1.20.14

Hey,

first things first, before i forget...i need some stories about tithing. We're teaching a bunch of families about tithing all of the sudden, and our lessons basically explain what tithing is, what the money is used for and then we say, “if you pay tithing the Lord will bless you.” It doesn't seem very affective because the people still just say, “well the Lord is already blessing me and the blessing that I want is the money,” or they say, “well God knows why I’m not paying my tithing, so i don’t have to talk about it with you”  I don't know… these people are so thick-headed sometimes. It’s just that I’ve always grown up in a house where if you don’t pay your tithing, you know that you are saying, “forget you Heavenly Father, and forget the life you gave me!” I've never had to wonder about paying tithing… because I’ve never had to pay tithing (because I’ve never earned money – really) so i don't have too many stories to tell the people.

Another problem that we are having is people not believing in the prophet. They say they'll believe in Joseph Smith and the prophets in the Book of Mormon and Bible, but when it comes to Thomas S. Monson... “oh he just doesn't do anything. If he’s the prophet, then why isn't he going to Africa and saving all of those dying children? Why isn't he like the Papa and presenting himself everywhere?  Why doesn’t he make miracles happen to show people that he is called of god? The prophets these days are just political.”  These are the kinds of things STRONG members in the church said to us as we taught a class on prophets. (btw- i can't see the letters on this key board so if there are mistakes, sorry) Some of the things people say make me want to slap them in the face...they don't even listen to the prophet and think that they have a right to criticize him.

The other thing that i wanted to talk about was home teaching. This is the number one thing that Uruguay is missing. Each week we work with a couple of families to try to get them to go to church and when we tell them that we will remind them and sometimes go look for them, they go to church. But then we move on to another family and then the old family stops going to church. The only thing that these people need is home teaching… people just to remind them to go to church, or to stop by their house and say, “hey, stop watching TV and go to church.” These people forget the day of the week and literally just forget that it’s Sunday. If we had home teachers, we would definitely be able to focus on families that really need help and we would have more than 45 people show up for church, The leaders say that home teaching won't work though because the news told them that they should stay out of the sun from the hours of 10 am to 5 pm...and they can't go after 5 because they have their own families to work with.

My area is ok but the leaders here are almost useless... in Cerro, the leaders worshipped us and did whatever we asked. Here, we had a talk with our second councilor about Alma and Almulek and their success when they worked together to bring more people unto the Lord. So we asked if he would be willing to go with us for an hour on Sunday to visit one family each week and he said...that would be amazing if it were possible but it’s a hard thing that you guys are asking for. I showed him the scripture in the beginning of the Book of Mormon when Laman and Lemuel said retrieving the plates was a difficult task but they still did it...and do you know what he said? “Oh but they had four people to go retrieve the plates...we would only have three, me my companion and him.” I looked at him for a minute with my companion and realized that he was dead serious and I just started to laugh so hard with E' Mar. I could not believe this response. I am trying to find a positive way to get these people to leave their caves to work with us...without tearing their heads off.

Our investigators are awesome though. I love a lot of the members and the nonmembers. We have one lady that is almost about to die and she calls us both Zapata (because that was the first Elder that visited her) and she will get baptized once the doctor clears her. We have another guy who is super funny and says that we're his best friends. We just need him to stop smoking and to stop trying to flirt with the sister missionaries.

I don't have much more to say. Last night, the power shut off and all four of us woke up almost dyyyyyy (i got really angry at the Y for not working) ing of heat because our fans shut off. So we slept for about 3 hours and sat outside until the power came back on so we could sleep. I miss soccer still. I go through games in myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy head a lot and we see a bunch of soccer games going on in the houses of members and that doesn't help. Other than that, all is good. I really just need help with the tithing and prophet topics.

Thanks for everything.

PS everyone says that Mom and Abbie are the prettiest girls they've seen in their lives.