Dec. 9, 2013

Dear Pops,

Yeah I'm still sticking around here in montevideo, being district leader is driving me insane lately, there's a couple elders that aren't getting along in my district and it's killing the spirit and killing everyone's morale. I am tired. But I still enjoy the peace that comes from putting in a lot of effort I guess. But sometimes that's just not enough. As I've said before, sometimes I really hate agency.

In other news, yeah I'm also starting to go a little crazy just from lack of change, but it's not too bad, just enough to make things interesting.

I thank you all for your prayers and stuff, sorry for the lack of news, I seriously have no clue what to put today. All I did all week was try to learn to rebuke with sharpness, a somewhat new skill for me. Gotta be done though. I learned a lot about the purpose of missionaries in the plan of salvation, reading in jacob 5 and a talk by alvin r. dyer called For what purpose. It is pretty good. It inspires me and I try to shake off discouragement. I also enjoyed a lot of promises made to those who are in the work of the Lord in DyC. I've been studying it a lot lately. I really like the one in DyC 84:80.

Take care, love you a ton

Andy

Dec. 2, 2013

I feel out of touch, haha. Are you telling me I'm gonna have three married cousins when I get home...? Who is in charge of all this nonsense. I specifically told Kate to not get engaged a mere two weeks ago. Kids these days...

Yeah, we're having changes the week before Christmas, so that's gonna be really tough to coordinate the call, but we'll be able to do it, cause about half the mission will have the same problem, so there will be a solution.

We had a mixed emotions week. We had to work really hard for Alexis to get baptized, he's an awesome guy. He needed a special interview, and for some reason, the president assigned one of the senior missionaries who doesn't speak spanish to do the interview. This guy is about 75, served in Missouri however many years ago, and totally filled with the spirit. When the moment arrived for the interview, he asked me to come in and translate and proceeded to do the entire interview in spanish. I was starstruck. Or dumbstruck. But yeah, it wasn't super super great spanish, but he only asked for help like 5 times. It was a miracle. Really cool.

Yeah, they love christmas here, but it's not the same. It's a lot louder. It kinda makes me trunky. I miss quiet peaceful christmas with the family.

I love you guys a bunch, and am equally excited to see you on Christmas!

Andy

Nov. 25, 2013

Dear Dad,

Well, our people are having a rough time, living here in montevideo, it's hard for them to find time to receive us. The old lady brenda fell sick and couldn't make it to church on Sunday, but our boy Alexis made it to church after a birthday party on saturday night, no small feat in uruguay. They take birthdays really seriously, all birthday parties last at least eight hours, so when adults are involved and they have to start after work, they're up till like six in the morning. Alexis is a champ. He's getting baptized on Saturday.

I thought it was really interesting what you said about my spiritual gifts, because lately I feel like I've become psychic. I am a flippin mindbender. The other day we met a kid on the street and were teaching him a bit, and suddenly the spirit inserted a bit of knowledge in my mind, and suddenly I just asked him, "Who died in your family?" This kid was stunned, but he said his brother died, so we taught him about the plan of salvation. The mission has really been good for my psychic gifts, gracias a Dios.

I am really hungry just thinking about thanksgiving. Enough said.

Basically I'm just marching along, evrything is going fine. 

Love you all, enjoy your turkey, lest you someday find your self in a country where they don't eat it.

çAndy