Monday, August 13, 2012

This week has been crazy!  It's been a lot of fun moving areas.  I´m with 3 great elders (Elder Peña, Elder Vorwaller, and Elder Huff). We've been having a lot fun getting to know each other.  I'm basically on the outskirts of Las Piedras.  It's all city here (no beach).  I´m in a pretty poor area again, so it's been really humbling, but I love the area to death.  It's a ton different than Noblia, but I like it. At church yesterday we had about 90 people! Crazy!  The bishop asked me and the other elders to get up in front at the pulpit and introduce ourselves.  As I was introducing myself I told them how nervous I was to talk in front of them because in my last area we had about 14 people in church every week.  They all laughed.  The bishop here is a stud!  He has a sense of humor and is always messing with us - I love it.  I need to get a picture of him and send it to you.

A cool experience this last Tuesday was that for change day all the elders that are changing (i.e. transferring) go to a church right next to the Montevideo Temple where buses pick us up and take us to our new area.  Anyway, I saw Elder Barlow and Elder Hicks (my companions in the MTC) for the first time since since my first day in Uruguay.  It was the best thing ever!  We looked and sounded like little girls as we screamed and ran into each other's arms!  It was nice to catch up with them and talk about everything. They are doing great and our Spanish has come around a ton.  It was a lot of fun.

This last Friday, Elder Peña and I had the oportunity of visiting less active members with the senior couple missionaries here in Las Piedras. The spirit was super strong with us as we visited 5 families (3 of which came back to church yesterday!). The senior couple is super nice and are from Salt Lake City. The husband knows Spanish because he served a mission in Uruguay back in the day but the wife knows absolutely nothing.  We had to translate for her the whole time.  Anyway, it was a great experience and they reminded me a lot of "Grandma and Grandpa White Truck" in the way they talked and looked.  It was a great experience!

There is a lady here in my area named Silvia.  She is a huge lady and is super loud.  She owns the streets of San Francisco and everyone here knows it!  She is a member of the church and helps us out a ton in the streets here.  She also has a son who is a member (Heremias) who is GIGANTIC!  So anyway, don't worry about me because they have my back (they´ve told me this several times!). Anyway, I love the area and all is well.  Elder Peña is a stud and actually knows quite a bit of English.  He´s been helping me a ton with my Spanish and teaching.  I´m considering him my trainer because he's taught me SO much!  He works hard, so it's been a lot of fun.

Anyway, I love you guys tons.  I love hearing from you, so keep me posted on everything!

P.S.  I haven´t gotten any packages or mail for a couple weeks because I just found out that Uruguay is having a strike at the post office.  Kind of a bummer.  So, I haven't gotten grandma's package yet. As you know, I can send one email each week to my family, but everything else I send out needs to be by letter.

(Zach's dad:  Here's a link to the general area where Zach is at: http://goo.gl/maps/mgTc4)

 Zach and his old MTC companions (Elder Hicks and Elder Barlow)

Zach and the three new missionaries in his house in Las Piedras (Elder Vorwaller, Elder Huff, and his new companion, Elder Peña).