7-28-14

What a treat to sit down and read all the wonderful things that are going on with my family!!! I love it so stinking much!!! :)  I loved every bit of the farewells!  Can’t wait to see Logan 2.0 and Braden 2.0 ;) ha-ha.  Not too far off.  I had forgotten that Logan Kitch went Spanish speaking!  That will be nice.  Ha-ha. There are lots of differences between the Spanish here and there, so we will get some good laughs.  The name Logan is actually popular here in my area.  :)  I have two little babies in my Branch named Logan... man... I miss playing with babies. Ha-ha. They love me and I sure do love them!!  

We had some amazing experiences this week.  And it has been interesting to talk with my comp about them because I have realized just how accustomed I have become to the missionary life and the miracles that happen EVERYDAY!  We had a lady the other day named Silvia Rios that we met by accident.  We went to a house we had scheduled at 3 o’clock for a young man that we had met a few days earlier and he wasn’t home, instead, Silvia came out and was quite surprised to see us both standing there at her door.  She told us that the young man wasn’t home and she started to walk back inside... Elder Torres and I started up a conversation with her before she cut off the contact.  She listed for a little wile and then I started asking simple questions to get to know her... when I did, she opened up to some of her most intimate feelings!!! She started to cry as she told us about the problems she has had in her life, with her husband beating her and leaving her, her desires to overdose, and all sorts of things.  It was a normal contact for ME!!!! I have had some of the same circumstances before and knew how to react, I helped her realize she needed help and helped her find the answers to her own questions and we began to teach the Plan of Salvation.  After the contact was over and we had set up a return time, Elder Torres asked me, "Is that normal??"  I didn’t know what he was talking about and so he expounded, "Do people normally just open up their deepest darkest wounds to us even though we are complete strangers??"  ... it made me think and realize just how amazing it is that we are in such a unique position!  What a wonderful calling that we have as missionaries and as members!!! :)

I thought a lot about Chelsea this week when we went to lunch with a man named Hermes Rodriguez.  He lives in an old folk’s home and that is where we went for lunch.  It was quite interesting. :) Ha-ha.  Seeing the life they life and seeing the way the care takers have to take care of them.  It made me think a lot about Chelsea and all the experiences she has had helping the elderly.  A special bond that Chelsea has with them. :)

Hey, could you do me a favor?  I want to share a quote from Kong-fu panda that goes something like this, "The past is over, the future is uncontrollable, but the present is our decision... that’s why it is called the present."  (Could be far off, but it was a play on words with Present) could you look it up??  I want to share it with the district.

Love you all!!! :)

Elder Reay

07-21-14

 This is me and elder Torres (My Oro)

Me with the elders in my house. :) Elder Pin and elder Mitchel

 

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Wow!  I love this change!!! haha. :)  Things are going great here in my new area, elder Torres and I are SUPER excited!   He is an oro and has absolutely NO fear of sharing the Gospel.  It is so nice because I was just kind of drowning in my last area with so many difficulties of missionaries that did {t seem to WANT to be on a mission.  I showed up here in Florida and found myself in what I pictured as the Perfect mission.  We are all determined to be exactly obedient and work as absolutely hard as possible!  Ha-ha.  Elder Torres is from Ecuador and he is so ready to work.  He is a convert of 7 years and is the only member of his family.  He has a rock solid testimony and a great knowledge of the scriptures.  He has enough strength to leave on the mission even though his family is NOT supportive, he prepared for his mission by confiding in his bishop.  I am super excited to work with him. :)  Training is going well; I am teaching a lot myself to be honest. :)  Ha-ha. I am living with one of the elders that lived with me in the CCM, elder Mitchel.  He has one change more than I do, left the ccm when I had three weeks.  I am loving it here and love my area, Asamblea is full of converts and great SOLID members.  Florida is the second District I have been in, out of the TWO that are within our mission boundaries.  We are trying with everything we have to make Florida a Stake and get the progress we need.  I will tell you more about the converts and investigators next week when I can get to know them better.  I have thoroughly enjoyed these past few days seeing that Elder mitchel served in one of my areas and elder Pin served in two of my areas (Including my area de oro.) and we have all be telling stories all day about what was happening when we were serving there.  I love reliving missionary stories!!! It is amazing.  I imagine that is what it will be like when our mission gets back together for a mission reunion or when I get back together with one of my comps or someone from my group.  :)  I love this work and I love the Branch I am in.  Thank you all for your love and support.

Will fill you in more next week.

Love and hugs!!! Besos! jaja, como un buen uruguayo... ellos saludan con el beso!!! jaja

Elder Reay

07-15-14

Elder Brown and I on our hike to Sergio´s house.

Sergio´s house.

Made it to the ranch, Monica (Member) came with us to "Rescue" Sergio, our less active Ward Mission Leader that lives 14km out of town.

Peek-a-boo!  :) We see YOU! :)

 

These are the elders I have lived with.  Elder COrdova is packing up to go back to Peru... he has finished his time as a full-time missionary.

This is the church i have been attending for 4 months.  :)  In the corner of Lavalleja and Ramirez. :) haha.  Looks really big, but it is quite small inside.

Well, changes have come and gone once again... I am being transferred to a new area!!! And the best news is... I WILL BE TRAINING A NEW MISSIONARY!!! I couldn’t be more excited!  I have to catch a bus tomorrow morning at three thirty to get to carrasco.  I still don’t know who my oro will be but will find out tomorrow!!! :) Ha-ha.  We are going to be assigned to an area called Asamblea, Florida.  Ha-ha.  We will be doing a "White-Wash" where we are going to have to figure out the area by ourselves... normally when one gets transferred, the other comp stays to help the person that goes in... But I know nothing about Florida and my new comp hardly knows anything about the mission!!! Ha-ha so it is called a white-wash.  I am super excited.

It sure is hard to leave this ward though.... Rocha is one of the areas that have given me lots of love and I have learned so much here.  I hope to visit here before heading home... I am going to try and plan it out so that elder Parker and I can go to Las Piedras and then here to Rocha to visit our converts before they ship us off in November. :)  

I enjoyed the walk we took to Sergio´s farm way out yander.  He has gone inactive this last change because it is always really hard for him to see missionaries leave... he gets really attached to us because he is working so closely with us.  He is our Ward Mission Leader and always (used to always) accompany us to charlas.  We decided that we wanted to show him our love for him and surprise him, so we planed a day with Monica and walked the long 7 km there and surprised the heck out of him!!! Ha-ha.  When we finally got to his ranch, he was in the barn milking the cows and he could see us walking up his muddy road... he second guessed himself numerous times before finally calling us to see if it really was US walking up his road.  He told us not to continue because his dad was home and he is SUPER anti-mrmon.  I really didn´care... even though I probably should have. Ha-ha. :)  So we walked right up to his fence and waved him out of the barn. :)  Sergio came running out of the barn in his poop covered sweater and sweats, with the BIGGEST SMILE on his face... I have NEVER seen him so happy.  He felt our love and explained to us that it was IMPOSSIBLE to accept us into the house because if his father saw us, he’d likely pull out the gun. Ha-ha. JK.  So we told him why we had walked all the way out there and then told him to meet up with us when he finished with his daily chores.  We walked the 7 km back into town and back to Monica´s house, there we had a charla with Sergio after a little wait.  He still didn’t make it to church on sudsy but that was because he didn’t have any means of transportation.  ;)  We are blessed to have such great members in this Branch.

We also had a great baptism in the District this week.  His name is Fabricio.  He is ten years old and his father who is a less active, has not allowed him to be baptized for two  years.  The missionaries in his area continued to work on the father for these two years and this week, his father signed the baptismal papers!!!!  Fabricio was so stinking happy!!! It is amazing.  Wish I could tell you more. :)

Love,

Elder Reay

Off to Asamblea Florida!!!! vamos arriba!!!

07-01-14

You think that elder Judkins is STILL going to be in cottonwood when I get home?!! Ha-ha.  Mom... slows down the watch :) Hashanah.  I’ve still got FIVE WHOLE MONTHS! ;)  You make me laugh so hard. :)  Ha-ha Man I miss you. :)

I am glad things are going well back home. :) Ha-ha. I have been working like crazy this week. :)  Lots of stuff that needed planning and seemed like it was all planed by me. :)  But all ended well, except for a mini Hic-up yesterday when the hermanas from La Paloma came to our church building to have a baptism.  They got here and we had the interview and her family showed up and the hermanas were so excited because they haven’t had a baptism in over 5 months... and then the father touches the cold water in the font and calls the baptism off.  I totally understood the father’s position, the water was absolutely freezing, but the hermanas were so frantic and despite to have a baptism this month that they were ready to FIGHT! Ha-ha.  I love their desires to serve the Lord, but it ended up with a heated conversation that had to be interrupted by me, trying to solve both problems, getting a worried father to accept the plan of moving the baptism to the next week while at the same time calming down the Hermana so that she could feel at peace about the decision. Ha-ha. :)  All ended well and the father accepted the new baptismal date for next week, in the mean time we will be buying new gas tanks for the hot water heater. :)  Ha-ha.  funny how experiences like that have now become second nature to me, it is now "Normal" and lots of times, I forget to write about stuff like that on P-day.  The missionary life is now the Logan life and I love it. :)  It is now normal to have spiritual highs everyday, with investigators breaking through hard tasks or missionaries in my district meeting a goal that seems impossible to start with. Ha-ha.  Sorry if I don’t mention those things in my email... ill have to work on that. :)

For example.  Today is pay and when we went to the cyber to do Email, I almost never begin writing emails right off the bat, today I was preparing some spiritual messages for the district and putting together the zone newsletter.  I also wrote up a Dialog of a Prayer between a young boy and God.  Trying to get the focus on LISTENING when we pray, it turned out really well, I had part of it clipped out of an old magazine or something, and just edited it and changed it to make it interesting and funny.  Trying to get my point across.  :)  Ill send it to you but you have to translate it... maybe one of the elders that speaks Spanish can read it for you. :)

Things are going well in the companionship, elder Brown and I are finding our grove and he is learning a TON.  Both President and I are amazed at the progress he has made thus far in the change.  He went from a very shy elder that really didn’t know how to share his testimony to an elder that can take a difficult teaching situation and teach a POWERFUL and testimony built lesson. :)  It has been amazing to watch his progress. :)

I love this work and I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to work in it. :)  There is nothing better than seeing a son or daughter of God repent and see a change in their own life! Alma 29:9

I love you all,

Elder Reay