May 12, 2014

Hello.

It was really great to be able to talk to you guys last night, quite excellent. It's just kind of weird now. Now I'm really on the home stretch, I've recently started to sprint, haha. Soooo we have three baptisms this week. It's pretty awesome. The ward here is doing relatively good, starting to have activities on a regular basis, and god is blessing them with baptisms. It's nice to be an instrument. These are some really special people, and they represent real progress. We've got a twenty one year old who has family problems and wants to maybe serve a mission, future leader. We've got the 11 year old son of an inactive high priest who has been to church a month in a row now. We also have a lady who is getting married this week and then baptized on saturday. It's nice to think about this, because it represents real growth. We're actually helping out the ward and it feels good.

So when does school end over there again? What are your summer plans? I guess I don't have to much to say... I love you guys, be good

Andy

May 19, 2014

Yeah poor jake, he told me. I hope he gets back out soon, that's gotta be pretty tough.

But in other news,This happened. It was pretty awesome. We had kind of a crazy week. I have officially never been as mentally drained as I am right now. Me and elder Schill made a goal to step up our game and literally try to talk with every person we saw. This led to some crazy situations, but wow. I don't think I've ever felt more like an instrument of the Lord as I did last week. It was nothing short of miraculous. It helped us a lot to recognize the spirit and act on it. By the end of the week we had realized that god was putting all the people he wanted us to teach directly in our path, and many times they were doing awkward stuff. Like fixing power lines on the top of a ladder. Or taking a smoke break during their job from the pizzeria, but we talked to them, and we saw a bunch of miracles. And then the three baptisms and the end of the week was really rewarding. We had a lot of divine help with that.

But wow, I feel really good spiritually. My faith has been boosted a lot.

Kate just got married out of nowhere, that was a little scary. Paul looks like he has paul bunyan's disease in that picture. I hope you all have fun at the reunion, send my love to everyone.

Love,

Andy

May 5, 2014

Dear Dad and Bekah,

So important stuff first, the call is this sunday at 5:30 uruguayo time. I'll let you figure that out in oklahoma time. 

Also, it's pretty exciting to have the fourth generation of pyper in the little olympics. We're bringing in a lot of jewlery, haha, I wish you the best of luck Bekah in the 800. It's an exciting race.

Hoo hoo, the missionary work is great in this area. There are so many people and we have all the blessings of hard work, obedience and focus. It has been sweet. We should have three baptisms the week after next, if I didn't ruin one of them just now by cancelling a game of soccer with one of our investigators. He sounded kind of bummed... But yeah, I feel awesome. Even more tired than before, but success is starting to flow. Yeah I'm still a zone leader here luckily, I thought they might kick me out after the fiasco last change, but they still trust me apparently. They kind of killed my last companion though, they sent a crazy byu football player to live with him. 

But yes, we also accidentally fasted two times in three days last week. Turns out, that´s a bad idea. I was pretty dang fatigued afterward.

It's gettin a little cool here in uruguay. It's gonna be a weird shock to go from the middle of winter to hundred and five summer in august. Also, here's a picture of our entire mission at the christmas conference. It's like a where's waldo game. 

I'm a little scared, it keeps hitting me unexpectedly how little time there is left. But good thing we're working hard and taking advantage of the time we have left. 

Allright, love you guys, see you on sunday!

Andy

April 28, 2014

Dear Dad,

Ok, so this week was really the first time I've ever seen a picture of Ellie and Bekah next to somebody who I know how tall they are. Ellie is almost the same as Rachel? Is she taller than mom? And Bekah grew like a foot too, as far as I can tell. El tiempo no para. 

So here's the story of last change that I could never tell you because my companion spoke english perfectly. It was a really hard change because he was pretty disobedient. It kind of destroyed our zone and broke my heart, but now I've fled the scene. I'm here with my new companion Elder Schill, who is super awesome. We have worked really hard, it's been super good. Maldonado is a pretty big city too, so there's a lot of people here. I'm excited, it has a loooot of potential. We've already seen some good miracles as we worked hard. I got sick again this week, a pretty nasty cold. I went out to work every day anyway, I just carried around my british flag handkerchief that elder phillips gave me. It was pretty gross, I don't really like handkerchiefs, haha. But it's like I said, I think my body is just shutting down.

The conference talk about bobsledding/skeleton has been on my mind a lot. It talked about how they prepared so hard and when it came down to it, they were on the track only minutes, and that is what mattered. It made me think about two things, life, and the mission. I was able to imagine really vividly how much preparation we did to come to this world and live our lives. We knew we had to live the gospel and bring back as many brothers and sisters as we could. And now we're on the track, zooming along at 90 miles an hour. I've seen before that a human life measured in god's time is like under an hour. I remember that 2 years was like 4 minutes or something, just very few minutes. But it's really important. We were waiting a long time to come here, and we don't have time to waste. So there are my thoughts on that, trying to keep it simple, haha.

Anyway, I love you guys, thanks for the support, I wish you all the luck I can with the busy spring schedule.

Love,

Andy

April 21, 2014

All right, here's the scoop

I'm not in my new area yet actually, I'm leaving tomorrow morning. It's maldonado, a really big city right on the coast. It's one of the hottest vacation spots in south america. I don't know if you guys ever saw that picture of a beach with a gigantic hand sprouting out of the sand, but that's in my new area. My new companion is named Elder Schill, I already know him. He lived with me here in florida and I love him to death. I am so excited for the next change, haha. My companion is an unreally hard worker. It's so cool. He's coming into play at a critical point in my mission. And plus, we both like to fight the power, so we're going to be rogue baptizers, probably. By that, I mean my whole mission everybody has been kind of ill with baptism fever. I think it's the main problem with the church down here. The converts haven't been real for a long time. We're trying to fix it, haha. My last change was pretty dramatic, I'll have to write and tell you about that next week, for reasons which will be known unto you next week.

So, at least I'm comforted now, because I'm pretty sure Ellie and Bekah cannot grown anymore before I get home. holy cow, they are big. They couldn't even touch the ground on that swing before! Is Ellie taller than mom?

I'm feeling you on the long trip there. It's a pretty long trip, but I'm pretty calm about the end. I've got a good chunk of time left, somewhat. But I have a good mindset. I don't usually think about it anymore, but the end is always right there. I think I'm still on an upward arc here.

Easter in uruguay. They have this tradition in all of south america, the holy week. I think they don't eat meat like all week or something, even the mormons, haha. I forgot to pay attention at lunch this week to figure it out. Oh well. But yeah, as far as south american countries go, and I think I've said it before, uruguay is one of the countries farthest away from christian values. But that being said, the whole country watches passion of the christ every easter. It's a good talking point in contacts. It sends some people into shock who are watching it for the first time. They didn't realize that people were so brutal with jesus. It's sad. But it's not like the phillipines or anything where they nail themselves to crosses.

Thanks for telling me to keep working hard, it's good advice. I love you guys, have a good one.

Andy

 Show message history

April 14, 2014

Dear Dad,
Well...

How long have you been in Texas? I imagine you're probably lonely out there anyway, regardless of how long it's been, being away from family is not fun. Are you getting to fly those big old planes yet? How much longer are you gonna be gone from home?

Well yeah, so our week was a little better, it's been kind of a weird challenge this change. The Lord had some interesting situations in store for me. We've got the changes coming up this week, the assistants already told me I'm leaving, so I have to deal with that this week, haha. Putting in the extra mile when I know it will make no difference in my life cause I'm leaving anyway. So I'll write you on tuesday and tell you where I'm going. I'm getting pretty tired. I think I said it before, but it's kind of astonishing. I heard someone this week tell me that missionaries in walking missions walk two and a half times around the world in their mission. I don't know if that's true, but I wouldn't be surprised. My legs are far from fresh, haha. I have flippin huge muscles on the front of my shins from lifting my toes up with every step I take, and the rest of my legs have melted away. Pray me some strength, I'm kind of doubting my body will make it through, haha.

I love you guys, maybe I didn't tell you enough when I was still home, but you were really fantastic parents. Thanks for putting me on the right path and keeping me there until I finally was converted enough to stay there myself. I can't wait to see you guys, I have reserved a little time to be trunky every morning, when we sing our companionship hymn, every day we sing one number less as a countdown. We are gonna be on hymn 135 tomorrow. Also I am starting to read a section of doctrine and covenants every day. Tomorrow I read 4. So yeah. I miss you all, what can I say?

Love you un montòn!

Andy

April 7, 2014

Dear Dad,

Haha it made me laugh to think of halmoni trying to get me something vitamin c and ecinachea, because there is no way they have ecinachea down here. I didn't have the heart to tell her. When it comes to vitamins and over the counter medicine, about as advanced as they get are these things called piedras de azufre (roughly translated, stones of brimstone) You roll them on your body and they suck the pain out, and they may or may not be black magic.

Conference was so great, the only negative thing about it was thinking that at next conference I will no longer be a missionary. I did something drastic last week, because my companion is from my group, you know so it's really hard not to get trunky because all the time I'm just thinking, "This guy came to the mission with me. That was a long time ago. We're going home together. That's not too far in the future." Anyway, so we did an emergency intercambio and I went with the youngest missionary in the mission and officially swore off trunkiness. We worked like crazy that day, with many fruits. We got like 4 people to come to general conference. It made me realize I don't want to die a Zone Leader. It's so much easier to focus when you have a younger companion. I want to die training. I'm gonna see what I can do about that.

Also, conference itself was astounding. I felt a great sense of urgency. There's not time left to mess around in the gospel. They spoke quite frankly. I liked it a lot. They gave a lot of advice for people who suffer persecution while they live the gospel... scares me. Seems like we'll be getting to that point soon. Oh well. The gospel is true. Christ has the words of eternal life. Where else will we go? What else can we do? We can only serve. It's the only thing that will matter eternally. May we always be found doing the work of the Lord.

Love you guys, see you in 5 months!

Andy

 Show message history

March 31, 2014

Dear Dad and Bekah,

Well, I'm very impressed. You're well on your way to the backflip record, Bekah. It's seven. It's gonna be an exciting summer. When do you guys start school? Are you gonna be in school when I come home? Thanks for all the news and compliments. I am happy to also have the three best sisters ever. I'm excited to see you guys soon!

It was a good week. We had interviews with the president, which was cool. The assistants called and told us to buy lunch for the whole zone and president and his wife and that they would reimburse it. So we took a quick jaunt to burger king and ordered 22 combos. Haha it was pretty awesome. And then the interview was excellent, I got to know presidents wife really well because I was helping her talk to the latino missionaries all day while president was doing interviews. They really are amazing people, and the instant they came to the mission we could feel their love. It made a lot of difference. But I talked with president a lot about the direction the mission is going in, it was really interesting to hear his insight on things, remind me to tell you guys someday.

One of the best people I ever taught got baptized two days ago. Elder Phillips and I taught her for three months and three weeks after we split she finally got baptized! It was a good feeling and it reminded me of what is really important. I had become a little worried about goals and numbers and such, but watching somebody make a covenant reminded me what it's all about. It's a really good feeling.

So there's my week. Have a good one chitlins, I love you a ton.

Love,

Elder Pyper

 Show message history