Brandon's Third Email! August 20th, 2015

Okay so this week has gone by quicker than the last two!! This place is not paradise but it is moving along!!! Hahaha, okay well let me go through my notes of things to say, and then I'll see if there is anything else to say. SO first of all my CTR ring bent on like the first day also and it is super super sharp on the outside and inside so once I see a ring I like I'm getting it haha. Also, letters take 3 weeks to get here so unless you sent one yesterday, don't send it to the MTC. You can either send it to the mission home, Mom, you should have that adress, or you can pouch mail it. If you want to pouch mail, there are very specific directions, but you can look them up online I'm sure if you type missionary pouch mail. My address is Elder Brandon Roberts Richmond, Uruguay Montevideo Mission, POB 30150, Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150. That will get to me in less than a week I think and only takes one U.S. stamp but you can only send one plain page one sided! So whatever. 

Basketball here is so sketchy, it is practically tackle haha. It is fun cause I'm one of the bigger guys but it is also like rugby-basketball. Maybe I'll get more used to it, like literally full on shoulder checks when you're doing a lay up. AND I'M HALFWAY DONE WITH THE CCM! (MTC in Spanish) So first of all, I don't go back to Atlanta, the church just has to make that reservation for immigration purposes! I leave in 3 weeks from this past Tuesday, so the second Tuesday in September I think... 

When we leave, we will email on the Thursday before that Tuesday, but won't have pday for 11 days until the next Monday which is a real bummer but it is what it is.... Also mom, can you call visa and tell them that my card is out of the country so when I need to use it they won't cancel it!!! 

The food here is pretty intense. Every day it is huge huge chunks of red meat and some form of potatoes and always hard stale bread!! When the meat is too much to eat, sometimes I'll take bread and dip it in bbq sauce and close my eyes and pretend it is bbq chicken pizza... hahaha.... I have actually not eaten much bread and I only take a dessert once a day if that. They have them at all three meals. And I don't know how to do parenthesis also on these keyboards.... 

So Saturday was super sick!!! We all were soooooo stoked! So me and my comp got dropped off in our area and it was maybe a mile or 2 long and a mile wide. We walked soooooo many miles haha cause we were just walking the whole time and talking to people and we taught 2 legit lessons in the street!! One guy was mig welding this super sick metal car toy thing and I stopped and with my limited spanish told him how cool it was and told him I weld with a mig welder with argon also, same setup as him, tried to teach him something but he wouldn't listen because he said he just was going to drink beer with Jesus.... so that wasn't super succesful...

BUT then we talked to this one guy for like 30 minutes and taught him a lesson and he was like kinda into it but we got his contact info and stuff, (which go to the elders in that area) and then we talked to this guy who was super super into it!! My comp is having kinda a hard time with spanish so I was mostly teaching, but we taught the whole first lesson in spanish and like prayed with him at the end and we are probably going to meet him this Saturday at the same place!! It was super cool!!! We were so stoked! He kept saying how nice the message was and how he wanted to hear more. He said he would read a passage we gave to him in the B.O.M. and pray about it. He asked for like the 3 main pamphlets to read also so we'll see if we see him again this week!!! That would be really cool! I forgot to say but I gave a talk two Sundays ago in sacrament meeting here! It was about enduring to the end, in English though haha. Not much else is super new.  

One funny thing that happened while we were out was I meant to ask someone if they would like us to help them because they were working on their house but instead I asked if they would like to help us. They both turned around and were like estamos ocupados, (We are busy) like super meanly, and I was so confused until I realized I had mixed up the order of the pronoun and conjugation... oppppsssss

I know once I get out in the field I'll have more exciting things to write about!!!! Still spending 9 hours in a classroom!!! hahah but my spanish is still progressing but slower so hopefully I'm not stalling...

No pictures this week, just every other week.

Top Ten

10. I am kind of getting used to having more red meat in a week than someone should have in a year.

9. I am still learning spanish!! Stilll a million miles to go though.

8. My district is cool, which is nice because we are always together. Just 6 guys.

7. My companion went to the Napoleon Dynamite high school.

6. My companion caught racoons this summer and kept them as pets.

5. 3 more weeks till I am in Uruguay!!!

4. We got to leave the compound and we will get to again this week!!!!

3. It has only rained once since Monday!!!!!

2. I am stoked to be here and my knowledge of the scriptures is growing tons

1. We actually got to teach our first lesson, all in spanish, and prayed and everything! It was so fun!