Florencia is baptized!

Saying our goodbyes!

¡Me voy! 

I am headed out tomorrow morning! I am going to a new zone called Norte. My new companion is a Latino named Elder Molina....but that is about all of the details that I have on him for now. I am going to be super sad to leave this area. It feels like this is my home now. After six months, it feels like the members and investigators are my best friends. However, I am excited for the new adventure and new responsibilities that are waiting for me in Norte. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have to help and serve other missionaries and I am excited to get to know another part of Uruguay!

This last week was very good. Florencia was baptized on Saturday. The service went perfectly! Then we had a testimony meeting after, and the testimonies were sooo amazing. It was a very spiritual and uplifting event. I felt soo happy the whole time. I was nearly on the verge of tears the whole time. Anyways, other than that, this week has been full of a lot of sad goodbyes. However, they are happy goodbyes.....I know that doesn`t make much sense....but as sad as I am to say goodbye to these people, I know that there are other people that are waiting that I need to find. I am very excited for Norte and the missionaries that are there! I will be sure to include more details about the area and my companion next week...but I got to keep this short, because I have to get home and pack!

Have a great week! I love you all!

Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” -The Pharisee and the Publican

Seeing Ester and Enrique before I go.

Me in a field! Haha

Opa Che.

Welllll..let's see....this last week was great!

Yesterday, while we were in church waiting for the sacrament meeting to start, the ward secretary called us over in front of one of our investigators named Geronimo. Then he was like ¨You guys need to give him a baptismal date! Give him a date right now!” ¨The reason that he is worried about getting baptized is because he isn´t working, and he is worried he won´t be able to pay tithing!¨.....So I said....¨If you aren´t making any money....you don´t have to pay tithing....cause you aren´t earning any money.” Then my comp was like ¨We have a baptism on the 5th. Do you want to get baptized?¨ Well…. He accepted! What a strange…miracle!

My companion and I are working really hard and the Lord is rewarding us. Not in Baptisms, not in investigators, but because we are happy, and our knowledge and testimonies are growing! I am going to be very sad to leave this area....especially because the baptisms that we have planned out...are going to be after I am gone. It will be sad if I can´t make it, but at least they are going to be baptized!!

Oh! I almost forgot....The Bishop asked me to throw down a farewell talk, while I was eating lunch just a few minutes before the sacrament meeting. I had literally like 2 minutes to prepare a talk. They only scheduled two talks for the whole sacrament meeting! The first lady sat down with 25 minutes to spare......and then it was my turn. Haha. I am soo grateful that the Lord helps us by filling our mouths when we go to open them! 

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week: ¨You have to give a talk on Agency.¨(Bishop) ¨Can I use my agency and say no?¨(Me)  ¨You can use you Agency in your next ward.¨(Bishop)

Me, Brian, the Caligaroli Family and Elder Ward

Brian

Hola! Este semana fue locaso, pero terminò bien de bien.

This week was great! It was full of up and downs, but it finished on a high note. We had lot’s of preparation for the baptisms on Saturday. Luckily, everything went great!! Familia Caligaroli and Brian were baptized on Saturday and confirmed members of the church on Sunday. I had the opportunity to baptize Brian. Luckily, I have been doing my exercises, so I didn`t leave him underwater. Haha. Actually, he said that I left him under longer than the other people. We told him that was because I was making sure he was really clean. Haha. 

Finding and teaching these wonderful converts has been an amazing experience and it goes to show that the Lord is always preparing people who are ready to listen and receive the gospel. 

Also this week, Elder Ward and I were walking around and we planned on passing by a members house to coordinate the baptismal service. She wasn`t home, so we turned around with like no plans...Then, we felt that we should pass a contact that lived close. We went to her house and when we knocked, she pulled out some chairs and started talking with us. We taught her the restoration and invited her to be baptized. She accepted and committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. She was able to go to church this Sunday. It is quite a miracle, because we didn`t even plan on passing by her house and we didn`t think that we were going to be in the area. I am glad that my companion and I were able to receive the prompting to pass by her house and teach her.

That about sums up my week. Haha.

I love you guys!

-Elder Vanderlinden

"To abide in God’s love in this sense means to submit fully to His will. It means to accept His correction when needed. … It means to love and serve one another as Jesus has loved and served us."

—D. Todd Christofferson, "Abide in My Love"

We decided to take some photos in a random trash field in our area with Elder Mason 
(the short one) and Elder Jones. They are both good friends of mine. 
Elder Jones is training Elder Mason.

Hola!

I hope that everyone enjoyed the wonderful conference weekend that we had. I loved it! I was extremely touched by many of the talks and I know that our investigators were as well. If you guys didn`t get a chance to watch conference, I advise you to make the time and do it! I noticed that in this conference, it seemed like all of the speakers went back to the basics. Praying, reading the scriptures, going to church and enduring to the end. They also talked a lot about how good people pass through trials too. However, it is important to know that we can always find comfort and support in the gospel.

This week has gone by extremely fast! On Tuesday, we had interviews with our mission President. It was a great opportunity to meet with him and discuss his goals for the mission and for me personally as a missionary. 

One interesting story from this week: We have this one family of members with probably the biggest dog in the world. It is a dog from Brazil and apparently they use packs of these dogs to hunt Jaguars....sooo yeah it is a massive dog! It goes insane when we enter in the house, so the Dad has to leave and hold it back even though it is on a huge chain and it just pulls the Dad around. We went to visit them and we quickly ran in the house as the Dad was holding back the dog. Then, exhausted, he let it go. When it reached the limit of its chain, its collar snapped off...and the dog ran straight toward us. My companion quickly jumped to the other side of the table and the dog lunged at me. His huge head hit me right in the hip and almost knocked me over. I quickly swung my arm down and smacked the dog right in the side of the head. Then I grabbed its neck and shoved its face towards the ground...the Dad ran in and jumped on top of the dog like a horse and yelled for me to get back.....they were like hitting the dog and wrestling it so that it wouldn`t turn and attack me. Then I reached in my pocket and there was some of the dog food from his mouth.....that was a close one! 

-Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week: "I am not losing you” -General Conference 

My District!

Hola! I hope that everyone had a good week.

     As I was walking this last week...I realized something interesting. As a missionary, whenever I think of a destination....I calculate how many minutes it would take me to get there walking and I don´t even take into account if I will have enough energy to get there. I have become sooo use to walking, that it isn´t even exercise anymore. I am pretty sure that’s why I am able to walk like 10 miles and still gain weight. Haha. My companion and I did a lot of walking this past week, a lot of contacting and we knocked a lot of doors. It was a good experience and we were able to find some miracles.

One cool experience from this past week:

      The family we are teaching wanted to get baptized this Friday. We changed the date of the baptism until the 8th, because of General Conference, so that they can be confirmed the day after. I walked up to tell the Bishop this and Brian our other investigator said jokingly, “Tell them I am getting baptized too…Haha.” So I walked up and told them. To his surprise, they announced his baptism. We passed by later that night and he was a little bit surprised about the baptism date....but it was the little push that he needed. We have family Caligaroli and Brian with baptismal dates for the 8th! So we are going to be working a lot with them these next few weeks. Also, we are going to be making a lot of contacts..because after they get baptized.... we are going to need some new investigators. Haha

I am doing good, and having fun! Have a great week everyone.

-Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week:

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only having more of it than the next man.”---C.S. Lewis

A non-member made this for me. Jesus in Uruguay!

My Zone

¡Un otro gran día en la misión Uruguay Montevideo!

Hello everyone,

This last week, 50 other missionaries or so and I had the opportunity to listen to the Area 70 for South America South, named Elder Texiera. He spoke to us about the importance of giving out as many Book of Mormons as we could and trying to use the Book of Mormon more in our contacts. He gave us an example of the effectiveness of using the Book of Mormon as opposed to a pass along card. He explained it like this, "Here is a card with a small picture on it of a book that could change your life......Here is a picture of a huge ice-cream that is really yummy"....and "Now here is the real thing. The real book, and the real ice-cream" Which ones do you want? I have left the house to work with a Book of Mormon in my hand since then, not tucked away in my backpack. Then his wife spoke to us and totally just raked us over the coals. Luckily, I consider myself an obedient missionary, but even then I felt a little guilty. Haha. He built us up and she tore us down...What a good team.

Anyways, this week was also ward conference. There were 142 members in the church! That is a very large increase from just a short time ago. I am very excited for the miracles that we are having here in Uruguay! Just to give you guys an update on the family that we are teaching, they had a baptismal date scheduled for the 8th, but the father has asked that we baptize him sooner. We are in the process of preparing all four of them to be ready to get baptized the 1st of October.

Interesting story from this week---We were teaching a lesson to a man named Ce maria during a thunder storm...It was raining really hard and the wind was going crazy. His roof, like most, are made of a tin tin, that bounces up and down and sometimes flies off during storms. As you can imagine, it was very loud inside his house. The power got knocked out and it was completely black...like so dark that I couldn´t see my hands in front of me. We had just met this guy...and I seriously couldn´t even see him in front of me.....I kind of got a little nervous and uncomfortable. Then his cell phone light turned on...and just illuminated his eyes a little bit.....(He has dark skin). It gave me the creeps! After we left the lesson....my comp and I both looked at eachother and said....I thought we were going to die! He creeped us right out, and didn´t even try!

Have a great week,

Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week: ”Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all” -Dale Carnegie

The Newleweds!

Ester is Baptized!

Lluvia.

This week was very eventful and also very rainy. First off, Ester and Enrique got married on Tuesday. It was tons of fun to see how happy they were. We threw rice at them after the ceremony. I know you are supposed to throw the rice up in the air, but we more just threw large handfuls of rice at them. I don`t really understand that tradition.....

Then, on Saturday, Ester got baptized! Enrique is already a member, but now his new wife is too!! Ester can`t really bend her knees that well....so I hopped in with Elder Ward to help baptize her. As she was bending backwards, she sat down on my knee, like a chair and I just dunked her under really quick. I am pretty sure I got almost as wet as her. Haha. Then after she went up and bore her testimony that this is the true church!! Unfortunately, Elder Ward and I were in the bathroom drying our shirts....because we didn`t bring extras, thinking that we would only get wet to the belt....my shirt was soaked to my neck......I walked home with a wet shirt....Haha but the baptism was a fun experience.

Family Caligaroli want to get Baptized the 1st of October!! I am praying that they will be ready by then. I am going to be staying in this area for 1.5 months more, so hopefully I will be able to help them be prepared to take this important step.

This week, I am extremely grateful for the Priesthood and having the ability to serve others. I was able to confirm Ester on Sunday and that same day, I had the opportunity to give two blessings of health. Priesthood power is real. We have to use it!

Have a great week everyone,

Elder Vanderlinden

Thought for the week: Cast not away therefore your confidence. 
Hebrews 10:35