02-18-13

Hey Family. It was a pretty interesting week. Every week seems to be getting more challenging. I continue to see Heavenly Fathers help with all of the burdens. I had to do a lot of things this week and I felt very humbled, but I’ll explain those things later.

This week I was called to be a trainer. I went down to Montevideo Tuesday night and arrived Wednesday morning. I spent the morning and lunch at the missionary home. It was good seeing old friends, Elders in the offices and the assistants. It was surprising to see how many friends I’ve made in the mission. In the mission home we received some brief training and some things to help inspire us. One thing I liked was that they showed us the video when Susan Boyle sang for Brittan’s Got Talent. You’ll have to see it. It helped us as trainers understand that we need to be very positive and not to judge these knew missionaries and to help them fulfill their potential.

Then we went to the temple grounds to find our kids. They stand in a row on the temple steps, and we come in behind them so they can’t see us. Then we sang Called To Serve. After we were done, they turn around and meet their trainers. Pretty fun experience. My kid is Named Elder Gudmundson. He’s from Orem Utah. A really tall and skinny kid. He actually reminds me of Trent a lot. He’s a pretty smart kid, He knows Spanish pretty well already. I’m glad I won’t have to spend a lot of time teaching Spanish and we can just start working. He’s pretty cool though. A bit socially awkward and really shy, but nothing that time in the mission field can’t change.

Sandra got Married this last Friday and baptized the following day. Saturday. Woop Woop. I was invited to be one of the Testigos for her marriage. That was pretty cool. Definitely a first. I had to fill out a ton of paper work, and sign my signature a million times also. But it still was a pretty cool experience. I felt bad that there weren’t many people there for her wedding. She said she didn’t care. One of the only reasons why she was getting married was to get baptized. She was happy anyway.

Saturday was her baptism. I baptized her and it was a really good baptismal service. After the meeting she was crying. She was sad that her family couldn’t be there with her. She lives far away from the church. She was sad that she can’t bring her kids to church. A member named Raquel told her that because of her decision that she would bless her family and with time god would give them the blessings of coming to church. That was my favorite moment of the baptism. It was a great day. I was very stressed trying to help plan the wedding and doing the baptismal service alone. That’s what’s been so tough about training so far is that your companion is so new, that you have to do almost everything for the first couple of weeks. I’m Happy it’s a new week.

The office Elders helped me put my money onto my companion’s card. Right now I’m ok with money. They apologized it took so long. They told me that the church is switching banks and that they’ve been having a few difficulties.

We have a few other investigators but we need to start finding again.

Thanks for all of your love and support family.

Her are some more photos. Baptism and marriage of Sandra. Me with my kid at the temple, and me signing for being a testigo