How is it P-day already!? I don´t know, but Happy Monday!!! :) I hope you´re all having a good day, and getting ready for Christmas. WHOOOT! I have had the best week of my life here in Uruguay...seriously! It has been so crazy, but I`ve loved it.
So I´m just gonna dive right in.
Picture cynderblocks coated in ice....that´s what I slept on last Tuesday..haha comfortable? But the next day we had a huge zone conference with two other zones in our mission in Montevideo....don´t worry...only a four hour drive both ways. We heard from Brother Gonzales who is an area seventy. It was an incredible meeting and I felt like the spirit taught all of us a lot. I also saw Hermana Baca and Elder Dietrich from my district at the empty sea!!!!!! It was the best reunion...and it was so great to hear about all of their experiences and speak to them in Spanish. H O L L A. So after the conference we didn´t get to Colonia (a city about an hour away from my area) until 10....and we were supposed to catch another bus to Carmelo...haha busses stopped coming at 8. So naturally the elders were instructed to sleep in the church with no blankets...and President Smith got us hermanas a suite in the nicest hotel in Uruguay. Sorry elders. It was such a riot, we got in our hotel room and there was like Oreos on each of our beds, and a ticket for breakfast in the morning! No complaints there! Our breakfast the next morning was the most beautiful sight I´ve ever seen..haha at least in four weeks anyway. It was fresh fruit, and at lest 46 different types of biscochos!!! The best part? While we were eating breakfast I overheard these three men speaking to each other in ENGLISH! So I yelled across the room and asked them where they were from.. One from Finland, one from Romania, and one that didn´t answer me. Coo? Anyway, I gave them each contact cards and bore my testimony in a language I know about the Restoration. It. was. awesome. I told them there were missionaries e v e r y w h e r e..In Romania! In Finland! I was like overly excited so I¨m hoping I didn´t freak them out hahaha (leave it to me to freak someone out with my enthusiasm.) We also left a Book of Mormon with our testimonies in our room for the cleaning lady to find. I´m positive that there is a reason that we ended up where we did last Wednesday night...and I don´t think it was to pay us back for the ¨beds¨we slept on Tuesday night either! The Lord works in mysterious ways peeps. :)
The last baptism I attended before my mission was my little brother Jake´s ...although it was a great day, I didn´t fully comprehend what he was doing that day. Thursday was the best day of my life...We had two baptisms. Niko and Eduardo. Niko was just glowing the entire time, and right before he came up and asked us to help him with his tithing...five pesos. Five. If that doesn´t tug on your heart strings, then I don´t know what will. You guys!!! He´s an angel!! He is teaching me so much, he loves the gospel with all of his heart! Eduardo is awesome. He is married to a member, Cynthia and they have two little kiddos. (They´re so darling.) Us missionaries sang ¨Families Can Be Together Forever¨ and it was so emotional because we were all picturing Eduardo and his family in the temple a year from now!!! That´s their goal..so I look forward to helping them get to that point! :) They´re an awesome family. I wish I recognized the significance of baptism before my mission...it really is the gateway to eternal happiness!!! How cool is that?
Saturday!!!! Our entire branch went to the temple!!! Best day ever!! (...again) But seriously, the temple was awesome. On the way down there one of the members got sick so we had an hour pit stop....ya know...just missed the session is all. It ended up being good though because some members went at 1:00 and the rest of us at 3:00...so when we arrived in Montevideo we had a good four hours to kill. Lucky for us missionaries, we got to hang out in the mission home until our session. Hermana Smith is the best host ever and made the boys this fixture of meat on a bun, and us girls BBQ Chicken salads. hastag, tendermercies. We then played Christmas bingo, catch the marshmallow in your mouth (which I´m pro at), finish the Christmas puzzle in five...or thirty minutes, and ping pong! It was so fun..Then it was time for the best part. m o n t e v i d e o t e m p l e. They were so accomodating...they put up English subtitles for yo girl so that I could understand what was going on. It was so peaceful, and I learned so much. I never realized how lucky we were to have temples literally everywhere in Utah...I regret not going more..like every single day! But I think that I needed to experience this to better appreciate it..I. love. the. temple. I could hardly sleep the night before because I was so excited to go, and I feel like that´s how it should always be. Ya know!? Like we should be so excited to go the temple! It really is such a great blessing that we have a place like that on earth. K I´ll stop being all preachy now. The bus ride home was tragic..hahaha I´m laughing out loud thinking about it. One of the kiddos was way way sick and throwing up..then we ran over a skunk, then I´m positive that one of the kids (or grandmas) pooped their pants...and then all the oldies were dousing themselves in perfume from the 70´s...so it smelt really good in there. -_- So I decided to look exxxxxxtrrra Egyptian for most of the ride home and wrap my scarf around my face a time or two. haah sue me.
It was a beautiful week here in Carmelo. I am loving my mission. I am sad it´s going by so fast. I am so glad I came, I know I say this every week, but I am learning so much. The Book of Mormon has all of the answers to everything, and there is a l w a y s more to learn. Fun fact? For language study this week I translated my patriarchal blessing to Spanish..That was cool, because words in Spanish are more specific...It was fun to analyze the differences and what not. I hope you all have a beautiful week, have a huge snow ball fight for me...don´t break any windows doing so Drewb. Oh...and for some reason, I can´t get any of my pictures to attach. :( I promise to send some next week for Christmas.
PS....I GET TO TEACH DANCE TO THE YOUNG WOMEN EVERY SATURDAY! :) How fun is that!? We start this week, and I am so excited..the young women seem excited too. I miss dance so much, and the streching during language study just isn´t cuttin´ it!
w r i t e m e
use it.
I LOVE YOU ALL.
Con amor,
Hermana Sorenson
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