A Few Setbacks...

Hi! I love you all. Kenz! First place in your horse race! You rock Suggar, I love you. I’m so proud. I hope all else is well in Zion. Things here are pretty grand. I’m happy about the fruits we were able to see, in spite of the setbacks.

Well, this grand week started on Monday, like most weeks do. We were going to leave at 5:00 to do some last minute shopping for my comp to finish up Pday. As I was finishing writing a letter, my comp decided she wanted to wax her legs. Alright, I guess, do what ya want, but make this quick cause we gotta go. Welp, she put the wax in the micro for 20 minutes and then next thing I know she is screaming from the kitchen. I run in and the wax was so hot it just completely pulled off her skin at the touch. And I mean completely pulled off her skin. It was so gross and she was in extreme pain.

Hermana Ureta's leg
I didn’t know what to do because all the wax was still on her leg. I didn’t know if applying cold water would make it harden and therefore harder to take off so I ran to grab the members that we live behind. They decided we should just run to the hospital. We went to the hospital and they fixed her up, but it took forever. We didn’t work at all on Monday and they told her she had to take five days to rest! What! I’m sorry… we’re missionaries, we don’t EVER rest. So, we called Hermana Da Silva and she said, “If that’s what they said she had to do, then do it.” She has to say that cause if something happens with my comp, she is responsible. Anyway, but it was too much time to go without working so we needed to find someone, some member, to go out with me. We thought about Silvia!

Hermana Ureta all fixed up!
We called her up and she agreed to do it immediately. My comp has to rest for five days so you gotta work with me for five days so bring enough stuff to live here in our house for five days. She was honored and came like 30 minutes later. We set up a mattress on the floor and I began to teach her the ins and outs of being a missionary the rest of the night. The next morning we got up at 5:00 to head to district meeting while my comp stayed with the member here. Silvia was so tired, but we studied and practiced. She learned how to teach the first lesson and then we even did practices in front of our district. She loved being amongst other missionaries too. We came home and went out to work. At first she didn’t want to say anything, but with the pass of a few hours, she got up enough courage to start bearing her testimony and at the end of the day she was teaching principles with me. It was awesome. She did great, needed a little direction here and there to really realize what our purpose here is as missionaries, but for her first day she did great. She learned that we are not plain and boring missionaries after all, but at home we like to have fun. She didn’t realize we were actually normal people, even though we act the same with her. She said she couldn’t wait to be a missionary.

Next morning, she was so tired and my comp was in a lot of pain so I got up to exercise by myself. I tried getting them up, but neither would wake up, so I let them sleep for a little and got ready. When I was done in the shower, Silvia got mad at me for letting her sleep in. She took it way too hard on herself and was upset the rest of the morning. Her attitude completely changed. We asked her if she was going to keep going during the day and she said yes. So we studied and then we went out to work. I don’t know what happened, but she decided she didn’t want to work anymore. I took her home and she asked me to call her mom because she was going to go home. And home she went. It was rough. So we lost another day of work.

Thursday my comp decided we couldn’t miss more work and we went out, but her leg hurt a lot and at the end of the day she couldn’t go more. I personally felt soooo guilty for sitting in the house, but she couldn’t go. I just let her be and we lost another day of work. Sighhhh! It was a long week of sitting in the house doing nothing while I thought of the things we needed to be doing. It was the worst feeling ever. Then our district leader told me these were trials and to tell my comp that too and she should be out working. It made me feel worse for not making her leave. Thank heavens for repentance.

Riding on the Omnibus to Stake Conference
That was pretty much the whole week until Sunday. It was stake conference in Durazno and we took an omnibus with the whole ward over there. We had nine investigators go. The Gonzalez family was one of them. It was a meeting all about missionary work. Three youth who had their mission calls spoke and then three returned missionaries spoke. Oh man… it left me thinking about the mission experience a lot. It was good. It’s so weird seeing people who are about to go out, but don’t have the mission experience yet, then being a missionary and then hearing from those who are done. It was a bittersweet experience. It was cool hearing them talk about bringing people to Christ while two of those who I had brought to Christ were sitting right next to me, Jess and Agustin. I kept nudging Jess then she laid her head on my shoulder. It was a rich experience.

We had a lesson with the Gonzalez family after and they prayed, well the dad and mom. He said he has never felt the way he has over the last two days and he believes everything is true. It was awesome. The mom said she has noticed a difference in their marriage already, applying the things they’ve been learning the last two weeks in church. She said she wants to keep learning and we told them both these were signs of the spirit. They have super respectful kids. They all agreed to be baptized on May 5. Wahoo!!!! A family! He has to stop smoking, but he can to it… and he wants to more importantly. Keep them in your prayers. They are awesome. Afterwards, we were talking with the family who gave us the reference and introduced us to them and Fernando (the investigator dad) said, I’m just so grateful to Jorge, the other dad member, for inviting us to know more about these things. I’ll do anything to get my family back together in the celestial kingdom. Thank you for sharing these things and thank you hermanas for teaching us. Wow, so awesome! I’m so excited. After the lesson, my comp and I walked home in the dark and we were dancing and singing. It’s an indescribable joy. It’ll be even better the day of their baptism.

This week we have interviews, Tuesday, so I’ll get packages then. Then we have to go back to Durazno again on Wednesday for other meetings. Busy, busy, busy we are! And once again the whole week is already planned with investigators. Hope all goes well.

I love you more than life itself. I am trying to be so obedient to be worthy of Heavenly Father’s blessings and he is bestowing me with them. And it’s increasing my faith and my testimony. It’s awesome. I feel good today; we have a lot going for us here, just like the scripture promised me. It’s being fulfilled. It’s cool. I know this is the Lord’s work and I’m grateful to be part of it. I love it and I love you. Until next week. Love, Ash

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter all! I love you with all my heart. I was thinking of what you were all doing on Saturday for your Easter celebrations and how I wanted to be there eating normal breakfast things with you. Things are good, but I did miss you this week. Your Easter eggs and faces are so pretty and dad is handsome. Miss you dad.

This week started out with craziness. I was a little concerned for my new comp, but that was quickly lost in the worries of Hermana Lopez. She was so stressed and scared for her first area change. She was going to be in Progresso, an area I did interchanges in, and with Hermana Kirkham. I tried to reassure her, but it was rough. I felt so bad, but I tried and tried to help her. I’m sure she’s fine now. Hermana Lundskog is training a cute little Latin. I got to see her only very briefly in Montevideo, but she’s good. We left on Monday when Pday ended to Durazno. Then we left at 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning to Montevideo, spent all day there, went to Durazno late Tuesday night, stayed with a member there, had district meeting on Wednesday and by accident spent pretty much the whole day there cause we could only take a late bus and ended up getting to Sarandi late Wednesday. Oh man, I have been so drained this week. We spent about 15 hours in a bus, but we got here okay to our area.Hermana Ureta and Farr
My new comp is Hermana Ureta from Chile. She is 22. We were in the same district in Maldonado and I thought she was soooo quiet. Welp, I thought this will be a first (because all my comps like to talk). Nope, we got together and she’s only shy at first, then she gets CRAZY!!!! She likes to imitate voices and in that respect she makes me think of Brooke!! Good times.

I’ve had a change this week. I can’t really explain it, but with many hours of travel, lots of silence and loads of time to think, I have analyzed a lot and studied a lot and I’ve had a change of heart. Not that I was bad before, maybe just feeling like I lacked a little bit of the faith of the power of my calling and the power I hold; the importance of a missionary (but not all missionaries) just myself. But I have received new inspiration and perspective. I am so beyond good personally. I have utterly lost myself in the work this week. I stopped every passerby, testified to everyone, used every minute wisely, obeyed every rule and I can almost say I did everything how I should’ve. And I have felt so good about myself this week personally. I don’t have THAT much time left. It’s coming to a close and I need everything to count. I can’t explain myself well enough. It’s not that I wasn’t doing these things before, it’s just that I think maybe I lost the view of the big goal a little and I feel with the end of the tunnel just up ahead, I can see better and things are more clear. I have had the spirit testify to me over and over again this week of many things. I have new hope. I am now completely relying on the promise and revelation I read in 1 Nephi 2:19-20. As long as I keep the rules, this will be a BLESSED land, more than anywhere else. It all depends on me. Cow tongue: much better this time. Last time I ate it, it was so tough, I couldn't even chew it!
Jess and Agustin have never been better. All three of them were confirmed yesterday and it was awesome. Silvia is totally going to go on a mission. We found a new family. Well, actually a member found a new family. A WHOLE family dad!! The Gonzalez family. A member works with the dad. He started asking gospel related questions and the member told him he was going to bring him something that would help him (the BOM from us). They invited them to church and they came yesterday. We went and taught them. They will get baptized if and when they have a testimony. Four kids: 3 boys and 1 girl and they are married! Praise the heavens for that. It’s awesome. The only problem is he works en el campo which is outside and they only come home every Saturday night so it’ll take some time to teach them what they need to know to have a testimony. But that’s okay… we have all the time in the world.

Things are good. I love you all so much. This work is true! I love it with all my heart. I will bawl my eyes out the day I go home. I don’t want to. I miss you. I love you. Be good. Do what’s right and help others do the same. Talk to you soooooon!!!! Love, Ash

Christ is the Reason

This week we have seen many miracles and many afflictions. It all started on Wednesday when our dear friends Silvia, Jessica and Agustin had their baptismal interviews. We decided to have Agustin go first so we could call president immediately afterward and coordinate for another interview, if needed. Well, Agustin told the elder he was on probation for the crimes he had committed, but didn’t know how long it lasted. No one was checking up on him anymore so he didn’t know where things stood. Things are very laid back here and no one has any idea about matters pertaining to the law. So we called president and he said, if he’s on probation, or thinks he is on probation, or is not sure of how long it lasts, or whatever... he can’t be baptized. Whoa! We had no idea. I wanted to cry. As we discussed the situation with the elders, as those three waited inside, we didn’t know what we were going to do. While the elder did the other interviews, we decided to take Agustin aside and try to clarify everything. Well, we talked and as he realized he might not be able to be baptized after all the challenges he’s gone through, he became very sad. And so did we. He said he would do whatever he needed to do to figure it out so he ran to the city building to figure out his situation. We didn’t even know if it would be open, considering Sarandi and Guayans close everything early. He ran... and didn’t tell Jessica where he was going. We had to explain the situation and we all sat there in anguish as we waited. The two girls finished up their interviews and we went to fill out their records for the church, still waiting anxiously for Agustin’s return. I have never prayed so hard in my heart. When he came back, he informed us that he was cleared. It has been four years since his last crime and the time for his probation was already up. It was a joyous occasion. It was most certainly a miracle: the first of many for the week. Me and Hermana Lopez
The next day... day of the wedding and baptisms. Chaos is always guaranteed on this day and it was no different. You never really know what to expect. The wedding went without flaw and there were lots of people there to support them. They left with some members and their families. We proceeded with our day, doing all the baptismal stuff without our DOM. We met with the Relief Society pres who was doing the whole after party to celebrate the events of the day and we found out she had had a death in the family. Oh no! That puts another hold on all the activities. It’s okay the show WILL go on. We had to take care of the things she could no longer do. It’s 5:30 and the font is full, of course with cold water, but that’s okay too. We realize we don’t have the room set up, the music for our special hymn isn’t ready and everyone gets there. We start asking people if they will help us and so everyone is running around like crazy and the baptism should be starting. Well, the hermana who was going to give the talk decided she didn’t want to and left it up to us to do. The hermano who was going to be directing the meeting didn’t show up and we find out last minute the guy who Agustin wanted to baptize him wasn’t worthy to do so. Oh boy!

Everyone was hanging out in the hall and so we go tell everyone to change into their white clothes so we can get moving. We went to help Jess and Silvia in the bathroom and Jess tells us Agustin is not okay. We went out to find him and there he is standing in white... looking happy. We asked him if he was okay and his face dropped down and he said, "No, everything is not okay." We pulled him away from the members so we can chat privately and he is so absolutely crushed about the hermano who is no longer worthy to hold the priesthood and perform his baptism. He said his family and friends were now making fun of him and his decision to be baptized. He didn’t think that was how he should feel on his baptismal day. We decided to take him to a room and pray. As we did, a feeling of peace came over all of us and he was ready to go. He remembered the real reason he was getting baptized, but man, Satan didn’t stop: wouldn’t let up for a second.

The baptismal service went on and all three of them were baptized. It was a beautiful site! Agustin and Silvia got up to bear their testimonies afterwards and it was awesome. The spirit was strong and they knew they had made the right decision. Afterwards, we had the party to celebrate. The pictures don’t do it justice. There were a lot of people there and it was good. A triple baptism of Silvia, Jessica and Augustin!!
General Conference was fantastic! We had the miracle of watching half of it in English and, of course, the stuff in Spanish I completely understood. I loved the three Seventies’ talks all in a row on Sunday afternoon session. But it felt like everything was addressed to me and my situation. It’s awesome how we can all say that, huh?

Welp, we got change calls last night and Hermana Lopez is leaving after this week. I am a little sad to see her go. The people, mostly our converts, will miss her a lot. Just goes to testify there really are specific people waiting for us because the hermana who is coming here now, couldn’t have gotten to the people Hermana Lopez and I did. My new comp is Hermana Uretta. She’s Latin, but I don’t think I’ll finish with her. We shall see. So pretty much I’ll spend all week traveling to do changes.

I just wanted to share one last thing with you. The mission: obedience is the price, faith is the power, love is the motive, the spirit is the key and Christ is the reason. This is the Lord’s work and he will continue to direct it. I love you all. I love the gospel and I love my Savior. Thanks for all you do... until next week. Love, Ash

Another one is brought to the fold

The happy, newly baptized Emiliano
Good news of the week, Emiliano DID get baptized! Also, Agustin and Jess are doing great and everything came out okay for their wedding. The timing was perfect and they will be getting married on Thursday. Ah! My comp and I are witnesses, weird huh? Weddings here are just taking pictures of them signing the civil papers. It’s so strange, but we will have a party after at the church to celebrate. Their baptism is planned for the same day but... seeing as how Agustin has a criminal record, he has to have two interviews: one by our district leader and another by Pres or someone else he assigns. We asked our Zone Leaders who was going to do the second and they said they didn’t know, but come Wednesday if he responded the same thing (that he has a record) to our District Leader in the interview, then and only then will they call Pres to figure out what to do. I’m worried that if someone can’t get here in time, Agustin might not be getting baptized on Thursday. I guess the Lord’s will will be done. Silvia is good too. We have seen miracle after miracle with her. She was definitely someone the Lord already prepared and then handed to us. It will be about two weeks from start to finish that we found her, taught her and baptized her. There are miracles! It’s kinda like a Yuri story, but she’s had a lot of doubts about whether or not baptism really is the right thing and if it was really going to be everything she imagined. As missionaries, we know the adversary is working against these people and our job is to do everything possible to get them to baptism and not be swayed by Satan. So we spent numerous hours this week, working through her doubts, turning to the Book of Mormon and praying. She has now gained a testimony of these things. She prayed the other night to really know if baptism was the right decision and she said as she hopped into bed, she felt a tingling, zing feeling, warm, in her chest. She says she knows it’s right and since then she hasn’t looked back. We planned the baptism along with Jess and Agustin and they are all ready to go. They are so excited. It’s been so great to see.
Augustin and Jessica... look at how their countenances have changed! That is the gospel in action.
I have been sick this week… really sick. The food makes me so nauseous and I can hardly eat anything here. It’s weird. Even though I’m in the same country, everything is different. The way people talk, act, eat, are and everything. I’m still not used to it. Oh missions... so great they are.

Yesterday, Sunday was a pretty emotional day for me. Church was good. It’s been awhile since I thought church here was actually for my benefit. We are just always running around, helping investigators, calling the ones who aren’t there, going to look for the ones who didn’t come that we rarely get to sit down and actually enjoy and learn. But yesterday, thanks to faithful investigators who come by themselves, we could enjoy the classes. I learned a lot from Hermana Barreto. She teaches the new member/investigator class that we attend with everyone we’re teaching. We talked about obedience. It was very spiritually uplifting and I felt so touched. So, why do we obey? Are the Lord’s commandments ever too small or too big to obey? Can we obey even when we don’t know why we have the commandment? Of course, these are all obvious answers but I learned so much personally. She talked about how we have the basic commandments, but the Lord gives to each of us our own personal commandments, revelations, answers to prayers. Do we obey our own set of commandments? Or in other words, am I going to throw a fit or will I obey even when I don’t understand the reason for such rules or commandments. It’s simple when just learning, but if we are actually living the situation, it’s a little more difficult. Am I going to obey because I love the Lord, or am I going to disobey and not be worthy of the blessings and fail on my test of faith? I will obey because I want to prove worthy of Him at the end and because I want him to know that when he calls, he can count on me.... even when it’s ridiculously hard.

Also, the Barreto family all bore their testimonies yesterday because it was fast Sunday. They have one boy who lives in Chile and has his own family already and then they have five girls. So whenever I go to their house I feel like I’m at home. The dad bore his testimony about his daughter who is on the mish and how much he misses and loves her and how he can’t wait to hug her and hold her in June when she comes home. Paula, the other daughter, (over the weekend went to the temple for her endowments to leave on her mission) and all her other sisters followed her up to the pulpit to bear their testimonies. And all I could think of was my sisters and how much I miss them. Every single one of them bore their testimony about eternal families and missionary work. It was powerful. There wasn’t a dry eye in the whole room. I just miss all you guys. I love you so much.

The only thing I can do is put my faith and trust in my Heavenly Father. How true is that for any situation in life. We can only blaze through the winds and buck up and in the end we will receive our recompense. I just want to make sure I fully complete my "mission" here and accomplish what Heavenly Father wants me to accomplish. I can only bear my testimony that I know this work is of God. He has a plan and purpose for everything. I know he loves us so I know he won’t do anything that will harm us. He does see it fit to try his people in all things. And there comes the true test. Will we endure to the end? That is what he wants to know. Will we prove faithful? That’s my challenge to all, that we might take a look at our lives and see if we are really being faithful. That’s all. I love you all more than you can imagine. Until next week... I love you, Ash

The Time Flies By...

So this week has had it's ups and downs. Miracles and challenges, but what’s new? We have had a scare with almost every one of our investigators. Emiliano has been having struggles. But we had a lesson and he was so excited about his baptism. We told him it’s his choice and he said it’s what he wants to do, so we´ll keep moving forward with the baptismal date. They said okay and we announced it in church yesterday and have made all the plans. He will be baptized on Friday at 7:00 p.m. Yeah!
This little colt was born right across the street from us

I don’t know if I mentioned last week, we have had challenges with Jaekelin as well. But we got her back to where she was and we are moving forward. She has seen so many trials with her baptism. I’ve never seen so much opposition in an area. So many things in our way, it’s ridiculous and frankly I’m just mad at Satan for making us wait and postpone and wait some more. But he will be conquered. I’m not worried; I know everything will be okay. It’s just a trial. We gotta prove our faith and if we do, according to Ether 12:6, we expect those trials to come. I was waiting. Or so I like to think.

Agustin and Jess have conquered yet again the rumors of the ward and we met with these ward members and cleared up some stuff, shared some scriptures and now they are all on the same page again. No one is fighting. It’s awesome! We watched The Testaments with them and it was great. Without fail, everyone cries at the end of that movie. It has a beautiful ending. I love it.
RS Activity: great spirit, great fun!
Miracle 1 :) We got a little surprise. We had the Relief Society birthday party this week and Hermana Gonzalez brought Jessica and a girl named Silvia with her. Silvia is the daughter of a less active recent convert. Both her parents are members, but they don’t come very often. We have taught them before, but Silvia would always hide from us so we were surprised when she showed up on Friday at the activity. Well, as we’re all eating, talking and having a good ole time, Hermana Gonzalez yells to us that Silvia wants to be baptized! Yeah! Immediately, of course, we go over to her to see what’s up. Well, ten minutes prior we had a testimony meeting about how the Relief Society has helped the women in our ward. So she says she has been thinking for a long time about the church, but has always been unsure. She decided she needed to learn a little more and experiment so she decided to come to the activity. Well, while listening to the testimonies, she said she was sure she wanted to get baptized. She says she feels so good in the church and that she’s searched far and wide in different churches to feel that way. So cool! We told her to come to church on Sunday and we would talk to her afterwards and teach her the first lesson. So we did. We put a baptismal date for the 29th with Jess and Agustin. They are friends now too so it works out. Love it.

Another miracle... we had to leave the activity early because we have a curfew and all but when we were walking out the doors, Jessica came out after us and asked if we could talk for a minute. She told us she was really homesick. We told her we could relate!! She started to cry and we just talked about life in general. She said even down to this little problem that I’m having of missing my mom, the church helps me with that because there are all these women inside who will love me and who help take care of me, if I need it. She said the gospel is incredible and that life is so much better with it. And she hasn’t even been baptized! She has grown through the roof. It’s been so amazing to see it. She didn’t even like to go to church when we found her, now she loves it. But I can testify to what she says... the gospel of course helps in every little part of our lives. It IS our lives, if we´ll let it be. If we truly have a testimony, it becomes much more than just a religion, it is EVERYTHING and I love it that way.

We had our second ward council here. It went well. The members have been really great. We used to eat with the same members every day of the week each week, but I told my comp we need to change that so we can get to know more members. Now we’ve been eating with more members, getting to know them and their lives, so we are able to help them. They gain our trust and it all works out better. Well, because of that, we have become greater friends with people and more people love us and we are working better together. In ward council we were talking about the things we need and everyone was being so considerate. It’s such a great blessing. One hermano just told us straight up, you know what the savior said, "Ask and you shall receive." I’m so grateful for them and the huge amount of work they have been doing. It’s been a great change. I think I will leave this area better than what I found it and that’s our purpose as missionaries. I love the people here, just like every other area.

Remember the kid that we taught, Nauel, the grandson of a member... he’s getting baptized next week! So cool, huh? I told you I would keep you updated. There you have it... It’s so awesome, all over the world, every Saturday thousands of people are coming to the fold of God once again. How cool is that? I challenge you all to look for someone you can bring to the fold.... do it!

It’s been a good week. We had 10 investigators in church and a couple of inactive members who came. I love it. It’s been awesome...

I hope all is well at home and you can feel of the love of our Savior. I pray for that daily and that we can all work as a team to get where we truly desire to be and that we can help others to do the same. Our little part goes a long way, so keep working, keep searching for those who need you and the Lord and we will be rewarded...

I love you all!! Until next week! Love, Ash!