Week 85

This week was great! I love it here in Melo! It took some getting used to because there is a little bit of an accent change and they sometimes speak portuñol (Portuguese and Spanish mixed), but I am getting the hang of it... 

We also have been traveling quite a bit to a little country town about an hour from here called Noblia. We had a baptism for a sweet older lady named Cledenir and she is from Noblia. We had to go out earlier in the week and clean the baptismal  font because the last time it was used (about 4 months ago) the elders didn´t clean it out and it was full of old, green, insect water.... Also the pump doesn´t work so we spent the next 2.5 hours emptying it. Bucket. By. Bucket. It was quite the memory haha! The baptism was great! I really didn't have to teach her too much, but I was there to deal with all the last minute complications and get the manual labor done haha! I look forward to getting to know Cledenir more as I teach her the retention lessons!

Then yesterday we saw some CRAZY miracles! Here in Melo we are pretty far north and so it gets really hot. Yesterday was a hot day, but at about 5 o´clock we got caught in a huge rain pour and we didn't have umbrellas or coats! It was terrible. We got soaked to the bone in a matter of seconds and we didn´t have anything to do, but walk and knock doors ´til 9.... Most people just kind of rejected us and ignored us, but then the miracles started coming! We found a super cool young family and then we walked a few houses down and another family let us in! They are less-active members and are friends of the young family we had just met! Then we headed out in the storm one more time and we found Borys! He´s a super cool guy and he instantly took us in, gave us towels to dry off, gave us something to drink and listened to our message! He plays for the Melo professional soccer team and recently has started trying to come closer to God. He has even started praying before games! He was super great and listened to every word! It was such a blessing to find him! He is a young husband and father too! He even took us in to see his sleeping 2 year old daughter! When it was all over he drove us home and spared us the 20 minute walk in the rain.  

I can honestly say that walking in the rain was not my favorite idea, but I know the Lord saw our willingness and blessed us more than I could have thought! I am glad that He is the one who leads this work! I am glad that I have had these last 19 months to be an instrument in his hand! I can´t wait to see what He has for me to do these next few months of my mission! I love it here!

Love y'all!

Elder Cole

Parts from the family email:

Hey Ma! I am loving it here in Melo! It is super great here! The weather is SUPER HOT here because we are on the Brazilian border. It is always humid too! I am really glad that I wasn't here in summer... I would have gotten skin cancer haha! 

The people are just all like farming kind of people. They're really laid back and relaxed. The church is nice here, the building is pretty big and it has a ton of space outside for activities. The people are pretty nice too. 

Our apartment is nice.... it is pretty big for 2 elders and it is right next door to the church. But we live on the last floor so we have to walk up like 4 flights of stairs to get in and out, its wearing me out haha!

We have 3 investigators that we are super excited for! A guy has been coming to church and wants to be baptized, but he enjoys doing worldly things. Like smoking and drinking and so he needs to make some changes in his life first. It has been hard to help him because he has to make those changes for himself. He came to the baptism we had this week and he seemed super excited for his own baptism so hopefully that was a little push in the right direction. We also found a guy named Borys. He was super cool! we got caught in a huge rain pour and we didn't have umbrellas or coats and most people rejected us, but he invited us in, gave us some towels to dry off and listened to our message! I will write more about him in my group email. We also found Pablo. He is a young guy that went to church about 10 years ago and really liked it! He just keep telling us that all he wants is for us to keeping coming back to talk to him! 

I am excited for the new ministering program too! IT will be great!

Love ya!

Love Elder Cole  

Baptism

I guess you could say that I have had better mornings than today... haha!

Week 84

This week was one of the longest weeks of my mission.... Nothing bad happened, just nothing happened at all. There were a lot of long days just walking from 10:00 til 9:00, but its over and done with so I am ready to put it behind me and see what I can do this week. 

This week was also changes week and I will be leaving Rocha tomorrow! I am headed to Melo, a nice little town on the border of Brazil. It is the furthest you can get from Montevideo in our mission! I am super excited! I have heard so much about Melo my whole mission and now I finally get to go see! I will also be companions with Elder Grajeda! He is from Texas.... I think.... We are already friends so I am really glad to have the opportunity to work with him!

I am going to miss Rocha, but I could feel that it was time for me to leave.  I have really learned a lot about faith here in Rocha and have learned to love the people so much! 

I hope y'all have a great week! Love y'all! 

Love,

Elder Cole

Part from the family email:

Hey Ma! It is great here in Uruguay! I am still really loving it! This week we got changes and I am leaving! I am headed to Melo. It is super far from Montevideo and is right up against Brazil! I am really excited to go there! Melo should be a little less difficult because the church is better off there. My new companion is Elder Grajeda. I think he is from Texas. We are already friends and so I am happy with the changes! I love Rocha, but the weather is all over the place, its super hot and sunny then it rains then its cold.... I have to leave with a short sleeve shirt, a sweater, an umbrella and my hat haha! 

Yes I am still a zone leader and this should be my last area... I think....

Just make sure you get me a man car..... If you want me to date, I can´t be driving a soccer mom car haha! ;)  I trust you to choose a car for Brook and I .  Love y'all!

Elder Cole

Week 83

This week was a great week! We had a lot to do this last week. We started out the week changing our P-day to Tuesday so that we could go to the temple! It was super awesome and I loved it, but it was pretty stressful trying to coordinate the trip for all the Elders in our zone. Everyone ended up sleeping at our house and it was kind of crazy at moments..... 

Then on Thursday we headed to Montevideo to work with the Assistants. That was also a lot of fun and I got to work with Elder Ward, my trainer! It was just like old times, except now I can speak Spanish and I know what I am doing haha! 

Then Friday, between traveling and a baptismal interview, we were just running around, trying to do as much as we could in our area while we had time. 

Saturday we spent most of the day in the church, cleaning and filling the baptismal font. It made me a little sad to have to sweep so many cob webs out of the font. We did have time, however, to run over to a lesson and talk to a super cool family that was super excited to tell us about what they had read in the Book of Mormon. Then, later that night, Diogo and Belén were baptized! It was incredible! It has been a while since the little branch here in Rocha has seen a baptism and the members really came together to make it a great night! 

On Sunday we were able to confirm Diogo and Belén members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! The spirit was strongly present as the services went on. 

We also saw the Lord really working miracles in our area this week!  Although we had several people tell us during the week that they would be there Sunday, when church started, no one had shown up. We left during the Sunday School and started looking for investigators to bring to church, but we ended up going back to church alone. But as Sacrament meeting went on several investigators came through the door! One was Ana Maria. She is the mom of a recent convert here in Rocha, but since I have been here she hasn´t come to church nor shown much interest. She used to come to church consistently about a year ago, when her daughter, Analia, got baptized, but then she stopped coming because she was living with someone and smoking. Recently she prayed and told the Lord that she wanted to start going back to church and get baptized. Things started happening and now she is living with just her daughters and is starting to drop smoking! She was SUPER excited and the first thing she said when she saw us was, "I want to be baptized!"  So we have been talking to her and are hopeful to see her as a member of the church very soon. It is also great because her daughter is a youth and she was starting to push away from the church and look for worldly things. We were trying to help, but really our hands we tried. Now as her mom prepares to get baptized it with be a great support for Analia to help her get through these tough next few years. 

I know that the Lord has really been working in Rocha this week, even when my companion and I haven´t been able to! I know that this is His work and I feel so blessed to be a part of it! I have begun to learn so much here in Rocha it is incredible! The sadness and love the Lord has allowed me to feel for the people here is something that I will never forget! The Lord has been walking by my side everyday of my mission and I am so very grateful for the blessings that I have because He lives and loves me. I hope yall´s week was as great as mine! Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Cole

Part from the family email:

 This week was good! We ended up baptizing Diogo and Belen! It was awesome! We ran into some little bumps right at the end, but it turned out great! I also had to do the confirmation for the first time ever. The Branch President said he would do it and then changed his mind on me right there on the spot. I was pretty taken off guard, but it well. Love y'all.

Week 82

This week was great!... and super long! We had the chance this week to go to Chuy (a city that is halfway in Uruguay and Brazil) twice this week! It was super great because Brazil has a ton of food and things that Uruguay doesn´t and it is all half the price! There are also stores in Chuy that sell things from the US! We went one of the times for a baptismal interview. It was great! 

Today we went to the temple! It was awesome! I learned so much and really felt the Lord teaching me! It has also been great to go to the temple right after General Conference! These last 2 weeks have been kind of jam packed with the Spirit! I really needed the temple too. We have been working hard and it was a nice little break from everything that we had going on. It was a chance just to relax and feel the Spirit a little bit! 

This week we also saw a really great miracle! So a couple of months ago we were really close to baptizing a lady named Sandra. A lot of stuff happened and in the end she didn´t get baptized. She just seemed to give up after that. She started smoking again and it didn´t look like her "living partner" was willing to get married. She also started avoiding us a little and just wasn´t really trying to do the little things (go to church, read the scriptures or pray).  We had decided to stop teaching her. We went by for the last time this week and we told her that if she didn´t start working towards the things God asks we could not pass by anymore. This Sunday we invited her to church, but I didn´t have much faith that she would come. She did end up coming and she also brought "living partner" and her little daughter! It was awesome! She just seemed to have a new light in her eyes and her partner seemed to enjoy church! She seems a lot more hopeful now that she will be able to overcome some challenges and get baptized and we are also feeling a lot more excited to see if we can really keep helping her come unto Christ!

Love y'all!

Elder Cole

Week 81

This week was a great one! The two youth we have been working with, Diogo and Belèn, are super awesome! They just are so willing to do everything we teach them and really follow the Savior! 

We also got permission to use bikes on the weekends to ride around our area and help (wake up) the investigators go to church. It was awesome, but I remembered really quickly that I haven`t rode a bike in a while and my body took a beating haha! We also don`t have bikes so we had to borrow some from the members last minute and the only available bikes were women`s bikes.... everyone thought it was funny to yell at the two white guys on a pink bike haha! 

This week was really special because we go to listen to General Conference! It was great to stand and sustain Russell M. Nelson as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Prophet of the Lord! There was a wonderful Spirit throughout the conference that testified of all that was said! Every session was truly filled with love, excitement and the Spirit of the Lord. It was incredible conference, but what really impacted me the most was the chance that I had Saturday night to kneel down and ask the Lord, for myself, if Russel M. Nelson was truly His prophet here upon the Earth. From that personal experience, I know that the Lord has chosen a prophet today and his name is Russell M. Nelson!  I have no doubt about it! At the end of the Sunday morning session, President Nelson gave an incredible talk! (He even included some Spanish haha!) President Nelson explained that each of us lack knowledge at times and to receive the answer we only need to pray and ask the Lord to help us! The heavens are truly open! The Lord directs His church through His servants and through the personal revelation we each can receive as we look for it! We should all do as President Nelson has taught and search the Lord`s will and seek His guidance through prayer. As we do so, I have no doubt that we will receive the answers we need! Love yall!

Love,

Elder Cole

1. Hell`s Angels have come to Rocha!

2. The prophet of the Lord today!