's an
hour back to our home, so I'll make sure to send you photos next week.
