Uruguay Montevideo Mission: Elder Watts: 6 months, a crash of faith, and I'm finally an Uruguayo

Hey everyone, *Waves from Uruguay*

This week I turn 6 months in the mission, which is super crazy to think about. I literally just started, but somehow I'm already a quarter way through.

This week we had a zone meeting to set a zone goal for the month of November. We set a goal for each area in the zone to have two baptisms. This was a concern for me and my companion as we hadn't had anyone come to church for the past 6 weeks. To help kickstart our area the zone leaders decided to organize a "choque de fe" (I think they're called blitzes in the states) in which the entire zone would come to our area for four hours and contact. It worked super well, and in four hours we found 40 new people to teach and set two baptismal dates. Then we had 4 people come to church yesterday, which was really awesome. Our area is really starting to fly.

Also I completed my immigration paperwork this week and now am officially and Uruguayo citizen. Yay!

We've been teaching this really cool guy named Jonathan. He's super awesome. When we came by for our first charla he had set out cookies and juice for us and he invited all his friends to come and listen as well. He listened very carefully to our message and had some really good questions for us. He came with his girlfriend and another friend to church yesterday. We're super excited for him.

One scripture that really has stood out to me this week is 2 Nephi 2:25 which reads "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." We had a contact this week with a man who tried to tell us that we were sent here by Satan and our purpose in life is to suffer. I'm really grateful that that isn't true. We were sent here by a loving Heavenly Father, and we are here to have joy. The pains and hardships we have in our lives give us experience and give us a greater fullness of joy, and we live with the promise of eternal joy if we live according to the covenants we have made. Our lives have a plan which will be filled with joy and happiness if we follow the path that God has set.

Anyways I love you all,

Elder Watts