Baptisms of Magela and Gonzalo

Well, this week I have eaten Mondongo (cow stomach) twice. Ehh. First, we went to Bella Union last P-day and afterwards stayed for divisions. For lunch on Tuesday there was a big ward party there they made a huge pot of Mondongo-Chorizo stew. Well, to be honest it looked good, but in reality the mondongo just overpowered everything. One big pot though.... And today, for P-day we got together again with Eduardo and Maria Godoy and made another stew. Well, it had mondongo again but it was cooked enough so it was pretty solid.

Anyways, last P-day in Bella Union was so aweome! They are an area in our zone that is kind of far out, so I had never been out before. They actually have a little piece of Brazil in their area and so we crossed the border and bought a ton of stuff over there, because in comparision to Uruguay, Brazil is suuuuuper cheap. And it has a lot of stuff that Uruguay doesn`t have like Peanut Butter, Nutella, and BBQ sauce! Nosotros aprovechamos!! After buying stuff, we took a taxi back over to Uruguay, and the Elders through me in front to talk to the Brazilian hahaha. Well, he did't know any spanish, just portuguese. Luckily the two languages are kind of similar, so I was able to get by with some really bad Portuñol, but in the end, we got his contact information and we passed it over to other Elders! Haha pretty funny though. Muito bom!!

I spent to day of divisions with Elder Saylors who is a stud. We saw some amazing miracles and really fast answers to our prayers when we pulled over. Elder Saylors had a great idea since we didn`t have any set lesons. Before saying a prayer, we decided what kind of houses we would knock (gates open/ wooden doors etc) and thought of what Heavenly Father could bless us to find (parent and kid/ brothers etc). Then we specifically prayed for those things and promised we would knock such houses. The first time we did, we found a prepared mother and daughter who had never listened to the missionaries, and they accepted to be baptized in three weeks! The second time we did the prayer test, we found two brothers and their mom upon knocking the very first door! The mom was a less active member for many years, and the kids never met the missionaries. That family apprently went to church on Sunday! Prayer is really amazing!

Well the BEST part of this week was that Magela and Gonzalo were both baptized!!! They are both so stinkin` incredible. Gonzalo is only ten BUT this kid is a future missionary!  Every time wecome over, he prays for Heavenly Father to help him become a missionary. Also, he studies the Gospel a ton in his own time! This week we were going over the history of the BOM, and I said that a few years after Jospeh Smith had the first vision, he was directed to find the plates. Well, he corrected me and being more exact, said, `actually wasn`t that in 1823?` Ummmmm so yeah, he is really special. Haha when he said that we both went speechless :)

Magela is also so amazing. She has been progressing a TON. She wants to start helping us work with other investigators now. She reads the BOM every day and every charla is so excited to learn. She always has new questions for us. She already has a really special testimony of the Gospel. Apprarently she has already seen the hour long story of Joseph Smith four time now, and has been studying the history of the church. Also, yesterday we started helping her with family history, and she is really excited to do it. She has the goal to go to the temple!! On Sunday, both Magela and Gonzalo got up to bear their testimonies, and they are so awesome. Magela told us this week that when she first saw us in the street walking by the day we talked to her that she felt something special and before we came, she prayed that we could come talk to her. And then we did. I think it was more her faith than ours that helped us find eachother!

So yeah, we are loving with incredible work. There is none other that beats it! We had to change the baptismal date for the familia Villegas because they couldn`t make it to church this Sunday. They are still doing really well though! Love you guys!!

Elder Layton