This week was awesome!! We had a solid work week. Not a lot of stuff crazy happened but it was just a really good week.

We had concilio this week for the mission so we had to get everything ready for that like buy all the tickets and make all the folders for the zone leaders and schedule the hostal. Things like that. Good thing is everything is getting easier to do! WHOOP WHOOP!

We also had an interesting thing happen this week. We went to an orphanage. We recieved a reference one day while eating lunch with a member of a kid at her work who had gone to church a few times. So we went and it was actually a cool experiance. We walked in and all the kids just ran up to us and started jumping on us and stuff. So we kinda had to do the heisman as missionaries but the kids were super awesome. We met up with the member and she took us to her supervisors office to talk for a while. She basically explained that she would love to have us there, the missionaries talk to her family, but because it is a state facility, we couldnt come and talk to steven there. We would have to arrainge to meet with him somewhere else. So we were kind of bummed but she said if she ever has any service, she will call us. We might go back and help teach english. So that will be cool.

Elder Running and I held down the offices for a day because the other elders had to go to concilio with everyone else. It was pretty fun and we got a ton done. That night we went out and taught some really awesome lessons. We go and read with a recent convert, Yoshua, and we are teaching him how to ponder while he reads and how he can apply the scriptures as he reads and it is soooo cool to see him progress. When we first started, we would stop and explain it to him, then we would explain it together, and now we are telling him that he has to break it down for us and he does. The other day we were reading in first nefi somewhere, and he started explaining the whole chapter and getting super excited. He has been applying what he has learned as well. It was great to see how happy he was to read the scriptures. Such a stud! After we had a few more lessons and then went to go pick up people to take them to the bus station. When we got to the mission home we had 15 minutes till thier bus left and it was pretty far. bbbbuuuttttt, we got them there in time ;)

Our investigator Daniel is still progressing. Things are complicated with his family. He told us this week that if it was just for him, he already would have been baptized. He told us that everything we have taught him he knows to be true. So its kind of a bummer but  he is still progressing.

Things with Bruno are kind of getting more and more complicated as well. His parents are getting divorced and they are having a lot of family problems. He also got really sick this past week and then his sister had to go to hospital for something as well. We really want his mom to come to church on a regular basis before he gets baptized so that the family supports him. We need his mom to be an example to him. But we had some really spiritual lessons with thim and i know they will be just fine.

Oh and the sisters left our area so we got half of their area and their investigators and more members to go and visit. So we have been doing a lot of work there as well! We have been seeing some blessings come from that area.

Oh and some UPS girl came this week and wanted to talk to me about logistics haha. Elder Running and I talked to her for like 20 minutes and just told her that we dont contract shipping.

This morning we went to go play soccer at 630 with elders from our mission, after we went to a two hour service project, and after that we went to play futbol americano against the other mission. After an hour and a half of that we had lunch with all 6 of us (the office elders and the assistants) and a member of our ward. Then we just finished playing basketball with some youth of the ward. So all and all it was a great week.

A spiritual thought this week comes from the book of Mosiah del LdM, Mosiah 5:2.

Se dice : "Y todos clamaron a una vox, diciendo: Sí, creemos todas las plabras que nos has hablado; y además, sabemos de su certeza y verdad por el Espíritu del Señor Omnipotente, el cual ha efectuado un potente cambio en nosotros, o sea, en nuestros carazones, por lo que ya no tenemos más disposición a obrar mal, sino a hacer lo bueno continuamente."

(And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty ^achange in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do ^bevil, but to do good continually)

I love this scripture so much! I was talking to Elder Bedke about this scripture earlier this week and we were talking about how we can teach with the Spirit more and why it is important that the Spirit is there and what we can do to improve and everything. We talked about how we need to study by the spirit to be able to teach by the Spirit. We as missionaries know that we are only instruments that our Heavenly Father can work through. It is only by the Spirit that we can be truely converted to the gospel. This is why it is so important to do the small and simple things that invite the Spirit into our life like scripture study, prayer, and going to church. These things are basic but powerful. As we do them, we will find that we have the presence of the Spirit más abundantemente in our lives. We have to remember that our conversion isnt just a one time thing and ya esta. Its a continual process in which we need his help. We should strive every day to have this change of heart that is described here.

Anyways, i am just about out of time but I want to thank you so much for all you do for me and all that you do to help the missionaries back in your own wards and stakes. Take some time to ask the missionaries when you can go out and teach with them or who they are teaching that could use some support. It makes all the difference.

I know the church is true and we are blessed as we strive every day to live the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that this is the only way to a true state of happiness, happiness not only for a time, but for a happiness eternal. Remember to keep the face and smile on your face!!

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

Con Cariño,

Elder Staffieri
PICTURES BELOW

This week was so awesome!! We worked super hard and got a ton done. It was change week. It was kind of crazy but it worked out well.

So conference was so awesome. I had all of these notes that I was going to share with you guys of stuff I wanted to talk about but I forgot my notebook at home. Bummer but I hope I will remember it next week. We had Bruno and his mom Marta in church for a Sunday session which was AWESOME!! It was great for Marta because she came and saw how many people were in the stake and saw some friends and talked with the bishop and everything. She was grateful that she came. Daniel couldn’t make it to conference which was a bummer. We are still working with him though as he continues to progress. One day.....

So we got the changes Sunday and started working on them Sunday night when we had changes Tuesday. We had to look at all the changes to get all the bus tickets bought for everyone. Sounds simple, its not. Elder Bedke and I were in the offices till 3 am Sunday night / Monday morning trying to get them done to go buy the tickets Monday morning so they could travel Monday night. We got most of it done but were way too tired to finish. We slept at the offices and got up the next morning at 6 when the assistants came over to play basketball with us. We got up, played basketball for 30 min for exercises and got right back on the computers to work. At about noon we got everything done and headed for the bus station to buy the tickets and send the change sheets to all the zone leaders. An hour later, most of the tickets were bought except for the few whose routes didn’t exist anymore or the buses didn’t run that day. We went and figured it out and got it done though. So that was an awesome experience. 

Monday we prepared things for changes: packets for new missionaries and those leaving, making reservations at the hostal and temple, getting all of the accommodations, checking and rechecking that everything is good and man did we think we were studs. We had it all done we thought. We though we were going to get on bed in time and we were super pumped!! On Monday night, we got a call about all of the corto plazos (youth that are preparing for their missions who go out and serve with the full time missionaries for 6 weeks as their companions). The corto plazos are kind of like our worst nightmare when it comes to changes. They don’t show up on the church system we have when making rosters for changes. They are kind of like ghosts hah. So the assistants call us and ask us if we had gotten any of their tickets to take them home, bring more out, and switch areas for others. Well, there went going to bed on time ha. After going figuring it out we went to the bus station and got more tickets. We got in bed by 1. 

Tuesday we woke up and got early and got ready to go pick up the new missionaries at the airport. It was pretty cool actually. We got them all in, took them to the mission home, ate breakfast and then dropped them off to get trained. We took all their passports and got everything read to get residency and a ton more stuff. I honestly forgot. That day was just kind of a blur. We came back at 5 to go take them out to Montevideo to go work. That was really cool to go see how they work in the field. I took out 2 Latinos and an American. We made two companionships and i switched every few blocks to a different companion. It was awesome to see how much faith and stuff they have once they get over the fear of talking to people. We taught a few lessons just on the street to people and got some really good references. On the way back to the car we had an experience that they will remember, but I will just leave it at that ha-ha. That night it was my turn to sleep with the new missionaries and make sure everything was good and get them up on time for the next day when they had to get a physical early in the morning. I didn’t get to bed till about 1230 and then we were up the next morning at 6 getting everyone up and out. 

Wednesday they came back from their physical, ate lunch, met their trainers, went through the temple, and then they were off to the bus station to get shipped out to their first areas. And they were gone whoop whoop.

Now we had to worry about the missionaries that were going home. They were pretty easy actually. Wednesday night we came back to our area and worked and had some really good lessons and one with Bruno, who is getting baptized this Saturday night!!! Then we went back to the offices to get the bags sent out with all the mail. That took a while but we got it done. We took them to the bus station and got them sent out and then remembered that we needed to go by "The Bomb" for those that were going home. It’s to make sure you get rid of all unwanted travelers when you got home. We ran to a pharmacy after the bags to go get it. So this is kind of a funny story. 

So me and elder Lamb get of out the car to go run and buy the pills for everyone, each missionary needed 15 pills to so we needed 180 in total. So we go to the window and there is a line behind us and the lady asks us what we need so we tell her the name of what it was and then she asks how many we need. We told her, well we don’t know how many boxes but we need 180 pills. hahahah you should have seen the look on the guys face behind us. Well they only had 3 boxes so we had to go to another pharmacy to get more, just enough for the Latinos because it was late and they were leaving early in the morning. We were going to get the Americans later. We get the stuff and start going to the mission home to drop it off and the assistants call us saying they need all their packets and stuff for themissionaries that are leaving. We thought they had it but apparently it was back at the office. So we go home and drop elder running and elder lamb off at home so that they can unpack elder lamb, the new office elder. He is a stud. Then go back to the offices and get their stuff, and drive over to the mission home. We got in there at 1230 and just decided to sleep in the hostal with the missionaries that were leaving. 

Thursday, the next morning we got up at 4 because all the Latinos had to be at the airport early to make their 7 oclock flights. That was fun. Thursday we worked normal in the offices and they went out to our area to teach finally! Ah it was so awesome. We taught Bruno and went to Juan Alverez, a less active and had a really spiritual lesson with him. Then we had to head back to the mission home to take the missionaries that were leaving to the airport, but on the way we forgot to get them the bomb. So we drove a little faster to go try to find some 11 more boxes of 10. Long story short we found it and got there in time. We loaded up all their bags and off we went. Taking them to the airport was one of the most depressing things I have ever done on the mission. They were all so nervous and you could see that behind the smiles, they were getting torn apart inside It was the weirdest feeling ever seeing them get all their stuff out and put it on the curb and help them get all their tickets and stuff. Taking their final picture with president and walking through the doors to board their plane. It really makes you appreciate your time on the mission. It is so short and you have to do the best with what you have. You can’t afford to not use this time to give it all you got. 

Anyways that was that. Changes went off with few errors. 

Yesterday was great. We got back to normal and went out to work after the offices and had a lesson with Daniel in which he opened up a lot more. We watched conference with him; Pte Monson´s talk to close Sunday morning session. Then after we had a good lesson with Yoshua, a recent convert and read the Book of Mormon with him and talked about what it means and everything. He really liked it. We had to come back to the offices for something that came up and we headed home. 

This morning we went and played basketball against the other mission, went home, and now we are here writing everyone. All in all, we had a great week.

I love you all so much. Thank you for all you do for me. And thanks mom for the package!! The new insoles are being put to good use. 

I know that the church is true. I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today. I know that we get closer to God through the simple things like reading our scriptures, praying, and going to church. It is the simple things that make all the difference. As we do these things, we will begin to feel the Spirit more in our lives. I know that this is true. Keep the faith and a smile on your face. 

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

I love you all. 

Con cariño, 

Elder Staffieri

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MOM AND BRYCE!!! You guys are so awesome! I hope you had an awesome 29th birthday mom ;) and the best 12th birthday to Bryce! I miss you guys so much and wish I could have been there to celebrate with you but I wrote you both letters and they are going in the mail this week. I love you both so very much!

This past week I GOT MY LICENSE!! WHOOP WHOOP!! I feel like I am sixteen again. Ha-ha. But driving here is kind of stressful for various reasons. I will leave it like that. So basically I am Guayan now with this and my ID.  

On Thursday night at 3 in the morning we got called from the security company saying that the alarms had been tripped in the church in various zones so we got up and ran to the church thinking someone was inside. We went in and searched the whole thing with a security guard armed with a flashlight. Turns out...there was nothing there. So we lost an hour of sleep, talked to the police, and ran back home to sleep for 2 more hours, and got up the next day and had an awesome Friday! 

So this week has been really good. We have been all super excited as we had been preparing for conference and inviting all of Montevideo to come watch with us. We made a ton of invitations and pasted them on the back of pass along cards so every time we made a contact, they got a picture of Christ and an invitation. Hopefully we will see them all here this weekend! 

This week we have given a ton of blessings to people, which in turn has been some of the biggest blessings for us. There is something special knowing that you hold the priesthood of God. You have to live in such a manner to always honor this sacred responsibility so that when called upon, you can bless the lives of others. Through these experiences this past week, we have had some of the most spiritual lessons of our mission. 

Bruno and his family are progressing great. They went up to Artigas this past week and couldn’t get to church so we are going to move his baptism back a week. We had talked to the bishop and with his mom and we all agreed that it would be better if we moved the date so that he would be better prepared and that his family could come and know more people in the church before taking this step. 

Daniel continues to progress and is coming to conference with us next session! 

We have found some good investigators from the past and are working really well with them. Also, we have found a few less actives and are working with them. The work is going great! 

This first session we had 3 investigators in church with us. Bruno, who is getting baptized this month on the 19th, and the parents of a recent convert we invited to come last night. This past session was so awesome with them. The Spirit was super strong during that session. This was the first session I have watched in Spanish and it was awesome!!! I could understand the whole thing which was a miracle in itself. Elder Ulisses Soares gave an awesome talk!! Ah I loved it so much! He talked so much about our character and how we need to get better every day and develop Christ like attributes.  Elder Edward Dube´s talk was awesome too! "Never look back, always look forward to the future" (sorry if these are wrong, i am translating my notes from spanish to english). The past is to be learned from and not lived in. We need to serve where we are called. Its not important what our calling is but rather if we do it or not. From the first session, President Uchtdorf´s talk was my favorite. I wont go over all that he said but one his closing lines. Take up you cross and follow him. I know that as we do this, we will be blessed. Forget our selves, take up our cross, and do as the Savior would. This is where the true happiness in life comes from. As we do this on a daily basis, we will get closer to our Heavenly Father. 

The second session was super good too but we missed half of it because we got on the wrong bus taking one of Bruno home. Good thing we went with him because we got off in a bad neighborhood ha-ha. But we got back during the intermission song. Conference is the best!!

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better. Always keep the faith and a smile on your face!

Thank you for all you do for me and for all the prayers that you offer for the missionaries. We are so grateful for all of your support. 

Have a great week and don’t be afraid to share your testimony and serve those who are in need!

Con mucho cariño, 

Elder Staffieri

PICTURES BELOW

So this week has been great!!  But first off, congrats to Krista Tenney on her mission call to the West Indies mission!! That is so awesome!! You will be so blessed as your serve. I am so pumped for you! And you get to speak French like you always wanted!!

 So this week has been awesome! Remember last week when I talked about how that family was so awesome that we found? Well one of her kids, Bruno; is getting baptized on the 12th of October!! He is super excited and so is all of his family. He came to church with us this past week when the rest of his family couldn’t and we took him to primary and asked him if he wanted us to stay with him and he just shook his head and smiled and said, "Nope, I’m good." The teacher said that he participated the whole time and was a stud! He got a worksheet from class and finished it during sacrament without our help. When we had lessons with him this week, he was the first to answer questions and was super excited to read. He is progressing super well and understands everything that we are teaching him and is applying the scriptures to him as we read. He is such an incredible 11 year old kid. He is such a good example for his family. And we are also teaching his sister who is 20. She has been opening up to us more this past week as their family has been passing through some severe personal problems but she is doing great. The whole family is super supportive of each other and just so awesome!! I cannot get over how blessed we are to have the opportunity to teach them. 

Daniel came back from Argentina this past weekend and we had an awesome lesson with him about keeping the Sabbath day holy. We committed him to come to sacrament meeting every Sunday with us and he said he was going to start bringing his four year old daughter with him as well. We pray for his wife everyday as we leave our apartment and she is starting to support him more. He has stopped drinking wine with his dinner and has dropped coffee. He has such a sincere testimony of the things of the gospel and has a deep understanding of the importance of the things that make up this gospel. He will be a powerful member of the church one day. 

We also have been having real great success with teaching less active members. We have been practicing our lessons a lot to be sure we can teach them and have the spirit present. We have been doing practices everyday during companion study and have been seeing the blessings. Last night we had one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission with a less active whose name is Juan Alvarez and his whole family came in and listened to us too! We taught the restoration but related it all to personal prayer and the power in personal prayer. We asked him to remember the night that the Savior came to rescue him and he began to tell the experiences he had with the first missionaries that came to his door and taught him and how it changed his life. He started explaining how happy he was and how much of a difference he felt. He then committed to be back in church by next month. The spirit was so strong and he bore testimony for his family. So amazing. 

Two days ago we had interviews with president and discussions with the assistants. It was a super spiritual experience like always and we all walked away feeling so amped up to go out and serve with all of our might. I love those conferences and the opportunities that we have to sit one on one and talk with president. He always has a way to help you improve and want to be better than you already are, to push you to be a better missionary and give more. I am so grateful for these opportunities. 

And...GENERAL CONFERENCE IS IN ONE WEEK!!! Man I cannot wait to go to conference. We are telling everyone we see about general conference and are testifying like crazy about the blessings of going. General Conference is the best 2 weekends of the year!! I am so excited to watch it in Spanish now that I can understand everything. It’s going to be so awesome. I can’t wait for the Spirit that is always felt and for the revelation we will receive. I can’t wait to see the ways we can all improve and put our lives more in line with that of God. It is such a great opportunity that we all have to listen to the Prophet and the Apostles.  I hope that you are all preparing for this weekend :)

Anyways, this week I started reading the book of Mormon over again in Spanish. I want to finish it by the end of the year and I think I can do it. So my spiritual thought from this week comes from 1 Ne 4:6-7

6 "E iba guiado por el Espíritu, sin saber de antemano lo que tendría que hacer"

7 "No obstante, seguí adelante..."

( 6 And I was ^aled by the Spirit, not ^bknowing beforehand the things which I should do.

 7 Nevertheless I went forth...)

I love this. This is when Nephi had to go back into Jerusalem to go get the plates from Laban. Even though they had failed twice, he knew that he was commanded of God to go and get the plates. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he went because he was prompted by the Spirit to do so. He went on pure faith that things would work out. I think too often we do not act on things because we do not know what will come from it. We live in the shadow of fear because everything isn’t perfect in our vision of what will come to fast. I think we need to learn from the experience of Nephi. Just go and do it. We learn the chapter before that God will never ask us, or prompt us for that matter, to do anything without preparing first the way we could do it. Have confidence in the spirit and follow the promptings fearlessly. He will provide a way for us. We will be blessed for our obedience to the promptings of the Spirit. Always act on the Spirit. Go for it. Give it your best and leave the rest up to the Lord. He will guide you. 

 Well that’s all I have for this week but I want you all to know how much I love and appreciate you. I know that the church is true! I know of the power of personal prayer and the blessings that come as we follow the Spirit. I know that God is our Heavenly Father. 

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better and strive every day to keep the faith and a smile on your face!!

Have a great week!

I love you all, 

Elder Staffieri

SO THIS WEEK HAS BEEN SO AWESOME!!! ONE OF THE BEST WEEKS I HAVE HAD!! Aaaahh I cant even explain it. We saw some miracles this past week. It was amazing. I am so glad to have been a missionary this week, well I am always, but I am even more this past week. We have seen the hand of the Lord guiding and directing us in our work and it has been so great. We have seen the answers to prayers and we cannot be happier!!

Some fun facts about this week before we get into the good stuff is that we got an order of Books of Mormon, pamphlets and other missionary supplies 5 times as large as our normal order. It was so much we couldn’t fit it all in our huge van that we have and that we bottomed out over every speed bump we went over and had to make 2 trips to get it all. It was so awesome! We, Elder Bedke and I, got the assignment from president to call every single contact we have in the mission to make sure they are okay and that we have multiple emergency numbers for every missionary so that has been fun. We are not even close to be being done. But we get to call all parts of the world so that has been really cool. Making calls in Portuguese to the parents of our Brazilian missionaries has proved to be more difficult than we thought, but hey! We are learning a little Portuguese now so that is cool! Ha-ha. I went to go get my Uruguayan I.D. this past week and I will hopefully get my license next week. Things are going great in the offices. 

Now to the good stuff, when we leave to work out in the streets! Our investigators are progressing great but one bummer is that Daniel is leaving to Argentina this next week so he won’t be getting baptized this weekend, but next month. But we have found some awesome people!!!

So I will write about two of the miracles we have seen this past week that have made it especially so special to me. A week I will not forget. The first came when we were working on Tuesday. We had been trying to make contacts and we were going through all our plans when we left one house and felt that we should go visit an elderly lady who had been really sick a few weeks back. So we went. We knocked and the lady who cares for her, a member, opened the door with tears in her eyes and said "I knew you would come."  She had explained that the elderly lady was close to dying and her condition was worsening. She then told us that she had been on her knees praying, pleading for comfort, and 20 minutes later we showed up. We sat and talked with her and shared some scriptures and talked about them with her. She was more at peace and we left, grateful that we had decided to follow the Spirit and go to this home. 

The second came super unexpectedly. We had been going through our ward list trying to go visit some less active members and try to help them. We had been going pretty much all day with this list having little luck but working none the less. It was getting late and we were starting to head back to the house but we were contacting all the way home. We got to one name on our list of a lady in the ward who we didn’t know so we decided to go give it a try. We got the address, but it was a passageway into an alley with doors up and down on both sides: We didn’t have an apartment number so we just went to work. We knocked the first 4 doors on the left side, having 1 answered and said the lady we were looking for didn’t live in this alley, the others just looked through the window and left and we got to the end of the alley and the clouds looked super cool, so we stopped there and were looking at them for a few minutes ha-ha.  After we were about to go home, we heard this baby crying from inside a house, so we thought FAMILY!!! We knocked this door and a 20 year old girl came out holding her son, we asked her if she knew who we were looking for and she said no but we kept talking to her and she said that she had family that were members of the church up in Artigas and that her mom was actually a member. We saw her mom in the background and then she came out and talked to us. She said that she had been a member but had gone inactive when they moved a few years back. After that she said that she didn’t know how we got in because the gate is always closed at the end of the alley because people get robbed there all the time so its always locked. She said that she took us on her doorstep as an answer that she needed to go back to church and she wants her kids to be part of the church as well. Her children all had taken the missionary lessons and were about to be baptized but then they had moved and they had all lost interest. The expressed the desire that we need to teach her children and her husband so that they could all go to church together. Now at this point, Elder Bedke and I were smiling ear to ear in shock that this was actually happening.  We set up an appointment for later in the week to come and teach them and she asked if we could bring someone to the lesson so she could have a friend when she came back to church. We never walked away from a contact so happy in our lives. We went back and taught then and had an awesome lesson and actually went back today to celebrate her son’s birthday with their family. They are such an amazing family and we were so blessed to find them. 

I am so excited to be out on the mission and to have the chance to work with all of these wonderful people. I have been so blessed to be part of the Uruguay Montevideo West Mission and to be out hear teaching the gospel for two years. I cannot wait to see what the next 18 months have in store. I wake up every day with a smile on my face, so excited to see what we have in store for the day. 

I know that the Lord answers prayers and that He is aware of everything we are going through. Sometimes we may not know what is best for us, but He always does. If we will put our trust in Him and actively seek to do His will, we WILL see the blessings. I have such a strong testimony of this principle of obedience and blessings. It has grown so much on the mission. I love every minute of it. There is no better place than on the mission. I have never been so happy in my life. 

Anyways that is all the time I have for today but I love you all and hope you are all doing great. Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better. KEEP THE FAITH AND A SMILE ON YOUR FACE!!! :)))

Con cariño, 

Elder Staffieri
SEE DAN'S MAILING ADDRESS AND EMAIL BELOW:

Elder Daniel Staffieri
La Mision Uruguay Montevideo Oeste
Enrique Martinez 1167
Montevideo, Uruguay  11.800

daniel.staffieri@myldsmail.net

This week has been awesome!!! We have been working really hard in our area and have found some really amazing people to teach. Our investigators have been progressing rather awesomely as well! The work is good over here in Barrio 5. BIG THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN THE MISSION!!

 HAPPY SIX MONTHS TODAY!!!! its insane how fast it has gone by!! I feel like i have been out for like a month. time is going by sooo fast. I kinda wish it would slow down. I'm not ready to have six months in the mission. i wish my time could start right now...but oh well.

So this past week, we received the new guidelines for the mission. These are going to change the way we work as missionaries and the way the work goes forth in our mission. We are so excited for them. On of the biggest changes was that we are going to have 15 lessons with recent converts and less actives. This is going to be super good because it will focus us in on those who really need our help to stay strong in the gospel, not just enter through the door and stop. We are going to be working a lot more with members and we have different standards on what counts as lessons with member and stuff. There are a lot more changes but I am pretty sure you don’t want to hear about numbers and goals and stuff. BUT WE ARE SO EXCITED!!! We are going to leave the church stronger than when we got here and not just put more names on a ward list. We are actually going to go after those who have strayed to strengthen the wards and stakes here in Uruguay. This is going to focus us up and we are going to see miracles! 

We have already received fruit for our efforts to go visit less active families and new converts. Many of the people on our list have moved away so it is a really good way to meet other families as well. On example of this happened this past week. We were going through our plans of who we were going to go visit and we came across a name and an address of a less active member. We went over there and they had moved but the people in the house invited us in to share our message with them. We now are teaching Elsa Paz and Maria de los Angeles. We probably never would have found them because their house was a little hard to find back in an alley but we found them and now we are teaching this family of a mother and daughter! How awesome is that???

We also found two brothers this past week that we are teaching. We were just walking in the street we saw kids playing soccer so we went and joined in for a few minutes and they started asking us all kinds of questions and we all ended up sitting on the side of the road talking about the restoration of the gospel. We are going back tonight and hopefully we can talk to their whole family.

We also found a man and his wife this past week as we were walking in-between lessons. He actually approached us and invited us over to his house to talk to him. We set up an appointment and went over to his house yesterday. It was a super humble home of two rooms with one light and a flashlight. He was the kindest hearted person I have ever met. He insisted on feeding us what food he had and insisted that we take a bag of potatoes as we left. He even tried to give us his TV. We had a good lesson about the bible and he has really strong beliefs. He is going to be a great member of the church one day. 

So probably the best moment of the week happened this past Wednesday. We had a lesson with our investigator Daniel. Daniel is probably the most well prepared person we have ever taught. He has been an investigator for a few months now and is progressing super well. He reads and prays everyday and you can see how much these things mean to him. He is super concerned about his family and being ready to make this decision to be baptized. We have had some really spiritual lessons with him and he came to sacrament meeting this past week when the new office couple went up to share their testimonies. Little have I ever felt the Spirit so strong. I really learned the power of "Yo se que..." (I know that...). They bore their testimonies so simply but I cannot remember feeling the Spirit so strong during a testimony in my life. I felt the Spirit so strong i could not deny it. I know that Daniel felt it as well. He was sitting right next to us and he told us before that he had to leave but after that he told us he wanted to stay. So that brings us to Wednesday. We had a great lesson with him about putting your faith in the Spirit and the blessings that come from following the promptings of the Spirit: The Bingham’s, the new office couple, shared their testimony of this as well and how it has blessed their family and I know he felt it. Elder Bedke asked him "Daniel, will you put your faith in Jesus Christ and follow the example that he has set for us, being baptized by someone holding the proper authority of God?" 

He accepted and has a date for the 28th of this month! We could not have been more excited! We were on cloud nine for the next few days! He is going to be such a good member of the church and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he is a stake president. He has that kind of faith and testimony!!!

This week has just been super awesome! One of the best weeks of my mission! We have been working our hardest and have been blessed for doing so. I LOVE THE MISSION!! It really is the best two years.

I know that the church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that as we strive to keep the commandments, we will be blessed with all that we need. I know that prayers are answered. I know the priesthood is the power of God to bring about the saving ordinances of the His children. I know that families are eternal. This is all made through Christ. I know that He came to this earth to atone for our sins so that if we would come unto Him, we would not have to suffer as He did. I know of His love for each and every one of us. I know these things to be true. I have been called by a prophet of God to serve as a missionary, to bring this happiness and love I have experienced in my life to my brothers and sisters in Uruguay. There is no greater work. 

I love you all so much and thank you for all you do for me. I hope you know that you are all amazing. I would ask that we just try a little bit harder to be a little bit better each and every day. I know that as we do this, we will become closer to our Heavenly Father. Always keep the faith and a smile on your face. Today is the day! Be the best you can be!!

Con cariño, 

Elder Staffieri

So this week in Uruguay was really good. Kind of crazy but really good! I never really understood what was in the job description of the mission secretaries but it’s a lot ha-ha. We are just working working working and there never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done but we always have everything done at the end of the week that we needed to get done.

So first, my companion is Elder Bedke. He is a STUD!!! We hung out with the same people up at BYU so that has been kind of cool talking to him about it. We have a ton in common and we are working really well together and have a blast every day. He is helping me out a ton with what we are doing in the offices and we work crazy hard when we get out in the streets. We teach really well together and we feel the Spirit super strong in our lessons. It’s just an all around good time with him.  I LOVE MY COMPANION!! HE IS A STUD!! We also live with the other office elders in an apartment a few blocks from our office. They are Elder Gudmonson and Elder Running. They are awesome and we never have any dull moments in our apartment.

So on a daily basis what I do is put in baptismal records, look up and send our references, answer phones and talk to missionaries and get them what they need, do all things mail, drive around and run errands with the other office elders, send emails to parents, incoming missionaries, update church websites, and other things. We have more stuff we do weekly and monthly as well. We had concilio this past week so I had to compile all of the numbers from the mission and make graphs for President, the APs and the other zone leaders that came down to Montevideo to get trained. We go and buy bus tickets for everyone when they have to come down. Basically, whatever needs to be done, we do it ha-ha. But it’s good. We always have something to do and our area is awesome!

We love our area. We are in the zone of Oeste and our area is Capurro (barrio 5). It’s an awesome area with some really good people. Working in Montevideo is different than other parts of Uruguay but the work is good! I can’t wait to get out at 5 and go teach!! La obra va bien!! I love teaching so much. We have some really solid investigators too. For example, right now it is pouring rain and thunder and lightening out side and we just had 3 young investigators ride their bikes to church because there was supposed to be an activity. They were all soaking wet but loving life. Even though the event was canceled they just said well we will see you tomorrow in church!! When we came in me and Elder Bedke just smiled and talked about how awesome those kids are. I love being a missionary!!!

The mission has been way too much fun this past week. Lots of adventures. We pulled a bed up four stories outside of our apartment building off the edge of our balcony at 11pm with a garden hose. Yeah, I am not going to put much detail into that one....use your imagination. We had to sprint 5 blocks to our offices at 9 50 one night because a set of missionaries lost their tickets only to get there and have them call us saying that they were already on the bus and not to worry about it. Everyone thinks we are spies for the US so when they ask us we always tell them no...But if we were, we wouldn’t tell them. Ha-ha. It’s just been way to fun this past week but we have been working crazy hard and have been seeing the fruits of our labors. We have had an awesome week. 

My spiritual thought this week comes from 3 Nephi 12:6- 

Y bienaventurados son todos los que padecen ^ahambre y ^bsedde ^crectitud, porque ellos serán llenos del Espíritu Santo.

(And blessed are all they who do ^ahunger and ^bthirst after^crighteousness, for they shall be ^dfilled with the Holy Ghost.)

I have really learned a lot about this in the mission and I know it to be true. As we constantly try to better ourselves and seek after righteousness, we will have the Spirit to be with us. It doesn’t matter what may happen in our lives, we need to keep focus on what is important. We need to literally hunger and thirst like the scripture says. If we do that, we will have the Spirit to be with us and we will be happier than we could ever be. I think this is why the mission is the best 2 years of your life. You are constantly trying to get closer to the Spirit and you are blessed for doing it. Sorry I am out of time....

I know the church is true. I know that we are blessed when we keep the commandments that God has given us. I know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true church on the faith of the earth. This I know with all I am!!

I love you all so much.

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

Keep the faith and a smile on your face!!

Until next time, 

Elder Staffieri 

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