3rd New Mission President

January 28, 2014

Dear Family,

Thank you for the email mom. Your emails are always so spiritual and they always lift me up. I love reading Dad's emails too. You guys are the best parents ever!

So is it still pretty cold up there or is it coming down a bit? We have been having some good rain storms lately down here but sometimes I sweat even more because of the humidity that the rain brings haha! 

It is really sad that Pres. and Sister Newsome have to leave. He said that he was going to be reassigned when he gets everything sorted out with his business but he isn't coming back to Uruguay. The new president down here is going to be President Cook..... but not from the Quorom of the 12. He is from Idaho or something like that. I still don't know much about him but he sounds like a good guy. Hopefully he will be able to stay here for the long run.

So....Andrea didn't get baptized this past Sunday. But she is going to get baptized this Thursday sí o sí! I know that I have said that like 5 times now but I mean it this time. the only reason that she didn't get baptized this past Sunday is because she had to go to Montevideo for an emergency or something. she is really awesome and wants to get baptized, it is just taking a really long time. 

That is sweet that you have found someone to teach! I am hoping and praying that you guys can open some doors with that family. It sounds like you guys are trying really hard so keep up the good work. Missionary work is the Best!

This past week was a doozy! I was pretty much sick for a week straight. My comp also got pretty sick as well, but he is such a boss! We left everyday to go out and work except for 1 day where we couldn't leave. But the sickness wasn't the worst part for us. We just felt like we haven't been able to work in our area very much this week and so we both just wanted to work our tails off but we couldn't really because of us being sick. We have some good investigators here but it has been hard to get very many people to progress. So I was feeling a little bit down this week because I want to do so much more but we were a bit restricted with the sicknesses and the conferences. My comp and I have been able to work through it though and so we are feeling ready for the next change that is coming up. We really want to hit the road running and baptize every week starting with Andrea. My comp has a really good attitude and so we are going to get some good work done this change. I am sure of it.

The other 2 elders in our house both got changed out so we will have 2 new guys in the house but Elder Rae and I are staying! This will be my third change in Chuy.... Time is flying! I am loving the work here and I am starting to become pretty good friends with all of the members here.

I hope school is going well for you mom! Send everyone my love!

Love,

Elder Lacey

PS don't worry about me being sick, I'm fine! :)

The Spirit Spoke Through Us

January 20, 2014

Dear Family,

What a crazy past couple of days! I thought that I was done with bus trips for awhile... how wrong I was haha! So Thursday night we had to take a bus to Lascano to do a baptismal interview. We stayed there that night and we slept on the floor. Then we woke up at 4 am to get on a bus to Montevideo to go to the Oro conference for my companion (I still remember my oro conference when I got lost haha) We got to Montevideo, had the conference, and then left back to home. We got home at around 1 am. The Next day we received a text that every elder in the mission had to go to Montevideo for a special conference on Monday! So on Sunday night we had to take a bus to Rocha at 8 pm and we slept on the floor in one of the apartments of the elders over there. Then we woke up at 5:30 to get to the chartered bus that the mission got for us. We got to Montevideo and no one had any clue why we were there. It started off as a normal conference when suddenly out of the blue President said that he has to go back to the States! I guess he has to take care of something with his company that he left so he has to go back and fix it. It was such a surprise for all of us. We just recently had a change of Presidents! It was really sad to hear that. The President’s wife was crying. President was able to keep it cool until we snuck up on him and started singing "Para Siempre Dios Este con Vos" (God Be With You ‘till We Meet Again) after the last prayer. Then he started crying.  After that was all finished we hopped on a bus back to Rocha. The only problem was that all of this traveling started to take an effect on my body physically. During the reunion I wasn't feeling to good and I had a bad case of diarrhea but I had to get on the bus igual. About 1 hour into the bus ride I went and puked in the toilet on the bus. After that I felt a lot better but the bus was really hot and there wasn't any water on the bus and I got a fever. Once we finally got to Rocha I was hallucinating. It was really funny for all of my buddies but I don't remember much. I guess I was just constantly talking about random things. I said that "I go to college and so I have a very good linear memorization pattern" I also told Elder Petersen that "I have seen your football tape and I loved it. There are a few things that I can help you with but I loved your stance and your back pedal. The best thing that you do is when the ball is in the air BAM you brake on it! I'm telling you, you could play for the Seattle Seahawks. I got connections and we are going to make it so we don't have to play on Sunday"...... I have never seen Elder Petersen’s highlight film haha! I guess I was just saying stuff like that all the way back from Rocha to Chuy. I ended up Puking again on the bus though. We got back at 12:30 to our house. 

I woke up today and I was still feeling bad but I am getting better so don't worry. Basically it was a crazy past couple of days. 

I loved those scriptures that you shared though. They are really powerful. I am very grateful for the service that I can give to my fellow elders here and we are starting to see some progress with everything. 

I hope that you guys will be able to have a missionary experience soon. That is crazy that you had 23 baptisms in your stake! 

 Also, I have been getting letters from BYU. The coaches write them and they are usually pretty inspirational stuff. 

That is so awesome that Luke is doing really well in school! Tell him to keep up the good work! 

Even though it has been a rough couple of days. I am excited to keep up the work here in Chuy. At this last conference Elder Hatch (Our new AP) gave a really inspirational presentation on “Are we doing everything?” Elder Rae I are going to go out and give it are all! Vamos Arriba- Lets Go Up! 

Andrea didn't get baptized on Sunday. She had her interview and everything but the night before her baptism she said that she still had doubts and didn’t want to get baptized. On Sunday the Bishop asked us right before sacrament meeting if we could give talks. we were really scrambling to put something together but our preparation didn't matter, the Spirit talked through both of us. Elder Rae gave a perfect talk for 10 minutes in Spanish which is really impressive because he hasn't been out here for too long. By the end of my talk there were a lot of people crying out in the audience including Andrea. After church we had a charla (discussion) with her and she is 100% committed to getting baptized this Sunday! 

I love this work and I love my Family

Love 

Elder Lacey

We Choose!

January 13, 2014

Aloha!

Sorry, sometimes I feel like I am in Hawaii. Uruguay is actually a pretty nice place!

Anyway, I am glad to hear that everything is going well up in the USA. Sounds like you are going to have some really nice classes this semester Mom. It also sounds like you guys had a good little fiesta the other day. Tell Ali Happy Birthday for me! 

The work is going really well here though. Andrea didn't get baptized last week but she is going to get baptized sí o sí this Sunday so we are excited. Elder Rae is amazing me! He is learning so quickly. He helps me out a lot with all of my district leader responsibilities and we get along really well. I am so blessed to have such good companions.

So this last week I spent about 14 hours on a bus in a span of 48 hours. We had zone conference so we went down to 33 (The name of the city is Treinta y Tres) and then the next day we came back. As soon as we got back to Chuy the AP's called me and told me that I had to come down to Montevideo with one of the Elders in my District as soon as possible. So this other Elder and I hopped on a bus to Montevideo and got there at midnight. This other Elder has been going through some problems and so he almost got sent home but we were able to work some things out and so we hopped back on the bus back to Chuy the next day. Haha! Que Viaje! My tailbone is still sore to this day from sitting so long on the bus. But in the past few days I have really been able to help this Elder out. He has been feeling really depressed lately but I have been talking to him a lot and I think that things are going to turn around.

One thing that I have learned during all of this is that we as children of God can CHANGE! Every single characteristic that we have we can change and ultimately that is why we are on this earth. To change, to become more like God everyday. i want to talk more about this but I am completely out of time :(   I had a lot of buddies like Kendall that I had to talk to Sorry! But I am so excited to be out here to help other people to change their lives.

Tell Dad that I am sorry that I didn't get to him. I really liked his email and I will get to it later. Sorry! I love all of you so much! 

We Choose! (remember Sarah’s coach)

Love,

Elder Lacey

PS I love my family!

Crazy Storm

January 6, 2014

Dear Lacey Family,

Happy New Year! I can't believe that it is already 2014! I am looking forward to all of the good things that we will be able to do this year. This new year and christmas season was a little bit different.... I thought Uruguay was in a war for a second. Every time a firework went off we thought people were shooting them at our door, but when we looked outside they were shooting them in the air. They were the loudest fireworks I've ever heard! 

I guess Chuy is a big tourist town so there are a ton of people here. The stores are jam packed with people from all over the world. It makes it difficult sometimes to find people that actually live here. But then again we have found some really good new investigators in the past couple of days so everything is good.

It sounds like everything is going really well up there though. I loved seeing all of the pictures of Christmas and everything. Looks like Luke got some pretty sweet stuff. I want to see that hovercraft in action! Hopefully when I get back Luke will be fluent in Ukelele too. I can't believe that you guys are already going back to school. That was a really short break! What are you going to be studying?

I got a lot of letters this week. the Berkleys, Grandma Larsen, Brother Norton from Alpine, The Brittney Harris Family, The Marcum Family, and Scott and Earlene Rhien. Be sure to thank all of them for me!

Well I am very grateful for this opportunity that I have to start off a new year down here in Uruguay. This past week was pretty hard because we had some investigators that fell through and it just didn't feel like anyone was progressing, but yesterday in Church we got rejuvenated again just through being able to take the sacrament and feel the spirit. Right now we have a good future ahead of us as far as our investigators go. Elder Rae and I are learning everyday and so we are both really excited for this upcoming year. One thing that I have learned these past couple days is that you can't worry about things that you can't control. One of those things that we can't control is other peoples agency. If we do everything that is possible to help an investigator come to church and feel the spirit and they don't come, we can't feel down on ourselves. Sometimes I get a little frustrated because there are people who feel the spirit and agree with everything we teach but then they won't do anything! I don't understand! But we have to respect everyones agency and so the only thing that we can do is drop some testimony on there heads.

This past week Elder Rae and I have had some crazy experiences. So we got caught outside in a storm again except this time we had our umbrellas....both of our umbrellas broke. I thought I was in a Hurricane! We were walking back from lunch in Brazil, on our left was daylight, on our right was a wall of black death. We had to run 3 kilometers to our house in a hurricane. I have never seen such a crazy storm. We were really protected because a ton of trees fell down, power lines fell down, and that tin roofing stuff was flying off of rooftops. It was pretty dangerous but we didn't feel scared at all. In fact, there was one point that I couldn't stop laughing because it felt like I was getting sprayed with a fire hose. I thought I was at 7 Peaks or something, so it was a pretty fun time.

Wish everyone a happy new year for me. I love all of you so much! All of my family supports me so much and I really appreciate it. I love the Mish!

Love,

Elder Lacey