Family, and Friends,

First off, congrats to Bennett Anderson on his mission call to Romania Moldova Mission!! Man that is crazy!! You are going to be such a blessing to those people as you learn to love them and give it all you got. I am so pumped for you!! And congrats to all those who graduated this past week!! Whoop whoop!!! And hello to the Downing’s and the Holmes! I miss you guys and I hope to hear from you soon!!

So this week has been awesome!!

Monday, we went out looking for these caves out by the river because it was our p-day. So we walked and walked and walked and an hour later and a few fences later we got there. There was no caves ha-ha. But it was still fun. We got to talk to the elders that went with us and we built good relationships with them, and took a few pictures and left. That night we had a few really good lessons. We had a lesson with the Familia Escobar, a family that we found that lived in the states for 10 years, which is super awesome because they speak some English. Anyways I was super pumped because they asked me to pray in English and guess what...I COULDN'T DO IT!! I was so pumped. I got like 10 words in and I just forgot how to say almost everything so I had to go to spanish!! I don’t know if I should be super happy or worried or what. Now I don’t know English or Spanish! But it means I am making progress in thinking in spanish. ha-ha. WHOOP WHOOP!!

But during this week, we had planned a whole lot better because last week was a rough one for us finding people. We are going through all of our lists of a thousand members trying to visit as many as we can and seeing what we can do to help them come back to church. It is crazy that when you are constantly working, running from house to house, appointment to appointment, how happy you are!! I seriously cannot stop smiling and it is incredible how awesome you feel! Time fly’s by! I am already done with my first transfer! How nuts is that?! Whoa. We found 6 new people to teach this week which isn’t amazing but it was still really good.

So Sunday night I went into Montevideo to sign my papers. I left Sunday night at 1230 and got into Montevideo at 6:45 that morning. I wish I could sleep on the bus, but I haven’t acquired that skill yet ha-ha. It was so awesome seeing everyone from the CCM in my group and elders I had met from the other mission. After we signed papers, we got the day to explore Montevideo. We went down to the beach and walked down the pier, went and saw the city square, just went basically all over the city. It was so fun. Then I hopped on a bus back to Salto and got in at 12:30 last night. So that is why I didn’t email yesterday. I was on a 24hour marathon with no sleep ha-ha. But it was worth it and now I am a resident!!

Oh, so a funny story.  My companion loves cats. Like loves them. They are his favorite thing in the world. So one day this week, I think it was Thursday, we were walking down the street and this baby kitten started following us. It followed us door to door for like 30 minutes. Hah. So my companion looks at me and says, Elder, we need to find this thing a home. So we start walking to members houses looking to give it to one of them and just as we are 4 blocks from the members house, it just leaves. We turned around on the other side of town and walked back like 12 blocks to find this thing a home and BOOM! It’s gone. So I look at him, honestly kind of bugged that we just wasted all that time walking back, and he just looks at me and we go, well let’s contact this house. It was a house we had already contacted earlier that week and no one was there. But we did this time and it was a lady and her visiting daughter. The lady who lives there was a member but couldn’t come to church because of work. Her daughter was only there visiting for one day and she was an inactive member because, well to be honest, a lot of things.

We started talking to her and sang a hymn and started with a prayer. We began talking to her about her life and about everything she was going through. Then we went into the Book of Mormon. She had a ton of questions, and one of which is how to get answers to your prayers. We started talking about the Holy Ghost and how it answers prayers and she went on to say how she doesn’t know how to recognize the feelings...WELL GUESS WHAT ELDER STAFFIERI STUDIED THAT MORNING!! It is so awesome how this happens so much. That was my exact question I had written down in my study journal that morning and had studied. It was such an awesome lesson and we got her more excited about the church. She says she wants to come back and she wants her boyfriend to get baptized. It was such an awesome lesson! It was such a miracle. She was only there for that day. We weren’t supposed to be working in that area. The cat left at that exact moment we walked in front of that house. She just happened to be going through the things she was to humble herself enough to re-accept the gospel.

THE MISSION IS SO AWESOME!!! I cannot get over how blessed we are when we are obedient and pray for guidance. The spirit directs all of our actions and when we following the promptings, that is when work gets done. So awesome!! Ahh I love this work so much!! THERE IS NO BETTER PLACE TO BE THAN ON A MISSION!! The church is true!! I love you all!!

Elder Staffieri
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