February 21

whats poppin!!

So Uruguay has just been getting better and better every week! This week was way cool and we had lots of crazy stuff goin on!

I had exchanges twice this week, on Tuesday with Elder Taylor in my area, and on Thursday with Elder Haviland in his area, both days were super sweet! it was cool to work outside of my area for a day, and I learned a lot from both of them. Both nights we stayed up past midnight just talking about life and the mission and stuff, it was way fun. They are both capos! (studs)

So we did a lot of service this week. Elder Haviland and I did service at thier Bishops house, and Elder Inostroza and I helped the parents of a single sister in our ward build their house! That was way fun. We stopped and helped people doing yardwork in the streets twice this week as well. Needless to say, Ive got 10 blisters between my 2 hands! haha The tools here are pretty hopeless. They are like a branch of a tree with a piece of metal on the end. I found it easier to just use my hands.

I gave my first Spanish Prieshood blessing on Saturday! It was an awesome experience. Elder Inostroza knew that I didn`t know how, but he volunteered me to do it, after he did the annointing. I am thankful for his faith in me. He gives me confidence when I think I can`t do things, and helps me grow as a missionary. I was like uhh I dont know how Elder! You have to use command form in spanish, and you use the informal (tu) conjugations of verbs. We only use (Usted) as missionaries except for prayers so I definately had to rely on the help of the gifts of the spirit to help me out. I was able to do the blessing and the spirit was definately there! It was an amazing experience to recieve not only priesthood blessing inspiration but spanish at the same time!

Our awesome bishop and his wife had thier first baby on saturday!! They are the coolest little shorties family ever and I cant wait to go stop by and see the baby! It was an interesting sunday this week. The Bishop was in the hospital, the 1st counselor was in Montevideo for work trip, there isnt a 2nd counselor, so the Elders Quorum president led sacrament meeting! I had never seen that before! It was a great meeting though! Elder Inostroza and I did a musical number. "Señor Te Necesito" I Need Thee Every Hour. It turned out a LOT better than the talent show, and I got so many compliments, more about the spirit in the meeting that came than the talents of my voice. Elder Inostroza is a capo on the piano! But the most interesting part about sunday meetings was that the other ward had a baptism on Saturday night and something went wrong after they all left with the baptismal font, and the whole church was flooded! It was a little miracle that the whole building was wet (family history center computers were short circuted, lots of papers and books got ruined, there was water everywhere!) but the chapel was completely dry. So what we did was...ok so we start sacrament meeting at 8:30. the other ward starts sunday school at 9. So we just had our Sacrament meeting and the other ward all helped clean the chapel, then when we got out, we all helped clean and they had their sacrament meeting. It was way fun! We rolled up our pants, and rocked the flip flops and everyone even the little kids were all helping! It was an awesome thing to see the members all pitching in to help clean thier building. My favorite part was running and sliding down the hall with my squeegee pushing water out the backdoor. There is NO carpet here in South America. Only in the sacrament rooms and the bishops offices. So in the Bishops offices the 6 Elders put a bunch of rags on the floor. then we would jump around and dance and stuff, then ring out the raggs and do it again! We did that for quite about and hour and a half! it was pretty funny at first, then it got old. but we had lots of fun. We filled 2 whole buckets in one bishops office!

Dad- I didnt get the pictures but Im sure I will get them tomorrow in District Mtg. I have been getting the cousin emails and I love hearing from them! Thanks for forwarding them! About the Debit Card. I already went in and changed my address from BYU to Arizona. So There shouldnt be a problem there. Thats wierd though! The paycheck from ultra star. I payed tithing on everything up until that paycheck. So if you already payed some tithing for me, take it away from that check. There is a 6 month rule where if you dont deposit or cash the check it goes invalid after 6 months from the printing date. So hurry! Thanks for your help!

The language is coming MOm! Really it just depends on the day, the person, and what they are talking about! I understand everything in a lesson cuz thats what they taught me in the MTC, but all the other stuff just talking in the streets is a lot harder to understand. The church and the gospel definately has its own vocabulary. The wierdest thing is when you explain what a word means to them in thier language and you have only known their language for a couple months haha.

well i better get going. I love you all so much and thanks for your awesome letters and prayers and everything! I find out if im staying in Artigas next monday night so that should be exciting!

Love,

Elder Kellis

Week 4 in Uruguay!

Hey errybuddy!

My mind has been on money a lot today. They give us each an amount of money each month to spend on food, haircuts, ect. Its extremely low, so its really hard to budget. I think I am going to learn a lot more than just spiritual lessons on my mission. Budgeting is really difficult. Any suggestions? I dont plan on spending too much money on my mission. I just want to get a cheap soccer jersey, stuff like that.

This week was way sweet! We got to go to Salto for a zone conference. It was about a 2-3 hour drive. We got up at 3am, so I actually slept on the way which was a miracle with the crazy bumpy highways and negative 2 inches of leg room. We learned a lot in the zone conference about focusing our teaching on the Atonement. It was a great conference. There is a tradition that all the greenies have to bear their testimony in Spanish and all the Elders in their last change do as well. You can definately see a difference in each of the two distinct categories but both have really special testimonies.

Every Friday the 6 missionaries in the 3 wards of our building have a missionary activity. This week was a talent show and "Torta" competition. Torta is cake! haha So yeah. I baked a cake from scratch! It wasnt too bad! I used that nesquick that I brought! haha. it didnt win the competition thats for sure. We had a great turn out. Me and Elder Inostroza had to make up for the lack of our ward and fill in 2 slots for the show. One of them we did a skit. I have it on video so you'll see it some day. But its basically me desperate for paper. We go through a bunch of different paper things, like our daily planners, our pamphlets, our scriptures, a binder of music that someone else had used, and then finally elder pulls out toilet paper and I ran off the stage through the crowd and to the bathroom. Our second talent was a special musical number in the chapel. He played and I sang "Yo se que vive mi Señor" IT was funny cuz their was a interlude and I started singing and realized I was singing during an interlude so I like morphed it into an awkward humm and smiled really huge. Then the fans in the chapel blew off the sheet music so I sang ocapella for a little. It was awesome. Oh south america. Hahaha

I ate a fried egg this week. Just sayin.

HAha story for Bishop Klippel. My companion and I were laying in bed going to sleep and he says, "I love you, man" in his broken English. I smiled and awkwardly said "you too man" and immediately thought of Bishop Klippel and his story of his comp.

The rain isnt always that bad. we asked them and they said that was the first time their house had ever been flooded. Theyve only lived their for 3 years though. It rained 7 days in a row though this week! Not straight 24/7 rain, but at least for a couple minutes every day.

The other morning we were doing our excersises running and these dogs started running with us like they always do. They didnt run behind us though. they ran like right in front of us sideways. I was like what the heck is wrong with you? Well i accidentaly stepped on its paw and it started crying. I was kinda in a frustrated mood that morning so I just kept running.

SO remember when I lost my nametag in that crazy storm!? Well. I prayed really hard that night that I would be able to find it. Well we looked and it wasnt there. Elder Inostroza said that it was probably floating in the river in Brazil. I didnt believe him. I had prayed so faithfully like all those cute primary kids stories! haha. So we looked again. It was nowhere to be found. So then I prayed that someone would find it and see Missionaries walking down the street and give it to them or something. Well after about a week of faithfully waiting. Yesterday one of our appointments fell through. Elder Inostroza randomly decided to go to this members house, which we try not to do unless its super hot or we need a bathroom break or we are planning a FHE or something. But we went in and she was super relief society presidenty like tablecloth huge smile loving mormon "sister perfect" She brough out a tray with a tablecloth and two cups of soda and two wrapped chocolates for each of us. Then she saw my nametag and almost had a heart attack. She said she had something for me and came back with my nametag! I was super happy and thankful for that little tender mercy.

Well thank you everybody for all your prayers and love and letters and everything you do for me!

Until next time!

Elder Kellis

Hey Hey

Happy February Everyone! I cant believe how fast time has gone!

I only have 15 minutes so ill get straight to it...

MAIL INFORMATION
Pouch- safer (its a pouch with all the church mail from the states to Uruguay) , cheaper (1 stamp) , but slower (2 weeks)
Uruguay Montevideo West Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City, Utah 84130-0150
Direct Mail- Quicker (5-7 days) more expensive (3 stamps or 98 cents)
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo, Uruguay C.P. 11.800
Packages
No more than 4 pounds each and dont put the worth as more than 50 dollars. If either of these are not followed it will take up to 4 months.
Email
Urugoest@gmail.com
this is the best way to just send me a letter or something. Its easy. just put "Elder Daniel Kellis" on the subject line, and write away!

Caity! hows the blog coming? are you updating it? =) I loved you email and your pictures! You are the best missionaries little sister ever! I love you! I hope you feel better soon!
Hahaha theres a little latino kid next to me playing video games. hes all into it and stuff.

Alright so some quick stories.
We were walking and saw this super crazy eye crossed high off his mind smoking guy with raggedy clothes and a huge gross but awesome smile. We were just like hey whats up man! you should stop smoking!!! he was like OK!!!! =D and threw his cigarette into the street and started hugging us. It was awesome. I cant wait to watch that instant replay in heaven.

There was a CRAZZZYY like hurricane status rain storm this week. We were in the house when it started, and decided to leave during the middle of it. The streets were like rivers. There was like a 6inch constant flow of water throghout the whole streets. We happened to be close to the bishops house so we chilled there. As the sun finally came out about 1 hour later (after I lost one of my nametags and had soaked shoes and everything) we left. I felt like we should go to a recent convert family. But Elder Inostroza is a very i dont know how to put it. He is very good at being senior companion. So I didnt say anything. Luckily I think he might have had some kind of similar inspiration because about an hour later he said lets go to Rider and Maira´s so we did. Their house had been flooded. They were trying to get water out of their house. They have little to nothing already. Their little refrigerator and little clothes washer had gotten wet and broke. The water was up to about a foot and a half in thier two little tiny bedrooms. The 2 daughters have to share a twin size bed. Their room was the worst. Their little TV had been filled with water. Well anyways. We spent the rest of the day helping them. I have a little thing I wrote that I would like to send when I get the chance. Its about the faithful saints in South America.

I had divisions on Tuesday with Elder Oakey. He´s a stud and is going home in 3 weeks. We had an awesome and successful day, I learned alot from him and it was so nice to talk in English!!!!!

The food is so great!! We have lunch with the zone twice a week. after district meetings on tuesdays and on Pdays on mondays. On all the other days the members feed us lunch. Lunch is the main meal here. So we eat A LOT. So far I havent eaten anything to crazy. The sisters are awesome cooks here! Lots of fried breaded meat, rice, and my favorite drink ever now GUARANA!!!! THey also make this declicious bread its basically banana bread without banana in it that we put carmel stuff on.

The weather has been fresher this week.

Thanks for all your prayers and love!! Thanks for your letters each of you! Mom thank you for sharing all that you shared. I love hearing all about how your doing.

Today I had a haircut and the Hermana asked that I ask if you could send a BYU shirt. Ill have to tell you more about that when I have time too. Shes the best. She washes our clothes and makes our food and stuff.

IM CRAVING AMERICAN CANDY!! hahaa

GOOOO BYU!!!! thats so awesome!!!

AC-.the chapel has like 40 fans in the chapel and each room has like 4 fans. It gets REALLY hot when there arent fans on. about 1 in 30 houses have AC here, i dont know how they do it. =P

I dont use the sleeping bag, but I think for exchanges it will be nice.

Health is great, I drink 2 liters of water each day, plus the water the members give us.

Today was way fun, Ill have to send you my SD card sometime soon with a bunch of pictures.

Love you lots!!
have an awesome week!

-Elder Kellis