Week 70

This week was pretty normal..... We really saw the Lord working in our area and helping the people take those steps they need to to be baptized! For a little over a year the missionaries have been visiting a lady named Sandra. She has been coming to church and has already read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, but she hasn`t been able to be baptized because she smokes and is waiting on a legal paper that kicks her boyfriend out of the house. When I showed up she would let us talk to her, but she never really worked too hard at quitting smoking. So we started really helping her, calling her everyday, visiting her even a little late at night before we went home and we gave her a blessing that she would quit smoking. She finally started to quit smoking and the Lord responded to her efforts by blessing her. Then the problem was that she is living with a guy who she is not married to and does not want to marry him, but has to wait for some legal paper to come through so he leaves the house. About a week ago Sandra fought with her boyfriend and left the house. She says that she refuses to go back. Sandra is now really close to being baptized and she is super excited. I know that the Lord helped Sandra make the decision to leave that house. 

I know that the Lord is working in each of our lives! Maybe we don`t understand why things happen in our lives (like getting in a fight and moving out of the house), but the Lord always has a plan for us and in this case I know that the Lord has been preparing Sandra to be baptized! 

I also had the chance to watch the funeral of President Thomas S. Monson. It was great! He was truly a prophet of God! He will be missed, but his stories and teachings will always play a part in my life!

I love y'all! Hope all is well at home!

Love,

Elder Cole

Part of the family email:

Hey Ma! This week was good! Sorry I am emailing so early, we traveled today and I won`t be able to write later. We had a little bit of a tough week, but all in all it turned out well.  I feel like the days just fly by and there is never enough time to get everything done, but I guess that is good haha. 

Today we are in a place called Chuy, half of the city is in Brasil and the other half is here in Uruguay. Its cool! It rained a lot this week.... not much else happened.... we have an investigator that moved out of her boyfriend's house so now she can get baptized! She just has to quit smoking, but she is working on that! Please pray for Sandra! 

Week 69

This week was exhausting! We had a great week and I feel like we were just going 100 mph all week! I had the chance to work with almost half the Elders in Rocha this week and it was so great to get to know them, guys from all over the world, and learn from them! I am really excited to see what we can do here together these next few months to help the people in Rocha! 

This week I have no doubt that the Lord was going before us and preparing the way. It just seemed like everywhere I looked there was another little miracle, and there were times when I felt the Lord tell me directly, "talk to him" or "knock that door".  We didn`t always have success or find someone that wanted to hear the gospel, but we did leave every situation knowing that in someway we had helped that person and had done what the Lord needed us to.

This week we heard that President Thomas S. Monson passed away.  He always had the best stories and I loved hearing him speak! I know he was a prophet of God. There is one quote from him that I have always loved, 

"Dare to be a Mormon; Dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm; Dare to make it known."

If all we can do is be an example for other people in our lives, the Lord will help them see the light of the Gospel and feel his love through us. As a missionary I have the chance to share the Gospel with everyone and it is something everyone needs! Others can be blessed as we "dare to be a Mormon" and "dare to make it known".

I hope your weeks are amazing! It is a blessing to be here! It has been getting a little hot recently, but it just means more tourists here in Rocha for me to teach haha! Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Cole

Week 68

This week was a really fast one! We saw a ton of miracles here in Rocha this last week and I really can`t describe what its like to be here. The area that I am in right now is not like any other area that I have been in yet. The people are still the same and the culture hasn`t changed, but there is a Spirit in my work right now that seems new. I had the chance to work with a few of the other missionaries in our zone this week and it was a lot of fun to get to know these missionaries better! I have really made so many friends here and not just from Uruguay, but all parts of the world! 

Last night we had the chance to spend New Year`s Eve with a nice little old lady in our branch! She has never been married, had kids and lives completely alone. It was really great just to spend time with someone that really needed the company, even if it was just for a few hours. I must have been feeling really tired last night too because I proposed the idea that we sing some hymns to end the year. I absolutely HATE singing with people, but the other missionaries agreed and I felt the Spirit incredibly strong during that time. I am sure we sounded like a bunch of suffering cats, but the nice sister said that it made her night haha! I guess I have been thinking a lot this week about how the little things we do make a big difference, in our lives and the lives of others! 

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and I look forward to seeing all that comes in 2018! 2017 really was an incredible year of my life! Hope all is well at home! Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Cole

1. . My companion and I

2. The sister also gave us each a jasmine (is that what the flower is called in English?)

3. Just being missionaries (Friendly people working for you)  :)

Week 67 - Christmas Day

Feliz Navidad! This week was great! Rocha is really different from any of my other areas and its great to be here! I don`t have much time, but I wanted you all to know that I love ya and hope you have a Merry Christmas! It really is special to be a missionary during Christmas because I don`t have to think about any Christmas things except the reason we celebrate, Christ! 

“To catch the real meaning of the spirit of Christmas, we need only drop the last syllable and it becomes the Spirit of Christ.”  President Thomas S. Monson

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and can truly feel the Christmas Spirit today! Love y'all!

Elder Cole

1. I got to try cow tongue for the first time for Christmas dinner! It wasn`t too bad haha!

2. We also BBQ`d a nice lamb and it turned out pretty well for being cooked by four missionaries!

3. Just waiting to watch the fireworks at midnight! 

Week 66

This week was a good one! We had the chance to do a lot of work and see a lot of miracles! It was incredible to see the Lord going before us and preparing the way! I have no doubt that every time we had success this week it was because the Lord had guided us! 

This week my companion and I had the chance to work with the Assistants to the mission President. It was awesome because one used to be in Treinta y Tres with me and we are good friends! I got to work with him all day in one of the most dangerous parts of our whole mission and we survived! We started the day doing some service for one of their investigators, painting their house. I got to talking to the teenage son, and he explained to me that the stains that I was painting over on the door were from his blood because last Sunday he got stabbed in that house! Haha! The family was super great and the son is doing fine, he just had to go to the hospital for a little while. 

Then we worked like normal until 8:30 pm. We still had a half an hour and had run out of plans, so we decided to offer a quick prayer in the street asking the Lord to guide us to find one more person to teach that night. Then we took off looking. We knocked a few houses and they all rejected us, but told us to go to a specific house, where a family had recently moved into. When we finally knocked that door, they weren´t interested. By this point we had lost a lot of our motivation, and because it was so late we started to walk home, but as we left that house I felt the impression to knocked the door next to it. A little old lady answered and said she didn´t have time right then, but has been waiting for us to come by. She said that years ago she was just about to be baptized and her life fell apart and she lost everything she had. Now she wants to start talking to us again, be baptized and "come back to Christ" (as she put it). It was amazing! The very last door that we knocked that night ended up being the person that we had prayed to find! I have no doubt that the Lord answered our prayers and helped us find someone who as been looking for the Gospel!

We also got changes this week and I will be headed to a place called Rocha! It is pretty much all the nice beaches in Uruguay! My new companion is Elder Anampa from Peru! I got to work with him a little bit a while back because he was in my zone, he is super cool and I am excited to work with him! 

Love y'all!

Elder Cole

Parts from the family email:

Hey Ma! I am writing today because we are having changes differently this week for Christmas! Hahah! Surprise! 

This week was good! We got changes last night and I am leaving Maldonado.... I am headed to a place called Rocha with an Elder from Peru, Elder Anampa. I have worked with him before, he´s awesome! I am super excited! 

Rocha is kind of notorious in the mission because it is a super hard zone.... they don´t baptize hardly at all and there are only elders in the zone not sisters, because they need the priesthood to run the church meetings. I am actually really nervous to be honest, but I am also really excited because this is my chance to see the Lord work through me and make a big change in the mission! I have kind of been wanting to go to Rocha, but I know it will definitely be tough! I am excited to see what happens! 

Week 65

This week was great! I finally became a legal Uruguayan citizen! It only took me 14 months, but it finally happened haha! While we were there we were really close to the most famous plaza in all of Uruguay, Plaza Independecia, so I swung over there and visited it! It was great! Usually we can`t go there because it is in the other mission in Uruguay, but since we were already there I took advantage of the opportunity! 

Last Sunday (not yesterday, but the one before) we had to go looking for some investigators right before church started and by the time we went and got the investigators and made it back to church we had missed the Sacrament. I have missed the Sacrament before the mission and I always felt like something was missing during those weeks, but this week I definitely felt a difference. It was incredible to feel the lack of the Spirit throughout the week. Most of the time I didn`t notice, but there were times that I felt less powerful spiritually... This week as I thought about Sacrament and the affect that it has on me I just happened to read in 3 Nephi chapter 20 during my personal studying and I read about when Jesus institutes the Sacrament among the Nephites, 

7 But he truly gave unto them bread to eat, and also wine to drink.

8 And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled.

9 Now, when the multitude had all eaten and drunk, behold, they were filled with the Spirit; and they did cry out with one voice, and gave glory to Jesus, whom they both saw and heard.

When I read this I realized just how important it is to take the Sacrament every week and be "filled with the Spirit".  This week I truly gained a testimony of the importance and power of the Sacrament! It is an ordnance so important that Jesus taught it just before his death to his apostles in Jerusalem and just after his resurrection as He visited the Americas!

This week we also had the baptism of Victoria, Veronica and Cesar! They are 3 super awesome youth that have really made some changes in their lives to follow Jesus Christ! We just happened to knock their door about a month ago when another lesson that we had fell through and I have no doubt that the Lord led us there! Since then we have had the opportunity to teach them  and help them overcome their challenges as they have chosen to follow Christ! The mission truly is something special and I can`t imagine what I would be doing if I wasn`t here! It is a blessing to be an instrument in the Lord`s hands! 

Hope y'all have a great week! Love ya!

Love,

Elder Cole

1. Having some fun at the beach

2. The Baptism!

3&4. Plaza de Independencia

week 64

This week was good! It was a week full of miracles and hard days haha! I really got to see how much I have grown over this last 14 months!

That miracle family that we found last week is just a blessing! We had the chance to go by and really get to know them this last week and we found out that the father is a less-active member, but that the rest of the family has never been baptized. The dad still has good memories of the church and seems like he still believes in a lot of church standards. When we invited the mother and oldest daughter to be baptized they got really excited and the mother even asked if she could be baptized this Saturday! We had to slow her down a little and explain that she would need a little time to prepare. When we find people like this family it makes all the rest of the harder days worth it! 

After talking to this family we were feeling really good and I guess the Lord chose to humble us because for the next three days we just walked non-stop haha. They were reeeeaaaaallly long days, but I really reflected on the faith that I have come to have during my mission. When I started my mission I would have had a day like that and I would have felt down and blamed myself. A lot of times I have had thoughts like, "if only I had more faith then the Lord would help us find someone to teach" or "If I was a better missionary than we wouldn`t just be wasting time in the street". Now I feel a lot more confidence in the Lord! I know that if He wants me to walk in the street from 10am til 9pm then I will do it.... and I will do it willingly. I would prefer to be teaching and talking to people all the time, but I know now that as long as I am giving ALL that I can, then all I can do is trust in the Lord and He will do His will. 

This week had its ups and its downs and I am really glad to have had a week like this! I have learned a lot and have really learned to start loving the people as Jesus loves them. I still have a long way to go, but i love the people here in Uruguay and I wouldn`t rather be living anywhere else! I hope you all had a great week and that this week is even better! Love y'all!

Love,

Elder Cole