Guaraná en Piñas, Osama Bin Laden, y Bombachos

 The Birthday Boy

 Guaraná en Piñas

 Elder Newman sporting his new Peñarol bucket hat

 What people will do to keep electricity going

¡Hola familia y amigos! ¡Me hace felicísimo hoy para recibir vuestros mensajes y escribiros! Esta semana fue un poco más difícil, pero tambien ¡hemos experimentado unos milagros! ¡La obra anda continuamente!

Christian, nice work perfecting the dunk; no go find some random people to throw down on! ;) xD And I don`t even want to imagine you in No-Shave November; scruff-tastic. I`ll be having nightmares for the next few days xD

Emma! So cool to hear about Bryce being one of your teachers; he is going to be a superb missionary! Tell him and Jenna good work! So happy to hear about all the happenings in drill! Don`t even sweat the pressure; they put you there for a reason. Just take a deep breath, smile, and dance your heart out. Imagine success and it will be yours. And don`t even worry about your math scores; I once scored a 64 percent on a math test. I was not happy for days xD You´re doing great things!

Bear da bear! Nice work in futsal! Once again locking down the goal! I always take opportunities here to brag about you playing goalie and how awesome you are (because EVERYONE and their dog plays soccer here). Thanks for using my jokes! :) xD Good luck in Bantam this week!

Callerist girl! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The great 6! That is sooo amazing!!! I hope you have amazing parties and that it is all you want it to be! I can`t say that I share your feelings on M&M`s, but I`m happy to hear you had a fun Halloween!

Mom, thanks again for all the amazing gifts. I blew up the beach ball right away and loved the messages! Did I ever tell you that Hermana Eddy gave me a birthday call and sent me a card from the family? So neat! That steak place sounds amazing, especially the onions! #mmmm But the asados here are pretty steller, and we`re having another one this Saturday! #WIN I loved the thought about prayer; I definitely need to do more listening in my prayers.

Pap: yes, I am going all the way down on my pushups ;) Hope everything back home is going well! Keep me updated on how the wrestling team is doing, okay?

This week was a little tough for us. Rocío is nowhere to be found, many of our investigators have fallen through on charlas, and contacts have become more hostile. And it was like that all this week until Sunday, when Alejandra y Lucía came to church and we found a promising nuevo Luticia! So we were stretched a little this week, but I see great things coming to us in the near future!

Fun fact I learned from E' Poulson: Chuy is a notable habitation for Arabic and Islamic people; you`ll find a lot of them in the rich houses on the Brazilian side. This is because after the Vietnam War, many of them were expulsed into Uruguay because no other country would accept them. (The same thing happened earlier with a lot of Nazi prisoners) Anyhow, one day, Osama Bin Laden came here to Chuy as refuge from his hunters and dumped a ton of money into the laps of the Arabians here! So we are walking the streets that OBL himself walked! Pretty crazy!

Thank you once again for all your support and prayers! ¡Os quiero mucho! ¡Para siempre Dios esté con vosotros! ¡Ciao!

Elder Newman 

P.S. Also the story of the dead frog:

E' Anderson has made it a habit of picking up frogs at night and throwing them at me. So one night, I saw a frog on the ground, and just as his hand went for it, I used my foot and soccer-dribbled it to the side. And he didn`t move afterwards. Oops xD

Mom’s Questions:

1. What were you able to spend your birthday money on? Hope you had a great day. We really enjoyed your videos of you opening your presents. I’m so glad you liked your Uruguay tie—I have been so excited about it for months now and was so happy to get to see the video of you opening it and your reaction to it.

 I spent it on a Brazilian Soccer Jacket, a Peñarol bucket hat, and a cowboy hat

2. How many miles do you think you walk in a day?  

I would say around 5

 

3. Have you played soccer with any Uruguayan kids yet?   

Nope

4. How did you serve the other elders this week?      

I shared my birthday chocolate with E' Poulson