Excerpts

Excerpts from Zach's letters:

Monday, April 30, 2012

It was another great and exciting week!  Uruguay is awesome!  It was nice to hear from all of you.  I love hearing what's going on and what everyone is up to.  I got mail this past week from Shelly, Cole, Jordan, and Grandma Gardanier.  I also received the Easter package.  Thank you so much!  It hit the spot! 

Mom, in answer to your questions, when we buy food here in Noblia we typically buy from this little store on the main road.  A member of the church works there so she usually hooks us up!  That is where we buy pretty much everything.  They have told us a little bit about Mother's Day and they even said we could Skype.  However, we are out in the freakin' boonies so we won't be able to do that.  But I will be able to call!  They'll tell us more this week and then I'll let you know what the plan is.


Its been getting FREEZING cold here!  It's absolutely ridiculous.  It's a different kind of cold, though.  I don't know how to explain it.  It's really humid here so everything is wet and just cold.  Not as cold as Utah, but when everything is wet it feels a lot colder.  So every night before I go to bed and when I get up in the morning I make myself a nice big glass of hot chocolate!  It's the best thing ever.  When I go to bed at night I'm totally warm (so don't worry Momma!).  It's just when you get out of bed that it is freezing!  There is no insulation in the house, just cement walls.  So I think that's why it feels so cold.

In Noblia, it's funny to see, but every night there are these motorcycles and they put a ton of things on them and drive them from Brazil into Uruguay.  I found out they are actually smugglers.  It's really funny to see because there are like a hundred of them every night.  The motorcyles come zipping by really fast with a ton of stuff and it always looks like they are going to crash!  I'll have to get a picture and send it to you.  Occasionally, the bikers wave at us!

This week was kind of a tough week. We found this man and woman a couple of weeks ago and have been teaching them. Everything was going great and they loved going to church.  They were getting along with the members great and the members loved them!  We announced their baptism for this week and the ward was super excited.  However, they just changed their minds.  We will keep visiting them and we are just staying positive.  Noblía has been kind of tough, but it's all good!  We know there are people here ready to hear the gospel, we just need to find them!  But we'll keep searching.

I'm having a great experience here and am healthy!  I'm learning a ton and having a wonderful experience!  I haven't played much soccer.  We're planning on playing this next week with the people in our city, but we'll see what happens (we have had bad weather, so we may have to cancel).  Anyway, all is well and I love you tons!  I can't wait to hear from you!

[Zach's dad:  Here is the picture attached to Zach's email.  I believe this is Jorge pulling the washer and oven to the missionary apartment (see last week's email)].