November 12, 2012

It´s definitely one of the worst things ever to end the mission, I understand why they call it "dying" now. I still smell good though! haha!

This week has been really good. We had so many blessings come our way. We´ve been praying a lot for Nicolas and his family, his mom Virginia wants to be an eternal family so bad but her husband hasn't ever really been convinced. He´s a great Dad, a HUGE family guy and just loves being with his kids and wife. We fasted for their family yesterday and guess what!! HE CAME TO CHURCH WITH HIS WHOLE FAMILY!! It was awesome! It came totally from him! He said he felt comfortable and is going to keep coming. Their is an Argentina family here visiting the Mederos. Hermana Mederos is the one who introduced us to Gladis who is getting baptized this Saturday! But we invited them to come to church and they came! Then we had the primary program yesterday in sacrament meeting and so there were a couple grandmas who weren't members visiting to see their grandkids. We are going to go visit them for sure this week and see if we can get them living the Christian life-mormon style. The truth is I just love being a missionary! I always will be of course. I really liked what you said mom about always working in the mission field no matter the calling. It´s true. After I gave my testimony last Sunday the bishop got up and said something really similar. He said don´t be too sad Elder. Your mission will end, but a new one will start. You will also have a compañera instead of a compañero! (SUPER TRUNKY MOMENT!!) hahaha

Im about to finish the Book of Mormon in 84 days which has been really awesome. I love that book so much!

Well. I can´t wait to hug you guys. Thanks to each of you who have written letters, sent packages, said prayers, helped pay for my mission, or even thought about Elder Kellis. I thank you so much and may God Bless you for your love and support!!

For the last time from Uruguay,

-- 
Elder Daniel Kellis
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo Uruguay CP 11.800

November 6, 2012

Hey Everyone! 

We had a baptism this weekend! Man I was missing the baptismal font so much!! Brian looks like the MAN in his shirt and tie. The baptism went really well. I dont have the camera cable with me right now so you will just have to wait to see the pictures. 

It was kind of fun to go on a 2 day companion exchange this week...my comp went with one of the APs and I had a young man from the stake come with me. His name is sebastian and is such a MAN! he was a great companion, super fun and talkative, did a great job of teaching, He is especially the MAN because he is from URUGUAY!!! did I mention that Uruguayos are the coolest people on the entire earth! Sebastian was named KING at the Gala Dinner and Dance that the Stake YSA put on here. He finished the exchange Thursday night and went to the dinner on Friday night.

Another one of my highlights this week was going to see Mirthas grandson in the hospital. We went with sebastian to the Military Hospital in downtown Montevideo. It was a time eater for our area but It was Mirtha´s birthday and I just couldnt tell her no. She really loves her grandson and really loves us. We´ve heard a lot of stuff about his guy. He was in a bunch of shoot outs, is on every drug accesible and has tried setting his moms house of fire with her in it a couple times. They can´t put him in jail because he is still a minor. The laws here are messed up. but anyways he got shot in the leg and tried taking the bullet out with a knife and basically just tore up his entire leg, then refused to go the hospital. they finally convinced him to go. When we got there, I felt like he was a brother of mine. I felt so much love for him and saw him as a really calm and sweet dude. He sat down and talked with us and had a smile in his eyes. We gave him a for the stregth of the youth pamphlet and talked for a while. too bad he escaped the next day hahaha he got in a fight with the surgeon because he wouldnt let him walk around...so now hes out in the streets again...they told him as he was walking out that they would have to amputate it when he gets back.

Sunday was my last fast & testimony meeting, so obviously I couldnt miss the chance to get up. It was a very hard thing for me to do. I cried so hard. I love this work. I love this country. I am so grateful for the time I have been given to serve my Heavenly Father.

this next letter you send me will be the last one I will read...CRAZY or what! 

LOTS OF LOVE!

-- 
Elder Daniel Kellis
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo Uruguay CP 11.800

October 29, 2012

Well, I was chillin with Elder Dallin H Oaks on Saturday. We´re good buds now. I also got to meet Elder Hallstrom and got to see Elder Viñas again. Ok but jokes to the side this weekend was one that changed my life. Its something really special to be in the presence of 400 missionaries, 2 mission presidencies, a presidency of the seventy, a seventy, and the traslator...hahah...oh and the audio guy. hahaha...I think my favorite part was singing a billion prelude songs and looking over the huge chapel filled with missionaries. Oh wait! no! The part when Elder Oaks shook my hand! wait no! When Sister Hallstrom told us how much our mothers loved us and were proud of us...wait no!! when Elder Viñas remember me from our interview and gave me a special hug...wait no! When We sang our actual musical number and the director Elder Bear was directing like a super happy mad man...hahaha...it was SO TOTALLY WICKED!!! The talks were so powerful and It was awesome to see How Dallin H. Oaks actually has a really happy huge smile...you just dont see it in general conference...he is a huge goof and a stud!! haha

I learned a lot about repentance and its role in our lives, the apostles lives, the investigators lives, and Christ´s role in all our lives. I respect our mission president and his wife so much! Oh guess what!! Elder Oaks, Hallstrom, and Viñas all went to visit the President of Uruguay, the Minister of the Interior, and the Supreme Court and called all them to repentance! Elder Oaks is the man. Just in case you were wondering I love the gospel. I love the mission and I love the savior Jesus Christ!

My comp did way good this week. He had a life-changing interview with the president. 

Our ward had some very special baptisms this weekend. GUESS WHAT!! remember Tania from Rivera? well she is a primary teacher now! She loves it! oh and remember her parents! They got baptized and Luis is the 2nd counselor in the Elders quorum presidency! oh and remember her older brother Sebastian that we could never get to be baptized! he got baptized a couple weeks ago!!! they will be sealed in the temple in October 2013!!!! 

love you a bunch

October 22, 2012

Hey family! 

Alright so let me just give you a list of fun things that happened this week.

• Our ward mission leader had us over to help him work on a ward activity for like 5 hours. We set it all up at the chapel and everything and nobody came. There was probably 15 people there. 10 under 16 yrs old. So we started this FHE thing in the YW room, and this crazy alchoholic lady started going off on our ward mission leader that original sin was in all of us since being born and just wouldn´t listen to anything we tried explaining her. We all learned a little patience and organization lessons.
• The coolest family in the ward is moving out, they let me cut their 10 yr old son´s little tail of hair in the back of his head.
• The other coolest family in the ward had a little problem, the Dad is jealous of the missionaries because the wife cooks better for us than for him so he brought a bed, all his clothes, and a bunch of stuff to his moms house and left his wife and 3 daughters. Hes on the high council. We were gonna bring her flowers but decided it would probably be better if not, cuz he would get mad, so we got some flowers from our front yard and had the Relief Society put a nice bow and ribbon around the 2 liter soda bottle cut in half, and we brought it to her "from the Relief Society" haha...she did an awesome job teaching on Sunday and is never discouraged. 
• The Elder that we had some problems with during general conference was sent home. He hopes to come back out after fixing some things.
• My comp is on a special warning and could be uddenly taken out as ZL depending on how he does this week. Im working really hard with him so that he can progess. he needs leadership experience so he can lift up Chile!
• One of the strongest Priests (18) wont be going on a mission probably because his GF wants him to move in with her, which is now causing problems with his grandma, who was our strongest investigator, who is already upset with him because she bought him a motorcycle and it got stolen last week.
• One of the couselors was pretty tough on the ward during his talk on sunday about sacrament meeting reverence and said "it would be better if you just stayed home" which got a lot of members pretty offended, especially since the toddlers of the Bishop and other counselor are the worst running around during the meetings. 
• A new member moved into the ward and came to church on sunday just crying cuz her husband left her and her 2 little kids. She has nothing. shes only 19, her parents kicked her out. It was really special to see the Releif Soceity in action!
• A lady that sends her kids to a sister´s in-home preschool had a fire in her house and burned all the clothes, so that was another good opportunity for the Relief Society. We got a couple bags of clothes all together for her. (you know those closets that the Relief Society room has? well here in Uruguay, 90% of them are filled with clothes for the poor! its sweet)

So basically we have had lots of opportunities to "mourn with those that mourn and stand with those that stand in need of comfort." Thats our week in a nutshell. Im working harder than I have in the last 6 months, making sure I finish the mission like a loco.

Love you all!

-- 
Elder Daniel Kellis
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo Uruguay CP 11.800

October 15, 2012

Sounds like you had a fun fall break! Do you have any awesome stuff like that planned for when I get back? Oregon? =D I really love hearing from you. Thank you for always being so good at writing me. There are lots of missionaries that don´t have that privelege.

Changes were kinda fun. I really like the new missionaries in our zone. 2 of them just started the mission. Elder Silva from Brasil and Elder Nelson from St. George, UT. They, along with the other new missionaries are really young, excited, focused missionaries. We had our zone meeting this week. It was pretty stressful becasue we hadn´t even prepared anything with all the transfers and stuff going on. The night before, Elder Navarro got a little sick. It went really well though. We had some fun activities and I got good responses. 

The ward here is so awesome. Sunday was such a good fast and testimony meeting! Probably the best in my whole mission!

The weather is starting to change...its getting pretty hot. I think I got a sunburn. We were helping a older couple fix some problems with their antenna on the top of their roof and I got a nice sunburn line from my flip flops and then a little red on my neck. You can imagine how white my feet are after 2 years as a missionary! haha

Uhmmm...Im trying to figure out what would be cool to bring home as souveneirs...Haven´t found anything AWESOME yet but still looking. I dont have too much time to be trunky which is nice. 

Im dead from playing soccer...so I think Im going to go relax at home for a little...I love you guys a bunch! sorry for the lame letter.

October 9, 2012

Alright so guess what! Im being sent to the Mexico Puebla Mission for my last change! haha nah just kidding. I will be staying here for my last transfer here in Cerro with Elder Navarro. Yes Mom, Please send my umbrella...Susana, convert in Rivera made me promise I would send her a US umbrella (the ones here are all imported from China and break super easily) So I will probably just send it to her. She even paid me months ago for it. Thanks for the last package! ahead of time...haha dont let any empty space in there! If theres boxes, take the stuff out of the boxes to fill it up more! =D I am just going to copy my letter this week from my daily journal entries if thats cool...

Monday October 1st 2012

At our zone activity today I felt like there was some contention going on. A missionary from a different zone came over and just poisened everybody. The rebelious missionaries were all heated with all the obedient missionaries and when we made teams for soccer some how the teams turned out rebels vs. obedients.I will let you guess which team I was on ;) So this little rivaly started. For the rest of the day there was dirty looks and contention. Im just worried about the work.I dont want us to be unworthy of any blessings! Today, honestly I was so ready to go home. Im starting to enjoy the teaching and proselyting time on pdays a lot more than the free-time part of p-day. We had another lesson with Pablo. It was such a fulfilling feeling to see himunderstand the atonement of Christ. As he nodded his head and vocally agreed as we watcheda video from the Old Testament DVD collection "Sacrifice and the Sacrament" his wife came to tears of joy. HE UNDERSTANDS! I love these kinds of lessons. We also taught Mirtha´s neighbor, Brian. His mom was really worried about his behavior and Mirtha told her about the missionaries. We read through the 10 commandments and Brian (13) cried as we read "Honor thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long upon the Earth" I was expecting a little more of a behavior-improvement baby-sitting time opportunity, but he is a really humble, good kid. Hes marking up his scriptures like crazy!

Tuesday October 2 2012

Tuesdays can get pretty busy with all the errands and responsibilities of a ZL. The last district meeting of the transfer went really well. A missionary in the zone lost his mission VISA card, so we had to go downtown to the offices and deliver that to him. The best part of the day was our lessons. We visited a referral of Hna. Suarez. She was basically ran over by a huge cargo truck. Its amazing how little damage was done (just broke her pelvis and fractured her femur) no big deal right? She had been way humbled by that and wants the gospel for her children. We also unintentionally ran into Shirley and decided to drop by again later. We met her brother and had an incredible lesson. The message REALLY seemed to touch Victor. We were 50 minutes late to our next lesson though. I hate that! Its so hard to help EVERYONE and be on time. You just cant do it. There are so many people who want our visits and there is just no time. 

Wednesday October 3 2012

CONCILIO!! I love first Wednesdays! We talked a lot today about retention, working with Less Actives and Converts. Lunch was AMAZING. LASAÑA!!! but the real kind! here they just kind of make these crepes and layer them with ham, cheese, and sauce. Not the same. Our lesson tonight with Brian was awesome. (for me at least) we watched Finding Faith in Christ. I cried the whole way through thinking about Juan Diego (my blind buddy we met on the city bus (July 14) I knew I had the priesthood, I knew I had the power and authority of Christ to heal, but would my faith be enough to heal a blind man?? I would sure hope so! There is also God´s will...but anyways. The other day I studied the Atonement like crazy and the video hit me a little harder today. Volleyball with the ward was WAY fun tonight!

Thursday October 4 2012

Im sitting on my bed right now listening to Elder de Hoyos playing an incredible song on the guitar. He plays so good! Today was just great. My companion and I are getting a long really great. Elder Navarro is actually a really fun guy. We visited a referal today from Hna. Suarez.(She is the best ward missionary in the WORLD!) It was really cool. We just knocked on the door and in the most sincere way possible we just asked how she was doing. She said "good" then we asked without saying any words "are you sure" and she said "mas o menos" She then said "do you guys want to come in?" =D yes please!!! we talked about being a missionary, showed us pictures of our family, then asked about hers. She brought us to the kitchen table and gave us some yogurt and sandwhiches. SCORE! and poured her soul out to us. Turns out her son is in drugs and has gone insane. He tipped the fridge over on top of her. She doesnt want to tell his Dad the truth because she is scared he´ll beat him up real bad. Sad stuff. Modern day secret combinations...definately drug cartels..its messing up stuff so bad!

Friday October 5 2012

One more day till conference! I ate cow tongue today! my comp is in a bad mood because we had a bad lesson. These two 20yr olds were more flirting than listening..but i respect him for fasting today for a companionship in the zone. 

Saturday October 6 2012

CONFERNENCE! YES! RAIN! we went to the feria to get stuff to make torta de puero. It was my first time making it. I like it a lot! I think I did good. I hate getting late to conference! Especially the opening session because the announce cool stuff. today president Monson announced that young men can serve at age 18 and women at 19. WOAH! Also a temple in Tuscon! During the two sessions I did a baptismal Interview and had to tell her no. Ive been praying for the spirit to help me decide becasue the Elders had told me a couple days before that she smoked on Wednesday. She came into the interview with her stomach hanging out and a peircing in her eyebrow, and Elder X was sure that she was ready. After the interview I think Elder X was a little upset with me but we talked it out. During Elder Oaks talk, at the closing of the afternoon sesson we a had a fun problem. We couldn´t find Elder X for a while. His companion didnt know where he was. I missed all of Oaks talk going around with 4 other Elders looking for him. We finally found him in a dark storage closet with a young woman. We don´t know what happened dont need to know but I had to call President and make him take time from his confernece afternoon and interrupt all his transfer preparations to come do an emergency interview for an Elder in my zone. He was NOT happy.. Never a dull day in the mission!

Sunday October 7 2012

After the crazy situation last night, we were super stressed out today, yet conference was still awesome. We were super strict about staying together with companions and conversating (I think thats a word Pres. Bush made up) with SNAKES! Its a bad habit here in our mission. 90% of the time before/after church meetings ALL the missionaries are "talking" to all the young women 15-25. I was running around trying to break it up but the snakes were faster that I was so I called for an evacuation. "All missionaries come with me!" We hung out in the nursery room until a couple minutes before the afternoon session started. Like always, Elder Holland literally shook every soul within the sound of his voice. I thought a lot about the investigators, put myself in their shoes as we listened. After every confernece I feel my conviction of this church and its organization flame like loco.

Monday October 8 2012

IM STAYING WITH NAVARRO IN CERRO FOR MY LAST CHANGE! I figured it would happen but was a little worried President would send me as a rescue comp for Elder X. I made him a chocolate cake saturday night. Sunday morning I guess he was pretty discouraged and still in bed around noon. I called him and got him excited about conference and Cake. Im glad I could help him get up and moving. He must be real messed up. Anyways, presdient had mentioned to me he was going to put an Elder with him that was finishing the mission this transfer. We got to watch priesthood session this morning.I liked it a lot. Check out this poem I wrote to Shirley in a hymn book I gave her.

Nos gusta la música a usted y a mi,

El Creador la hizo con mucho amor.

Muchas veces el Espíritu mas fuerte sentí

mientras cantando del Salvador.

Está tocando con una nueva orquesta

mas queda el gran director.

Yo se que no hay mejor que esta

porque es la elegida del Señor.

The gospel makes me so happy! The zone had some fun changes this transfer. Im super excited. We had a couple rough hours today in the rain when everything was falling through. We just kept going and the rest of the night was awesome. We had a sweet lesson with Pablo tonight. He is finally understanding the simple pure doctorine. I even learn so much in our lessons with him. His heart has softened so much its the coolest thing.

Tuesday October 9 2012

Im sitting in the Montevideo Temple right now very grateful for the house of the Lord. Its beautiful and peaceful. We got up early this morning and got on the 5am bus to Carrasco fot the 8am session. It was full of missionaries! I learned a lot about the covenants we make and who advances to each kingdom after making and keeping certain covenants. After the session, I was the last to leave the Celestial Room. I love it in there. I went over some scriptures that I remembered from Conference. Later we did 175 baptisms in the baptistry. I baptized so much my arm was DEAD! I did quite a few in Spanish and luckily the Temple President was working at the desk, so I asked if I could do a couple in english. It was really special. The couselor of the temple presidency gave a little devotional for the 5 of us before starting. (desk worker, 2 witnesses, my comp and I) He read in Doctorine and Covenants how the faithful Elders after leaving this Earth are sent to work in the Spirit World. He reminded us how excited we get when we have baptisms and asked if we had ever thought how excited and happy the missionaires on the other side are today for what was about to happen. I felt their joy, and imagined Grandpa Kellis and Moore all young, with white shirts and ties and nametags standing there super excited. It was just awesome!! haha I decided one of my new date ideas is go do baptisms.

I love you guys a whole BUNCH!! 

October 1, 2012

Hey hey hey!

Dad, you asked about general conference. It is live here, but due to the time difference we start at 1pm. the second session starts at 5 and the priesthood session at 9pm! The missionaries can´t be out that late so we all get together Sunday morning and watch the recorded version. I CANT WAIT FOR CONFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom, I was one out of the 5 missionaries that had the blessing to be interviewed by Elder Viñas. It was interesting reading all my friends and cousin´s letters, sounds like the 70s have been visiting lots of missions. 

Well, this was quite a week! I am reading the book of mormon in 60 days, and I am a couple pages behind but MAN! I am so addicted to the Book of Mormon! Its so good!

Saturday we had a stake service project. It was way fun! We had about 80 volunteers there and we did some WORK! we were all there from like 8am-5pm and the project wasnt done. What we did was basically completely re-landscape a special school for disabled children. It was cool to see how no matter what stake you are in, the young men will ALWAYS start a paint fight with the young women. The stake presidency will be the men who work the hardest out of all the priesthood. The women will pass around food. The mormon culture is so fun! haha Dad, I want to thank you for always setting the awesome example. I remember many times after ward/stake activities when us kids were pretty rushed to get out of there and go home, but you always made sure we didn´t leave until all the chapel was clean and that everything was taken care of. You saw the bigger picture than we did. Maybe you didnt realize but you were leaving a huge example for us for the rest of our lives. At about 1pm everyone was hungry and started heading out. I was helping the stake president level some bricks and overheard him talking to his couselor pretty worried that they werent going to get the huge job done. My comp and the other 2 missionaries from our ward were pretty ready to go. I was determined to stay until the stake president went home but we had a baptismal interview to get to at 7:30. But anyways, thank you dad. Im sure they appreciated our help.

I have a bunch of pictures but I forgot my camera.

Sunday was such an awesome day at church! The stake presidency came for fun and they all took a couple minutes in sacrament meeting. The four of us missionaries taught 5th sunday priesthood/releif society. Each Elder took 8 minutes to teach and demonstrate a stage of missionary work. (The members part of conversion) My stage was finding investigators for the missionaries to teach. I love teaching!

Well...There is so much more to tell but you will just have to read my journal when I get home. Im at page 300.

If you are really planning on sending a last package. I would just say peanut butter and like a whole bunch of halloween candy to share with latin companions and members. Im only 7 weeks from being home so its not like im desperate for a package either. 

Everyday I get closer I am so much more ready to be home and so broken to have to leave!

-- 
Elder Daniel Kellis
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo Uruguay CP 11.800

September 17, 2012

Ok Im feeling way better today and im sorry about the lame letter last week. We were just in a huge hurry. When we got home that day I just crashed onto my bed. I tried getting up to take medicine and get ready for our lesson but I just got dizzy and felt like death. So we tried calling some hermanos to come do splits because we had a really important lesson but nobody could come. I just slept until the next morning. I feel great now though! I hate being sick on the mission. It makes it about 10 times worse. That was the first time since I was with my trainer in february 2011 that I wasnt feeling good enough to be able to go out and work. 

The week went by way fast! Our zone meeting went so good! The zone loved it! I made choclate chip cookies for the whole zone and put a bunch of salt in 3 of them. When the missionaries who took those cookies started to eat them up in front of everybody one of them had to run to the bathroom and spit it out. We explained that you can put your suit on and go out and work just like all the other missionaries but if you aren´t obedient, even just a little bit, you won´t have the same results. Then we wrote a fake letter from each of their parents saying that their parents had gone innactive and that they needed help. It hit some missionaries really hard. We challenged them to realize that there are mothers and fathers of people out there that need to be helped spiritually as well. They need their angles to arrive at their front door to be invited to the awesomest place on earth! CHURCH! 

We did exchanges with a couple Elders in our zone. I had the opportunity to stay in my area with Elder Muñoz from Puebla Mexico. He is probably the most humble, loving, and just pure and awesome missionary I have ever met. I just felt like I was in the temple all day just working along side him haha He is in his 3rd transfer.

Sunday we arrived at stake conference expecting a normal stake conference. We were wrong. They sustained the elders in each ward and guess what! A brother raised his hand super high saying that he was OPPOSED! it was super intense! Then, a member of the stake presidency took him out and they talked. I had never seen that before! Then the pulled the projector screen down and we had a live broadcast from SLC! Neil A. Anderson, Linda Reevs (or something like that) and Walter F. Gonzalez talked straight to the Uruguayos in SPANISH! It was sweet hearing them speak spanish! I was a little dissapointed when President Monson stood to speak and the traslatotion voice-over came on, but he was lookin dang good in a GREY SUIT! 

After lunch in Elder Navarro´s old ward on sunday we were walking back to a bus stop to get back to our area and we saw a bike thrown in the little sewer-canal-black-nastiness that run down both sides of all the dirt roads. As we got closer we realized that it wasnt just a bike, but that a man had fallen down into it. He was all black, smelly, half-unconcious and all twisted up in his bike. It was so sad! My comp and I pulled him out, his face, the whole right side of his body and his hands were wet and black. His hair looked like he put sewer gel in it. He was probably drunk, but he looked at us like the blind man looks at his daughter for the first time in Finding Faith in Christ. It was an experience that I´ll never forget, especially the feeling afterwards. There is no greater joy than pullling someone out of a pit. My comp got his white shirt and purple paisley tie all black, but we got to a members to wash off. As i walked away I felt so grateful to be trusted by Heavely Father to be placed there at that moment to help him. I wonder how long he was down there.

Well, thats our week! Wednesday we have a sector-conference with Elder Viñas of the Seventy. I got your package as well! THANK YOU!! 

-- 

Elder Daniel Kellis
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo Uruguay CP 11.800

September 10, 2012

I have a crazy headache and hardly any time. I had a bunch of assignments from the APs to get done on the computer today and don´t really have any time but things are going real well! We decided to temporarliy change the name of our zone to "Los Angeles" because we going to live our purpose so well that we will be sent as answers to prayers of the people in our areas.

 

This week we had concilio. It was awesome becasue we got to eat some amazing food. I learned more in that day that I ever did as a leader. It had to do with Satans plan to force us to do the right and Christ´s plan to help, love, and guide us but give us the final decision on each of our choices. We were taught how Christ would lead a zone, or for that matter anything.

 

The church is starting a new meeting for missionaries at least here in South America where we are putting together a zone conference without the president each month after concilio where we can bring what we learned into our zone better. It takes the place of district meeting and is a lot shorter. Im excited for tomorrow we prepared some awesome stuff!!

 

Im super jealous you were all in Hawaii!!! Hope you had fun! I heard the new Iphone 5 comes out this week. How is Mitt romney looking?

 

I got a little sick this weekend. Its been ruff on me. Today we went to like a lame version of a state fair thing and I was in the sun all day.

 

Guess what! I get to be one of the 24 out of 400 missinaries (from both missions) that were asked to sing for when Elder Oaks comes! That will be great! Cant wait for general conference!

September 3, 2012

Buenas tardes para todos que estan por alla!

Let me tell you about our exciting week! I took Elder Pace to his new house close to the Cerro Stake Center Tuesday night, then brought the Elder he replaced to the Bus Terminal downtown in Montevideo, spent the night with the misisonaries in that area. Bad idea. haha They threw a matress on the floor for the 4 of us and we each slept halfway on it, I drew you a nice little drawing there for a visual aid. I directed traffic for the morning and headed back home. My comp, Elder Navarro arrived in Cerro from just one ward over on Wednesday morning. Before he could unpack we were already back into the busy full-time missionary life. We had a meeting with our new district leaders and got them real excited about this transfer. We set them really high goals and I was impressed last night to see how well they responded! We found out Thursday that Cerro was the most successful zone in the mission. Its such a blessing to be here and be a part of all the excitement in missionary work!

Elder Navarro is a funny guy. He loves giving hugs to all the missionaries and basically squeezing them into 2 pieces. I literally run away when he starts trying to hug me haha. I feel bad becasue here it is totally normal the moment you meet someone to just straight out tell them DANG YOU ARE FAT!! haha
I think that bothers him a lot and it makes him feel self-concious. But he is a great leader and even though can be kinda wierd sometimes is just super fun to be around. Im teaching him to stop taking his calling as ZL as something like a status or a reward or a very important requirement to be able to get married to some girl from the states but an opportunity to serve and be an example. haha

The Ward Missionaries through me a birthday party this week. We have a family in the ward that is just super missionary enthusiastic. The oldest daughter just got back from a mini-mission in Tacuarambó. The father is the stake mission head on the high council and the mom and daughter are ward missionaries. Hermana Suarez does a great job of adopting us as her kids and making us feel loved and at home. She does such a good job of teaching the gospel principles class!! They have some wierd traditions here for birthdays! haha like pulling your ear lobes as hard as you possibly can! haha not fun at all!! But the coolest part was that Elder Rios, my companion from here in Montevideo when I was in Artigas came out to the party. We´ve kinda kept in contact and he was serving in this ward at a time. He baptized Maria when he was here. She was LOCA to see him and to actually be able to hug him! Maria just kept thanking me so much for having a birthday haha

Well, thanks for all the love and prayers. If you send anything, send it through fed ex or DHL. letters included.

8/20/12

It´s nice to be baptising again. I think we are finding some really solid future leaders of the ward here. Mirtha was baptized saturday night, along with Jenny. I´ll tell you more about that later. Nicolas was made a teacher yesterday. His mom and dad are getting married soon and baptized soon after!

We have a recent convert in our ward named Maria. She is 57 and basicaly the best missionary in the mission. She gets more people in church every week than we do and we are in the streets 10 hours a day trying to beat her! haha..did you just understand that? YOU, yes, im talking to YOU can be a better missionaries than the missionaries just by inviting friends to check out your church. Its nothing awkward or wierd, just pretend its like inviting someone to eat dinner or have a BBQ! The worse they can do is say no and thank you for inviting. Ok but anyways...Maria is a capa and helping us out a lot, and Melani, her grandaughter is getting baptized this weekend.

Wednesday we had zone conference. It was my first conference as ZL and I think my comp and I did a real good job. We were in charge of a 45 minute presentation. We used a powerpoint and some videos and basically just pumped everyone up whole bunch then brought it down low and taught them to testify of Christ in every lesson. We also talked about not wasting time with sheep who will listen but wont follow the shephards voice. Or, dropping investigators who are "escuchadores" (listeners) but not willing to keep the commandments. That happens a lot because the people here are very nice. We had a member make shephard´s pie to go along with the whole Shephard thing. Then the APs hosted a ping pong tournament in the spirit of the olympics. Jake, if youre reading this, Elder Marmol, that stake presidents son from your mission in spain won! haha 

It rained all day everyday this week, that was fun. The chapel got flooded. Nicolas and his mom were one of the first ones to go clean it up!

One rainy night, we were at Marias house about to start a lesson and her friend came out with a fork with two pieces of meat on it. It looked pretty good. It was liver...I wish they would have told me that after we ate it haha..after eating that delicious spongyness, we watched finding faith in christ. It was like the 100th time Ive seen it but the spirit was really strong in that room. Melany, Maria, Juan, Elder Pace and I were all a little teary-eyed. That made the liver so worth it haha

Saturday was the big day. We decided to have the baptism in the stake center because there was a stake primary birthday party for the primary organization, and Jenny and most of all the ward leadership was there anyways. Dang it was crazy up in der!! imagine 300 crazy hyper uruguayitos, 4 jumpies, 2 trampolines, cake, cotton candy machines, balloons and clowns, oh man it was THE PARTY! haha President Heaton and his wife came to our baptism and President Heaton was like "now THIS is a party!" I told him it would be great idea for zone conference for when Elder Oaks comes in October! haha We started an hour late just cuz of all the craziness. It was too loud for the sacredness of the ceremony. But it was perfect. Sister Heaton brought a hair dryer for mirtha and homemade donuts for all of us. She had fun giving President elbows in the ribs to keep him awake. Poor guy is probably the busiest person I know. they just dont rest from being awesome. he already got my BYU ecclestastical edorsement done by the way. Elder Pace and I sang a duet, "more holiness give me" or "mas santidad dame" Which went really well. Mirtha was baptized first. As I brought her up out of the water she kept her eyes closed and looked like she was having a really special experience for a couple seconds. After what seemed like 3 minutes she said "ta" and we walked her up the stairs. Jenny´s baptism went really well too. It was funny, Mirtha thought that her testimony was a prayer, so she had her eyes closed and was talking to Heavenly Father but wow was it powerful. She just thanked him for leading her to His church and for sending angels to her house in the perfect moment she needed them. As she walked back down to her seat, she held her hands over her heart like if it was burning and looked so happy. 

Sunday, the confirmations and sacrament meeting were unforgetable. I confirmed Jenny and Elder Pace confirmed Mirtha. During the talks 3 little girls were sitting next to Elder Pace and begging him to draw for them. They asked him to draw spongebob, squidword, mr krabs, patrick, sandy and everyone. OH MY GOSH I was sweating and crying so hard! the drawings were so funnny and just becasue I couldnt laugh out loud all the energy came out through sweat and tears, which just made me laugh harder. Oh man you just had to be there and see those drawings. Maybe that was innapropriate, idk, but we were both in a laughy mood, and for the closing prayer a little old sister got up and lightly whishpered the whole thing. We couldnt hear her and we were on the front row. An older and bastante larger guy (recent convert) behind us said very loudly "NO SE ESCUCHA NADA!" Me and Elder Pace tried so hard to keep it in, oh man it was hilarious. He was looking around like are you kidding me? At the end of the prayer she opened her eyes and my comp almost yelled AMEN! hahaha oh man...

good week. Still no news on the mail strike. thanks for making me all trunky with all the wedding stuff!! hahaha ;)

August 13, 2012

Well let me just tell you about another awesome week in the coolest mission on erff!!

The other day we were at the Suarez family`s house and their super cute little 6 year old daughter got a new "gringa" doll. She asked me KELLIS!! COMO SE LLAMA TU HERMANA? I told her caity was my sisters name and she was like...OK! ASI LE VOY A PONER SU NOMBRE! =D haha 

We saw a couple minutes of the USA-Argentina basketball game this week...dang I forgot how fun it was to watch Basketball

We had a couple baptismal interviews this week. All 3 passed! Nicolas was baptized on Saturday. It was a really nice baptism and I gotta admit, it was really nice having a solid ward mission leader and ward missionaries. They had EVERYTHING all ready. The water was nice and warm, Nicolas had washed and ironed baptismal clothes, the talks and musical number and prelude was all assigned. There was a movie to watch before the service and while nico was changing. The only thing we did was show up and enjoy. We did set up a little table for investigators to take pamphlets and stuff. He called me Saturday night and said that he was sorry for being to embarrassed to get up and give his testimony after the ordinance, but that he really did feel something very strong during his baptism. On Sunday he came to church with real nice suit and tie. I was so impressed! He always came in jeans, and we hadnt talked about that to him yet...oops..but he is just the MAN and figured it out. He will be ordained a teacher pretty soon. 

Mirtha and Jenny will be baptized this Saturday. I wish I had time to tell you everything about them, they are so awesome! 

This Sunday the Montevideo Temple President and his wife came to our wards meetings. It was cool talking to some Americans...They have the coolest story of how they met at BYU! He also gave a really inspiring talk about how to better take advantage of our temple visit. He has served as a mission president in Ecuador and a MTC president in Columbia. I learned a lot! 

One new thing my comp and I decided to start doing is sing on the buses. People sing on the buses all the time to make a little cash, and so we decided that why couldnt we do it to spread the gospel!? ITS THE COOLEST THING EVER!! you just stand up, say a lil somethin somethin about the church, sing one of your favorite hymns and everyone loves it and then they all clap for you and we give the whole bus a pass-along card and then they try to offer you money and you´re just like no its cool!! haha could life get any better!? I SUBMIT THAT IT CANNOT! haha brian regan.

alright..well..this week is gonna be super legit. We have zone conference and 2 baptisms so hasta luego mi quierida familia!

-- 
Elder Daniel Kellis
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo Uruguay CP 11.800

July 23

Hola mi familia buenasa!

Whats crackin in Arizona! It looks like you are in for a couple monsoons this week! The office Elder is from Arizona and has the weather on the desktop. This week was actually really nice here. 

Elder Pace is a CAPO! We are turning Cerro around. Everyone (the APs and the other ZLs) is looking real close at cerro because it went down so much last transfer, and they are all expecting it to explode now that Elder Pace and I are together. I know it will. It feels so good to be doing things right now! I dont have too much news for you. We are having a blast as comps and working real hard. We are kinda starting from not having much going on in our area and the zone...so we did a lot of finding, doing refferal activities, vising the ex-bishops to dig out a bunch of good info. Elder Pace has been ZL for about 4 changes so got some good stuff up his sleeves.

We found out that the President of Uruguay lives in our area, I guess he didnt want to live in the "white house", but preferred living in his farmland just outside of Cerro. They also told us that you can just go knock on the door. There is always a police officer there. We decided we had to go baptise him. Turns out the person that told us didnt know what he was talking about because we got tazed...haha just kidding. No, turns out he lives in our zone but in a different ward. oh well. It was a fun idea.

Mom, you asked, we talk in English all the time. We talk a lot about the zone, what things we can do, change, what things need to happen and what needs to stop happening, we talk a lot about BYU and a little tiny tiny bit about getting home. hahaha

We have a couple really awesome families we are teaching. The last couple missionaries here baptized a bunch of kids that are all inactive now, and the ward mission leader kinda has a new direction going. Families and future Priesthood holders. It´s great being a missionary, its gratifying to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ every day, I feel so excited about being a mormon all the time. Its fun.

Love you all a bunch!

-- 
Elder Daniel Kellis
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo Uruguay CP 11.800

July 17

Hey family! Guess what! I´m getting a new companion! Elder PACE!!!!! Elder Pace is from New York and we started the mission together in the same MTC group. He will probably walk on to BYU for either Basketball or Football. He is about 6´7" and I´m excited to get some good work outs in the mornings in with him before getting home. He is also a great leader and basically just the man. 

This week was pretty simple. We delivered the house the other Elders were renting to the real estate agency, we had to go with them to look at it. turns out they came and robbed the metal gate door on the front of the house. Im glad we were able to get that out of our hair. Now, we are just waiting for the church attorney to get the contract finished so we can move into the new house, I would guess we will move in in 2 or 3 weeks. 

We had a meeting with the Stake President on Friday. I gotta say Dad, I think you guys were a way cooler stake presidency inviting them over for breakfast and everything! We did have a good meeting though. He is a great President. On the bus on the way back home we saw a blind man that was getting off. We got off with him and asked him if needed help getting somewhere. We told him we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ and he grabbed my comps arm and we helped him run a couple errands, then get him back to his bus stop. Before getting on he gave us a huge hug. I have never met such a humble happy guy! He is 24 and we are gonna get him a copy of the Book of Mormon in braille! unfortunately he doesnt live in our area, but the other Elders are already teaching him. They said he just smiled so big the entire lesson, they are going back today.

We had interviews with president yesterday and for our last full day together, we treated ourselves to burger king! ahh man it was so good! Its been so long since I had a good burger. It was only 15 dollars for the california whopper combo! haha but way worth it.

STEVE NASH ON THE LAKERS! no way! I dont think purple and yellow will look good on him..

Well, I think there might be another international strike, which just started yesterday. Good thing you just send me the package! haha im not too worried though. They just don´t want to work in the cold haha but then they are going to starve and want to work. (not true, just a joke) Mom, you asked about chap stick, Its so humid here, ive never had to use chapstick. I still have 3 just in case. Just save the money from all the packages and put it towards a new iPhone =)

shout out to Uncle Mike and Uncle Jeff for always writing me, you guys are awesome and thanks for all your love and support!

 

Elder Daniel Kellis

July 9, 2012

Hey Family! 

Thank you for your prayers, I have really felt them this week. =)

We did a little more traveling to district meetings, baptismal interviews, ect. I really love going out to Ciudad del Plata, there is a pizza restaurant that we always go to after district meeting. We ordered 2 metros of pizza. thats basically a pizza as tall as me! Its really good too. I was looking forward to that trip for the last two weeks!

Wednesday we started the morning with helping an investigator´s Mom dig a 15´ trench. We dug a trench for the sewage pipe to go from the house to the bigger trenches that go along both sides of the street. It felt good to get some hard work in. Its been too long since I did some heavy yard work! It took us about 4 hours and then the investigator, the investigator´s mom, and a member all gave us lunch. We couldnt turn down any of them because if someone cooks for you and you dont accept it, you look like a huge jerk and they wont like you anymore. So we stuffed ourselves. Ana cooked us some Panama food (she lived there for a while) it was sweet fried bananas, not too bad! later, we preached the gospel. It was awesome. haha. I love all our investigators so much! You asked about the Nuñez family, Mom. They are doing alright. They didnt come to church on Sunday, He hasnt left his front door for 3 months, and she is sick, so we are trying to figure something out there. They have quite the history. 

Thursday we were at Ana and Adrian´s and we got a call from Elder de Hoyos and Elder Ramos from the other side of our ward. Their house had been robbed, they only took 2 cameras, an mp3 player, portable DVD player and speakers. Whatever they can find to get them drugs. Its sad becasue they trade the camera for only like 20 bucks worth of drugs. They are so addicted that the drug lord can get away with jippin em like that. So we headed over there that night and didnt get home til like 12am. The next day the two of them stayed home while we did all the errands to buy a new door, cement, hire a welder, ect. It cost us a whole day and 100 bucks. Sunday we were taking calls of all the zone reporting their weekly numbers when we got another call from Elder de Hoyos. They broke through the window this time and took their gas tank. (each house here has like a 20 gallon gas tank hooked up to the stove and oven) Its got about a 160 dollar value. You can´t call the police becasue they dont care anymore, they wont do anything about it. Elder Ramos only got an hour of sleep Saturday night becasue he felt so nervous that something would happen while he was sleeping, so you can imagine how anxious he was to get out of there last night. We had them pack all their bags and got a brother from the ward to bring them and all their stuff to another house in the zone. Today we gotta go find them a new house. 

Its kinda sad becasue the bad people here in Cerro are into drugs and the good people are discouraged because of all the evilness going around. Some parents can´t leave their house because their children will steal their stuff to buy drugs. The big drug here is PASTA BASE which is a mix of glass, rat poison, and some other crazy stuff. The government legalized marijuana this last week to try to calm down the pasta base. Its just a huge joke. The other day we were walking down the street and this dude yells "MIRA!!! MARIJUANA LEGAL!!!" The gospel shines so much brighter in dark places which is awesome for missionary work!

I love you guys so much!

July 2, 2012

Hey Family! 

Thank you for your prayers, I have really felt them this week. =)

We did a little more traveling to district meetings, baptismal interviews, ect. I really love going out to Ciudad del Plata, there is a pizza restaurant that we always go to after district meeting. We ordered 2 metros of pizza. thats basically a pizza as tall as me! Its really good too. I was looking forward to that trip for the last two weeks!

Wednesday we started the morning with helping an investigator´s Mom dig a 15´ trench. We dug a trench for the sewage pipe to go from the house to the bigger trenches that go along both sides of the street. It felt good to get some hard work in. Its been too long since I did some heavy yard work! It took us about 4 hours and then the investigator, the investigator´s mom, and a member all gave us lunch. We couldnt turn down any of them because if someone cooks for you and you dont accept it, you look like a huge jerk and they wont like you anymore. So we stuffed ourselves. Ana cooked us some Panama food (she lived there for a while) it was sweet fried bananas, not too bad! later, we preached the gospel. It was awesome. haha. I love all our investigators so much! You asked about the Nuñez family, Mom. They are doing alright. They didnt come to church on Sunday, He hasnt left his front door for 3 months, and she is sick, so we are trying to figure something out there. They have quite the history. 

Thursday we were at Ana and Adrian´s and we got a call from Elder de Hoyos and Elder Ramos from the other side of our ward. Their house had been robbed, they only took 2 cameras, an mp3 player, portable DVD player and speakers. Whatever they can find to get them drugs. Its sad becasue they trade the camera for only like 20 bucks worth of drugs. They are so addicted that the drug lord can get away with jippin em like that. So we headed over there that night and didnt get home til like 12am. The next day the two of them stayed home while we did all the errands to buy a new door, cement, hire a welder, ect. It cost us a whole day and 100 bucks. Sunday we were taking calls of all the zone reporting their weekly numbers when we got another call from Elder de Hoyos. They broke through the window this time and took their gas tank. (each house here has like a 20 gallon gas tank hooked up to the stove and oven) Its got about a 160 dollar value. You can´t call the police becasue they dont care anymore, they wont do anything about it. Elder Ramos only got an hour of sleep Saturday night becasue he felt so nervous that something would happen while he was sleeping, so you can imagine how anxious he was to get out of there last night. We had them pack all their bags and got a brother from the ward to bring them and all their stuff to another house in the zone. Today we gotta go find them a new house. 

Its kinda sad becasue the bad people here in Cerro are into drugs and the good people are discouraged because of all the evilness going around. Some parents can´t leave their house because their children will steal their stuff to buy drugs. The big drug here is PASTA BASE which is a mix of glass, rat poison, and some other crazy stuff. The government legalized marijuana this last week to try to calm down the pasta base. Its just a huge joke. The other day we were walking down the street and this dude yells "MIRA!!! MARIJUANA LEGAL!!!" The gospel shines so much brighter in dark places which is awesome for missionary work!

I love you guys so much!

June 26, 2012

Well its good to know that you are all doing so well. I am enjoying life as a missionary here in cerro. I finally got some pictures to send. hope you enjoy. Mom, thanks for sharing your story about the temple, that was really sweet. I want to go to the temple so bad! I havent been since we first got to the mission. We might be allowed to go the p-day of transfers around 17 of july. Its hard because pdays are always mondays and mondays the temple is closed. But transfer week pday is on tuesday. 

This week we had a lot more time to work in our area which was nice. We found a really awesome couple with 8 kids! They are slowly learning more about the gospel, but im excited to see how things go. We`ve only had two lessons with them, but they really enjoy our visits and guess what!!! somehow they found some hot peppers and they gave us an entire grocery bag full of em! FINALLY some spicy food! haha this week I ate some wierd stuff. cow intestines and pig skin. I dont recommend it. haha

I was looking at the history of Cerro. The last Sunday that our ward didnt have a single investigator at church was in August of 2011. We have had goose-eggs for the last two weeks. It bothers me a lot because I feel like we dont use our time wisely and Im tired of being awake alone until 11am. But hey, Im learning a lot about the scriptures and watching LOTS of conference talks! =D My comp has a hard time sleeping at night. I talked to him about our obedience and a couple things we could do better and he got teary eyed and explained that he wants to be better so bad but just doesnt get sleep at night. So we dont study together, or pray together very much, which weakens our companionship spiritually. Thats the most important tool we need when we leave the front door, and when we dont have it, things get rough, your concience gets heavy, guilt sneaks in, and discouragement defeats faith. Im praying so hard to do my best.

Montevideo....hmm...You asked whats better about montevideo. I love being close to the offices and the temple. I love seeing the beach all the time. I love being at the top of cerro and seeing the city at night. There are some awesome members here. I feel like Im back at El Mirage. Its super ghetto here and the people have that funny gangsta-atitude. It makes me laugh a lot. There are a lot of really nasty houses and poor people with 2 nasty yellow and black front teeth and like 5 bleeding sick pets but they have direct tv and a brand new computer and a smart phone. Its pretty sad.

Hey can you send me pictures of the baptism!? I was praying for caity this week that she would have an awesome time at EFY.

Well, love you all! I havent been getting any of those forward emails of all my missionary friends...keep sending em! =)

Abrazo grandote

June 18, 2012

Hey family!

It was great to hear about your adventurous week of traveling and what not. I guess you could say that we had a similar week. We were on the city bus for probably a total of 15 hours this week. The most fun part is that they stuff people in there so bad that you couldnt scratch your nose if you wanted to. There are about 5 buses and 5 taxis to every car here. We traveled a lot this week. Monday we have meeting with the district leaders. Tuesday we go pick up all the mail and bring it to the district meetings. Wednesday (first wednesday of each month) we had concilio at President Heatons house with all the ZLs in the mission. Friday our zone had interviews and we did a zone training meeting with the APs. Then we had to back to the offices to print off a map for a missionary in our zone who is opening the area with a young man from Salto who is gonna come do a mini-mission. 

Tuesday we went out to Delta del Tigre and the district out there. The district leader taught some wierd things like "missionaries can recieve personal revelation on how to correct the bishop in his calling" and made all the missionaries put up all thier weekly numbers and basically said they all sucked. Im glad we were there this week because we only go twice a transfer. We took care of that real fast. I heard one mission president say from a Buenos Aires mission that the 2 most incredible things about being a mission president is to see how stupid 20 year old missionaries can be but also its amazing how great and noble and heroic 20-year old missionaries can be. After the meeing we went and ate some real good pizza with the sister missionaries in our zone. They needed a little comforting after the meeting. One of the sisters in our zone is from artigas, her Mom passed away 2 weeks ago and is training a sister from Utah. She is a great example to me of pulling through trials and faith. 

Concilio was awesome mostly because we had american food haha but I also really enjoyed seeing a bunch of friends from the mission and being with President and his wife, being close to the temple is such a special feeling. Everytime we come down that street and see the angel moroni I feel so at home. I learned A LOT from the meeing and decided I need to be a lot more confident and excited about my zone. 

We had kinda anticipated it but one of the Elders from our zone decided to go home. I cant tell you how sad it made me to know that one of the missionaries in my zone was going to loose so many blessings. The APs told us on our way back to the offices after concilio and It was raining super hard. I didnt realize how much the mission meant to me until I got that news. Man that hit me hard. The president is awesome. He did everything he could to keep him here. He took a day out of his CRAZY ridiculously busy life as Mission president and took him to the temple, brought him to the mission home and talked it out but I guess he didnt understand the convenants he was making inside the temple. The area is going to suffer a lot because his companion came here to Cerro with me from Rivera and is going to have that young man from Salto as a companion. He´ll be opening the area.

Interviews with President were awesome! I learned so much and he helped me out a lot. That night we had a ward dinner and a devotional with the temple president which was really fun. We had 3 temple sealings this saturday just from our ward! So the ward was in a awesome temple mood. I got to know a bunch of members which was good. The members are always so awesome. Its awesome how no matter where you go or what country, you can count on meeting some awesome people. 

Its been raining all week. Our area is 90% dirt roads which has made it fun walking in the mud all day. Its nasty because there is no organized waste system so all the bags of trash get thrown around and eaten up by the dogs who starve in the streets. Its awesome seeing wet nasty muddy dogs eating poopy diapers in the middle of the streets. I feel like glendale dump is cleaner than my proselyting area haha. But let me show you this awesome scripture.

 1 And it came to pass that they did go forth, and began to preach the word of God unto the people, entering into their synagogues, and into their houses; yea, and even they did preach the word in their streets.

 2 And it came to pass that after much labor among them, they began to have success among the ^apoor class of people; for behold, they were cast out of the synagogues because of the coarseness of their apparel—

 3 Therefore they were not permitted to enter into their synagogues to worship God, being esteemed as filthiness; therefore they were poor; yea, they were esteemed by their brethren as ^adross; therefore they were ^bpoor as to things of the world; and also they were poor in heart.

 4 Now, as Alma was teaching and speaking unto the people upon the hill ^aOnidah, there came a great ^bmultitude unto him, who were those of whom we have been speaking, of whom were ^cpoor in heart, because of their poverty as to the things of the world.

 5 And they came unto Alma; and the one who was the foremost among them said unto him: Behold, ^awhat shall these my brethren do, for they are ^bdespised of all men because of their poverty, yea, and more especially by our priests; for they have ^ccast us out of our synagogues which we have labored abundantly to build with our own hands; and they have cast us out because of our exceeding poverty; and we have ^dno place to worship our God; and behold, ^ewhat shall we do?

 6 And now when Alma heard this, he turned him about, his face immediately towards him, and he beheld with great joy; for he beheld that their ^aafflictions had truly ^bhumbled them, and that they were in a ^cpreparation to hear the word.

Dad, our area is basically the Cerro Cemeterio and our streets where we live is Cont. Russia and Liberia. 

I havent taken any pictures because I dont really take my camera around. Im not even supposed to take my backpack around, just my scriptures in my hand because of all the robberies. So sorry I dont have any awesome pictures to send you. 

My companion is Elder Miranda from Panama. He is such a stud! He is 23. He has such a good heart and loves everyone he meets. 

Congrats on your coupon Dad! HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!!!!!

Con mucho amor,