Elder Vanderlinden - Uruguay Montevideo Mission

Leadership meeting with President Eddy and his family.

A really cool bridge!

Happy Pioneer Day!

I am missing the fireworks a little bit today, but that is okay. This last week went by really quick. We were able to find a decent amount of new people to teach, which was nice. On Monday night I was walking in the street and talking with my companion about how I wasn't sure if I remembered how to hold a conversation in English. Just a few minutes later we were contacting a man and he directed us towards another man who had long blond hair. We started up a conversation with him. His Spanish wasn’t very good and I could tell that he wasn’t from South America. We asked him where he was from and he said he was from the Netherlands. I presented myself as Elder Vanderlinden (My last name is Dutch) and this man’s face lit up. He started speaking to me in Dutch and I had no clue what he was saying. I tried hard to remember the few Dutch words that my father had taught me and I remembered these words, "Egg Shmack a Lick.” (I have no clue how to spell it) Which means "Enjoy the food" or something like that. So I said it. Then he started speaking more Dutch and I wasn’t able to pick up very much. Then I started talking to him in English and sure enough he also knew English. Another blonde man walked over and the Dutch man that I had been talking to said, "Hey look, he is my dutch friend,” and he put his arm around me. Then they started speaking Dutch to me again. I responded with "Egg Shmack a Lick.” We had a good laugh. I was able to make the contact with them in English and as we walked away my comp was like, "Well...you wanted to know if you could hold a conversation in English...there you have it!”

To end off the week we had a ward activity in the park. We played soccer, frisbee, and had a scavenger hunt that we set up. We also had a large BBQ. It was lots of fun.

I am doing great! Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week: "The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so, but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, of hunger, and mosquitos and silly people.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Count the blessings that you have instead of the ones that you want!

Love you all!