Saying goodbye to Elder Poulson who is now back home in Utah
Elder Newman's new companion, Elder Estouco
New Chuy Elders, "The Young Guns"
Toddy time with Elder Estouco
Chuy district with martial arts master Waldir da Rosa
We were invited to join family pictures with the Fernandez Rodriguez family.
They knew I was coming to Chuy and liked peaches
Arbol de la Navidad en Tres Cruces (bus station in Montevideo)
Pasta en Tres Cruces with E' Estouco and his posterity
Summary from Elder Newman's voice recordings: Elder Newman and Elder Saeteros are the two lone survivors in Chuy of the transfer last week. Elder Estouco is his new companion and has been in the mission for six months. He is from Brazil. He is the new district leader and comes to Chuy with a great reputation for being a hard-working, yet humble missionary.
Elder Newman's pday was moved from Monday to Tuesday this week because he spent all Monday traveling to Montevideo and back so he could fill out his residency papers now that he has been in Uruguay for four months.
¡Hola mi querida familia y queridos amigos! ¡Me alegre muchísimo para hablaros otra vez esta semana de Diciembre! Con cambios y otras cosas, muchas cosas han pasado esta semana, y ¡estoy animado para decíroslas! (Translation: Hello my dear family and dear friends! I am very happy to speak to you again this December week! With changes and other things, many things have happened this week, and I'm excited to tell them!)
Christian, I`d love to receive some pictures of Preference if you haven`t already! Good luck with your science project; I`d love to see pictures of it and hear how it goes! (You`re in Chemistry, right?) ¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS ESTE DOMINGO! ¡18 AÑOS! (Translation: HAPPY BIRTHDAY THIS SUNDAY! 18 YEARS!) Now you can fill out forms and sign without Mom and Dad! Can`t wait to hear how your lessons on Sunday go! And I already know you will destroy in basketball. Love you buddy.
Emma! ¡Buena suerte con las canciones de la Navidad! Canciones de la Navidad son mis favoritas personalmente. ¿Con quien fuiste a Preferencía? ¡Quiero ver algunos fotos! ¡Estoy feliz que tuviste divertido! ¡Buena suerte con tu competencia de Drill! Vosotros haréis bien, ya sé. ¡Te querio! ¡Que tengas suerte y éxito con todo! (Translation: Good luck with the Christmas songs! Christmas songs are my personal favorites. Who did you go to Preference with? I want to see some photos! I'm glad you had fun! Good luck with your Drill competition! You will do well, I know. I love you! Have luck and success with everything!)
Bear! I heard from Pap about how physical you play basketball. Way to be, representing the number well! And nice job with the one-handed shot and the lefty layup! I always struggled going lefty. Sometimes the refs are horrible, but there`s nothing you can do about that; you can only control your game and your effort, and you did marvelously from what I hear. Way to go! I saw the video of the pioneer game at the ward party and was REALLY impressed with you success! Right now with my extra weight, I´m not so sure how I`d do. I love you and wish you well with everything you´re doing. ¡Ciao!
Callie! I cannot even say how excited I am to see and talk to you all on Christmas! Be good to Christian on his birthday! I`m so happy you had so much fun with the party and your boots and cookie. I`m sure it tasted amazing! (if you ate it) Yes, the Primary kids do sing in Spanish, because it`s all they know; it’s as easy for them to speak Spanish as for us to speak English. And you can call me Old Man when I turn 20. I heard your dance recital was amazing; I wish I could`ve seen it! Hope you enjoyed Pizza Pie! I love you!
Mom, thank you for all of the details and media from home; I appreciated them more than I can say. It's as if I`m right there with y'all. Love your story about Mormon 9:28, fantastic scripture! I think I`m going to mark that one. Fun to hear about you and Pap getting to be Joseph and Emma Smith at the ward party. Beth always does an amazing job with costumes, and I`m sure your acting was spot on. I LOVE old-fashioned things!
Pap, how true that is; my Spanish has skyrocketed in only 5 days. And Elder Estouco and I are having an incredible time. Concerning the mate de coco, was it Coco de Leche or something else? (I want to try it)
I have received my new comp Elder Estouco! He is a sweet Brazilian who is just a change ahead of me in the mission and just finished training Elder Millemon, a friend of mine from the Mexico MTC. So he was trained, he trained right after, and now he's our district leader in Chuy. What a stud! I am also learning some Portuguese from him and teaching him English! With him, me, and Elder Saeteros training his oro, we have got some Young Guns up in Chuy! Oh, and Lascano, one of the nightmare areas of the mission and Uruguay, was reopened to hermanas as part of our district, so for the first time in my mission, we have hermanas in our district! Weird! They live 1-2 hours away so we will only see them at district and zone conferences. We have been searching for more nuevos and have found a lot of futuros, so I`m excited to see what happens; I already feel something special and different in this companionship.
On Friday, we got to play fútbol, and a lot of people showed up this time, so it was a big white guy playing amongst Latinos. And let me tell you, American soccer and Latino fútbol are like two different sports: these guys play on a whole 'nother level! I got caño-ed, or megged, more times than I can even count! However, I did score once by megging my defender AND the goalie, so it wasn`t too bad. (Definition: megged. (In football/soccer): to beat your opponent in a one-on-one contest by tapping the ball between his legs and running around him before he/she has realized what happened.)
I am so excited to be approaching this Christmas season and can already feel the Christmas spirit! ¡Os quiero mucho! ¡Que Dios siempre esté con vosotros, y que tengáis un buen estación de la Navidad! ¡Ciao! (Translation: I love you! May God always be with you, and may you have a good Christmas season! Ciao!)
Elder Newman
Mom’s Questions:
1. What are your plans on Christmas day? We have sacrament meeting at 9:00 am which is 1:00 pm your time. And then we plan on being home for whenever you get to call us. Do you know if you’ll be calling or skyping? Do you know what time you will be calling?
It will be Skype, and I still need to find out when I will have time to do it and where. Could you send me any info I could use to find you guys on Skype? I will work to get you any details I can.
2. What is your new companion like?
Elder Estouco is an absolute boss! He is completely friendly, funny, humble and obedient; he loves to give service and is incredible easy to get along with. I am way stoked to get to know him and learn from him!
3. How are the nuevos coming along? You had quite a few you talked about in your last voice recordings that sounded encouraging. I hope that some of them are moving forward and attending church so they can get closer to baptism.
We have not been able to secure a charla with them since the first lessons, so not looking great right now. Will keep trying to contact them!
