The city in the background.

Remember how everyone wears crocs? Haha

¡Hola! ¿Como an dan todos?

This week was a lot of hard work! I don´t think I have ever walked so far in my life. Right now we are walking around 15 miles each day!!!!! My new companion and I are getting along really well. This week was full of ups and downs. We were able to go to the temple as a zone this week, and it was an amazing experience. It was super spiritual, and we all felt great. We were making very good progress with our investigators, and a few of them accepted to be baptized on the 13th of next month. Then, on Sunday, we anxiously waited for our two families of investigators to show up to church.....but they never came...I was surprised! We contacted both of the families individually, and they said that they weren´t ready, and that they wanted to wait to hear the gospel......which was super disappointing.

I have been thinking about that a lot lately.....and I am beginning to realize how different the Lords time is from our time. Sometimes we want something ¨NOW¨, like I wanted these families to be baptized, but in the end, the Lord knows what is best for us.

 We had a missionary conference this week, and I learned that as missionaries, we bring the gospel all the way to the persons heart, then the Holy Ghost will put the message into their heart. However, in the end, it is their choice to accept it, or not.

I hope you all have a great week! Love you guys!

-Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week- ¨Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - Not  absense of fear¨ --Mark Twain

We took a trip downtown to Montevideo. My new companion is on the T.

¡Hola! ¿Todo bien?

This week flew by. I got a new companion this week. His name is Elder Neal, and he is from a small town in Idaho. He is super nice kid, and him and I are getting along really well. He has 15 months in the mission, and he is really good at Spanish. His is also super funny. Him and I are always laughing. 

This week we worked really hard, and we found a lot of good people to teach. Our first day together, we found a family of three, and then a family of four. Since then, we have taught the restoration to both of the families, and they have both accepted the message really well. We invited them to pray to know the truth of our message, and we are gonna stop by this week. We also have a few other good investigators- Fabio, Blanca, Raquel and Christian. The work is really picking up in our area. I am loving it!

This week we were talking with some people in their living room, and they gave us a drink. After we finished the drink, one of the girls stood up and walked over to us to take our glasses away. I totally didn´t understand the Spanish phrase that she said....so when she stuck out her hand to take my glass....I gave her a firm handshake.......my companion just busted out laughing....and it was super awkward. 

Anyways. I am loving it here! I am super happy, oh...and I am dying of heat!

Les Amo.

-Elder Vanderlinden

¨Those who move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out.¨

The Uruguay Flag

A trip to the City

Transfer week!!! This week has been absolute madness. We got our transfers yesterday night. I am going to be staying in my area, Camino Carrasco for this next change; however, I am getting a new companion tomorrow! It should be interesting, because I am in charge of showing the area to my new companion, which includes running the area for a little while. This week, we made a ton of progress with our ward. During ward council, they told us that we (the missionaries) need to instruct them as to when we need their help, and what time they need to be there to help. We talked about the importance of missionary work, and they were super willing to help us out. President Cook, our mission President said that our Area is the best in the mission right now, which is a huge compliment and also a huge blessing. This next transfer should be super busy, we have a lot of new investigators that seem really promising.

Yesterday Elder Fonseca and I were walking in the store when a man stopped us to talk. ¨Are you Elders?¨ He asked. Then he explained that him, his wife, and his son always drive past our church, and that they are super interested, and that they really want to go to our church this Sunday....... Elder Fonseca and I were pretty shocked, a wonderful family had just made a contact with us.....So that was a miracle.

This week we tried to serve the members of our ward, so we offered to cut one members lawn. We showed up, and he handed us a weed wacker....to cut his field.....not a lawn mower.. a weed wacker. So I got to work, I was cutting away, and the lawn looked really good. Then I passed it off to Elder Fonseca.......who..has never cut grass before. He is from the city, and where he lives...they don´t have grass. I couldn´t help but laugh as he cut large holes into the grass.....over....and over... After we finished half of the lawn, the member thanked us for our service, gave us some treats, and sent us on our way....I think he didn´t want us to wreck the rest of his lawn...Haha.

Anyways, this week was great. It went by really fast. I am getting my new comp tomorrow, so this next week should be full of interesting experiences. Have a great week everyone!!

Chow!

-Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the Week: “Don´t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitment of winning” -Robert Kiyosaki

My mom told me to buy myself a Christmas present since my packages did not come, SO.....I bought a soccer jersey! Here I am sunburned and sweaty....pretty much how I am every day, except  in a suit and tie.

¡Hola!

I hope that everyone had a great New Years! Mine was tons of fun! We got invited to a New Years party with a less active family. We were super excited, but then we received another phone call inviting us to another New Years party of another less active family....Sooo, we went to both. Haha. We went to the first party and they started feeding us all kinds of treats. It is very disrespectful to not eat what you are given...so my companion and I ate a ton of candy, and sweets. It was getting kind of late, so we scooted out of that party, and literally ran to the other party. Now, at this point, you can imagine that I didn´t feel very good....having eaten a ton of treats, and then sprinting to another house. When we got there, they had a huge table covered with food, which they started to give us....again, and again.... I was literally soo full, I thought I was going to die! They were making a traditional food called ¨Asado¨ which is kind of like barbecue, but they don´t cook it directly over the fire, just over the coals. After that was finished cooking, they passed around a plate of this ¨Mystery meat¨ and everyone was eating it. It looked really weird to me, but they were all yelling at me to eat it, so I popped it in my mouth. When I bit into it, it popped in my mouth....almost like a gusher.....I struggled to swallow it. This ¨Mystery Meat¨ is called Chingchuling....which is cow intestines......filled with the stomach fluid.... Next, I tried Morshisho, which looks like a sasuage....which it is...but it is a blood sasuage...It is made of Cow and Pig blood that is cooked, then funneled into sasuage tubes.......ick. Yeah...I didn´t feel very good for New Years. However, the fireworks were amazing! Elder Fonseca and I went to the 10th floor of our building to watch like we did on Christmas, and it was amazing!

As for the mission work, it is going great. We have 4 investigators that are very promising. The first one´s name is Fabio. He is 26, and he is super open to listening about religion. He is super friendly, and he received our lesson extremely well. He is extremely smart, and he understands what we say really well. He accepted to be being baptized, but we haven´t put a date with him yet.  Our second promising investigator is named Blanca. She is almost 50 years old, and her son Jonathan, is 21 years old, and he is a recent convert to the church. He told us to stop by his house, and talk with him and his mom. His mother, Blanca, accepted our invitation to be baptized, but she said she needs to go slow so she can understand clearly. Our other two are named Christian, and Ernesto. The leader of mission work for our ward had Christian over for family home evening, and we were able to teach him the restoration. He committed to read the BOM and pray to know if it was true. The other is Ernesto, and If I am being honest....he is crazy. Haha. We had like a 2 hour conversation with him, and he started going off about how the Aliens established the Mayan culture.....and then he explained his theory of time.......but, we were able to share a little of our message with him… planting seeds.

I am happy! I am healthy! I am ready to work! I love you all!

-Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week:

¨Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we´ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.¨