Great Week in Salto

Well, here in Salto, it has been a great week! If fact, the whole zone has been `volando!`

Eduardo and Maria passed their baptismal interviews this week, and their marriage and baptism is planned for Friday! They are such anamazing couple. Eduardo has changed soooo much. He used to basically live in the streets and had a lot of word of wisdom problems before, but now he hasn`t smoked for 3 weeks, and they have been coming to church every single week! They are what we call `capos`.

Also, Silvia and Diego are making a lot of progress! Silvia said she has been praying every day to really know which is the true church. When we went on Thursday, she told us an interesting experience she had this week. She said she has been having horrible dreams the whole week and the night before she had had one particularly bad one, where she couldn`t find her little kids, and there were a bunch of robbers outside their house trying to break in. She said it was the worst one she has had but then in her dream, we appeared.She said the robbers went away, we found her kids, and she felt protected. Wow! She said that she is taking it as a sign that our message may be true. They committed to coming to church on Sunday but didn`t make it. We`ll get them next week though. :)

Ramon and Rosario area also making progress. They read and pray between every visit we make, and are still looking for some answers. Last time we came to a charla after leaving them with Alma 36. They read it and LOVED it! Seriously, they were telling us all about what they learned and how they feel they need to endure in prayer like Alma`s father, in order to help their own kids find the chosen path. They are doing super awesome! 

Anyways, I love the mission. It is amazing. I am grateful to be building my own testimony each and every day. I love the scriptures so much. I know that they are true. I know that we can receive a daily light given from Christ by reading from them TODOS LOS DIAS!! Espero que lo esten haciendo!! Love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Layton

Working Hard

This week was kind of all over the place. Elder Romero and I have been working hard and it has all kind of caught up to us. We have just been sooooo tired like 24/7 haha. 

We also went on divisions a couple of times this week with missionaries in our zone. On Tuesday, I went with Elder Donati who is actually from Uruguay, and on Friday I spent the day with Elder Smith, who is a marine. With Elder Smith, we found a super awesome young couple named Carlos and Jessica who told us the Restoration made a lot of sense and they would like to know if it was true. And for the rest of the day, lets just say we did our fair share of walking :) Their area is just tons of open country haha.

 

We found and are working with a lady named Ana and even had one lesson with here friend Mikaela and both are super interested. Ana already led the pamphlet we left her with upon contacting her, and after explaining the Restoration, she said she believed it was true. For now, she said she would like to hear more about our message and is reading the BOM.

Yesterday, we contacted some old guy named Alcides, and it was really funny because when he opened the door and I started introducing ourselves, I first said something like, `Buenas tardes hermano!` and he started shouting at us saying ` We`re not brothers!!! I am black and you are white, so don`t you dare call me one of your brothers!` Haha well, we shortly realized he was pulling our leg when he started cracking up. Really cool guy though. He wasn`t too interested in our message but he let us in for a few minutes anyways, and his wife started serving us food haha. 

Anyways, that seems to be about it for this week. Eduardo and Maria are doing amazing and are exctied for there baptism in a couple of weeks!! Miss you guys. We are priveliged to be members of the church of Jesus Christ! 

Elder Layton

Pretty Much the Best

Romero and Layton

Well Salto es pretty much lo mejor :) It has been a fun week.

First off, it is amazing to have a new prophet. Preisdent Nelson is so inredible. What a great servant. And no, I hadnt heard of the story of Monson, that is incredible. About Nelson, I heard that he has been shoving the driveways of his neighborhood, and keeps getting up earlier to beat out the members that want to do it for him hahaha. What an inredible person. Also, it is cool, because his grandson is in our mission. He has like 5 months i think. But then again President Nelson has so many grandkids and great grandkids, that I am sure there are enough for one to be in each mission in the world hahaha jk.

Elder Romero and have focused a ton this first full week on finding and we have found a ton of people. Elder Romero teaches really well too, so it has been fun, and I am learning a lot. A couple of those people we have found are a couple named Rosario and Ramon. They are super awesome, and they have that `verdadera intencion` that is so important when wanting to know the truth. They have never met with the missionaries before and actually just started going to a church a few months ago, which is the first time in their lives they have done so. They feel a little bad they are starting to learn about God so late in their lives because their kids are all teenagers and don`t really care now, but they are really interested in the lessons and especially the Book of Mormon. Rosario told us that she always saw the missionaries walking by, walking to one neibor, and then the other, but that they had never made it to their house. Also, Bishop came with us to a charla yesterday we had with him and he helped a ton. Obispo Conti is a stud! He knows his stuff. He wants to leave with us every weekend now as well!

The Dog That Scares Romero

We were able to watch the conference presenting the new first presidency. I know that President Nelson is the man that God has chosen to help us follow our Savior in these last days. I am grateful for his example and service to the church. I am grateful to have a living prophet on the earth today. The Gospel is so incredible.

Elder Romero has been teaching me a little beatboxing haha. He is pretty much professional, it is crazy. He apparently got third in a national competition in Peru and almost got to go to the states to compete. Super awesome. As soon as I get a new camera, I will try to send some videos if I can :) Right now, I am learning something called `throat bass`. It is pretty cool. Look it up if you don`t know what it is. Sounds like a robot haha.

A few investigators we are teaching came ot church on Sunday! A couple named Eduardo and Maria came, and they have a marriage date and a baptismal date for Feburary 9th!! We also had a fairly new investigator named Estefani come. She apparently really liked it, and said she would like to bring her partner next week, who was camping with friends this time.

Salto is hoooooooot...... but the best :)

Love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Layton

S-A-L-T-O

Well this week we have been busy traveling a lot. On Wednesday, I went to Paysandu, waited there the whole day and then left to Salto. And then we left Thursday night to go to Montevideo all day Friday for something called ´consejo de la mision´. It was a super awesome conference. It was funny too because I happened to run into the whole relief society from Tacuarembo, a bunch of people I had said bye to last Sunday haha. They were on another temple trip apparently.

Anyways, it was a great last couple of days with Elder Peterson before I left. We were able to meet with Silvana and Micah before I left and they commited to coming to church. Anyways, Elder Peterson was excited to go with a latino compnion. His companion Elder Yañez is from Bolivia.

Salto has been so incredible since I have been here! It is funny too because Ceibal is apparently where Hermana Olsen, President´s wife, served 20 years ago! Super awesome place! Also, we have a brand new ward mission leader, hermano Gimenes who seems very excited to help us out and get the work moving here! Also, it is funny because our Bishop is 30, but he looks like 18-20 years old :) Really great guy though!

As of now, we don´t have a ton of investigators, but Elder Romero and I have been contacting a ton in just the couple of days we have had here to work, and everyone has seemed so willing to meet with us! The Lord led us to 8 new people in just two days to teach! Elder Romero is a stud, and it is going to be a super awesome change together! Falto muuuuucho que aprender :) Love you guys! Have an awesome week! Nos vemos!!

Elder Layton

Me Voy a Salto!

Service with the Caceres Family

Well, it has been an AWESOME week! Elder Peterson and I have had a few investigators drop us this week that we thought would progress, BUT we have been finding a lot of jovenes. It is really cool too because some of the youth we have found also know Sebastian, and his cousin Santiago, who has a baptismal date for the 27th. So we have some hope in building a solid youth group here, because there aren´t many of them in Barrio 6 right now haha. We organized basketball with some of them too this week, because 3 or 4 had mentioned they liked Basketball better than soccer. Such homies :).

We also got our changes this week. It is crazy how incredibly fast these two changes with Elder Peterson hve flown by!! The mission just seems to keep getting better. Anyways, I m leaving Tacuarembó to be a zone leader in a zone called Salto! My companion will be Elder Romero, from Peru, and I have heard that he is a really awesome missionary, so I am excited :) Some things I have heard about Salto- Everyone says it is a lot hotter than Tacuarembo... great! Haha Tacuarembo is pretty hot, but I still think Argentina last year was a lot worse. Maybe Salto is more like that. It borders Argentina in fact. The bummer though is I don´t think the house there has air conditioning :0.... Anyways, I also heard Salto has hot springs and geysers outside of the city which are cool, so maybe I will be able to check those out one P-day! Everyone also calls Salto ´la tierra de las naranjas´. Sweet!

Diego

We found a ladys this week named Silvana who was with her daughter Micah, and they accepted a baptismal invitation in the first lesson for Feburary 3rd! They were really awesome, and are actually a family of 6, but we just haven´t met the family yet. 

One of the youth that we found was named Peter, and he wants to get baptized, even though we haven´t really had a lesson yet. We contacted him on the street on Saturday, and he said his parents work all day so he lives with his grandma. We told him we would be swinging by to pick up a couple other kids for church on Sunday, and we could pick him up if it was ok with his parents. Well we weren´t able to get in contact with his parents, but when we showed up to church some lady named Eva was there, which was apparently his grandma haha. I guess she was a member, and when Peter told her we had come by, she felt she should go to church! So Peter wants to get baptized, Santiago is going to get baptized, and now we are just looking for a ´Juan´ to get baptized :) (Mom, in spanish Sanitago is ´James´ and Juan is ´John´).

I will really miss Tacuarembó, I feel I have learned a lot here. Anyways, I am really excited to be headed to Salto! Love you guys!

Elder Layton

- Service with flia Caceres

- Finished mate cup, all three sides

- Pizza with hermano and hermana Di Franco. Btw there was a lot more pizza than this too.....

Feliz Ano Nuevo

Caroling in Tacuarembo 2017 Christmas

Hey everyone! Happy new year for 2018!

To be honest this week has been pretty tranquilo. Not a ton of new stuff has happened. It has been pretty hard to find new investigators because everyone has been ´so busy´ for the holidays haha. Anyways, we did find one awesome new investigator named Santiago. He is actually a reference from Sebastian (his cousin) but we just started teaching him and he accepted a baptismal invitation for Janurary 27th. He also came with us and Sebastian to church on Sunday!

We have a new 80 year old investigator we are teaching who is super catholic and has been for all her life. But she is very fascinated by the BOM and has already read nearly all of first Nephi! She wasn´t able to make it on Sunday because she was out of town, but she said she wants to come check it out because I guess she gets bored in the catholic church. Hahaha that really made me laugh :)

Sebastian is doing super well now that he was baptized last week. Now that I just completed the BOM again before Christmas and am starting over, I made a challenge with him to see who could read it first. He is convinced he is going to win but we will see about that :) Loser buys the other person ice cream at Grido hahaha.

Rainbow in Tacuarembo

New Years was awesome. We witnessed some bomb fireworks again. It was incredible!! Anyways, that is about it for this week. I am super happy after being about to skype with everyone last week for Christmas! I have got the best family ever! 

Sorry, I actually don´t have a ton of time because we had to take like a 45 minute survey today during our writing time. I´ll just try to make it quick. Sebastian, our recent convert is such a stud, he is doing really well. He loves the missionaries haha. He has been reading the BOM quite a bit now too. And at just 12 years old! He is fun to teach because literally every time he sees us he gets suuuper happy. I think he just really looks up to us because we are older. Haha to be honest we have quite a few little kids we are teaching right now, and I am so bad at teaching them haha. It is hard, because I´m not too creative. But it is all good. 

Changes are next week. I kinda get the feeling I am leaving but we will see. I really like this area a lot. This past week or two has been pretty hard though because not many people want to receive us since everyone is busy for the holidays. Hopefully the last week in this change, we will be able to find more people to teach. I'm glad that the ward at home is doing well. :D Love you guys all!

Elder Layton

Awesome Week in Barrio 6

Awesome week here in Barrio 6. Sebastian is doing really well, and has his baptismal date for the 23rd. He is really excited! On Tuesday, we had a really busy afternoon planned. On of our set lessons fell through, because an investigator told us he wasn´t interested anymore, so we started to contact. As we were walking, I saw someone wave to us from an open door on the other side of the street. I thought I saw Lucia, so we went to go say hi, but when I kinda looked again I realized it wasn´t her. When we came up to the door, and it turns out there lived a couple of Lucia´s sisters and their mom, who all live in another house. We didnt have a lot of time, but got to know that and they seemed really interested. One of her sisters Martina also said that since Lucia got baptized, she has been happier than she has ever seen her! So cool. The gift of the Holy Ghost is so very real!

Gladys was able to go to the temple on Friday to do baptisms! We weren´t actually able to go with her, but we saw her the next day, and she was SO happy. She was able to prepare the names for her husband and her mother. And she has a ton more names now that she wants to prepare when she can go back. 

Yesterday, we had a capilla abierta, and it was super awesome! Elder Peterson and I had the part of explaining baptism and confirmation. It was a really awesome day because even not too many people came through, the people who did were super awesome! In fact, we started extending some baptismal invitations then and there, and there were four people who accepted!! Too bad none of them live in the Barrio 6 boundries haha.

Anyways, super excited about Chirstmas. We have our Christmas conference tomorrow for the mission. That is about it for this week though. Love you all! CHAU!!

Elder Layton