Family, and Friends: 

  

This week has been so awesome!! I feel like I say that every week but it is true every week. The mission is just awesome!!! It wasn’t as humid this week as it was last week so that was a plus. At times last week, I felt like I was swimming through the streets. It was so gnarly how humid and hot it gets here after it rains and its only winter. Plus, it the rain comes out of nowhere too!!! I had all of my clothes on the line and it was perfectly sunny and they were almost dry but I decided to leave them out for a few hours while we went to lessons that day after lunch, and it started pouring after our second lesson. Ha-ha. On the bright side, my clothes got washed twice as well and I didn’t have to do it so that is good! 

So this week was really really good. We worked really hard and things were just working out for us. Things that seemed like they weren’t going to be successful worked out so good. Better than we could have ever imagined. I think the blessings have just been coming because we have been trying our hardest to be as obedient as we can lately in everything we do. it’s not like we were not obedient before but now just putting a more of an emphasis on it. And we have been seeing the blessings! We found 5 new people to teach so that has been so awesome!

This week we also did a lot of service. We did service projects three days this week. Two of the days we spent our mornings chopping up wood for people in our ward because it has been getting crazy cold at night. Then another day this week we helped a family in our ward build an almacen (kind of like a shop in front of their house). It was super fun and I felt like growing up building things really came in use ha-ha. 

Also this week elder Kemp hit his year and half mark in the mission so we went over to our neighbor’s house and burned stuff!! That was fun. 

This has been my last week with elder Kemp. He is going to tacuarembo and I am staying. I am a little bit bummed that he is leaving but at the same time I am so pumped to get a new companion and learn from someone else. You learn so much from your companions it’s crazy. You pick up little things that you don’t even notice until they point them out. They shape you spiritually and build who you will become as a missionary. You can learn things from every companion so I am way excited to learn from my new companion. 

My new companion is Elder Caldaron. He is a red headed Peruvian ha-ha. I have heard great things about him and he is going to be a district leader too. So that means this change I will be doing a lot of splits with other missionaries. I am so pumped because now I don’t have the option to speak English!! That is the part I am so excited about. I can’t speak English even if I want to. I am going to be force-fed Spanish and I can’t wait!! I have been feeling confident in Spanish already so hopefully I will take off and learn so much more. 

This week we have had one of our recent converts bounce back to receiving us again. She hit a really rough patch after her baptism and she was just being attacked on all fronts. Her mom has been getting in her head saying that she got baptized too fast and that she didn’t know what she was doing. And her friends have been giving her a really hard time for a super long time too. They were bagging on her just for taking lessons. And to top it off, her boyfriend is a preacher from another church. So she has had her work cut out for her. We were at the point with her for the past few weeks that she would not meet with us and said that she was in-between the two churches. She wouldn’t answer or return any calls or texts. I have never felt so sad, concerned, worried, etc. in my life!! I have never spent so much time on my knees and in fasting for one thing. And this week, even though she didn’t go to church, she started meeting with us again. We have had some really powerful lessons and we are seeing her testimony grow again. She opened up to us all over again and is letting us know what is going on in her life so we can help her. She knows that she has a testimony of the things we have been teaching her and she told us that. Now is just a matter of rebuilding her faith. I have never seen such temptation after a baptism. But she is going to be so much stronger after it. She is so strong to begin with and I am so grateful that we have the opportunity to work with her again. This is just one of the miracles we have seen this week. We have had some miracle finds on the street this week that if we weren’t there at that time then we would not have gotten into that house and taught that person. It has just been amazing seeing the hand of the Lord in his work. 

I also gave my first blessing in Spanish. We have given so many blessings together but I have never actually been the one to seal the anointing until this past week. I had always been the one just to anoint them and that is super easy. But it’s a whole other thing giving a blessing with limited vocabulary when they really needed it. I gave a blessing to a toddler in our ward that had a super high fever and having a really hard time. He was just crying and crying and crying since the moment we got in the house. He wasn’t going to let us give him one unless I did it because he says that we are "mejor amigos" ha-ha. He is a stud. But anyways. As the blessing started he started calming down and fell asleep. I have never seen anything like that happen. It was such a testimony builder of the power of the priesthood when it is used righteously and in faith. I am so happy that the Lord was able to work through me. 

This week has truly been awesome. I have grown so much and hope to be able to continue to grow as time goes on. I know that Christ lives. I know that He came into the world to save it. All things can be made whole through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I know families are eternal. I know that the priesthood power and authority is the power of God on the earth today. 

I have been so blessed to be able to serve a mission. I love you all. Thank you so much for your letters, emails, and support.

Let’s all try a little harder to be a little better. 

Con Cariño, 

Elder Staffieri

SEE PICTURES BELOW

First off felicitaciones to the Livingston family, especially to Peter and Seth. I am so happy for you guys!! There is nothing better than living the gospel as a family!! and to Noah tambien! I am so stoked that you got ordained to the office of a Priest! You will be so blessed in your life as you seek to bless others. My testimony of this has gone through the roof during the mission thus far.

Anyways this week has been super awesome!! There isn't a whole lot to write about but it was just really good.

This past Tuesday, it was me and Elder Kemps job to cook for the district so we made chili!! and a whhhoooollllleeee ton of it ! we put 1.5 kilos of ground beef, a medio kilo of chorizo, 3 onions, tons of beans, tons of tomatoes, spices i dont even know the name of, and a whole bunch of other stuff. We made 2 gigantic pots of it. soo good. and sooo worth the p'day spent making it. I have been blessed with a comp that knows how to cook so hopefully a little of it can rub off on me hah.

This past Wednesday, we met our new mission president! PRESIDENT SMITH!! We had interviews and they told us all about themselves. I was so stoked to see them and they were equally stoked to see me. Hermana Smith said that she was going to call you mom so stay by your phone. It was nice to see someone familiar again. We have been truey blessed to have him as our president. He has a great vision and amazing enthusiasm and passion for the work. He said something interesting that I want to share. Elder Perry, in the MTC with all the mission presidents said that "2013 is the year the Lord has chosen to hasten his work."  That was basically the overall theme of what he had to say to us- just get excited and have this craving to work and work and work and serve to the best of your ability. I have never come out of a meeting so amped up to work in my life!! I can’t wait for these next 20 months of my life!! I wish I had more time to be honest but we will work with what we have.

We have found some really good families this past week and some really good people in general. I can’t wait to get to know them more and see the changes in their lives as they live the gospel. It has been a challenge being in the streets so much but it has paid off big time!!

My spiritual thought this week comes from a conference address by President Uchtdorf in the May 2011 conference. It was given in priesthood session but we can all apply these principles in our lives. He said "The words written in the scriptures and spoken in general conference are for us to “liken them unto [ourselves],” not for reading or hearing only. Too often we attend meetings and nod our heads; we might even smile knowingly and agree. We jot down some action points, and we may say to ourselves, “That is something I will do.” But somewhere between the hearing, the writing of a reminder on our smartphone, and the actual doing, our “do it” switch gets rotated to the “later” position. Brethren, let’s make sure to set our “do it” switch always to the “now” position!

As you read the scriptures and listen to the words of the prophets with all your heart and mind, the Lord will tell you how to live up to your priesthood privileges. Don’t let a day go by without doing something to act on the promptings of the Spirit."

I know that if we learn to apply what we learn in the scriptures and in conference in our daily lives we can draw closer to the spirit. I have seen this working in my life the past 4 months and I have never been happier.

Well that is about it for this week. Sorry it has been so short but there wasn’t that much to write about and I am out of time . I hope everyone had an awesome 4th of July!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!! it was super cold and rainy down here but it was good!

I love you all!!

Let’s all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!

Elder Staffieri

July 01, 2013

First off, congrats to Vance Lund on your baptism! I am so pumped for you! I could not be happier for you as you have made such an amazing decision to be baptized and confirmed. You will be so blessed I am so excited for you. Words cannot express how stoked I am for you! ¡¡¡¡Felicitaciones!!!

So this week has been really good. We have been working hard and finding a lot of really amazing people to teach, including two families!!! Aaaahh I could not be more stoked!! There isn’t really a whole ton that I can pinpoint about what made this week so awesome. It was just overall really, really good. The best feeling in the world is just coming home just spent; knowing that you did all you could do that day to serve the Lord. I love having those days and strive to make everyday one of those days. I have been thinking a lot about time this week as it seems that the mission is flying, FFFFFFLLLLLYYYYYYIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGG by. It is so bizarre how fast it is going. I wish it could slow down a little bit to be honest because I feel like I have been learning so much but I need to learn so much more so I can be more effective as a missionary. I hate feeling limited in my ability to teach, but I am progressing everyday so that is what counts!! 

So, notable events of the week include splits. We have gone on so many splits this transfer but it has helped me so much learning from other missionaries. I went on splits this week with Elder Laycock. He was the last AP and an awesome missionary. I went to his area in Salto Centro. We worked really hard and I learned how to consecrate my time and just work, work, work till you drop. We were just going going and going until we switched back at the bus. I love it!! I also figured out a good method for marking my scriptures and everything so it was a super effective split and I am so stoked that I got to learn from him. 

We also had stake conference this past week and they changed the stake presidency. The new stake president is from our ward and he is pretty young. He is only 34 years old. He is a really nice guy and I am so stoked to see what direction the stake is going to go. We heard from two area 70s and the spirit was super strong in that meeting. 

Also, we have a new mission president now. President Smith!! He is coming to talk to our area this coming Wednesday. It should be awesome!!

So this week we had an interesting experience. An experience I never thought would ever happen and never happened to my comp either. We had a lesson with the family of Nadia about faith and we watched this movie, finding faith in Christ. It is a super good movie and goes through all the miracles Christ performed in his earthly ministry. So we go through all of these amazing miracles and get to the crucifixion. Her daughter, Abril who is 7, just starts crying hysterically. Like balling. She couldn’t even breathe she was crying so hard. I just looked at my comp and he starts laughing and I was just sat there like "what did we just do" ha-ha. I felt so bad. She was like "why did they have to kill him, he was so nice, he doesn’t deserve that" and all this stuff and just started balling. I have never been so happy to see the resurrection in my life. We stopped the movie and showed her that Christ still lives and all this stuff. She got happier but then started analyzing it a little more. Crisis averted. She was saying that she wanted to pray to the virgin so that the people would all be burned so we have a lot more to teach in that family but hey! We are making progress. I was just happy that we brought a member with us so she could help comfort the girl while the mom was dealing with the baby. All in all a super funny experience. 

So this week I learned a lesson that is incredibly valuable and transformed a great part of my view of the missión, which is receiving revelation and doing things in the Lord’s way. When the prophet Joseph Smith was in Liberty Jail, he felt that the Lord was distant and had forsaken him, but in that moment of anguish he discovered, through revelation, that it was not the Lord that was blocking him out, it was he. During the trying times in this life we feel that the Lord is far and uninterested with us and our lives. However, He is NEVER the one that puts a wall between us, but sometimes we, in our self-motivated and selfish nature, put a wall in front of him. When we cease to TRULY seek the Lord’s will, we thicken the wall that stands between us and Him. The moment that we truly put aside our will, however justified and right it may seem, we begin, brick by brick, to remove the wall that we have created that blocks out divine revelation.  Unfortunately, every brick in that wall is very comfortable for us. We have lived with this wall nearly all our lives and it is simply what we are used to! At times we have fear that if we remove this brick, we are going to see something that we don’t want to see, something we have to change, something we need to do, someone we need to ask forgiveness of, someone we need to forgive. However, the only way to truly punch through the wall and open up a fountain of divine inspiration and revelation is by submitting our will, our knowledge, ideas, and fears, and accepting the Lord’s way. In the prophetic analogy of President Henry B. Eyring, we have to remove the spiritual pavilion that is now covering us. It is a walk of pure faith, but if we will but have the courage to take hold of the Savior’s outstretched hand, He will guide us.

Anyways, that is all for this week. I love you all! thank you for all of your prayers!

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!! 

Con cariño,

Elder Staffieri

PICTURES BELOW

Family, and Friends: 

This week has been kind of crazy but it has been good. We are beginning to see the fruits of our labors, SO IT HAS BEEN AWESOME!!!!

This week we found some good investigators which I have been so pumped about! One of which that I will talk about is Nadía. She is in her late 20´s and has two kids, April (7) and Benjamin (7 months). We found them one night when we were contacting and she said to come back another day, so we did. Then when we came back, she told us to come back another day, so we did. Then finally, she let us in! WWWHHHOOOOPPPP WHHOOOOPPPP! She is super awesome. She works two jobs to support her beautiful family. She has a sincere desire to learn more about the gospel and she said she loves reading. So, we talked to her about OLA (Orar, Leer, y Asistir) or in other words, praying, reading, and attending church. The lesson went super well and her kids were behaved the whole time, which is a miracle in itself because it was late at night. We talked how it was important for her to find out for herself because we are just young men preaching and the only way she can know is by praying to know if what we share is true. Anyways, she said that she was going to read and pray about what we had talked about! The only thing that is going to be hard is trying attending church because she works at the hot springs on Sundays but I know that if there is a will and desire to go to church, the Lord will provide a way!! So that was our lesson we had with her on Monday. I am so excited to go back and teach her and her family again! 

On Tuesday, we had our zone meeting. We talked a lot about families and the importance of the family. We learned a ton about Family Home Evening, and a ton of fun games to go play with everyone. So hopefully we can put those into practice this week coming up soon! Anyways, after we ate lunch as a district and headed back to Cerro to get to work. Right as we walk into our appointment and find out that he is canceling on us, we got a call from our zone leaders, they needed us to do splits with a companionship that was visiting for the next few days. So we went back to the house, planned for like 15 min then went and picked them up. Elder Rodrigues and I, he is from Bolivia, went through with our normal plans that we had that night. We taught a few lessons and contacted as much as we could. It went really well. We taught a lesson on temples to our recent convert Yessica! It went super well and was a bit emotional. I am so grateful I got to work in the temple for a few months before the mission. It has made all the difference as we testify of temples and the sacred work that is done there. AAHH it was so awesome! At the end of the night we dropped them off at the bus stop and headed home. 

Wednesday was super good too. We didn’t get that much done in terms of missionary work but it was a super spiritually uplifting day. President Heaton and his wife came and talked to us and we had an interview with them. They brought us in each individually and thanked us for the work we were doing and gave us some advice and sent us on our way. When we got home, all we had time to do was go to correlation with our mission leader. It went really well. 

Thursday we hit the ground running. We had so many lessons planned and just worked worked and worked allllll day. It was so awesome. We came home and were dead!! Best feeling ever!!

Friday was basically the same as Thursday, except we had a huge gap out of it for weekly planning. I hate weekly planning but it is such a blessing. When we plan well, our week goes really well. So is was worth it! 

Saturday was super good. Working hard and we had a really awesome lesson with our investigators Maria Eugenia and Rodrigo. They are awesome. I don’t know if I talked about them but they are super fun kids. They are the kids of two inactive members who went to church as kids but never go anymore and they were never baptized. They are really great kids. We watched the movie the restoration with them and bore testimony. Then we played a game about the restoration. They both shared that the felt that the movie they saw was true. It is such a powerful film. I am so grateful for those movies. When paired with testimony it is an amazing experience. We had a member from the young men’s presidency with us too who recently returned from his mission so that was awesome as well! They committed to going to church the next day too! We were super pumped up as we left that lesson! 

Sunday was great! We called Rodrigo and Maria Eugenia to make sure they were coming to church but they didn’t answer so we went by there house. They were both asleep but they got out of bed and came with us and were actually grateful that we came and got them! We were late to church but it was worth it because they got there!! And church was great as always! After church we had splits and I went and taught a lesson and Elder Kemp taught a lesson. We went to lunch after and hit the streets. Sundays are a great day to contact. We worked for 5 hours then got on a bus to Centro and went to the broadcast last night. It was inspiring. I was struggling to understand all of it because it was in Spanish but I was surprised at how much I understood! We all came out with pages of notes so hopefully we can apply all we have learned in this next week!

This week has been so awesome. I am grateful every day for the opportunity I have to share the gospel in a full time capacity. There is no greater work! I love my Savior and am so grateful for all our many blessings. We are beginning to see miracles on the mission!! 

I love you all!! Thank you for all of your prayers!!

Elder Staffieri

Family, and Friends:

First off Happy Father´s Day to my awesome dad!! I hope you had an awesome day. I have been so blessed to have a father like you in my life. You have been such an awesome example to me throughout my life. I try every day to be a little more like you. I wish I could be there to give you a hug and thank you for all you have done for me, but this will have to do. 

So this week has been a growing experience for Elder Kemp and me. We always love it when our investigators get baptized and take that step towards eternal happiness. There is nothing that brings us more joy as missionaries. We love seeing the changes in people as they come to realize how magnificent the Atonement of Jesus Christ is in their lives, and how perfect it is. As our investigators get baptized, we begin to realize how important it is to go and find more investigators, and along with that, how difficult it is. So this week basically was devoted to finding people. 

This week we had splits. Elder Lopez, our district leader, came to our area of Cerro and Elder Kemp went to Ceibal. Splits are always growing experiences for me because I have to be the one leading. It is an awesome opportunity to check how I am doing as a missionary. What is my focus, how is my planning, how do I follow the spirit, how is my Spanish, and how well do I know the lessons and how I can apply them to the needs of our investigators and contacts. So Elder Lopez and I didn’t have that much planned out as set lessons. But we had a ton of people we wanted to go and visit on our lists and contacted along the way. It was super humbling. We spent literally all day in the streets trying to talk to people. We made a few good contacts and at the end of the day, we had two lessons that weren’t planned. We also contacted investigators that were dropped and set up times to come back and teach them. So all in all, it was a good day and a good split. 

Once Elder Kemp came back, it was time to hit the ground running. We had been kind of discouraged this week because we had not had a lot success finding people. 

Going door to door and talking to people on the streets is not the most effective way of finding investigators. BUT, you do find people! It just takes a llllooonnngggg time sometimes. We spent the majority of our time this week walking around in the streets doing the best we could to follow the spirit and find people. 

This week we also went to ward council and met with various ward leaders to ask how we can help their quorums. This has been such a blessing because it gave us direction of who we could go and visit to help the ward and also find more people to teach. It’s really one in the same. We have lists of people we are going to visit this coming week. I am so pumped to start over and begin a new week. 

I will say that this week, I have grown a ton in the mission. I have learned a lot about faith and staying positive when things aren’t ideal. Therefore, I want to share a thought about faith. I was studying in the 2010 General Conference address, I think the October session. There are some awesome talks in there. But my thought comes from Richard C. Edgley, of the First Bishopric. I can’t think of a better way to sum up what I have learned this week than from this quote. 

He said¨: Because of the conflicts and challenges we face in today’s world, I wish to suggest a single choice—a choice of peace and protection and a choice that is appropriate for all. That choice is faith. Be aware that faith is not a free gift given without thought, desire, or effort. It does not come as the dew falls from heaven. The Savior said, “Come unto me” (Matthew 11:28) and “Knock, and it shall be [given] you” (Matthew 7:7). These are action verbs—come, knock. They are choices. So I say, choose faith. Choose faith over doubt, choose faith over fear, choose faith over the unknown and the unseen, and choose faith over pessimism”.

Faith is so important in our daily lives. It never really hit me until the mission. Each day we walk by faith and it is so important that we strive to develop our faith every day. I have always been firm in my belief that we cannot be stagnant in our growth. We can’t just reach a point where we say to ourselves "yeah I am happy where I am at right now" Someone once said to me that if we aren’t getting better, we are getting worse. This is so true when it comes to faith. It is either growing or it is wilting. We have to actively take those steps to improve our faith each day. 

I know that this church is true. I know that through faith, all things are possible. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father, who sent His Son to atone for the world. Everything we experience in life can be made whole through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

I can’t wait to start a new week so we can try a little bit harder to be a little bit better! 

I love you all so much!

Elder Staffieri

Family, and Friend:

So this week in Uruguay was AWESOME!!!!!

We had such an awesome week this week. We have just been working like crazy. We did some service this week too. Tuesday was our p-day so it was super low key. We mostly just caught up on sleep because we both hadn’t slept at all pretty much the past two days. We had some really good lessons that night too. 

Wednesday. On Wednesday we had a pretty good day. We had lessons with a few in active families and had lesson with the family Escobar. They are so awesome. We had such a powerful lesson. We first contacted the family when the mom was sweeping outside and we were just passing buy and we said hi and asked her how she was. She responded and started talking in English so we stopped and ran back to talk to her ha-ha. I have already told you this but it’s just a recap. She said that she wanted us to come back and just talk to her son in English, but not about the gospel because she "wasn’t interested". So we agreed. We have gone back a few times and just talked and talked about their life and the US and stuff. She started asking us about our missions and everything. But on Wednesday, she got super interested. We had left her with the articles of faith card because she had asked us what we believe a few times before. So this time she had a ton of questions. We didn’t even bring up the church and she went into how her husband was baptized and all of that. She asked us a ton of questions about families and being sealed in the temple and about the restoration and all of it. I swear she was just coming at us with questions. It was so awesome. Then we just went into the first lesson. It was one of those experiences where the spirit was just there, like whoa!! At the end of the lesson she told us that she wanted to go to church and feel these things. We came out of that lesson on cloud 9!! It was one of those lessons where you felt the Spirit so strong you couldn’t deny it and you knew everyone felt it in the room. It was so awesome!!!

Thursday. Thursday was good. We have a new district now because it’s a new transfer. Our district leader is Elder Lopez from Washington. He is a super nice guy and is excited to preach. I am way stoked to be in his district. After we had lunch as a district, we went about our day finding people. The lessons we had planned went well as others fell through. But we have come to realize we need to get pumped when our lessons cancel or fall through because that means the Lord is preparing someone else for us to teach. So we just went around contacting and we found Maria Eugenia and her brother. They are 19 and 15. They are super awesome and were super excited about the church. Their parents are members but way inactive. They were really eager to learn more. Awesome!! Then we had correlation with our ward mission leader and cleaned the church. It went really well. It’s a good way to bond with the church members. 

Friday. Friday was awesome. We did our studies in the morning and then went down to go do service for a convert, Nell. She is an older lady who got baptized a few months back. We tore down a shade structure that was in her front yard and pruned the trees over her house. I think next time we are going to build a new shade structure. It was a blast though. That night we had Yessica´s Baptismal Interview!!!

Saturday! AAAHHHH SATURDAY!! BEST DAY OF THE WEEK!! I couldn’t tell you what we did all day Saturday but we had a baptism! My first one in the water!! Ah it was such an awesome experience. All day I had been practicing the baptismal prayer in my head and with my comp. I was super nervous. We got to the baptism and she had a ton of family there to support her. It was so cool. A ton of her family has been members already so they were all there to support her. I was so happy to see them all there. Anyways. So a little bit about Yessica. She has been such an awesome investigator. She has been searching for the truth for such a long time. We have been teaching her for about the past month. I remember after the first lesson with her we asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon and about our message and she agreed. The next time we saw her she said that she thought she had her answer but didn’t know for sure. Over the next few weeks, it was so awesome seeing her testimony grow in the gospel and in Jesus Christ. She got to the point where she was reading way more than we gave her and she had so started applying the principles to her life. She was just so awesome!! 

Anyways. So Saturday she was baptized!! It was a beautiful baptism and I was so excited that when it got time to do the ordinance I fell into the font ha-ha. I caught myself on the rail but I slid down all of the stairs. Ha-ha. But the service went really well. She was crying before she got in the water and the smile on her face when she came out was indescribable. It was just so amazing!!

Oh and guess who came to the baptism!! JULIO!! He is the boyfriend of Jaclyn, whose kids got baptized a few weeks back, Soledad and Gonzalo. Anyways he said that he felt really good and that he was going to come to church the next day. 

This week just rocked. I cannot be more thankful for the blessing it is to be on the mission and to see the changes in these peoples live. There is no better place to be. I wish I could give everyone the same happiness that people feel each day as they live the gospel. I know that we are all children of our loving Heavenly Father. I know that he has a plan for us all. I know that all can know of the truthfulness of all things through the feelings of the Holy Spirit. There is no better work!!!

I love you all. 

Elder Staffieri

SEE PICTURES BELOW

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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