I'm Staying

Guys, you've got to come see this!

Guess what these are?...

ANTSSSS...

Yeah these hills are ant hills!

Hey punks,

So we've got changes this week, that explains me writing on Tuesday. Turns out that... Im' staying here with Elder Perry to finish training. I'm so stoked for this next change. Elder Vaatuitui who lives with us is also going to be training so we have another new missionary in the house. Also there were some missionaries that were not getting along at all in my district, but they were changed now and this change won't be as much of a headache. I'm just really excited.

The Brighton curse!!! I'm sure you did amazing Mags. But yeah I think I agree with mom that your Valentines dress was a tad short. I do like the brown hair though, you looked great. Bo sounds like you are tearing it up, too bad you couldn't show your friend who's boss... next time. And I'll send some pics today of some of the weird environment of Uruguay. So the Utes are awesome... obvio. and if Justin is a big U fan then I'm sure he is pretty cool.

Okay as far as investigators... Cristian and Maria are kind of indecisive. They didn't go to church on Sunday. They say that they have been passing through a lot of trials lately and I think that they just see the gospel as something more in their busy lives or just something to add stress. But we had a really great charla with Cristian last night. Elder Perry and I had been studying a lot and preparing what we could share with him to help him. So we got a handful of scriptures together and made a lesson plan. The scriptures that we shared were 2 Nefi 2:16, 3 Nefi 11:29, Galatas 5:22-23, 1 Cor. 10:13, and Eter 12:6. We really tried to focus on what he has felt in the previous lessons and explain that the good feelings that he has experienced are a confirmation from the spirit that this message is true, and all the other negative things that are happening with the family and work and everything is coming from a different source. When he read the scricçpture in Galatas he totally stopped and called Maria who was inside the house to come to the window and listen for a second. She hadn't been in the charla because she wasn't feeling good, but she came to the window and he read it. Then asked her if she had felt any of the feelings that it described, and he then said, ¨I don't know if you have, but i definitely have.¨ We left with high hopes for them. I'm really glad that I am staying to be able to help them continue learning. It was fun to talk with Elder Perry about that charla and see the importance of studying and planning.

Emilio is doing good. Jecsandra unfortunately hasn't been showing much interest, and says that she is busy when we are talking with Emilio. Hopefully she can be more involved this week. Emilio has had a lot of questions this week, but we feel that we have helped him to understand that through prayer he can receive those answers. He told us that like four days ago he couldn't sleep and he was just out on the couch thinking and reading the Bible. He said he felt impressed to go back to the Evangelical church that he went to when he was younger. But he told us that he still wants to keep talking with us. Well in that lesson that he told us this, I felt super strongly the need to focus on The Book of Mormon. We hadn't really focused on it too much because we are trying to get a copy of it in Portugues for him. So we hadn't even given him a copy. Well after explaining more about the book he was really interested and wanted to learn more and read it. He said that he had gotten to know the Bible fairly well and has read it before so he is all excited to read The Book of Mormon. Well we didn't have a Book of Mormon with us to give away, so I lent him mine. This was Sunday, and no he didn't come to church because of the feelings that he had to return to his old church. But we went back yesterday to switch my book with a different copy, and he told us that he had downloaded the whole Book of Mormon in a pdf form in Portugues and had started reading that. We are going to try and get a Book of Mormon when we go to Montevideo for changes tomorrow. I really think that the Book of Mormon will be that convincing evidence that will move him to follow this gospel.

Also Marcos and Anthony both went to church on Sunday! It was great. Marcos passed the sacrament. Anthony still hasn't gotten the priesthood, but we are going to see if we can do it next week. Enzo is being kind of like a teenage boy. We see him a lot, just around with his friends playing soccer on some feild or something. But when he is with his friends he pretends like he doesn't even know us. It's really disappointing, but I think that everyone is starting to settle down from the summer craze. Things are looking bright with the new bishopric though. They are really excited to get everything started. We are trying to set up a weekly family history activity... we´ll see.

Thanks for all the support and the emails.

I love you more than you will ever know,

Elder England

This is Cristian and all of Maria's CUTE girls!