Rivera Uruguay - December 12th 2011

Well I don't know about the States but down here, people are finally starting to get into the Christmas mood. The stores are decorated in centro and people have lights up. That's about it. It's not nearly as commercialized down here so it's not nearly as in your face as it is in the States. I recently decided that I want to play the accordion someday as well.... We're going to have an end of the year party with the ward on the 15 so that should be fun and we're having lunch with a really funny member family on Christmas and a pretty solid family for the noche buena, which is apparantly a lot! bigger down here than the actual Christmas Day. We'll see what happens i guess. :)

Well, Tuesday was Zone conference in T-bo which is what I mentioned last week so that was a lot of fun. It was a two hour bus ride to there and we left at 5 in the morning so that was nice. Or not. And then we talked a lot about Christmas spirit and Christ-like attributes and what we can to adopt them into our lives which was rather inspiring. :) Pictures of a special visit during that time will follow as well. (See below) One thing they told us that I believe can be applied to all walks of life was this. Cuando se termine su mision, que hara apredido el Señor de usted? Rough translation, when you finish your mission, what will the Lord think of you? I'd rather not be a missionary that let the Lord down, know what i mean? :D

Well, not a lot happened this week.  We went to coisa nossa, in brazil, for lunch. It's like a far less classy version of Tocanos but it was still great to have a meat buffet once again. We're allowed to go once a change as a district because it's so far out of our areas. Centro technically is, but we're allowed to come for p-day and district meeting because the ATM's are here and so are the Stake Centers, plus in order to really buy anything we have to come here. But the restaurant is like 6 blocks further into Brazil so we only get one shot a change. It was really good though. Funny story. We were in a free shop like 20 minutes ago, free shops only sell to americans and brazilians so they don't have to pay Guayan taxes, and there was this wall of tvs. 90% of them were playing this concert of these scantly clad chicks. I was glued to this wall of TVs. Because, there were two TV's right next to each other playing Lamborghini promo videos. Yea i'm an engineer. I didn't actually notice the girls until one of the other missionaries asked what the concert was. I was like, what concert?? I'm looking at these precision designed works of sheer beauty! It was pretty funny.,... I guess you had to be there though

So Josè absconded for like a week. Then we finally found him again. Turns out his aunt is in critical condition at the hospital and his mom and he are her only family. Which means he's missed two Sundays in a row so we had to bump his baptisimal date to the 7th of January. Then, we contacted Yonathan out of the area book and he let us right in and we taught a pretty good lesson. He already had a Book of Mormon which means the missionaries taught him at some time or another and then I extended the baptisimal commitment for 7th of January and he said yea, i can do that. He's already been to church a few times and so we went to find him on Sunday morning and he was gone playing soccer. Soccer on Sundays is something we've really been fighthing with lately but hopefully we can get through all this. Matias still meets with us and his eliminations are over so hopefully we can get him to church as well. We'll see what happens this week.


My turn to share a scripture. D&C 8:1.
Oliver Cowdery, verily, verily, I say unto you, that assuredly as the Lord liveth, who is your God and your Redeemer, even so surely shall you receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall cask in faith, with an honest heart, believing that you shall receive a knowledge concerning the engravings of old records, which are ancient, which contain those parts of my scripture of which has been spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit.

I love that without faith, we can do nothing. I love dearly reading from the scriptures everyday and I've been studying out of the New Testament and conference issue of the liahona everyday in my spare time. It's so nice to know that I can turn to the words of the prophets an anytime and know the will of the Lord for me.


I don't know if i've told you yet, but they have all the new missionaries bear their testimonies in their first zone conference so i went up and bore mine. It has to be in spanish of course, but i think it went well. Really though, I just want to share a tidbit with you both. I'm very thankful for the opportunity we have to kneel with our investigators at the end of every lesson. As knew as these people are to the gospel and teachings of jesus Christ, when they open their mouths to talk to him, the spirit of the lord fills the room. It's a wonderful thing to feel and an absolute blessing. God is there when these people open their mouths to speak to him. This truly is the Lord's work, I can tell you that much.

Well, that's all for now. Love from the 'guay,

Elder Simpson

Rivera Uruguay - December 5th 2011

Hola from the 'guay!

I wake up every day at 6:30 and start working out, after prayers of course. I then hop in the shower, because the water is really hot and really cold off and on so you have to hop....or something like that. After getting ready, I cook breakfast which is either oatmeal with cinnamon and sugar or rice and eggs. Or rice with cinnamon and sugar. Then we do personal study from 8 to 9 and comp study from 9 to 11 and language study from 11 to 12 and then we have lunch with a member till about 1 or 1:30 and then we get out and beat the streets. We look up old contacts, less active members, struggling members, recent converts, go tracting, teach lessons. Ya know, the usual. We do this until 8:30 unless we're in a lesson or close to home and we're home by 9. We then plan til 9:30 and if I feel up to it, I do core. If not, we eat a little more of whatever, prep for bed, write in journals. Sack out at 10:30. Wake up, repeat. That's my life. Don't worry. I'm getting enough to eat. We do some manner of service every week or so.

We have not been able to meet with Nikolas since and America's daughter who lives next door wouldn't let us talk to her mother because "she's evangelical and doesn't wanna hear your message". Funny, she told us to come back when we were teaching her... Oh well.... We found a few new investigators this last week so we'll see what happens. Josè stands out because he pretty much came up to us at church and said he wanted to be baptized  So, we made the hour and 20 minute walk to his house to talk with him on Wednesday and he was super receptive and we said we'd come back for another lesson on Sunday, we'd see him at church and we commited him to be baptized the 17th of December. Well... He didn't show up to church. And then he wasn't home when we went for our lesson. So we contacted around the area and came back and hour later. And still no one was home. So we trekked the hour and 20 minutes back to another lesson. Rather nice, huh? Whaddaya do? I just hope we can get in touch with him again and get him rollin on the right path. I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday.

We have Zone Conference in Tacuarembò tomorrow which means I will not be getting the mail bolsa. That means, no mail or packages, in or out for all of this week. I started reading the new testament. I'm reading it in my spare time. It's rather nice. I've got a thumb in all the standard works now hahha I love the scriptures. Tell everyone sorry about the wait on mail. Next week!  My spanish is getting better. I understand a lot now and speaking gets a little bit easier every time. I still can't speak nearly as well as i'd like to but I know it'll come.

We call this place The Shire because everyone is super chill, no one works, they're always drinking their matè, all a bit on the short side, love to give you water and food, throw rocks at anything that moves on 4 legs, lots of campo and a decent amount of poverty. (That was something I thought you might get a kick out of. :)

We play soccer on Saturday nights with a bunch of the local kids as a means of finding new investigators. We use the courts that are on the same property as the church and we always close with spiritual thought and sometimes place materials.

The most I feel the spirit is when we kneel in prayer with investigators! Whew that stuff lays into you and you just wanna go take a nap afterwards.

Here's a scripture for you. 2 NefI 32:9,
9  But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the cname of Christ, that he will dconsecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the ewelfare of thy soul.

We don't pray in just our trials, we need to pray to him at all times. We don't do a thing without talking to our Father. It's not really a sugguestion. More of a way of life. Pretty boss that we've an all knowing all powerful father we can talk to at anytime, right?

One more scripture reference. Alma 5:7-9 and 7:24

7 Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word; yea, they were encircled about by the bands of death, and the chains of hell, and an everlasting destruction did await them.

 8 And now I ask of you, my brethren, were they destroyed? Behold, I say unto you, Nay, they were not.

 9 And again I ask, were the bands of death broken, and the chains of hell which encircled them about, were they loosed? I say unto you, Yea, they were loosed, and their souls did expand, and they did sing redeeming love. And I say unto you that they are saved.

and
Alma 7:24
 24 And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.


First off, might I say I love the wording of the book of mormon?  There are so many passages where the word choice is wonderful! Other than that, this is what God can do for us. I love it.

These pics are from today. We were trying to find the other elders house and ended up finding this hand.  Until next week

Chau!
 Elder Simpson