Elder Vanderlinden - Uruguay Montevideo Mission

Visiting a recently converted family!

The Uruguay Montevideo Temple

Hello Everyone,

Last week I was able to go through the Uruguay Montevideo Temple. It was such an amazing experience. I was able to feel the spirit so strongly, and it is super interesting to go through in Spanish. It showed me that it doesn´t matter what language the gospel is in, the Holy Ghost can speak through every language. The Uruguay temple is pretty small. The Temple is probably around the size of my high school seminary building. Haha. However, It is really beautiful. It is so well kept, and soo clean.

Well, to start off, my companion and I started a soccer league...Haha. Everyone here loves soccer! We hold games on the church´s soccer field, because we have the keys. We invite kids on the street during the week, and then we meet on Saturday. This past week we actually had a decent amount of kids show up, so it was super fun to play with them. Each week we are trying to invite more kids, and we start the games with a prayer and a spiritual thought. Hehe 

So this past week, we did a lot of street contacting, which is not very effective in South America. People think that we are trying to sell stuff most of the time, or that we are asking for something. It is also difficult because the people are generally in a hurry. My companion and I were talking to a man in the street, and it was going very well. We asked if we could come share more about our message at his house....He paused...and said ¨Sure¨. We pulled out our notebooks to write down his directions. “What is you address?” we asked. ¨What street are we on?¨ he asked.....then...he gave us the address of the house...we were literally standing in front of. It wasn´t his house. In fact, a man named Kevin lives there. Haha. So...as you can imagine, this week was full of rejection. However, when we were at our lowest point, just when we were about to give up, we made two great contacts, and they are potential investigators. What I learned from this experience, is that sometimes, we aren´t blessed with success until we first go through a trial. We need to experience hard times, in order to truly appreciate the good times.

Quote of the week

 ¨The only way to do great work is to love what you do¨-Steve Jobs

I love you all! Have a great week!

-Elder Vanderlinden