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.