Welcome Elder Peterson!

Elders Peterson and Layton - Not the Ordinary

Hey everyone!

So we had a solid final week to our change. Elder Claros and I found an awesome couple named [...] and [...], who both had some family members baptized in the church many years ago. We also went back to the family Machado, and they are doing really well! They actually ready all of 3 Nephi 11 as a family from when we first saw them. They seem to enjoy the lessons, but still are hesitant to pray when we are with them. We also taught [...] the Word of wisdom, which she accepted, and the law of chastity, which she is thinking about. She lives with a guy right now so we are going to try to help her develop the faith necessary to follow all of the commandments!

Anyways, we got our changes on Saturday, and I am training now! So I am very excited for this learning experience. My new ´oro´ is called Elder Peterson and he is from Idaho. He is a total stud. It was awesome because when we were waiting in the Montevideo terminal, we contacted some lady. I handed Elder Peterson over a folleto to give it to the lady. We started talking to her and she was nice, but then when Elder Peterson tried giving her the folleto, she rejected it! The cool thing though was that afterwards, Elder Peterson said´Hey lets go do that again!´ So he has got a good attitude and we are going to have fun together :)

Today, for P-day, we played dodgeball and ate tacos. It was great :) Also, it is funny, because now, our whole district is gringos, and so we just had the district meeting in english haha. Wierd! Best district ever though!!

The mission is suuuuper awesome. Elder Peterson and I are gonna see miracles this change, I am sure!! Love you guys!!

Following the Example of the Good Shepherd

A Grateful Lamb

Hey everyone!

This week, overall was a little pesado, but we had the day yesterday! We found two suuuuper awesome families- one a family of five and one a family of six! Seriously miracles always happen after a good day of fasting on the mission. 

The second of those is the [...] family. And wow, when they opened their door, they immediately invited us in, put us in a room to talk with of few of their kids for a good while, while they were preparing food for us (I had hardly shook the parents hands coming in and didn't even know their names yet while they were preparing food for us). I totally thought they already knew the missionaries or something, but the wierd thing is that this family had NEVER even talked with missionaries before. So when I found that out, I was absolutely shocked how open and friendly they were to us before hardly even presenting ourselves haha. 

Another Good Shepherd?

The funny coincidence though is that their ten-year old nephew was there too and was apparently baptized in another ward just a few months ago! So, before we started teaching, we were getting to know him and the other few kids there. [...] was saying ´Hey, I have that Mormon book!´ haha. Also, he made some good little comments as we taught the Restoration to the family. It was incredible though, during the lesson, there were eight of us squeezed in a little room, and while we were teaching, they all listened quietly and reverently. 

The dad, named [...], seemed very fascinated when we introduced the Book of Mormon, and committed to reading it. It was cool because yesterday, when we came was also his birthday! I hope we were able to give him a good birthday gift :) Not sure how you can beat the BOM!!

A Rainbow Tacuarembó

Also, yesterday after the familia [...], out of nowhere came seriously the HUGGEST lightning storm I have ever witnessed in my life. Man, it was actually so incredible. The first strike of lightning lit up the whole sky, and literally stretched all the way across. In fact, the crazy thing is it lasted for like two seconds, rather than just being super quick, so it was like blinding! Wow, I wish you all could have seen it. It was sure something. That was followed by many more huge stormy bolts of lightning. but it was just so insane how long they were lasting, so we could just stare at them haha. Then came the flash flood... Yeah that one wasn't so nice, because we weren't too prepared...

Anyways, yesterday was really the only eventful day of the week. It seemed like a lot of other wierd stuff happened yesterday too haha, but I´ll just leave it at that.

Love you guys so much. Thanks for all of your support. Have a wonderful week!!

Elder Layton

A Special Conference

WHAT. A. GENERAL. CONFERENCE!!!!!!! I just loooooooved this weekend, we are so blessed to have modern day prophets and other inspired leaders on the earth today. I would like to write what I wrote down directly after conference ended:

´This conference was very special to me. I had various personal witnesses from the spirit testify to me of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth today. This was a very special couple of days for me, and the Spirit that I felt, I pray that I may never forget. I love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and am so grateful for their love and mercy for me, being so imperfect. I want to dedicate my life to them. My solitary goal is to return to live with them with my family, and as many others as I can help bring along.

Now for some brief thoughts and favorites from the talks this weekend. First off, Elder Anderson´s talk was so incredible. It is amazing how close to the spirit these men are- That President Nelson felt inspired to skip his lunch between the sessions and go see Elder Hales right before he passed away. Wow. What a testimony and example to us. Anyways, I also absolutely LOVED Tad R Callister´s take on the BOM. Haha, it is insane the evidence that the BOM is true and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. But more that that, it is so amazing how God himself can convince us of that through his spirit each time we read. I guess Joseph Smith just got lucky and is a really good guesser on things. 

Elder Cook's talk was super good too, on humility. Elder Nelson´s was too. Such a capo. A couple more things I liked were by Stephen W. Owen who talked a little about testimony and how it is like a bike. After gaining it, we must maintain it, because he we stop pedalling, the bike will fall, as will our testimony. Elder Uchtdorf also mentioned that the absence of light causes darkness. If we are not diligently doing things to uplift us spiritually every single day darkness will begin to enter. It is so important to be ´anxiously engaged´ in the Gospel.

Those are a few of the things I liked :)

Other than that, this week has been pretty down low. I went on divisions with Elder Heaton, which was super awesome. And get this- we taught and investigator named Helaman-Nefi!!! Pretty cool isn't it?? Definitely un lamanita haha.

On divisions, Elder Ribeiro, who was with Elder Claros in Barrio 6 also decided to contact a door and they found someone named [...]. She told them to come back they next day, which we did when I was back in our area. When Elder Claros brought me to the house, I thought he was contacting it so I was confused, because literally that same house we had contacted the day before divisions, and some guy told us they weren't interested. But luckily, the Lord inspired Elder Ribeiro, who didn't know we just contacted it, to find [...], who came out that time. She was really acceptive and we had a great charla. Afterwards she gave us a kilo of honey! Haha awesome!!!

The zone leaders played a prank on me today on P-Day. They got a hold of our phone, and changed their contact to say ´President Olsen´. Then they called me from their phone, so I thought it was President haha. Suprisingly I didn´t really notice their voice difference, so I totally fell for it and thought I was talking to President haha. ´President´ started drilling me with questions about the area and I haha. Those zone leaders sure got me. Punks :)

I am really lucky to be on a mission. I miss all you guys, but it will all be worth it! I hope you guys have a wonderful week! See ya :)

Elder Layton