THE WORK MOVES ON.....

The Punta Coastline .... It's beautiful!
I am officially overly obsessed with reggae music. That’s what they listen to here. Well, that or Italian accordion. Both are good. I’m either in Italy or Jamaica so it’s cool...

- WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS!!! That’s right, Uruguay gano ayer! We are officially the soccer champs of South America. Go us! It was sweet, but the streets were scary. It’s a good thing we get to go in early on Sunday nights to write our letters to pres. The centro was full of drunks, horns all night long, screaming, partying, confetti all over everything... It’s intense.

- My comp and I were listening to a Joseph Smith dedicatory CD this week. One song was about Porter Rockwell. She asked me to explain and I started going off on all the stories about him that I read and that dad has told me. I told her when she gets home she should read his book. She just gave me this really sad look. She said they don’t have access to any of that in South America. Obviously, they don’t have Deseret Book, but they have to have some sort of church books they can read? Wrong. I felt so sad... appreciate what we have. All they have are the basics, the church library and scriptures. No stickers, no CTR rings, no bibliographies, nada.

- We had transfer calls last night. I’m staying of course, well we’re staying. Hermana Hite is coming to our zone!!! Yes! along with Hermana Lundskog obviously, and another hermana I’m pretty close with, Hermana Kubley. We’ll all be together and I’ll be able to see Hermana Hite before she leaves in 6 weeks! ah!
- We lost Veronica.... Saddest day of my life. She’s not ready I guess. And right after she told us that we came across a Jehovah’s Witness who argued with us for like 20 minutes. My comp fed into it too. I just stood there the whole time. It was useless to say anything. Then she laughed in our face when we said God had a body of flesh and bones, called us stupid and stormed off.

As for the other three investigators who came to church last week. Pablo... he’s awesome, artist, ex-prison mate, full on mohawk, heart soft as a teddy bear, wants to be baptized already but he has to quick smoking. We’re working on it. He found a Book of Mormon in prison and there he learned almost everything we have to offer :) He’s awesome. Too bad everyone judges him for his hair and the fact that he went to jail.

His friend... Roman, he’s great too: Wants to become closer to God, smokes marijuana. We’re working on that as well. Don’t worry we’re being careful with these men. We have members with us and meet with them in our BEAUUUUTIFUL church building.

Camila. Probably the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen... 17. She’s the niece of the bishop’s wife. We went to her house that wreaked of smoke. She said, millions of missionaries come by and I’m not interested. The hermanas already taught her pretty much every lesson and invited her to be baptized when she was 13 but she said no. We have her record with all our forms in the house. She said, my aunt made me go to church, she always has, but I drink, I smoke and I want to enjoy life. Ugh... as she went on to describe her life I couldn’t speak. I was on the verge of tears because I knew that all she wanted was love from someone. Her family life is terrible, not members. And her grandparents have passed away, the only people she really loved and really loved her back. When I finally decided that I could talk, I expressed to her my grandpa passed away too. And he was one of my favorite people. I told her I was far away from everyone I loved when he passed and it’s still hard sometimes. But I told her the reason we don’t drink, smoke, wear short skirts (and whatever other thing) was because we want to be with the people we love for FOREVER!!! I said, what are you going to tell your grandparents when you can’t be with them because you wanted to do these things. I said in the long run none of it matters and if you’d rather participate in this than have your family in the next life then that’s your choice. It wasn’t this harsh because the whole time I was crying, but she felt the spirit and so did I... so did my comp. We were all crying. She completely changed her attitude. I told her we were there to help her, love her, be her friends and teach her the ways that we can return to Heavenly Father. She said she wanted that very much. SCORE! It was awesome. We saw her Friday night running through the plaza to catch a bus and she screamed at us to stop running. She gave me a huge hug, which is rare for Guayans, let alone 17 year olds. I love her. We’ll see her on Tuesday. Pray for her! She needs the gospel.

Along with that, we found out from a member that Sheyla had broken the word of wisdom because they didn’t have money to pay for the water in their house, or lights... or anything. So she drank packets of coffee. We were so sad, so we decided to put together a package of food and doorbell ditched her. It was so fun. I guess someone saw us because when we went by the next day she spilled everything to us and thanked us. She cried. Tears mean a lot here. These people are hard hearted. We felt good though. We may not be baptizing like crazy, but I can proudly say, we are helping people.

But! We do have a baptism coming up... If everything goes ok. The reference from the elders, Sharon. Yes! Wish us luck.

We’re going to Montevideo today, my comp has to sign her visa papers so I probably won’t be able to write much of a letter but... know that I love you!!!

All my love, Ash

P.S. Yes... the pics... this is my area and the first thing I saw driving into my area. I love this place. I love the mish. : )