Hey Family¡¡

Yeah, I got stuck with this dumb keyboard again ¡¡¡ the one that does only upside down exclamation points and no numbers . .. only 5 and 6

Anyways that doesnt matter.

It was so good to hear that grandma is doing ok. It was a long week waiting to hear news today. I fasted on sunday for her and the family. Caity you are the best. Thanks for telling me about Obama. and Cheer. and Beef stroganoff. It was the best.

So youre getting ready for the cruise hey?¡ haha mom dont be scared¡¡ theres only been like a million tsunamis lately¡¡ you¨ll never drown¡ besides you go swimming all the time¡¡ hahaha.

Everyone here was watching the wedding too. I saw like seconds of it. I thought that the car could have been way cooler. Like a ferrari or something. But it must have been really cool other than that because everyone is like wow it was so beautiful¡ are all weddings like that in America? uhmm...that was in England...haha

Dad I want your job. Its sick. You get an iPad, an Apple TV, and all kinds of other stuff for free. And you get to wear suits all the time.

We arent allowed to skype because we cant use members houses computers, and so we would have to pay to use a cyber on sunday and thats breaking the sabbath so yeah, its all complicated. You should just send me an iPhone 4 and we'll call it a day haha. No but yeah its a bummer cuz christmas is on sunday too..so all 3 of my calls home, which is 4 for most elders will all be on sundays, but its cool cuz thats a really awesome sabbath day activity and woo hoo. So yeah, Ill call you at 8 my time which im pretty sure is 4 your time. And we´ll figure out if you want to call me right back or what cuz I didnt get a answer yet.

This week we had a really awesome baptism from the zone leaders ward. They have an investigator that is a taxi driver and he always takes all the missionaries to zone meetings and stuff. His wife was already a member. They got married on Thursday and his baptism was friday. It was a awesome service¡ Its cool..here in artigas, the stake president has made it really clear that he wants convert baptisms to be really well planned and well organized, he wants special musical numbers and stuff. So we as missionaries have been working really hard on that, all 16 of us go to any baptism there is in Artigas and support and sing and stuff. In my fist transfer we didnt do anything like that.

We got home from the baptism friday night after a rainy day and these little kids that live next door were pretending to have a war battle with us. So me and Elder Longfellow got our umbrellas and we had a really intense battle. We won of course because we had the new 2011 edition machine gun umbrellas that also serve as a shield when opened. We also had a nice base, the house, and made better pretend gun noises. haha it was really fun.

Me and Elder Rios are working really hard and seeing lots of miracles. Ever since my first couple weeks here in January we have been working with an inactive family, and their neighbors who are investigators, but their oldest boy Lenon is baptized 9 years old. We knocked on thier door every sunday morning for the whole first change and they never went. We dropped them. Then our first week with Elder Rios she asked us how come we stopped coming. We had a really awesome lesson with her and Lenon and they got excited to go to church and then talked to the inactive family across the street and they all went to church yesterday¡ I couldnt believe it I was so happy¡

The weather is getting colder and colder and rainier and rainier. Im loving it so far. Sometimes the rain catches us when we arent expecting it though and we get SOAKED in our shirts and ties and everything.

Well, I cant wait to talk on Sunday¡¡ Love you guys¡ P.S.

You can send something to the gmail account today and it should get here by tomorrow in the district meeting, so let me know what your plan is. but you gotta hurry today before they send off to artigas.

Love you so much¡

Ps, can you send me some cards, like UNO, RAGE, Phase 10 type cards for Pday, and a jump rope for excersices for the next package whenever that ends up being? thanks¡¡

Elder Daniel KEllis

Whats up!

Gosh this week went extra fast with transfers and everything! Elder Rios is such an awesome comp! He trained last change and now we are tearin it up in Artigas! He is from Montevideo, his ward goes to the building on the temple square. He speaks perfect English. He has a girlfriend, nohelia, theyve been together 3 and a half years! She is waiting for him. haha Tomorrow is his birthday! He is turning 20. I want to make him cinnomon rolls but I dont have a recipe. =/ He has about 13 months in the mission. He is a legit pianist. He is short haha. Hes a good friend. He is so humble and loving, but is still cool and funny. his teaching-style is sweet. Much more friendly and less doctrine shoving down their throats dropping the cain. We get along way good, and the mission just took a 180 for me now that I am with him!. Inostra was the man. But we were two very different people. I get to talk more in lessons, I feel much more confident as a missionary and in my spanish! I spent a night

So the 30th we are lookin at a baptism for the neighbors of Lilian! We are way excited! The Trindade Family is the name. They live in a little shack, half with like dried mud crumbly bricks, half with little metal sheets. The kids always ask me about my house, and if my family has a car. The floor is dirt and rocks. But the Dad has already read the BOM two whole times! And her favorite hymn is -Tu Me Has Dado muchas bendiciones, Dios-. or Because I have been given much. Read those lyrics and Imagine thier little house! The kids are so cute! One of them always writes me little love notes shes 11 dont worry. The other always wants to sit on my lap but thats against the rules haha.

So I know I told you about Daniel and Sabrina that everything was all pretty. haha. OH the DRAMMAAAA. So this guy on a moto stops, turns around and talks to us. Turns out its Daniel. Sweet! Rios can meet him and stuff! He lifts up his shirt, and Sabrina had poured something on him and light it on fire or something, his whole front was all burnt. It was ugly. He is the bigger and more violent one, so im worried about Sabrina. )=

We had a surprise Investigator in church yesterday! The Boyfriend of one of the sisters in the ward. She is 25. Her dad is a High Counselor. So anyways. We had an awesome lesson with them! Member missionary work is the way to do it guys! Help out the missionaries in your wards! Talk to your friends and stuff!

Well. I love you all lots! I love being a missionary and I love Uruguay!

-Elder Daniel Kellis

Hey!

So this week was pretty dang crazy!

Tuesday and half of wednesday Elder Inotroza and I both were in bed all day. We had some kind of virus.I had a fever. I used my little alarm clock thermomter under my armpit to take my temperature and I hit 99.9 degrees. Im not sure how accurate that is though haha. I threw up. He had to poop like every 10 minutes. Ill leave out the details. haha But we are better now!

We had a pretty successful week for being out so long! Sunday we were like a parade in the street going to church! There was the Mom, Lilian. her friend Carla. and 13 kids from the three houses on that little corner! haha they have this little wagon made out of 2 bike tires and a big barrel cut in half. They use it to go around the neighborhood and find 2 liter bottles to recycle to help their parents out financially. 20 bottles = $1 They like to pretend that one is the horse and the others are in the wagon sitting on top of all the bottles. But this week we piled kids in the wagon and me and Elder Inostroza were the horses! haha it was awesome. You should of seen all the smiles from all the neighbors and people driving by! The primary president was like Im gonna kill you Elders! (hna. Mora) There is usually 1 kid in Valient primary. (her son) this week there was 7! Instead of teaching gospel principles this week, we were in the primary.

Sunday night we found a family! They are awesome! Their name is even awesome! Falco Family haha. The mom said she has been praying for God to show her the truth. The dad is a super chill dude that reminds me of like Bishop or Bro. Stevenson. They have a teenage daughter and a teenage son. We are so excited for them! We will see how it goes!

The weather is slowly getting much better! The mornings during study I usually wear my hoodie and open the window for the nice breeze. Me and Elder Longfellow go chill on the top of the roof sometimes before bed. It rained a lot this week! The trench coat and umbrella are money!!

This week the Patriarch of Artigas passed away. It´s interesting. Here in Uruguay they have the funeral really fast. He passed away about 6am and the funeral was at 3pm. It was a beautiful service. I was really impressed with the talk his wife gave. She seemed so happy for him. I love the spirit of funerals in the church. I havent been to a funeral since grandpas when I was like what 10 years old? I thought a lot about my grandpas the other day. The viewing brought the plan of salvation that we teach all the time into reality for me.

So we are continuing to teach Daniel and Sabrina. Daniel is progressing very quickly and Sabrina just isnt very religious. This has been causing problems between their relationship, Daniel wanted to know why trying to follow God more would bring such sadness and problems in his life. He admitted that he was very discouraged. We read in Alma 32 when the poor are rejected from the synagouges. How Alma teaches them that God gave them these trials to be humbled, that humility leads to repentance, and that repentance leads to mercy, mercy brings eternal life. He understood. But just looked sad. It was tearing him up. It was raining. Thier tin sheet metal roof was loud but kinda beautiful. I remembered my first couple days in Uruguay and how they were hard and I was discouraged. I remembered the scripture Joshua 1:9 which I had read from a letter from Grandma earlier that day and which literally changed my whole world those first couple days. We read it together and he just started to cry. He explained that this scripture he remembered hearing a lot earlier in his life from his parents and at church. He held his wife´s hand and his little 2 year old (cutest kid on the earth!!!) hugged his leg looking up at him. He left the room and got his guitar and played and sang a song for us. It was a christian song and he is really good! His little boy went and got his little tiny plastic guitar and sat next to his daddy and started singing. He doesnt know how to talk yet but he was just trying so hard. It was such an incredible memory. The rain. The guitar. The little son. But most of all the spirit that was there. This is what its all about. Families. Love. True unbreakable happiness. I love those little things.

Yesterday Rider and Maira didnt go to church. They have gone once in the last 6 weeks and are recent converts. We stopped by their house after dropping off the neighborhood of kids. We were just kinda sad. We didnt have much to say. They just kinda gave some excuses. I looked at my hands. They were torn with blisters and scrapes and cuts. We tore out all of their huge bamboo in thier backyard (bamboo is ridiculously crazy plant by the way!) I felt a wierd feeling. Like Come on guys. We come here like 3 times a week. We teach you all the time. We give our sweat and blood to serve you. We pray for you. Why dont you go to church! I had a really special moment as I looked at those hands. I thought of Jesus Chirst. I thought of the marks on his hands from His sweat and blood. His infinate love for us. And I thought about how sometimes we don`t always do what we should.

Well thats Elder Kellis in Artigas, Uruguay for you. I Cant wait for conference! I should be able to watch it all in English with the other missionaries except for the priesthood session. It is broadcasted here at 9pm and thats when we have to be at home so bummer!

I love you all so much. Thanks for your prayers. Your support. Your letters. All of you!

Elder Kellis

THE BIG YELLOW ONE IS THE SUN!!!!!!!!

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

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