Spring is in the AIR...

Hello Loves!

How are you all!?! I am so happy to announce that yesterday was the first day of SPRING here in Uruguay! How happy is that? Its so fun to see the beautiful flowers and the green coming back. It is probably super weird for you all that it is now spring when fall just began at home. 

I will start my letter this week by saying I honestly dont know how we got through this week. I have never lived such a busy, crazy life as I have now. I have never felt so tired. That is the honest truth. We had a fabulous week and Heavenly Father really helped us. 

Hermana Cox and I had our hermanas conference this Saturday! It was so excellent! The theme of the Conference was 3 Nefi 5:13. We prepared and prayed all week that the Spirit would be present. All of our Hermanas travled from 33 and Melo to come...14 of us. We spoke on our pre earth life and the things we did to prepare to be missionaries and the people waiting for us. We showed different videos and then the videos of when the hermanas received their mission calls. It was amazing. Everyone participated and the spirit was so strong. so strong. There was not a dry eye. Then we decided to turn it around...we had talked all about what it is like to be a missionary, but we invited a few of our converts from Melo, Rosaura and Karen to share their conversion story. We changed the perspective. Their testimonies were so powerful. As missionaries, we change generations and generations. Posterity is being changed. Its really remarkable. If we had never decided to serve a mission, these people would have never found the gospel. I am grateful that every one of us listened to those quiet promptings of the spirit to serve a mission. Afterwards, we had a luncheon and ate tacos with all of the hermanas. It was a hit! We know that each one of our hermanas left with a greater desire to work more urgently and diligently. Hay personas esperandolas! I sure love these sisters and I am thankful that they love us too!

A big shout out goes to all of my dedicated young womens leaders! Thank you! Putting together conferences and activities is not an easy task...thank you!

It was also Hermana Coxs birthday this week...the big 2.3.! We had such a good day and I hope she enjoyed it! I am sure thankful that she was born. She is one of my bestest friends. Our sweet converts thru a birthday bash for her too. Uruguayos are the best!

It is super interesting Heavenly Fathers plan. He prepares people in very interesting ways. I sent a picture of one our awesome investigator Rocky. He is excellent. He was in a motorcycle accident in June and broke his neck. He is 55 and is quitting smoking. What will power he has. He usually smokes 20 cigarettes a day, but he is down to 1 a day and this week 0! We were teaching him about the restauracion that other day and we were inviting him to pray to Heavenly Father to know the truth. He then told us that he already knew it was true! "How?" we asked. He told us he knows its true because he can just feel it. We have invited a lot of our converts to participate in the lessons with him. Their testimonies and changes are so powerful and evident. We are so thankful that heavenly father placed rocky in our path. His baptism isthis Saturday along with Monica and Richard! 

Just a minute ago, Hermana Cox and I were sitting on a bench outside soaking in the beautiful sun, reviewing the intercambio that we had this week with some of our hermanas when a man approached us. I could understand a little bit of what he was saying, but it wasnt super clear. He was talking in portugese! We were totally carrying on a conversation with someone speaking portugese to us! How amazing is that. We always find brazilians here in Melo. In fact, in about one hour, we are heading to the border of Uruguay and Brazil. I will learn some words in porguese for you and then teach them to you! ;)

I am thankful everyday to be a missionary. This work is perfect and I am especially thankful to know that our kind and loving heavenly father is in charge. Just like what we taught in our conference, thank you for being the chosen and elect ones to come in this specific time. I love you my family and friends. You mean the world to me.

¡Les Amo!

Hermana Coon

p.s. Mom! I sent you a picture of us with hermana flores! Do you remember we were together in Progreso? She is coming home from her mission in October and has family in Arizona that she is going to visit! She is going to come visit you! She wants to meet my family so bad! So look out for the hermana flores! :) how exciting!!! Love you all!

Our Hermana Cox luncheon

 Our Hermana Cox conference!

 Rocky, our awesome investigator

  Hermana Cox birthday party!

Hermana Cox's letter to her family

Hey family!!!!

How are all of you? Thank you for the wonderful letters and pictures. It looks like the temple celebration was incredible!!! Thank you for everything. Sorry this letter might be a little bit cut short because we are wanting to take advantage of being so close to Brazil and go to Acegua. We are planning to take the 11:30 bus so we are going to have to do this really fast! But yeah, I am hoping to go to the Brazil border today and visit all of the free shops there. We have never been so this will be quite the adventure. 

Anyways, how are all of you? This week has been wonderful and crazy once again. Time is literally flying! I had a wonderful birthday! On Tuesday, Hermana Coon made me a really nice card with pictures of us together. We had lunch with the familia Rodriguez. Francisca and lucia the parents, are both returned missionaries. And they have two girls Ylen and Ysleg. They gave all 6 of us lunch together. We ate a bunch of finger food and then of course they gave us cake! It was really fun. And then that night we had a party at Mabel and Nilo`s house (they are recent converts) and the familia de los Santos came and Rosaura and her husband as well. It was a fun party because we celebrated Mabel`s daughter`s (Veronica`s) birthday as well. Her birthday was the day before mine. It was super fun. Mabel made a giant cake for all of us. it was a fun day and we are still enjoying all of the goodies from the packages you sent. So THANK YOU!!!! 

On Wednesday, we did an intercambio with Hermana Herrera (other Hermana Herrera) and Hermana Louder. Hermana Louder came and worked with me in our area. She is from Orem and Hermanan Rodriguez was her trainer too. She is an incredible missionary! We had an excellent day and found many miracles. 

This week was also so crazy because we organized and had our hermanas conference with all of the hermanas from Melo and 33. We were kind of stressed the whole week having to plan everything and not having time to plan and everything. But it turned out so well! I know that the Lord really helped us cause we really don`t have any free time to plan. But we had it here in the church in Gianola. And we focused the theme on 3 Nephi 5:13. We talked about how we have been prepared long before coming here to serve a mission here in Uruguay at this time. We shared dyc 138:55-56. And the bishop let us use his computer and President Diogo let us use his projector. So, we showed clips from President Monson`s announcement of the age change and Elder Rasband`s talk about the divine call of a missionary. We also showed a few of the Hermanas opening their mission calls. Other hermanas shared their testimonies and we talked about how there are still people waiting for us and that we really have a purpose here. We asked a couple of converts from our ward from past missionaries to share their experiences and how the gospel has blessed their lives. It was such a great conference! The Hermanas in the zone are so amazing! We made some bookmarks for them with the Uruguay flag on it, with the scriputre theme and a little note from us on the back. At the end, we all recited Dyc 4 together. It was so spiritual. I think all of us at least at one point were all crying. We had a little lunch afterwards. We had tacos! Hermana zelaya and Hermana Leiva are angels and made all of the meat and tortillas. And we had lots of vegetables!!! :) It was a really fun morning. 

Later that day on Saturday, our ward had another rescue activity and we did splits with the members to go and visit some less actives. I think it was a great success because there were members that came to church yesterday that we hadn`t seen at church for a long time. The members here are awesome! And we are trying to work harder with the members. 

I think last week I told you guys about our investigator Rocky. Well he is awesome!!!! He is progressing really well and he went to church yesterday!!! And he has a baptismal date set for this coming Saturday! He is so cute and so funny! He always randomly says "thank you" in English to us. He had a motorcycle accident in July and still has to wear his neck brace but man this guy is so sweet and so funny. This week we taught him about the word of wisdom and he went from one day smoking 1 box a day to only 1 or 2 cigarettes the next day! He is incredible! He really likes church. He and Andres sit together during sacrament meeting because they are neighbors and neither of them are super outgoing. haha Andres is doing so well by the way. He goes to church on Sunday every week on time without fail. He is so awesome! Anyways, yep we are really excited for Rocky`s baptism this Saturday. Richard is going to baptize him! :)

We are also helping one of Hermana Ots and Hermana Coon`s old investiagors. Hermana Coon felt that we should go back and visit one of their old investiagators. Her name is Maria del Carmen. She is 60 and smokes about 40 a day. Her daughter died about a year and a half ago. She really wants to change her life around and she went from 40 a day to 35 in two days so she is progressing really well. She wasn`t able to go to church on Sunday because her sister was sick in the hospital and she had to go help her. But, she is amazing and is also preping for baptism on the 11th of October. 

Thank you for all of your prayers! It has been a really great and crazy week! I am so grateful to be a missionary! I love every minute of every day. I am so grateful that despite my many weaknesses, the Lord is allowing me to have these experiences and see His hand in the lives of others. I love this work and I know that this is His work! I love you all so much! And hope you all have a wonderful week! Happy birhtday tomorrow Romney!!!!!! And good luck on your drum competition!!!!! I wish you the best of luck. You will do great!!!! I will be thinking of you! I love you all! I am sending lots of hugs and kisses to all of you! have a wonderful week!!! 

-hermana Cox :)