Week 22

This week was good! We had a conference with the Mission President this week and it was really good! I really learned a lot from him and the other missionaries.   We talked a lot about the importance of the ward members in our work as missionaries. I feel kinda bad because before my mission I never really helped the missionaries. But now I am really learning just how important and hard it is to find people to help us. As missionaries we can do most of the work it takes to teach, convert and baptize someone into the church; but what we  can´t do is stay with them in the ward and help them. 

Right now we are seeing some of the new members in our ward start to pull away from the church.  Being a new member of the church means that these people change their lives in some degree, and it has to be a little uncomfortable to be a new member of the church. Without a whole lot of friends in the church, it´s too easy to just go back to their lives before. 

This week we had one of the new members in the ward tell us that he is having problems and won´t be coming to church in a while, he just "needs space." Really this is one of the saddest things I have seen in my mission. I have seen people change their lives and enjoy the blessings of the true church of Jesus Christ, and now, when these people need the church the most to help them through the hard times in their lives, they feel like it will be easier to pretend they aren´t members and work through it themselves. It's kinda hard to accept sometimes that everyone gets to chose their own path. But I am learning that I can´t choose for them, but I can let them know that God loves them and that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, there isn´t a challenge in this world we cannot overcome! 

Love all! Hope you´re still enjoying winter.... it´s almost over Haha!  

Love,

Elder Cole

Parts from the family email (much of it he is answering questions we asked him about the culture, food, and nature):

That´s crazy you are still getting snow! The weather is changing here. It's still hot but some days are getting cooler.

In Uruguay they eat a lot of bread and pasta. It's all pretty good. I did eat small intestine the other day and I didn´t like it, but it wasn´t bad I could eat it again... 

 There aren´t a whole lot of crazy animals.... Tons of frogs and snakes. There are a billion dogs in Uruguay! It feels like every house has at least two dogs and there are always a ton of dogs that live in the street! Wherever we go people know that the missionaries are there cause every dog in the neighborhood starts barking. Haha!

One custom is kinda interesting.... every 29 of a month, the people eat a special type of Italian pasta called niokies (or something). But it´s a ton of work to make, so usually this is one of the days we don´t have lunch with members! Haha! 

The teaching is good! Elder Ucañán and I work really well together. Most of the time I kinda forget I´m speaking Spanish so that´s nice, but sometimes I have to really think about the grammar when I want to say something and the grammar is tricky. Also my accent is awful haha! I hope I can figure out how to sound like a Latino! HAhah! 

We aren´t doing much today cause it´s down pouring. Glad the fundraiser for Cody went well! Keep me updated on basketball! Its nice to hear that they are doing so well, usually Connell beats us and Zillah whoops our butts! haha! 

This week we had another baptism. His name is Rodrigo and he´s a pretty big guy! We are hoping that through him, his parents will reactivate in the church and his sister will get baptized! 

We had a conference with President Eddy this week! It was good! I really like our mission president. I talked to him about what I could do to gain more support from members. 

This week we had our second Family Home Evening as a ward.... And no one showed up.... We had like 22 people, but 15 were YW that we convinced to stay after a meeting they had. Of the other seven people, four were a less active family that we were hoping to introduce to the ward. It was kinda frustrating cause we feel like we are just wasting our time preparing this activity and taking two hours out of our work to host it and no one from the ward is making an effort to support us. My frustration was worse when the next day we had the baptism with a family of inactive members and their kids who aren´t members. It would have been super great to see the ward support them and help them feel welcome to return to church, but we had two families and one other member there to support them. I´m kinda frustrated in what I can do to get the members support, because we can baptize people every week, but if the members don´t build a connection with them, these new members will leave the church and be worse off than before baptism. We are actually seeing this happen with three of our new members right now. But I´ll figure it out! Hahaha! The work is good and I am really enjoying being here!

 Great to hear that Grandma Cox is doing well! Let her know I love her! Love ya´ll!

Love,

Elder Cole