march 14th

Yeah! Those are pictures!! haha

whats up errybody!

Sounds like the world is going crazy! Artigas definately is as calm as ever! Theyre still all just chillin out in front of thier little houses sippin on mate! haha

So yesterday stake conference was so awesome! It was cool because the District from Quaraì Brazil came as well. It was so cool to see the stake center full!! Usually there are only 40-50 people on sunday. It was almost motivating to see the chapel that full! One of my favorite parts was the music. The primary from the stake sang "Yo se que me ama el señor" or I know that my savior loves me. It was so cute! It gave me lots of memories from teaching primary in Copper Canyon ward. The missionaries all sang a special number as prelude. We sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer to the melody of Come Thou Fount. It was so powerful and I could barely sing! To look over a huge chapel and think about that morning that started all of this, I knew the words I was singing were true. The spirit of missionary work hit me like a brick as I sang in a different language in a different country. Its awesome to see how the church is growing around the world. I wish I could see more countries and sing in more languages!

The temple president and our mission president came to the conference, so we had a lot of time with our mission president. We had interviews on saturday and on sunday we had a zone conference. It was way sweet! We talked about the power of the book of mormon in conversion and how to help investigators keep commitments. Then after our conference, president offered to go proselyting for the rest of the night with a companionship, and guess who got that opportunity!? yeah. President and his wife came with me and elder inostroza! It was way awesome! they are still learning spanish but they bore such strong awesome testimonies and really helped our lessons! It was funny to see the looks on people's faces as we drove around in the really poor neighboorhood in our suits and President Heaton`s spaceship car.

We have seen miracles this week! I havent had one investigator get a testimony of the book of mormon my whole mission. Its not that God isnt answering them or anything. Nobody has done the steps you gotta do! Read, Ponder, and Pray. This week, we had 3 investigators receive an answer about the Book of Mormon! We were walking down the street on Saturday and saw one of our investigators reading the BOM, we were surprised and asked her how it was going. She had read 3 chapters more than we had assigned her! She read the restoration pamphlet and loved the Joseph Smith story. She is 17, her name is Ana. The coolest part is that in our first lesson she had explained that she wasnt a fan of religion at all. Now she wants to get baptized! We are excited for her. It will be a while because she needs to get married, but we are way excited! Our other investigator, Daniel =D, is a huge fan of music. He is also a huge fan of religion and the bible. We knocked his door last week and taught him the first lesson as his extra stud cute 2 year old son played tackle Elder Kellis for an hour! haha He let us in immediately, offered us water. It was an awesome first lesson. Saturday we went back and he had read, pondered and recieved and answer! Elder Inostroza have left so many houses this week just looking at eachother and raising our eyebrows as if to say WOAH! miracle or what!?

Im excited you are sending the BYU shirts! OH yeah! I got that tie finally! That pink one! haha thanks mom! you went back and bought it didn't you!

Is iPhone on verizon yet? Keep me updated on BYU and Japan and all that stuff! Dont forget to read you scriptures every day! and give grandma a huge hug for me! Tell tyler to ask the missionaries when he can go teach a lesson with them. Seriously. Go do it. You better! Tyler are you applying for colleges and stuff yet?

Love you all!

Elder Kellis

March 2, 2011

Man!!! Sounds like you guys all had a crazy eventful week!! Thats awesome that BYU is beasting it! And Neil A. Anderson is coming to Surprise! Thats so sick!! I definately wouldnt recommend beans. haha Mom you are the funniest

So the weather has been getting much much better! Its still a little hot in the afternoonish but man the mornings and the nights are perfect. This week it felt like conference weekend everymorning, like when you get up and its a little windy, a little cold outside, and all you can think about is church stuff, and Mormon Tabernacle Choir is playing. Its the best!

I haven´t gotten any packages yet, but this week was a little complicated because there are transfers and people are moving all over the place. Im sure I will get them at our District meeting on Thursday. Oh! so yeah! I got the call from the Zone leaders and Im staying in Artigas with Elder Inostroza! Its gonna be sweet. Im excited for this next transfer.

Dad, we find investigators by mostly referrals. The first few weeks we did about 20-30 street contacts/door knocking contacts. The new focus church wide is that the members find and the missionaries teach. (check out the last Ensign talk by President Eyring ¨How Great Shall be Your Joy¨ We realized that we could be doing this a lot better. We prayed and talked to our ward leaders about the biggest deepest question ever. HOW!? And we figured some ideas out, and have been really praying for more opportunities to work with members. The results were awesome! We dont even really do contacts anymore. We have about 15 referalls a week from Members, Investigators, Non-Members. It is so much more effective!

Its summer here so usually we dont see any of the night time. YET. We get to the house at about 9ish and its usually just getting dark. But from what I can tell, and have heard, the city really comes alive at night. Because they sleep from 1-4or5ish in the afternoon. Its crazy! everything is closed! It makes proseliting really hard. But they dont really go to bed until 10-12ish. They used to have companionship7language studies during the SIESTA but the misisonaries were just taking naps too. So they got rid of that.

We walk everywhere. The only time I have been on a bus was in Montevideo. Taxis only on the way to district meetings or if we are doing companion exchanges. Taxis are way cheap here in Artigas, but feet are cheaper.

We havent had a chance to visit a hospital, but that sounds like an awesome idea! We dont have one in our area,, so we wont be able to.

This week I had another opportunity to give a blessing. It was to the first member from Artigas! She is super old and I think she had a fever. It is going around down here. We only had 33 members in church this week =/. She is a funny old lady. She wants to marry President Packer, and she has shaken hands with 4 prophets! She had me cracking up real hard.

Ok so the money thing. It works like this. We each get 150dollars each month for everything. Including the water and electric bills, activities, food, haircuts, pday activities. I think I just need to budget better cuz that seems like it should be enough.

I got your email Dad, but the pictures didnt show up. That picture that Caity sent me worked just fine. Idk. Maybe you´ll just have to print them. Try putting them on the page of the email somehow instead of attachments.

Thats crazy that Aaron is leaving in 2 weeks! time goes by so fast on the mission! I cant believe i`ve been out for 3 and a half months already!

Its interesting all that is going on in the world right now! I hadnt heard any of that! Keep me updated mom! So Elder Inostroza always asks in our nightly companionship prayer that the places in the world be opened up to the work. I thought that was interesting. I was reading in the Ensign from a general conferenceabout two years ago, and President Monson was giving the opening remarks/welcome. He promised that if the saints would pray for the areas of the world to accept missionaries that miracles would be seen and that we would see missionaries in these countries. Its amazing to see the reality of a prophet on the earth today! It truly amazes me, and I am so grateful for a modern day prophet! I am so excited to see the church spread and even more excited to be a part of it!

Love,

Elder Kellis