Now in Uruguay

How am I supposed to organize all these wonderful thoughts into one coherent email???  There has been so much happening recently!!!!!!!!!  So much that I haven [t even been able to write them in my journal!! that makes me a bit sad but, oh well.  So, how crazy it has been :) I got to Uruguay early in the morning, beautiful day.  We flew over the dirty dirty Rio del plata, it was almost black! anyways, the flight was short and painless, when we landed, we as in all the missionaries going to Montevideo mission, we all went through the little check stands where they checked our passports and such, we hustled over to where our luggage was and thankfully, God watched over every single on of us.  I was a little scared because they miss-spelled my name on my boarding pass and luggage receipt, but I was able to get it all through.  :) You guys are going to think I[m supperpppppererrrrrrr crazy, but when we landed, everyone called their family. . . . . I had been told SPECIFICALY by President Openshaw not to call home until mother’s day.  That was really really hard to be obedient.  I didn’t [t go around telling everyone not to, cause hey, they can sin in ignorance right?? Didn’t [t want to ruin it for them..... But I couldn't bring myself to disobey... I decided to serve a mission and committed to my Heavenly Father that I would obey, so.... sorry. Ha-ha :)  Mother’s day it is.  :)  We finally got through security and found a WHOLE heard of people were outside the airport, we all began looking for our "missionaries” sign or our mission president and finally, we saw president and about six other missionaries waiting just past the red tape barrier.  We walked a ways away from the crud and then gave hugs and intros and the whole shebang.  :) The six missionaries were all assistance to the pres or had a calling that involved working in the mission home for a couple hours in the morning.  They helped us load our stuff onto a charter buss and we were off, president talked with the driver a bit and then we were shipped off :) ha-ha we had about a 10 - 30 minute drive to the mission home where we unloaded our luggage onto the drive way and kicked back for a bit.  ... .. . . ...... the mission home is right next to the temple. By the way, it is like Mormon square. < :) they have the mission home, the temple, a church, and the LDS distribution center, and a LDS hotel for people who go to the temple.  Because there is only one temple in Uruguay, they built the hotel too.  :) ....... .. .. ..  We waited for one of the assistance to show up and when he did, we all sat down to eat :) man was I glad! :) ha-ha I hand[t eaten very well, we had a good meal and then we entered the mission home.... man ..... how long it had been since seeing something so ,..... United States like. :) I mean, there was actually plush carpet and air conditioning!!! Ha-ha. :) We went into the living room and set up some fold up chairs for everyone, we had a quick intro for every missionary, president was conducting the meeting.  President gave a quick address about his expectations of us and the mission rules.  He then grabbed one missionary and started his interviews. :) So far, he seems pretty cool, reminds me allot of pres Johnson. :) Anyways. We continued with the gotta go

01/18/13

Alright.

;)

So here in the ccm. I am enjoying every second of it... except when I want to pull my companion’s head off.  ;) That makes things a little hard.  So the food is so far pretty much the same as back home. Just much more bread, therefore, more fat.  ;) I am getting some roles, no fun but I will work them off. I have been working out every night and my abs hurt so bad every day because I work them like crazy, still too much skin and fat over my stomach to show the 8 pack I know to be under there. ;)  

I hope you guys have enjoyed the pictures, they are so much fun!  The people here are so amazing and I can’t tell you how much I am going to miss my cam president.  He has truly become a family member to me.  I don’t know what this next week is going to be like saying good bye to him, it’ll be like the airport allover again!  He is so stinkin learned in the scriptures and I love every second I spend with him because he makes me want to be a better missionary, son, father, and most importantly... a strong priesthood holder.  He has such a strong testimony and he answers my questions with such perfect scriptures and elaborates just enough for me to find the answer.  

I have had so many spiritual experiences here!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ill shares a short one really quick.  First off this is in "IP" so this is a teacher who is acting like an investigator (the teacher acting has actually taught this investigator in real life so they know how to best play the part) but with that being said, it can be sometimes difficult to have the spirit guide a made up lesson.  But I have witnessed the Holy Spirit’s testifying power and been a tool in the lord’s hand.  I brought tears to Hermana (Hmn.) ferrera when I taught her about baptism.  Before I could even ask her if she would like to be baptized, she looked at me with tear filled eyes and asked ME if I could baptize her TOMMORROW!! She said she felt the spirit so strongly that she couldn’t hold back the tears or the urge to ask.  I have truly fallen in love with the Holy Ghost.  He is so loving and powerful... I have a member of the GODHEAD by my side every time I need him... I may be far away from my family, but I have the Holy Ghost and when my family does too, I have the teaching power of God himself.

Living conditions, Well.... I have been appointed (assigned) room coordinator, basically baby sitter of a bunch of 20 year olds who don’t speak any English. ;) Little difficult but I do like the authority.  Anyways, I am learning so well how to lead from both ends of the spectrum.  One from being the one holding the power and teaching other missionaries how to do things correctly, and the other is being the one without authority teaching the teacher how to teach.  Sounds like I am being power hungry huh?? ;) I am not.  But I have TRUELY been grateful for the positions I have been placed in thus far, (junior companion and not district leader) because being the one that teaches is so wonderful!  I have seen my first companion grow so much in his leadership skills.  When we first met, for the first like 2 days he wasn’t even able to pick who to say the companionship prayers... he had never held a position of responsibility before, never been the man of the house when his father was away, so this was hard for him.  I was able to teach him allot about leading not by leading him.  But by helping he led. There we go.  That is how I want to put it.  ;) I helped him see how great of a leader he could be.  He has thanked me for that specifically now because he has a senior Latino comp now.  His comp has the same problem!! therefore, everything elder Dallin (My old comp) learned while he was my comp, he now uses to teach another missionary.  I love how that works, the domino effect. ;)

Funny stories, hmmm... lets see. There are lots of funny things I do with the Latinos. ;) I have been lucky enough the past few weeks to have a Latino friend here all the time who would teach me slang and jokes and such in Spanish.  It was really hard to learn, but now I am grateful for it because I am the only gringo in my room!!!! I have a bunch of Latinos gabbing back and forth and I am able to UNDERSTAND allot of what they are saying and contribute to their conversations!! It is so beautiful to really start getting a hold on the language, amazing that I can now follow the idea of almost any conversation because I know most all of the tenses and a large majority of the language.  Now I just pick out the stuff I don’t know and learn it.  ;) It is fun and supper challenging.  Reminds me of calculus.  Except in calc you had a teacher explain it to you in English.  This is in Spanish, so in this analogy, it would be like trying to teach someone calculus with more calculus.... ha-ha.  ;) make any since?  Really hard but oh how I love the Spanish.  It is such a blessing that I have been called to this mission. So humbling.

The weather, wow. It is hot every day here. The sun beats down on me and I am getting a killer garment tan. ;) Ha-ha kind of proud of that one... it rains everyone and a while here.  ___ It was POORING rain when I flew into Argentina!!!! I don’t remember if I told you that or not!!! We had to circle the airport for a good 10 minutes before landing.  It was so cool.  ;) Crazy entering a country where EVERYTHING is in Spanish. We had to fend for ourselves till we finally got through security and made it to the "Elders" sign being held by a bus driver.  ;) Between the buses to the door of the ccm, I drenched my suit!!!!!!  Ha-ha.  I will have to continue this letter later today with legit paper cause I Gotta go.  Love you all!!!

I got your package!!!!!! How blessed and spoiled I am!!!!  I got two letters from my momma and one from the Rices, two dear elders from my dad.  ;) Thanks so much :) pray and thank god for blessing us with that, the package was water damaged and they tried their hardest to get inside that box without cutting or disturbing the pictures, ha-ha.  Finally I got it. ;) haven’t gotten to read the letters yet because I didn’t want to miss my email time.

I will email for 10 minutes or so Monday... my p days are going to change to Mondays so I get to email you before I leave the ccm ;)

Love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jan 2012

The food..... Has it´s days. ;) haha but there are some great cooks here and i love them to death!! haha.

the food is very americanized, but we get some wird stuff some times, even the americanized stuff is odd, like chicken, they don´t gut it before cooking, so it isn´t odd to get some extras on your plate.  ;) not bad for me, but the hermanas and some of the elders like refuse to eat it when a chicken heart flopps out, more food for me.  ;)

Warm hot and humid.  I sweat like a mad dog when we play socker.  i am getting REALLY good at futball. but it is still way stinking hot here.  ;) more muggy than anything so you sweat alot.

Best friends,.... really want me to pick one ouT!! well, most all the latino´s end up being my best freidn.. haha but they come and go so quickly.

oh my, sunsets are amazing here.  almost just like home.  Minus the beautiful mingus mountain in the foreground.  ;)

I will transfer to Uruguay the 22 of this month.  I get a latino in a few days and then life turns into a strict spanish speaking rule, ;)

I got a package from Grandma Nelda and Richard with home made cookies and my favorite, a picture of them ;)  I also got the DEar elder christmas package from you guys.  The other one, that you just put stuff in is still stuck in costoms... Hermana openshaw is trying her darndest to get it for me, but pray.  Please don´t tell me what is inside it... if she can´t get it through customs, i´d rather not know what was in it.