Hastening The Work

Rafael before his Baptism...

And, a redo for Martin - His father was able to baptize him!

GOOOO UTES!!!!!!!

I couldn't be more proud to call myself a UTE. I guess the Lord just wants me there. It would be great if you guys could start the school stuff for me. As far as housing, I'm not sure. I don't know many people who are going to the U. I would be totally fine with living at home for the first semester, but we can figure that situation out. You NEED to send me a bracket.

Sounds like Florida is fun, cold but fun. That's so cool that the Bishop knows T.J. - small world.

Okay this week was awesome. First of all, everything went amazing with the baptism. Rafael was really excited, and said that he wanted me to baptize him. It was a good day. Also the member, well I guess not member kid Martin, got baptized as well. They had apparently lost his paperwork or never filled out a baptismal record in their last ward, so he had to be baptized again. The cool part was that before, this dad wasn't able to baptize him, because he was less active I believe, but on Saturday he was able to baptize his son. They are such an amazing family, and are actually preparing to go to the temple to be sealed soon.

On Tuesday we went to Minas for a conference with Elder Viñas from the area seventy. It was such a great conference. He was really staight with us; and with the whole mission. He talked a lot about the retention of recent converts, and how low it is in Uruguay. It really is sad, but the missions retention is about 20-30%. However, we saw some miracles after the conference trying to have more contact with the converts in our area, and guess what we had 8 of the 11 converts in church! That may not sound very good to you guys, but it was amazing for me to see that. Also Enzo was able to recieve the priesthood, and he and Marcos passed the sacrament together. Also in the second hour we had an awesome lesson with all the young men and Rafael talking about the duties and blessings of the priesthood. Also in sacrament meeting, Marcos went up and bore his testimony of the power of the sacrament and how it's not just a peice of bread and cup of water but that there is happiness and peace in these symbols. It was awesome.

Marcela and Nicolas are doing great. They didn't go to church because she said that they slept in. But on Friday we had a great lesson with our old bishop and she committed to talking to her boss to have Sundays off. I really have been fasting and praying so that she can get Sunday's off or find a new job. It really is the biggest obstacle between them and the gospel. It's so saddening to see how the world has changed the sabbath into the complete opposite of what it should be. In preach my gospel it talks about this, that those who lose sight of the importance will lose promised blessings.

It's going to be a great week though. Elder Perry is growing leaps and bounds... and so am I. The mission is changing the focus a little. Well the focus has always been the same. Encontrar, enseñar, bautizar, retener, y rescatar. Find, teach, baptise, retain and rescue. I just feel personally that we don't understand that we need to be doing all of it at the same time. Hopefully this week as a mission and a district we can find that balance and start hastening the work. It's such a blessing to be serving in a time when the work is growing at such a fast rate.

Keep being awesome. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes. I definitely have felt your love and support. I love you all more than you will ever know.

Oh and happy B-Day Justin! It's the best birthday you could ever have!

Have a great week guys.

Elder England

We make pancakes every Sunday night! It's amazing - 

excpet I always feel sick after eating so many pancakes