Week 15

Trace was only able to send out a quick email before the Internet crashed at the cafe he was at, so there was no group email. Some special people may have received an individual one. Anyways, we will post his family one here. He said he will send pics next week. A couple things he said in his Skype session with us is that they were having a rainstorm on Christmas so when they came home from church, their house was flooded. They walked in without shoes and found their power strip submerged in water. They were lucky to not be electrocuted. He said he got our package right before Christmas and was most excited about the Doritos. He said the Doritos were crushed in a million pieces but it didn't matter to them.  

It was good just to see y'all! I wasn´t really sure what to say haha! But I´m glad I got to see everyone. I thought that I might be sad when it was over, but really I was just happy to see you guys! Thanks for all the money haha! When will it be in my account? 

The food you sent this last time was great! If you could send me some floss picks that would be nice cause they don't have those, and I don't like using string floss! I am going to make the brownies today! I am actually really excited to eat brownies haha! Hope y'all enjoy your day of shopping!  

This week was good! We actually got to talk to a lot of people and it was just fun to be a missionary during Christmas! We met two older men in their 70's this week. One is pretty fit, but he is missing an eye so there is a chunk of flesh in the socket that moves with the other one, and during the lessons I have to try and focus on his good eye! Haha! The other guy is super weak and has a catheter (however you spell that...a bag to pee in) It was kinda awkward to talk to him at first, but he's super nice and just super grateful to talk to members of the church, cause for years he couldn't leave his house. We gave him a hymn book for Christmas cause he loves music, but didn't have one. 

On Christmas Eve we went to a bunch of different houses and sang a hymn and at every house they gave us something to eat. The last house we ate asado! It was really great! But after that I was sick... I still am cause yesterday we ate some more...  

I'll send pics. It was awesome to see y' all! I'm glad Grandma Kappel could be there! Hope she's well! Thanks for all the pictures, the other missionaries have been nagging me to print pictures of my family haha! The box was really nice! Anytime you want to send a box you can ;)  Love y' all!

Feliz Navidad,

Elder Cole

Here is a picture that I borrowed from a Senior couple's blog who is serving in Uruguay since Trace couldn't send pictures this week. So photo credit to the Wankiers. :) Hope they are okay with that.

Week 14

This week was tough. It's super hot and humid here and I just sweat all day. It's so nice to sit and talk to people in the shade, but all this week we walked in the sun. I'm not sure what happened, but ALL of the people we planned to talk to cancelled everyday this week. So we just walked in the sun for hours trying to find someone to talk to and rest. It wasn't that we didn't work hard, we just didn't find anyone that was willing to hear us.  Physically I'm exhausted and Spiritually I'm kind of lost in where we can go from here. We had a pretty good week last week, but this week it feels like everything is against us. At first we thought we just weren't working hard enough, but I felt like we were doing all we could do. So I prayed about it and asked the Lord if he was proud of the effort we had put in this week to do His work. And I feel that my answer is yes. Even though we have absolutely nothing to show for our work, the Lord is proud of us. And so after I received this answer, I am not discouraged. This week was just a learning experience. I just hope I have learned enough, and this week will be a little easier! Haha!

I will enjoy AC and shorts so much more after my mission. Haha! Really I'm glad to be here. And its hard. And its awkward sometimes to talk about Jesus on the street in a language I can barely speak... And then I feel the Savior's love for me and for the people I have the opportunity to live with. And all the bad things in my mission don't matter - actually I love the difficult times in my mission.  I have come to love the people and country of Uruguay! Also, today I signed some legal papers and so now I am an Uruguayan for the next two years!!! 

Love y'all! Hope y'all enjoy your Christmas - it really is a great time to think about our Big Brother, Jesus Christ. Know that He loves each of you. I know it, because I have felt His love! Merry Christmas!

Love,

Elder Cole

 

 

Parts of the family email:

 

Tell everyone thanks for the support and I always keep Warden in my prayers. 

 

I am keeping a journal and it's pretty detailed. I´m glad people enjoy my blog, I know my life here isn´t super interesting haha!

 

That´s crazy! Everyone is having babies! I´m going to have to meet lots of new little kids when I get home haha!

 

The food here is pretty average... we will see what I eat for Christmas. You guys don´t need to send me anything really, I actually don´t know what I am going to buy myself for Christmas... haha! I don´t really have any hobbies right now. 

 

Love y'all but don´t worry I´m not home sick, every time I start to miss home, I take that as a reminder that I need to focus on the mission more and then I forget all about you guys ;)  Haha!

 

They say for every drop of sweat on your mission your wife is prettier too.... Good thing I'm drenched every night haha!

Love,

Elder Cole

This is my Latino Companion from last week! He's from here, but doesn't have another male in his house so he lived with us for three days after he was set apart as a missionary and before he left for the MTC. It was weird to work as a trio...

 

 

 This is from the skit we did at the Ward Christmas Dinner.

 

 

Week 13

This week was good! We had our ward Christmas dinner and it was really good! The four missionaries in our ward did a skit to music and people liked it haha! They want us to preform at the Young Women's activity this week, but I don´t know about that, this was a one time thing haha! 

There´s been a lot of like tornadoes and earthquakes here in the last few months, and it's funny cause some people act like the world is ending! Haha! This kinda stuff isn´t normal in Uruguay! 

This week I had a ton of spiritual experiences, but it's hard to explain! I have just seen God work through me and through others to spread this Gospel! I have felt the Spirit more profoundly in parts of this week than I have the rest of my mission. And I keep thinking that to myself, so I hope the amount and the power of the Spirit I can feel, keeps growing in the next two years!  It kinda makes me nervous to think about my mission as two years because I´m loving it, and I only have two years to just give everything I can to the Lord! After these two years, I´ll just be a normal guy again! Haha! But really it's super great to see the light in people´s eyes as they start to learn and accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ! It's indescribable the feelings I´ve had to see people change their lives for the better and find true joy! And it´s humbling to hear people, both members of the church and people who aren´t, pray to God with thanks for us, for the two 18 year old gringos who are sharing this incredible message! 

Love y´all! Hope you enjoy the snow, I´m enjoying the sun! Haha! Feliz Navidad! 

Love,

Elder Cole  

Parts of the family Email:

Hey Ma! I´m doing real good. I really enjoy it here. My Spanish is still terrible but people can kinda understand me now. Haha!  

This week was good! This Friday we had some really great experiences! We´ve been teaching a family and the dad hasn´t committed to baptism yet.... because we havn´t asked him. He is really skittish and we didn´t want to scare him away but we knew he was enjoying the gospel and he attends church almost every Sunday. But during our lesson he started to talk and he just opened up. He says that he wants to make the church a part of his life but he feels like because he isn´t a member, he is an outsider because he can´t participate in some things. He says it's like sitting at a table and everyone else can eat and enjoy, but he can´t, he can only watch. I was so excited when he said this because I could feel the Spirit so strongly telling me that now was the time to ask him to be baptized. And I did. And he said yes! Like most people here, he isn´t married so we have to deal with that first; but I´m just so glad he is on the path to baptism now! Its crazy, we have been too scared to invite him to be baptized, so he pretty much asked us! He told us that he wants to be a part of the church he just doesn´t know how! The Spirit was so strong! It was great! 

Then we left and we were walking to our next appointment and we decided to stop and talk to a man in the street. It was good, but not any different that usual. But we thought we needed to give this man a Book of Mormon. The problem was we only have two Book of Mormons right now and both are super old and beat up. The whole mission is out of Book of Mormons. So we felt bad offering this one. Then just as we were thinking this, a guy that neither Elder Ward nor I  have ever seen, walked up and gave a brand new Book of Mormon to our contact! And then he was gone! How in the world did some guy that we don´t know, just happened to be walking down the street with a Book of Mormon in his hand that he wanted to give away? It was crazy! 

Then that night we got a call that a sister in our ward wanted a blessing. So we stopped by, and she hasn´t been sleeping real great because she was in the house of this religious man. Here there's a religion that they sacrifice things, like fruit or a chicken every once in a while.... but its a Brazilian religion and there´s rumors that they sacrifice bigger animals in Brazil. Anyways the sister was in the house of one of these priests and now she has nightmares every night about the house and she feels cursed. She is physically sick cause of it. So we decided to give her a blessing of comfort.  And it was the most spiritually powerful blessing I have ever participated in! The feeling of the Spirit was just so strong, its hard to describe. This all happened in one day! It was a crazy experience because even for the minutes after, I just felt powerful, with the power of God! 

I feel safe for the most part... we have to avoid certain areas when the sun goes down haha! 

Hope ya´ll are alright! Love ya! 

Love,

Elder Cole 

Week 12

This week was just normal for the most part. We have changes this week, but me and my companion are staying here for at least six more weeks. I enjoy it here, and I hope that I can see some of our investigators baptized before I leave. Right now it has been hot, but not too bad. It´s different that it is almost Christmas and I'm sweating and getting sunburned. Haha! But the people here are super nice and always offer us water. The water here is kinda clean, but most people buy water in bottles so that is more safe. They also really love carbonated water and so we drink that a ton in people´s homes... it´s awful... Haha! But I´m thankful for the generosity of the people!

The people here are super friendly and greet each other with a kiss on the cheek. Of course we can´t greet the women like this, but I´ve never been kissed by so many men in my life! It was really awkward at first, but I´m starting to get over it! Haha!

We also had a Stake Conference this week. It was good! Our Mission President and his wife spoke in the Sunday session! It was nice to see them!

Also this week we taught the Law of Chastity to one of our investigators... He´s a big black guy from Brazil and wants to get baptized, and he is trying to quit drinking tea little by little so we are really excited! And then we taught the Law of Chastity... I won´t go into the details, but he kinda rejected the whole idea of this commandment, and he´s a lawyer so he just hit us with every question and doubt he could think of. It was impossible to get the message across. We told him we would come back and explain more and answer his questions.  Since that lesson we´ve been preparing and studying the Law of Chastity for hours. We are teaching him again this week to answer his questions! Please pray for us haha! 

Hope y´all are well! Enjoy Christmas! Praying for y´all from here! 

 

Love,

Elder Cole

 

Part of his email to the family:

 

Since I have arrived in Uruguay, Uruguay has had its first earthquake, tsunami, and tornado in a long time... some people say this is the first time ever in Uruguay! Its insane here, people think the world is ending haha!

Thanksgiving dinner

 

 

The mission