Elder Ivie Chillin' On the Mission: La Mundial...ahhhh!!!! (37th email)

Hola linda familia,

Wow what a spiritual and awesome week for me personally! :) Boy has it been crazy here in Uruguay, even in the little town of Varela! I didnt see too much crazy stuff but boy they werent kidding about the silence. The game here started around 4pm, everybody was getting ready, buying their food, running around with Uruguay flags just like the Superbowl in the states! Then once it hit 4.................crickets..........dog bark.........and nothing. We basically were the only 2 people out in the streets! It was just us and our only friends were 3 dogs that followed us around. I know what you are thinking that is pretty sad eh?! All we could talk to was our 3 faithful followers it was pretty funny! And one of them almost past out because we walk so much and he was sooo fat! So yeah that wasnt a very easy day, the mission pres. said we could watch the game if we found an investigator to watch it with but, nobody wanted to watch it with us! :) We are left out hanging to dry, poor us eh?! But yeah unfortunately the game didnt work out into our favor but we still in it! When does USA play? Tomorrow or Wednesday right? We are going to destroy!!

Anyways we had a pretty good week, it was a hard work week because we had interviews with Pres. Cook on Wednesday, Multi-Mission Conference in Montevideo on Thursday, and Saturday the crazy game! But anyways it was a super spiritual week for me. I learned so much stuff from Pres. Cook in the interview he gave me some great advice, wow he is filled with the Spirit! He made me feel so happy and loved he really is called of God and is magnifying his calling to the max! I love him and his wife they are best! :) As I said we had a huge conference in Montevideo this week with our mission and the Uruguay West Mission. Elder Lynn J. Robbins from the Seventy came and talked with us which was amazing! Boy have we been blessed to have 2 General Authorites come in the past 2-3 weeks! I learned so much from him, and could really tell he is called as a special witness of Christ and is here to help improve us as missionaries! One thing I really loved was when he spoke about the Spirit and how the only way for us to get a testimony is by the Spirit and we dont get a testimony of the Spirit through the 5 senses! The only way to receive this testimony is through faith and action to the will of the Lord. He gave an example how Laman and Lemuel saw an angel and were commanded by God but never received a testimony. But they saw an angel? Thats the thing, seeing isnt believing! Its faith, and thats what our investigators need. They dont need visions, or to touch the gold plates to believe the Book of Mormon is true. We as missionaries need to invite this people to take a leap of faith, keep commitments, and receive the manifestations of the Holy Ghost for themselves. This is essential because with the Holy Ghost nobody can receive a full true conversion! Its crazy how essential it is, but anyways thats what I loved from the conference and want to be better at it! Also in my personal studies I read in Moses 1 about Moses' encounter with God then Satan! I learned so much about how temptations will always come especially when you just a had a super spiritual experience! But as Moses did we can cast Satan, because anything he does we can always overcome it! We have the Savior and His Gospel on our side and no adversary can beat that! Ha cheesy but it really helped and strengthened my testimony!

Unfortunately none of our investigators made it to church yesterday! The parents of B (S and M) committed to coming after Bruno's futbol game but bailed at the last minute! J the 14 year old that wants to get baptized was in the City of 33 for the game and missed his bus coming back! :) But we had a charla with him later in the day on Sunday and said he wanted to go and was still pumped to get baptized! Woohoo he is such a capo, he told us he might invite his huge extended family to his baptism which would be insane! But yeah so we are in for a big week with that big guy, so excited for that! He is just super hard to find, he is 14 but always so busy! Was I that busy when I was 14? I think I still was living in the backyard hunting for bugs and snakes hehe!

Yeah so that was basically my crazy week, sorry I was all over the place! Oh yeah I got a package from BIG ANNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS TIA!! YOU ARE AMAZING I had no idea you were sending one! I was soo pumped, Ive gotten so many packages this past couple weeks Im going to get fat again jk! Sounds like a great past week in good ol´ warm Highland! Have fun at Girls camp mom! Soooo glad the Heat lost.....and GO USA!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for all the prayers, things are rollin here I love it here and cant wait for this upcoming week! :) Until next week I LOVE YOU ALL TOO MUCH! Have an awesome week and dont party too much without me...speaking of Disneyland?? What. When?

LES AMO, Elder Tyler Scott Ivie