Elder Vanderlinden - Uruguay Montevideo Mission

This is a train track bridge that we were messing around on.
 It's actually really high in the air. My companion was pretty scared. 

Bueennno Gente,

Another week down, here in Uruguay. This week, my companion and I went house shopping with the Senior missionaries. It was a fun experience. We saw a couple of houses, but they were all crazy expensive, so in the end...we just gave up, bought ice cream, and went back to our broken down house. Haha. We are looking for a better house because when it rains...the rain comes into our house. So when we hear thunder, we start running around like crazy trying to put bowls and pots all over the house to catch the rain, and we have to throw the stuff that we don’t want to get wet onto our beds. I imagine watching us run around and throwing stuff must must look like a minute to win it challenge. Haha

My companion and I were running around quite a bit this week, to help some of the other Elders out. I am currently working in a Trio with my comp and another Elder that is also from Peru. I don’t know how long we are going to be working in a triple companionship for....they didn’t really tell us...the assistants just dropped him off with his stuff. Haha.

Experience from this past week:

My companion and I were walking around passing by futures and contacts that we had made in the street. All of our plans fell through in a matter of minutes...so we weren`t sure what to do. We decided to pass by some futures, that we had tried to contact previously, but that had never answered. A woman opened up the door and we asked if the people we were looking for were home......It turns out....that they didn’t even live there. They had lied to us, and gave us a fake address….however, Carmin, the woman that lives there, was soooo ready to listen! Coincidence? I think not! Her kids are members that live in the U.S. She already had a Book of Mormon, from when her son got baptized, and she was extremely grateful that we visited her and taught her. She was extremely touched when we gave her the new Book of Mormon (She had the really old version without the pictures in the front). She was very grateful for the Book, and surprised by the gift. It made me realize and ask myself,  "How grateful am I for the Book of Mormon?" 

I hope that you are all grateful for the Book of Mormon. Grateful that God still speaks to men. Grateful that the connection with the heavens isn’t closed. Grateful for the priesthood. Grateful for the simple truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I sure am!

Have a great week!

-Elder Vanderlinden