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!

Week 80

​This week was a great one! We worked really hard this week and I was kind of dying here at the end haha! We have been putting in some extra effort because Rocha has been really hard for missionary work, and we decided that we needed to do something new to overcome all the opposition here. We have started getting up a little early and doing all our studies back-to-back in the morning so that we have about 12 full hours of proselyting time during the day. We do take a little time for lunch, but then we get right back to it! The first few  days were REALLY hard haha! I was really fighting getting up, but now it hasn`t been too bad and we are seeing some great blessings! I feel like I felt my first few weeks in the mission, tired, hungry, and a little sick, but it will all be worth it if we can really start to help the people here! Haha! We are really hoping to see some success in these next few weeks! 

This week we had two conferences with President Eddy! It was awesome! One was in Montevideo and the other was in Maldonado so I got to go back and see my old area! It was great to learn from President Eddy and see some old friends in the mission!

We also worked super hard this week inviting people to come to church and it just so happened to dump rain all Sunday morning...  It seems like everyday of the week is crystal clear until Sunday and then the heavens dump on us.  We had taught two youth aged kids this week and we taught them the song "Nephi`s Courage". So when we called them Sunday morning to see if they would still let us walk them to church even though it was raining they said, "I will go and I will do!" They are super cool youth and understand the Book of Mormon incredibly well! It was a great testimony builder to see these two young kids walk to church in the rain when some of our other investigators saw it as an excuse to stay home! I hope we can all have the faith of Diogo and Belén, so that when we are tempted to shy away from keeping the commandments or doing what we know is right we can say, "I will go and do!"

Love y'all!

Elder Cole    

​​Video: Me feeding the Capybara

1. A live Capybara

2./3. Walking in the rain to church! 

Week 79

This week was a good one!  I have had the chance to work with Elder Hemeyer for a few days now and he is really cool! We have been working hard and have seen lot of miracles! 

Yesterday was probably the worst day of the week, but we survived it. It rained a downpour from 7:00 Am until 9:00 Pm. We had to leave a 8:30 to go pick up a guy (named Emanuel) for church and the streets were just rivers! We tried calling Emanuel to see if he was willing to go to church anyway with the rain and he didn`t answer... We had to go get him, we told him we would swing by his house. With in 3 minutes of the 30 minute walk we were drenched from head to toe and my suit was completely wet. When we made it to Emanuel`s house he didn`t answer and we just had to go to church without him. Just crossing the streets we had to walk through water halfway up our calves haha! When we made it to church we were soaked and cold, but we had done all we could to help the investigators go to church. The Lord blessed us for our efforts and a less active member family came back to church!  It was great! The rest of the day we spent walking in the streets without much success.... haha!

We also had a great experience when we found Emanual! We were working like normal and a lesson fell through so we had some time to just start knocking doors. At first we had little success, but then we felt impressed to knock another door at the end of the road  When we knocked it a really big, strong guy came out and invited us in. He is huge!! And he is only 19! It was awesome! My whole time here in Rocha I have been trying to find younger people to teach and baptize because most of the branch are just little old ladies (there`s nothing wrong with that, but we need some younger blood or the whole branch will disappear in 10 years). Emanuel had already talked to missionaries before, but they just stopped visiting him and he seems super ready to accept the Gospel!  The Lord has also helped us find several families recently too!

The mission is going great! Its been a lot of fun! I`m loving it here!

Love y'all!

Elder Cole

Week 78

This week was a good one! Yesterday we found out that my companion will be getting transferred and I will be staying here in Rocha with a new companion, Elder Hemeyer! I have talked to him before and he seems like a great missionary, he`s from Arizona. 

This week we also found some women who have been waiting for the Gospel! We have been trying to work more with the church members, so that they will help us find and teach their friends. This last week we planned to visit a friend of the Relief Society President in our branch. She was going to come with us, and it was going to be great. She just told us to make sure to contact her before-hand and make sure she could still come. When the day arrived, we messaged the sister and asked her if we could still go with her to visit her friends, she didn`t respond. As the day went on we tried calling her several times and the phone had been turned off. We decided to go to the meeting spot at the time we had decided on and wait for the sister. After 15 minutes we decided that it would be better to go and contact the friend anyway even though we wouldn`t be able to go with the member. It was incredible! When we knocked the door, the Relief Society President was already inside talking to her friends about the Gospel and about the missionaries! We were able to meet two wonderful women who have really gone through a lot. Both have lost their husbands and one also lost a son. As we talked to them I could see that they had been waiting for a message like the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for a long time! Sadly we weren`t able to go into the home because there were only women inside, and as missionaries we have to have another grown man with us in order to go into a home with women.  It was probably the hardest moment in my mission, when I had to decided whether or not to obey the rules! HAha! I could just see that they needed our message so much and that it would bring them so much peace and hope. Another day we will be going by very soon and I know that they will finally find the healing and peace they have been looking for!

Love y'all!

Elder Cole

Week 77

This week was a great bounce back from the last week we had! Things seemed to go a little smoother and we were really able to see the Lord guiding us! We found so many great people this week that really need the Gospel in their lives! We were walking one day and we decided to talk to a younger girl about our age. It turns out that she had talked to the missionaries years ago, has gone to church and even went to a few baptisms! She was super nice and we were able to share a little bit with her! Then we invited her to pray before we let and in her prayer she thanked God for the help He gave her after the hard week she had last week. We have no idea what happened last week, but I know the Lord sent us this week to help her overcome whatever it is that she is going through! 

We also found a young kid that had gone to church years ago in a place called Rivera, on the other side of Uruguay and he is ready to start coming to church again and get baptized! We also ran into a young single mom and she was really open to having us teach her and her kids! She has gone through a lot as a single mom, but knows that God loves her and has helped her! 

It is great here in Uruguay! Right now we got hit with a bunch of super hot days, but it should be getting colder here pretty soon! Love y'all!

Elder Cole

Parts from the family email:

Hey Ma! This week was good. We haven´t gotten bit in a while so I think we got them all haha! I can´t believe Brook got in to BYU haha! Transfers are next week and I will most likely be staying. Elder Anampa has been here longer than I have. That is awesome that you guys went to the baptism! I never really thought about it before the mission, but it is important that there are people at baptisms because it helps the convert feel loved and creates a nice connection between us and them! Sounds like a great experience!  This week was good! We bounced back from last week and it really tired me out. This week I was pretty dead every morning haha! 

LOve ya!