Me and my companion Elder Fonseca

Hello everyone!!

I am finally here in Uruguay! I am so glad to be here. The last week in Argentina...was interesting to say the least. I am going to miss Argentina...but not a ton. Haha. We went proselyting for one last time in Argentina....and two of the companionships got robbed at knife point....so I wasn´t too sad to board the plane to Uruguay.

The schedule was pretty crazy...but I got here at about noon, got assigned a companion, dropped my luggage of at the house, and got to work. My companion´s name is Elder Fonseca. He is from San Paulo Brazil.....and he literally speaks no English. In fact, he speaks Portuguese, so I am not even sure if he speaks Spanish! That has been a little bit difficult. Haha. I am learning the language pretty quick though...because I have to in order to survive. We are in an area right now called Camino Carrasco. It is just outside of Montevideo. I was expecting there to be a ton of tall buildings....but there are actually a ton of small huts, and dirt roads.

Seeing the living conditions here has really made me grateful for all I have. Most houses are one or two rooms, with a small kitchen, a table of some sort, and normally a bed on the ground in the corner or something. The people typically only have a few pairs of clothes, which are normally spread around the house to dry. Our house is pretty much exactly like that. It....is...pretty different than what I am used to living with...but I have everything I need! At church, most members are wearing the same clothes that they wore on their baptism day. With that said... please, be grateful for what you have!

As for the work. We have 6 possible baptisms-investigators, and one baptismal date set in stone. I will fill you in more on them next week, but I don´t have any time this week!

Love you all!!

-Elder Vanderlinden

Here are my quotes from the last two weeks:

¨If you can´t fly, then run, if you can´t run, then walk, if you can´t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.¨ -Martin Luther King Jr.

¨Never look down on someone unless you are helping them up¨ -Unknown

Hello!! I am glad to hear from all of you. I am here, in a internet cafe. I am here safe!!! I am in Uruguay Este. It is really close to the city. My companion`s name is Elder Fonseca. He is from Brazil, and doesn`t speak English. There is a language barrier for sure...Haha. The house we are in is super...interesting. It has made me appreciate my house at home a lot. Anyways, today isn`t our P-day…so I cannot respond to my e-mails until Monday. That is my new P-day. I will try to write a lot more then. I love all of you and miss you a lot!!! It is time for me to get to work! This was just an update, I can write again on Monday.

-Elder Vanderlinden

These are my crazy Brazilian roomates!

The field is white and ready to harvest.......not quite how I pictured it.

Hola!

Como están?

This is my last week in the MTC, so as of Tuesday I will be in Uruguay!!! I am so excited to finally be free of this prison. Haha. So this last Saturday we had our second chance to go proselyting. This time, we got dropped off in South Buenos Aires. Elder Taylor and I got assigned to a residential area. Unfortunately, it was during siesta. Everyone was off the streets, and all of the houses were locked up... So, after 5 hours of street contacting, we made 4 contacts. As you can imagine...we got rejected...a lot. You will not believe the length that people go to in order to avoid talking to us. It is actually pretty funny. People will run across the street, grab their kids and take them inside, or pretend to be busy, and speed walk past you. One lady even went to the extent of grabbing her cat, and running inside. I was like...¨What am I gonna do, baptize your cat?¨..Apparently that might be a legitimate fear here. Just kidding! Either way, here is the weird thing, after only 4 contacts, I was happy...In fact, I was thrilled. I was not concerned about the numbers, I was concerned about doing my best. I have been thinking about how that applies to everything...It isn´t important to think about the numbers, it is important that you try your best.....because if we do (In the words of Neill F. Marriott) ¨It will all work out!¨

Also, I have a funny story from proselyting. We were walking down a empty road, when a large siren started blaring. It grew louder and louder. Now, this wasn’t a normal car siren, it was super loud! It was a city wide alarm. So, initially, I suggested that I thought it might be a city wide earthquake alarm....or a warning for something. It sounded like a bomb was going to hit, and the siren still continued to blare. Next, two grown men sprinted past us running down the street, as if they were running away from something...Elder Taylor and I saw a boy step out of his car, so we ran up and asked him what was going on. He responded..¨Bomb eras Incendio¨...Then he quickly ran inside. Elder Taylor and I looked at each other stunned….."Incendiary Bombs???” we said as we stumbled out into the street. I kept glancing at the horizon, expecting to see planes begin to drop bombs on the city. ¨I wonder if a war has started?¨ Elder Taylor said, as we ran down the street. We decided to double check our suspicions by asking another woman.....And it turns out….Bomb-eras means firemen....The siren was calling all the firemen in the area.....We felt extremely stupid....because for 3 minutes...We thought the world was coming to a end...Hahahaha 

Love you all!

Elder Vanderlinden

The View from my window

View of the neighbors

Hello everyone!

Another week down in Argentina! As I am sure all of you know, this week we were able to watch conference. Conference is like the Superbowl for missionaries...Haha. For the first time in my life, I listened to every session, and didn't fall asleep. How incredible is that! Conference was extremely spiritual and it was very motivational to all of us. However, it was also very sad...If anyone heard the talk that Jeffrey R. Holland gave...thats why. Elder Holland talked on the importance of women, and specifically, mothers. As you can guess...everyone started crying...Haha. Overall though, it was excellent. There were tons of amazing talks, such as Neill F. Marriott´s talk "It will all work out," and many others. They seemed to stress the importance of women, so I just wanted to say thank you to all the women who have influenced my life. Thank you to my friends, thank you to my relatives, and thank you to my mom.....Next, did anyone see President Monson’s talk? It was super scary when President Thomas S. Monson was finishing up his talk...it looked like he was going to drop...and I am sure glad he didn't.

Other than that, this week has been....extremely...boring...Haha. I don´t have any stories this week, but we are going proselyting this week, so I am sure I will have tons next week. To give you an example of how bored we have been….we calculated the speed of our classroom fan in MPH, on every setting...and I am getting extremely good at paper football..haha. Everyone here is getting a little anxious to get out in the field and get to work. 

I love you all!! Talk to you next week

"If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way."

-Nepolean Hill

Elder Vanderlinden

Me and my companion Elder Taylor

Hello everyone!

This week has been an amazing experience for me. Last Saturday, all of the missionaries in my district hopped on a bus and drove about an hour away from the MTC. We drove through a main part of Buenos Aires. It is a very beautiful place, but....it is definitely interesting. To describe the culture shock, I will give you a few experiences. There were horses standing between the barriers of the freeway, and there were kids playing soccer under the freeway overpass. The speed limit on the freeway is pretty much however fast anyone wants to drive, and nobody uses their blinkers. The motorcyclists fly between cars and get close enough to touch them...When we arrived to our area, the bus doors opened, and we were greeted by a large playground, where kids were running around laughing, and there was a small carnival going on. It looked like tons of fun and we were excited...but after the girl in our district got off the bus, they closed the doors and started driving to where the elders were getting dropped off.......haha.


Elder Taylor and I were in a very interesting area...Remember how I said we were directly next to the danger zone? How true that was... Haha. The streets were lined with abandoned houses and stray dogs. I even saw a dog standing on top of a destroyed house. Regardless of our circumstances, we got to work. We were able to contact quite a few people, get some contact information from a few people, and even pass out both of our Books of Mormon. Keep in mind, that this is after two weeks of Spanish. It was an exhausting day, but it was well worth it, because I felt good about what I was doing.


The day was also full of people turning us down, which I just laugh off. When I would ask people walking by how they were doing, they would say ´´no´´. Haha. I got so used to being turned down, that one time, I was caught off guard by someone accepting it. I said, “we are missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, would you like to hear our message?”After a few moments...she responded that she would. I was totally caught off guard...and I didn’t even have a message in mind to share with her..so I just said quickly...Jesus loves you. We believe in the Book of Mormon....which led to another door getting closed in our faces....hahaha. At least I tried.

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss it, but that we aim too low and reach it!¨ -Michelangelo

That’s all I got! Love you all!

-Elder Vanderlinden

Ps. Feel free to write me a letter! I will be here at the CCM (MTC) for 3 more weeks and then I will receive mail at the mission home:) Here are both of those addresses.

MTC mailing address:
Elder Benjamin Vanderlinden
Uruguay Montevideo Mission
Argentina Missionary Training Center
Autopista Ricchieri y Puente 13
1778 Ciudad Evita. Partido De La Matanza
Buenos Aires
Argentina

The mission:
Elder Benjamin Vanderlinden
Uruguay Montevideo Mission
Dalmiro Costa 4635 Bis
Malvin
11400, Montevideo
Uruguay

This is my district. From left to right. Elder Wells, Elder Yolkum, Elder Bowyer, Me, Elder Bess, Elder Taylor, Elder Neff, Elder Sarkayde, Elder Hayden, and Elder Call.

Hello everyone!!

This week has been full of crazy experiences. The older missionaries in the MTC left on Tuesday, so in the entire MTC, there were only like 20 people, when there is usually closer to 90. I was disappointed to see the older missionaries leave because I was really good friends with a few of them. On their last day in the MTC, they hid a bunch of alarm clocks in our room to go off at different times. They thought they were super clever, so we decided to prank them back. Our district ripped up a bunch of paper and put it in a bucket, and taped it to a clock. We hid the clock in their ceiling, so when it went off, they thought we were pulling the same prank on them...So one of the elders jumped up and yanked the clock out, pulling the bucket full of paper shreds over, and sending small papers all over their room. Haha...After that had happened, we thought we had won. Later that night, they came into the kitchen while we were writing in our journals, with ties wrapped around their heads...They passed down a holy scepter....*Which I think was a piece they broke off one of their room's blinds.. to a new missionary. They then made us all write down a number between 1-100. My companion wrote down the closest number to the one they had thought of, so his punishment, was getting bideted in the face. A bidet is a spray toilet....used to clean yourself after you go to the bathroom. My companion gets on my nerves sometimes, so it was nice to see toilet water sprayed in his face...hahaha. 

This week has been full of spiritual experiences. The classes are going great. I think I am starting to pick up the language pretty well...Although I probably have the vocabulary of a 8 year old..haha. What is a day like at the MTC?  Wake up at 6:30 every morning....clean the kitchen, and then get dressed in our church clothes for breakfast at 7. Next, we have 1 hour of language study, 3 hours of classes. We eat lunch at noon, and then have another hour of class. At 1 we have physical activity. At 3:30 we have more classes until dinner. Then after dinner we have classes until we go to sleep at 10:30…..It is a super exhausting schedule. 

We went to the temple today in Spanish for a second time, and that is an amazing experience...Other than that...we have just been teaching practice lessons like every single day. Anyways, this Saturday we have the unique opportunity to practice our Spanish by driving to a area and proselyting for the day. They must have a lot of faith in my companion and I, because our zone is right next to the danger zone. The danger zone is marked off, because people have been known to get mugged and robbed there...so pray for me! haha. I hope everything is going well in Utah! I love you all!

Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week

Do you want to be happy? Forget yourself and get lost in this great cause. -Spencer W. Kimball

Hello!

I am here in Argentina! I am alive! haha. The flight was super crazy! There were 5 other missionaries that left Utah with me, and when we reached the Atlanta airport we met up with 6 other missionaries. We then had a overnight flight and landed in Argentina at 9 A.M. As we walked through customs and baggage claim, tons of people were trying to ask us questions, and yelling things that we needed to do.....and I just stared at all of them....and did not say a word. The MTC here is pretty nice. There are about 30 american missionaries and 40 Latinos. Immediately we started attending classes and studying the language. My companions name is Elder Taylor. He is from Kaysville. He is the district leader, and so he is super strict on the rules....It has been interesting to work with him....I can't say that much about him..because he is practically reading over my shoulder...but lets just say we have very different ways of doing....everything...Anyways.On our second day in the MTC Elder Taylor and I had to teach a practice lesson to a pretend investigator. The lesson is called a IP. We had to do it in all Spanish....It was extremely difficult because we wanted to say a bunch of stuff, but we couldn't, and whenever the investigator would ask us a question....we didn't know what the question was or how to respond..haha. I have had tons of funny experiences this week, along with a ton of spiritual experiences.

Spiritual///Every single day, we have a devotional, and there was one that stuck out to me in particular. We talked a lot about life, and there were a ton of great quotes. I am going to share a little bit about what I learned. The race of life is not a 100 meter dash. We are running a long distance race. Each of us have different ways to run the race. Sometimes the race is easy, and sometimes its very difficult. At some point...we will fall.....how long would it take you to get up? Have faith, and endure to the end.I know that my mission will be full of ups and downs, but I didn't come on a mission to start a race, I came to finish it.

Funny/// So this week in class we were asked to show pictures of our family and tell a story about them in all Spanish. We all proceeded to attempt to tell a story about our families to the class and show pictures. We got down to the last missionary, whose name is Elder Bowyer. He has a super serious girlfriend back home, and he is completely convinced that they are going to get married. Anyways, he walked up to the front of the class, and opened his book. As he was starting he yelled....Es Mi Novia! which means "Its my girlfriend". It was filled with pictures of him and his girlfriend kissing and stuff...and you should have seen the look on our teachers face. We all busted out laughing, and he flipped through page after page of pictures of his girlfriend. The teacher asked where the pictures of his family were...and it turns out...he didn't bring any. She got upset with him and said he was supposed to bring pictures of his family...He then tried to get out of getting in trouble by explaining that she was going to be his family...In two years. Another quick story is that the two strongest elders in the MTC, who are both wrestler, decided they were going to wrestle on the lawn. Everyone was watching them, including all the girls, and one of the elders python squeezed a very loud....fart...out of the other elder...It was insanely awkward...and everyone was silent for like a minute, and then we all just starting laughing until we were crying.  Haha. Anyways, there have been tons of funny moments, but its hard describing them because sometimes there are just things you have to be here to see.

The language is starting to come along. I try to talk to the locals a lot, but they speak super fast. There are lessons where I will understand every word, and others where I understand none of them...Learning the language is going to be difficult, but I am supposed to be here.

Every weakness you have is an opportunity for God to show His strength in your life.

Love you all,

Elder Vanderlinden