Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!

Hello friends and family! Wow, what an awesome week we have had here in Maldonado and the best part is we got a cold front so it was not burning hot this week. Haha tender mercies. This week we saw a lot of miracles here in Maldonado and we also got lucky enough to have an amazing conference with Elder Rasband this week!!!

We worked a lot with Hanlie this week and wow she is amazing. We watched the Restoration with her and at the end she started crying and shared with us that she has had a lot of things happen in these last two weeks that she cannot explain but she feels something different and wants to pray and read and think on things. It was one of the strongest spirits of my mission. We just testified our hearts out and I know she has been prepared by the Lord and is ready to make this next step. It was truly amazing. Also Alfonso has a new goal and officially plans to stop smoking at the end of this week. We are praying hard and visiting him a ton. The amount of cigarettes I have stolen this week and banged against trees is wild haha, I'm working hard. We also have a new investigator that will be having her baptism in 3 weeks. Her name is Nicole and she is 8 years old and precious. We are working on teaching the charlas in the most simple way possible. 

Have an amazing Thanksgiving week! I know that I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission at this time. It is the best decision I have made. I love you all.

Les Quiero,

Hermana Labrum

6 Months Down

Well it has officially happened. I have 6 months in the mission and less than a year until it is all over. Time is flying. I can honestly say the best decision I have ever made in my life was to serve my mission. 

This week we had Hermana Harpoles 20th birthday so I decorated the house and of couse bought her muffins because I cannot cook, haha. She hits her year mark this next week which is wild considering I knew her when she had only 6 months!!!!!  

So this week we have started a new activity every week!! The relief society is having Zumba classes every Tuesday and Saturday night and it is going amazing!!! We are bringing in more people that are not members than people that are haha and lots of menos activos. I literally love zumba now with my whole heart and that will definitely be an after mission activity every day! 

This week we had Alfonso, Hanlie. Antonio, and Nicole in church!!! I had a really amazing experience. So Hanlie only speaks English so I had the opportunity to translate all the talks for her into English and it was amazing to realize that I know more Spanish than I thought!!! She cried the whole time and said even though she understood nothing of what they said, the feeling was extremely strong. I can definitely see that the Lord has prepared her to make this covenant of baptism very soon!! With Alfonso we are working really really hard. He officially has a baptism date for the 3rd of December!!! He has promised he will come to church every week up until then and if he feels that going to church is a necessary thing he will be baptized so please send lots of prayers his ways. He is prepared just a little bit stubborn haha. Delfi is loving the church so much!!! She is progressing rapidly and sharing the gospel a ton. We are now teaching her best friend as well!!!! Haha it is so great! 

This week was amazing. I really learned something special this week about my Savior Jesus Christ. He is always standing at our door knocking and when we do not let Him in He continues to stand and wait until we finally open the door and receive Him. His arms are always extended to us and He is always willing to find us and make everything okay. He is our greatest and truest friend. He loves us always and with this conocimiento we can overcome everything. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!!!

Le quiero,

Hermana Labrum

Enduring Climate Changes in Uruguay

Well Uruguay is currently becoming a tropical climate according to everyone here which is why we are having three days of intense rain like where you just are soaked everywhere and then the next three are so hot you think you are going to die. I have broken two umbrellas from the winds this week and sweated through all the rest of my clothes. Yep it is a dream!

Other than the weather it was a miracle week!!!! For Halloween we bought a bunch of candy and hats and went into Centro and handed out candy and pass along cards for about 2 hours and it was extremely successful. It was one of the most fun nights in the mission for sure. Our Mikaela that is 17 is ready for her baptism in about 2 weeks which we are super excited for so we are just working hard on getting her all prepared for that!! Alfonso came to church Sunday and is currently only smoking about two cigarettes a day which is super exciting. Baptism is on its way baby!!! Delfi our 13 year old friend that speaks English is making major progression!! We watched the restoration with her this week and when we finished it she just yelled I love Joseph Smith!!! Haha it was awesome and she has plans to come to church with us this Sunday!!! Also my old investigator Mikaela that I lost contact with for 6 weeks is back and even came to church this Sunday which is HUGE. She is not currently married but we are working with this too see what we can do. She felt the spirit so strong in church she said she could not describe  it. Also the biggest miracle this week!! We got a reference from Hermana Gomez that she said were going to be two women very special for us. Well we visit them and guess what??!! They only speak English!!! They are from South Africa and have been living in China for the last 8 years and now are here to raise the daughters baby here.They are looking to find a religion here and we have got that under control haha so we have started the lessons but man it is really hard in English but we are working on it. Literally a week of miracles. Also the 17th we have a mission conference with Elder Rasband which we are super excited for!!! I had an amazing week of miracles. I know that the Lord has people prepared for us we just need to find them. There is nothing better than finding someone and watching their faith and commitment grow. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week.

Le quiero,

Hermana Labrum

Week One of Cambio 5

Well it was definitely a very interesting week for sure I just do not even know what to express. This was a Little bit of a harder missionn week but we made it through!!

This week we had a noche de hogar Tuesday with the Familia Midana and with Alfonso and it went awesome!!! So we did not yet have a date for Alfnosno and his baptism yet but we were planning to bring that up soon. Well Hermano Midana asked him if he had a date yet and we said no and then he surprised us by saying that he has a date for the end of November. We were like UHHHHHH YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!! Wow I literally just started crying right then and there I was so dang happy. There are literally not words to express the happiness I felt in that moment. Well he is currently stopping smoking very quickly. In a week he has dropped from 20 a day to about 1 or 2 a day. That is huge!! However he is a lot more unhappy and mean right now due to this so he said that he does not want to think of baptism right now which made me sad but I think it is just for the problems leaving the cigarettes so we are going to drop baptism for about two weeks and then give it another try. He is ready, he just needs to stop smoking and feel happy again first!

We were in the house two days this week. One for the rain (we had a red alert so could not leave the house) We had winds 55mph and wow it was scary haha. The next day Hermana Harpole was sick so we were in again for that.

This week we also got a baptism date for an investigator names Estela for the 26 of November!!! Really stoked and hoping to see that it goes through well. Also we visited Marias Estela this week because she was back from vacations and she told us she loves the church and the message we have but right now she is trying to move to Italy and said she can not give us the commitment we want right now but she got all our info and promised us when she gets to Italy she is starting the discussions again. I know she will be baptized in the future and that makes me so so happy to know she will have the message as a part of her life forever.

I have really learned this week the power behind the words I am a child of God. My favorite spanish saying is: Yo se quien soy. This means I know who I am. When we know we are children of a God that is almighty and that loves us enough to talk to each of us individually this life becomes so much easier. Remember in the hard times God sees our past and our future. We can only see this moment. Trust in His plan and I know with todo mi corazón that we will find our way home to our Heavenly Father. I love you all and have an amazing week.

Le quiero,

Hermana Labrum

Cambio Number 4 Begins

Well the big news: I am staying in Maldonado another 6 weeks and I am staying with Hermana Harople!!! We are super excited to see what is going to be happening this cambio. It is definitely going to be another cambio of miracles. 

This week was awesome. We worked really hard with members this week. We actually had a noche de hogar each night with a different family to really try and gain the trust of the members so that we can use them more with our investigators but also so that we can receive more references of people that are really ready to hear this message of the Restoration. We had a week of insane rain storms and wind; we had to come home twice a day to just change clothes because the wind is so strong here by the ocean that we could not use umbrellas so we were just soaking all day but it was great. Definitely made for lots of great pictures.

This week we did lots of cooking and you all know that is huge for me to be able to cook haha. I learned how to cook tortas fritas, alfahors, and niochi. Wow it was literally so fun. You can basically say that I am going to come home like an awesome chef haha. This week I also dyed my hair blonde again. Yes.

Alfonoso came to church for the first time this week!!! This was huge because he wants to be baptized but hasn't wanted to come to church but Fernanda talked him into it and yes he is here haha. Last night we had a charla about him needing to stop smoking. I was praying hard during the charla to know what to do and I came to the conclusion to leave him 7 cigarettes for the week and to take all the others. Well I took them to a member and now he has only 7 for the whole week so we are excited to see what will happen!! Please give some prayers that he will have the strength to overcome this addiction!!

Antonio is progressing a ton!! He has all his asistencias now in the church and is starting to gain a testimony of the book of mormon and that families can be together forever. All that is left is their marriage at the end of this year and then he will be ready to get baptized!!!

Honestly I love my mission. There is nothing better than being a missionary and watching people begin to feel the love of the Savior and to know that the only thing that can heal them is this gospel and Jesus Christ. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week.

Le quiero,

Hermana Labrum

PS. Yes we are pants for the rest of the summer. Ugly.