Monday, July 8, 2013

Well, my new area is AWESOME! I absolutely love it!  And yes, Mom, I have McDonalds in my area! I feel like I'm in the United States - it's super weird!  Our area is really, really big and sometimes overwhelming because it's hard to even know where to begin, but it's been great!  There is a ton of traffic and people in the streets.  This is a whole new lifestyle for this country elder from Noblia!  My zone is awesome and I have a bunch of cool elders that I get to work with, so it's been fun. 

It's been kind of weird being a zone leader because we´ve been doing stuff that I'm not used to doing. For example, our area is right next to the mission home so we work with the assistants to the mission

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

We had a great week here in Minas! It's been loads of fun with Elder Ipson.  He has me laughing all the time.  We also had a blast teaching this last week. 

Laura came to church on Sunday, but not her husband.  We love him to death, but he just wants to do the things we leave with him at his house to do.  Some of the members of the branch are going to stop by and visit him.  Also, Camilo and his wife came to church again!  They are awesome and have come to church like seven weeks in a row!  I love Camilo to death!  I got a photo and will try and send it.  However, right now the computer that I'm using is super old school and for some reason it can't read my camera.  I´ll try to figure it out!

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

We received a memory card in the mail from Zach.  Here are a couple of random videos:

Destroying a brick wall:

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

These are the other pictures that Zach mentioned in his email yesterday:

Monday, June 24, 2013

Thanks for all the letters and emails!  I love hearing from each one of you.  It's good to know that you are all safe and sound and enjoying life! 

Well this last week has been crazy!  I honestly don´t know where to begin.  We had some great moments and some sad moments, but it's all good.  Life goes on!

We had a mission conference with President Armstrong and his family. It was basically them telling us thanks for everything and letting us know they are going to miss us tons.  It was kind of sad.  President Armstrong had a great message about how we need to keep moving on and working hard!  I saw Elder Hicks at the conference and got a photo with him.  I also got a photo with a missionary

Monday, June 17, 2013

Dad, ¡FELIZ DIA DEL PADRE! I hope you had a great Father´s Day! It's crazy to think that I´ll be with you next Father´s Day.  The time is flying by!  I´m definitely trying to take advantage of every second here in the mission.  It's been a great experience and something that I'll never forget.

We are actually going to do Laura´s baptism this Saturday!  Laura had some emergency work that she had to do and coudn´t get out of so we are going to do the baptism this Saturday!  We are super excited and she is too!  She gets along great with the branch and really wants to do all she can to follow Christ.

Monday, June 10, 2013

It was awesome getting your emails and to hear how everyone is doing.  Alex Farina is getting huge! That´s awesome that he´s playing baseball for the Dodgers' scout team.  He's a baller!  

I believe I fixed my camera.  I'm going to try and send some photos today that I´ve been trying to send.  They include one of me with the statue of Artigas, one with me, Hermana Elmont, and Hermana Asbell (we all went to Springville High School together), one of me raking some leaves with some members, and a photo of "La Mano" (I got a photo at the beach!)

This last week has been a great week, like always! We´re teaching some awesome families! I love Alicia and Camilo like none other and am having a blast watching them change their lives as they

Monday, June 3, 2013

Today was crazy! I had to go to Tres Cruces with Elder Ipson today.  It's been a long day, but I got to eat at McDonalds so it's all good!  I also had fun chillin' with some of the other elders that were there.

Hey, just to let you guys know, something something weird is going on with my camera.  It's not working all that well.  Give me this week to figure out what's going on and I'll tell you next week.  Sorry that I don't have any photos again.

It sounded like the wedding with Alyssa and Jordan went great!  I was glad to see some photos.  I also got an email from Michael Arredondo.  I sent him a quick email.  I'm going to send him a better email next week.  It was great to hear from him.  I loved his football photos.  Speaking of football,

Monday, May 27, 2013

I hope that Jordan and Alyssa have a great wedding on Friday.  I wish I was there to see it.  You'll have to tell them hi for me!

Me and Elder Ipson are getting along great!  He´s a great kid and really random.  He has me laughing all day.  His Spanish is getting really good!  We had a great last week and I had him talk a lot more than he was used to, but he did great and I think he learned a lot!  We have a great relationship and are having fun here in Minas!

We are teaching three families!  We are super excited and are seeing a ton of miracles here in Minas! One of the families that we are teaching is Camilo, Alicia, and their two kids.  Alicia had the two kids f

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

This last week has been a busy week, but loads of fun! A family that we found a week ago came to church again and they are doing awesome!  The husband is already a member.  He's living with this lady and they're not married, but we're going to help them get it figured out.  They´ve told us several times that they want to get married and keep going to church. They love the atmosphere and the things they have heard about families.  The lady really wants to get baptized!  We´re stoked!

My companion got a call last Saturday from the mission president and told he was going to be the new financier for the mission.  It's a great opportunity for him to serve and work in the mission home.  Elder Reay was super excited and caught a bus to the mission home after church on Sunday. 

Monday, May 6, 2013

I´m super excited for this Mother´s Day! I can´t believe we get to talk again through Skype! It feels like yesterday it was Christmas and we were talking.  So the plans for this Sunday is that I´ll be calling you at 7:00 P.M. here in Uruguay time. I think you guys are four hours behind me so it will be at 3:00 P.M. for you.  I´ll be calling you from the computadora using Skype from the house of our branch president. He has a nice set up so it should be a sweet experience.  We get 40 minutes to talk.  I wish we could talk longer, but 40 minutes is still an awesome amount of time!  As of right now those are the plans.  I can´t wait to see you guys and see how big Tyler and Cade have grown.

As I'm typing this at the computer cafe, it is funny because I´m sitting right next to Elder Wilkey (he´s from England) and he goes home the 22nd of this month.  He´s super excited to go home and is giggling like a little girl with every thing his family is telling him. It's getting really annoying.  :-)

Monday, April 29, 2013

Well, I can´t believe that the school year is about to end again for you guys.  It feels like it just began!  I also can´t believe that you guys are about to start up football again. I love this time of the year!

Well, here in Minas it's still really nice.  It's starting to get a little chilly, though.  Be ready for photos of me in my nice jacket!

Everything is going great here in Minas! We are working hard and building up a pool of investigators to teach. We have a couple of promising investigators, but one in particular is Cristina. She is awesome and came to church yesterday. We´re trying to help her with her addiction to smoking. She´s awesome!

Monday, April 22, 2013

It was great to hear from you! I had no idea about the terrorist attack in Boston. That is super sad, but I'm glad they caught the two guys.  Usually when something big happens in the United States we hear all about it, but to be honest I had no clue.  I hope everything is ok and that the people in Boston will know that everything will be ok and that they have a Father in Heaven that loves them very much.

Tyler looked really good in his tux.  [We sent Zach a picture of Tyler dressed up for Saturday's Prom.]  I can't believe he's going on these dates now.  He looks so much older in the photos.  The same with Cade.  He looks huge!  I also really like his red Springville sweatshirt.  Pretty sweet stuff!

Monday, April 15, 2013

This last week has been crazy busy!  I'm in my new town Minas and I love it!  It's super beautiful!  There are mountains (really they're hills when compared to Utah moutains) and a lot of little hills.  I feel like I'm in a different country because in all of the areas I've been, I've never seen any mountains!  My new companion is awesome and we get along great! His name is Elder Reay and he's from Cottonwood, Arizona. I live in a 4 elder house here in Minas. The other missionaries are Elder Wilkey (he's from England!) and Elder Ipson (he's from Mesa, Arizona).  They are both studs! We are having a blast living together and we are always laughing.

This past week Elder Reay has been showing me the area and having us meet with members and investigators. There is a lot of work to do here, so I'm looking forward to

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Well, this last weekend was AWESOME! General Conference was amazing!  Elder Pointer and I went to Las Piedras to watch conference with our zone. We watched every session live.  There were members that were there too, so we had a TV in the chapel in Español and then a TV in a special room for all the Gringos in English.  Elder Pointer and I watched all the sessions in English except the Sunday morning session.  We had two investigators that came to watch it, so we watched it with them in Spanish. Super awesome! Canelones is about an hour away from Las Piedras by bus, so it was super sweet to have our investigators come from Canelones to watch it.  One of them is going to be baptized this coming Saturday!  One of my favorite talks this conference was by Elder Cardon and his talk was about repentance.  It really hit me hard just how much Jesus Christ WANTS to forgive us.

Monday, April 1, 2013

It was great to hear from you!  It sounds like Cade's balling it up in his Bantam league and Tyler is running fast in the 800m and 400m races in track.  I honestly can't believe he says he loves it.  I would have to say my favorite thing in track was the long jump because you really didn't have to run that much!  Kind of beats the purpose of track, huh?  I´m super excited for Alyssa and Jordan!  That's cool that they are getting married.  I wish I could be there.  You'll have to say hola for me!  Dad, that´s sweet that you went to the BYU spring football scrimmage.  I can't believe football is about to start again.  ¡Vamo ariba!

Well, Mom said she would like to know what my days are like here in Canelones, so I thought I would give you a little schedule.  Here we go:

Monday, March 25, 2013

It was great to hear from you! I loved the updates about March Madness.  It sounds like you guys had a blast at the games!  As for Tyler and Cade, I remember those days sleeping in your bed and enjoying a nice Mountain Dew from Brookside.  It's crazy to hear how much Tyler and Cade are growing up and doing more stuff on their own. They're going to be all grown up by the time I get home.

Also, I want to say Happy 24th Anniversary!  I love you guys tons and am super grateful for the example you have set for me, Tyler, and Cade.  I want to have a successful family just like you!

The people are going crazy in Uruguay about the new pope from Argentina.  He's the first Latino pope, so they are all pumped.  Here's a funny story.  Hermano Lee in my ward (he's the first

Monday, March 18, 2013

It was awesome to hear from you!  It's official that as of now I can email who ever I want.  I´m super pumped because there are quite a few people that I want to send emails to.  I´ll have to send one to the Ruckus Crew!  We now have an hour to email.

I´m sure Dad is thrilled for March Madness to officially start.  I hope you are too, Mom!  It should be a lot of fun for you to watch all the games and fill out the brackets.  I´ll have to do it next year!

This last week has been crazy busy! We´ve been having a lot of success with the less active members. There have been quite a few that have come to church the last couple weeks so Elder Pointer and I

Monday, March 11, 2013

¡Tyler, FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS!  I love you to death bro and miss you tons! Keep working hard in school, it all pays off!  Dad, I´m going to say happy birthday too, because I won´t be able to say happy birthday on your birthday so... ¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS!  You're the best dad in the world and I miss you tons!  Keep doing your thing and working hard. The March Madness tournament will be a great break for you!

It's starting to cool down here in Uruguay. I would say it's the perfect temperature right now; not too hot and not too cold.  I got the "Ruckus Crew" newsletter from Stacy. I loved it and have it hanging up above my desk. It's cool to see how everyone is doing and how we´re in different parts of the world. I didn´t know Alex is in North Carolina.  [Zach's dad:  Alex is a friend of Zach's who was

Monday, March 4, 2013

Sorry for last week! I honestly forgot to say anything. [Zach's dad:  Zach didn't tell us that his p-day was switching to Tuesday last week.  It caused us, to say the least, a bit of concern when Monday came and went without hearing from Zach.  We were sure he was captured and thrown into a dark pit by Uruguayan drug runners!].  I don´t want you guys to worry about me!  I´m doing great and loving the mission. Uruguay is really safe and chill.  Nothing bad ever happens here so you guys can take a chill pill! Anyway, it was another great week with Elder Pointer!

Sunday was a super awesome day! Elder Pointer and I have been helping the ward by teaching and bringing back less active members.  This Sunday we had 4 adult men that came back to church