Monday, October 29, 2012

It was awesome to hear from you guys!  I also received an email from Grandma and Grandpa White Truck and Tammy.  Tell them I love them tons!  I have to also say that I can't believe Notre Dame is third in the country right now!  The one year I leave and they finally do good!  Anyway, it's all good.  The mission is the best!

This week was AWESOME!  Hermana and Elder Oaks came to Uruguay to speak to us and the other mission this last Saturday.  [Zach's dad: Elder Oaks is a church leader from Salt Lake City].  It was a great experience!  I sat with Elder Barlow and Elder Hicks [Zach's old MTC companions] during the conference and had a good time. Elder Oaks talked to us about repentance and how to better teach are

Monday, October 22, 2012

It's been a crazy week, but I've loved every second of it!  Canelones is a lot different than Noblia and San Francisco. It's a lot bigger and there are a ton more people, but surprisingly only 40 active members in the church.  As of right now the church is a branch but should change to a ward here soon because we have enough priesthood to qualify.  Elder Aguirre is my companion and he's a stud!  He's from Chile just like Elder Peña!  He loves music and plays the piano really, really well. We get a long great and are excited to work here!  He knows a little bit of English, but we ultimately just talk in Spanish. He had some problems with his last companion, but as of right now we're working hard and just basically talking to everyone about the gospel.  It's the best!  The branch seems to like me so that's good, too!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Crazy news! I'm leaving my area right after this email to a city called Canelones.  It's about 30 minutes from my area of San Francisco.  I'm leaving because of a special change.  A missionary in that area had to go home early so I'm going in to take his spot.  I don't know much about the area or my companion, but I'm super excited to work there!  It's a big city and will be my first area where I'm actually in a downtown area - I'm pumped!  President Armstrong called me and told me about the situation and how he never worries about me and told me to get to work and keep doing what I'm doing.  I'm excited that he trusts me that much.  It will be a great experience and I'll make sure to tell you all about Canelones next Monday!

Monday, October 8, 2012

This last week was AMAZING!  I had a blast reading your letters. It's awesome to hear that Alex is going to Argentina!  We'll have the same accent when we get home!  Oh, and Mom, ¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS! I love you tons and think of you everyday!  When I was watching conference I felt close to home because I knew you guys were watching the same thing at the same time.  Thanks for being the best Mom in the world!  I was just thinking the other day of those good times we had cleaning my room together.  I miss those days.  I also miss your cooking!  When I get back I can't wait to have a nice home-cooked meal from you!  I love you, Mom!

This week was awesome with conference! Crazy stuff with the whole age difference.  [Zach's dad: in a worldwide church conference this past weekend, the president of the church announced that young

Monday, October 1, 2012

Well, this week has been a crazy and fun week!  I forgot to tell you, but here in the ward that I'm in there are 4 missionaries.  They combined my area together with the other 2 missionaries and their area to form a ward.  This happened about 8 months ago.  Anyway, because of that we have a ton of less active members in the ward that we have been working with the last 7 weeks.  We need to have 21 active priesthood holders to qualify as a ward and we had 18 when I first got here.  As of now, with the help of the other missionaries that I live with and the couple missionaries (Elder Hill and Hermana Hill), we have 22 active priesthood holders in the ward.  So, as of right now, we qualifty as a ward! We're pumped because since we qualify as a ward we are going to combine with 6 other wards close by to form a stake! Vamo Arriba! It's been a lot of hard work and problem solving with the menos activos ["less active"] because a ton of them won't go to church because they are offended by some other member.  It's really frustrating at times because people are holding grudges for lame things.  But anyway, it's all good and we are working hard to bring them all back.

Monday, September 24, 2012

It was awesome to hear from you guys.  I love hearing about everything that is going on back at home.  Thanks for sending me a birthday package!  Tell Tyler to keep working hard and just have fun. You only play high school football once.  Tell Cade to keep working hard and have fun, too! What's going on with BYU?  Crazy stuff.  I can't believe Notre Dame is doing good now!  That would be an awesome trip to go to a game out in South Bend!

I'm sorry to hear that Brother Davis passed away - I love the tradition we do because of him.  Tell Murph and Alex that I'll try and send a letter to them soon.  How is Tanner and Perry doing?

Monday, September 17, 2012

Yesterday we got transfer calls.  I'm going to stay in San Francisco with Elder Peña again. We're pumped! We have a really good relationship and are always laughing.  He's a great missionary and everyday he teaches me something new. So, needless to say, I'm thrilled about staying! 

This last week we also had stake conference. It was a super cool experience because our stake conference was a satellite broadcast of President Thomas S. Monson, Elder Anderson and Sister Reeves. It was cool to listen to as translators translated for President Monson.  Elder Anderson knew Spanish and did his talk in Spanish.  It was a great stake conference and the spirit was definitely there!

Monday, September 10, 2012

Well, it's good to hear that everyone is doing great. The mail strike is officially over and we´re starting to get mail again.  Today I got three letters from Grandma White Truck and a letter from Jordan Gardanier - tell them thanks for me! And thanks Mom, for preparing a package for me! I'm craving American sweets! Sweet Tarts, Reeses, anything really!  I don´t need any medication, and with the water I'm completely fine. The water here is clean and I have a filter bottle that I drink out of, so it's all good!

This last week was a lot of fun! I went to the temple grounds with our recent converts and some investigators. We went with Selva and the other missionaries that live with us.  It was a BLAST!  After we toured the temple grounds we went to the mission home and talked with the mission

Monday, September 3, 2012

All is well here in San Francisco. I´m absolutely loving it here! The members are awesome and we have some great investigators. With Elder Peña we basically speak Spanish the whole time.  He likes to practice his English, so every once in a while we´ll talk in English but mostly we talk in Spanish. I´m learning a lot with him.

Yesterday was Fast Sunday and Elder Peña and I had a really cool experience with our recent converts Flavia, Ana and Luis.  All three bore their testimonies at church and you could feel the spirit so strong as they bore it. Ana was crying at the pulpit saying how greatful she was for the gospel and the plan of salvation. I can´t remember if I told you but two weeks before the baptism of Ana and

Monday, August 27, 2012

We had the baptism of Ana and Louis!  It was awesome!  They both are in their fifties and are totally converted.  Elder Peña did the baptism and then I ended up giving a five minute talk about the Holy Ghost because the person that was supposed to give the talk was sick (I found out 10 minutes before I had to give the talk!). It was an awesome baptism and the spirit was there!

I absolutely love this ward.  There are a ton of members and they feed us everyday.  We have so much food in our refrigerator that it's ridiculous!  I've been gaining weight and I'm pretty sure it's bad weight!  Elder Peña and I run every morning, so it's been good.  We're trying to get back in shape.  He kills me when we run.  He loves running long distances and hills!  He ran cross-country at a college in Chile.  Elder Peña and I have been getting along great.  We are always laughing and having

Monday, August 20, 2012

This week has been a crazy and stressful week!  So much has happened!  We had a baptism of a 17 year old girl named Flavia Noelia Fernandez Carbonel and also taught quite a few different awesome families.  The baptism was great and the spirit was there.  Our mission president, President Armstrong, actually attended the baptism.  I also got some time with him and we chatted a while about him and the mission.  He's a great guy and he's doing a fantastic job as the mission president.  The reason why President Armstrong attended the baptism was because the sister of Flavia lives in the U.S. and she called President Armstrong and talked to him about how important this baptism is for her sister.  So, President Armstrong thought it would be nice to bring his family to the baptism.  He also brought a really good cake that we all ate.  It was awesome!  I performed the baptism on Saturday and really enjoyed it!

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.

Monday, August 6, 2012

I'm doing awesome and it sounds like everything back at home is great!  Anyway, some big news.  We got change calls last night.  I'm leaving Noblia - kind of a bitter sweet moment.  I'm going to San Francisco in Canelones.  It's close to Montevideo, but on the outskirts.  It sounds like another small town again, but it will be fun.  I will be living in a four missionary house so it should be a blast.  My new companion will be Elder Peña.  He is Chilean.  I will only be speaking Spanish with him, so it will be fun.  The other two missionaries in my house are an American and another Latino.  Anyway, I'm super excited and nervous.  I'll be making the fun seven hour bus ride tomorrow.  Nothing really new has happend besides that - just the same old in Noblia.

This past week I went on a split to Rio Branco.  It's a bigger city and I had a lot of fun.  I got a cool

Monday, July 30, 2012

Well, the Olympics have started so everyone here has the games on.  Uruguay didn't have that many athletes go, but they did have their soccer team, so everyone is really excited.  However, they lost yesterday to some no name team from Africa!  A lot of tears were shed because of the loss.  I'm not even kidding - people were crying in the streets.  Uruguay takes a lot of pride in their soccer, so when they lose it's like the end of the world.  How is the U.S. doing?  You'll have to let me know.

Anyway, Noblia has been great!  We have been teaching various families and have also been spending a lot of time trying to reactivate less active members.  We have quite a bit here, but they are all offended so they won't go to church.  It's really frustrating, but our efforts have been working. 

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Zach's dad:  Along with the pictures I posted yesterday, here are a couple of videos that we got from Zach.

Middle of Nowhere

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Zach's dad:  We got a letter from Zach in the mail that included several pictures.  I thought I would post a couple of them.

Cleaning the baptismal font

Monday, July 23, 2012

This last week was another great week!  Elder Erwin and I were crazy busy!  This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to meet my new mission president, President Armstrong, and his family.  His 22 year old son and 16 year old daughter are living with them in the mission home.  The son just got back from a mission in Houston, Texas (Spanish speaking).  He's planning on going to BYU in a couple of weeks.  President Armstrong is a STUD!  I love him to death!  He's more relaxed than President Da Silva, but still very serious about being a mission president.  When I had my interview with President Armstrong the first thing he said to me was Craig Christiansen says hi.  It was funny.  I told him how you guys know Craig and he loved it.  We then talked about BYU football and basketball for the next five minutes in English!  It was weird doing an interview with the mission president in English and talking about BYU sports.  It was awesome and made my day.  Anyway, he's a stud and is going to be an awesome mission president!

Monday, July 16, 2012

This week was another great week!  I got to be a companion with Elder Griffin's companion (Elder Villar) for the day.  We exchanged for just 24 hours.  Elder Villar is a big stud and is from Chile.  He's super nice and outgoing.  He's really funny and we had an awesome day!  He doesn't know any English so I had to use my Spanish all day with him.  It was great practice for my Spanish and by the end of the day we were both exhausted and ready for bed!

Yesterday was Fathers Day here in Uruguay.  It was interesting because our branch president canceled all meetings besides sacrament meeting since it was Fathers Day - and then he didn't even show up to church!  Elder Erwin and I had to conduct sacrament meeting and basically do everything for the branch.  I've had a lot of interesting opportunities with this small branch here in Noblia and have learned a lot about how to run the church.  I also gave a blessing this last week to a lady in the ward.  It was a cool experience and everything went well.  It's funny to think that I'm doing all these things in Spanish because I don't know how to do any of it in English!  Anyway, it was a great week!

Monday, July 9, 2012

I'm doing awesome here in Noblia.  I'm glad you got my photos.  I wish I could have taken more of Noblia. We're not really supposed to take pictures when we're out in public because they don´t want us to look like tourists.

I haven't talked to our new mission president yet. He should be coming up here to Melo in about two weeks for interviews, so I´ll meet him then.  He sounds like a great guy. 

Well, this week has been awesome.  It has been kind of tough lately to find people to teach.  I can honestly say I´ve have talked to everyone in Noblia and have knocked every house like 3 times.  But it is all good.  There are people out there ready to hear the gospel.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Life has been good in Noblia!  I've gained some weight since I've been here, I believe.  I weigh 71 kilos, whatever that is!  I'm pretty sure it's all fat.  

This week was kinda interesting with the whole changes thing (missionary transfers) so I actually stayed here in the district Cerro Largo and worked with another elder, Elder Liddle (he is from England, kinda of crazy!) and we went to his area.  His area is called Fraile Muerto ("Dead Priest"). It's a town a little bit bigger than Noblia.  I spent all day there Tuesday with him and went tracting.  I don't know what is up with me and small areas but that's basically been my mission thus far.  It's been interesting and I've learned a lot!