October 16th

okay guys this is whats up last week i typed up this huge blog post and i clicked the wrong button and instead of copying it i deleted it and didnt have the time or will power to re type it all :( it was a story of how we visited a family one sunday night to invite them to share the book of mormon with them and this 17 year old who thinks he's all that and a bag of chips was laughing and making fun of my comp when my comp was inviting him to read the book of mormon and i got really bugged by how he was not taking it seriously so then it was my turn and i invited his older bro to read the book and it was super powerful and my comp was like whoa thats new! and the whole family was like huh hes not useless after all it was super awesome. BUT something even more awesome happened this week. we were visting this one family were trying to reactivate (same family with the moonshine up nose story) and they had some less active family members and they're non member sister there as well and they were talking all normal and we were sharing some scripture and then some how everything got super heated amongst them and i wasnt sure what was going one because they were all talking super hast and one of them was crying because he found out my comp is leaving in a month. My comp just turns to me and tells me bare your testimony on how god loves all of his children and i was like you know what why not lets try this whole open your mouth and trust in the lord thing i keep hearing about. so i sit up a little taller and clear my throat and Fabian the one crying is like guys shut up the little one is gonna try and speak. So i say brothers and sisters i dont speak spanish very well and i dont really understand what you guys are talking about but i do know this God our heavenly father loves all of his children i know this because he gave us his only son that was perfect jesus christ and he suffered for US he never committed any sins but he's the one that had to pay the price for us. The things our saviour had to endure for us is inimaginable and it must have been so hard for our heavenly father to have to watch his only perfect son suffer because of us. The attonment of jesus christ is how i know heavenly father loves all of his kids. this truly is a gospel of love and perfection. 

this is a pic of me and one of my favorite elders here named Elder Brasil from Brasil 

This blog was from October 2, 2017

Oh super cool thing happened this week. We were just walking at night super far away from our house and we had just picked up our churros (we get churros every Monday and Thursday from this one churro truck). We were walking home to do some language study. I was like "Hey let's go see Pablo (this one drug addict who's basically given up on life) We were pretty close to his house (his mom is a convert and he lives in the house behind hers) and they have a gate and pit bull and I knew the mom wasn't home but I just felt like I should go talk to Pablo, so I just opened their gate and walked around Coco the dog and walked back there. My comp was like "Elder Helske! You're trespassing! We can get in trouble!" But I just yelled back "Nah, we're fine! They love us!" I walked back there and found him. I gave him a churro and asked if we could come inside and share a scripture with him. He said "Yes" with a mouth full of churro and then I shared with them 1st Nephi 3:7 (yeah I went old school one them) and promised them (he has a roommate) that they can get over any problem doesn't matter what it is, with these 3 steps they can overcome any problem! Step 1 pray for strength when tempted Step 2 read daily for strength Step 3 go to church on Sunday for tons of strength because its a commandment of God, and the more commandments we keep, the more blessings we get. Commandments aren't rules, they're blessings!!  

Mark's letter of September 26th, 2017

     This week has been pretty chill. There's a bakery pretty nearby where I live. Well, actually there's one right up the road from where I live where I go sometimes in the morning for breakfast, but there's another one I like to hit up if I'm out and about. They're super tasty! Also it has a super cool vibe to it! My favorite thing about it is the cat that chills in there! Also, no one wears gloves while they prepare food. I think its awesome!! My trainer doesn't like it as much as I do. I also went on splits with the zone leader this week. His name is Elder Paulson and he's super cool. He taught me a ton. He's super cool! Elder Vera from Peru who lives in my house is being made district leader now but not of my district, but the other district in my zone. He lives in the same house as us though and my "grandpa" the trainer of my trainer is going to be our new zone leader! While I was with the ZL we went and visited this one "menos activo" and invited him to come play soccer and he totally did which was super awesome!  He apparently hasn't gone to a church activity in over a year! We also got 2 new invenstigators with baptisimal dates. One alcholic named Ruben for 19th oF October (his birthday) and then this super solid kid for the 20th of October and we're probably gonna baptize his grandpa as well. We're gonna invite him to pick a date to get baptized this week as well. Our other investigators are doing well as well! That's about it for my week! Thanks for all the prayers!! 

-Élder Helske

This is Mark's post from September 18th, 2017  (Sorry I got really behind!)

     Well, this week was pretty chill and super short. We had P-day on Tuesday and we didn't really get to go out and proselyte at all because we didn't head home till like 6. It was like a 2-hour bus ride. We lost our phone but someone found it and gave it to our zone leaders. Then our zone leaders dropped our phone and it broke. We got a new one on Friday and went to the "Oro Congerence" which is like a greenie conference. That was super fun!  Friday we also didn't really get to go out either because we were gone all day, and then we left around 5 to go on a 2 hour bus ride back home again. Then Saturday we had a service project that took up a big part of the day as well! We painted our district leaders house which was really fun and the hermanas cooked us some super bomb food!! Bless up they make such good food! We always have them come and cook for us when we have zone activities. (this was a zone service project) Oh, my trainer also hit his 1-year mark this week so we threw him a fat old party. I don't have any pics of that because my camera was dead and the Peruvians didn't send me the pics yet, so hopefully next week I can send you all some pics but we'll see. A lot of our investigators are just kind of treading water rn and that's frustrating but we have this one new investigator Julio. His son died in car accident and it's soo sad. We've visited him a couple times. He also had surgery this week. He's such a humble, nice person. I'm so glad that I know that the gospel will be able to help him and his family so much!! Well, that's everything from me this week. next week P-day is on a Tuesday due to changes so don't worry!! 

Hey! Sorry about the short post this week! This week was a little hectic. I'm going to the temple today, so I'm really short on time today!! I went on splits with AP's this week and we had a lot of fun. I was with Elder Mecham and we had an appointment with these investigators who are getting baptized in December. We ate brownies and watched a restoration movie. Then Elder Christensen and I had a really cool experience where we were gonna go visit some members and it was pouring rain so it would have been really nice to just go to their house, but we said a prayer and we both had the feeling we should go visit this guy named Pablo who does a ton of drugs. I've never actually been able to meet him, but we went there. He was there and we taught him. and all of them. It was really powerful and we felt awesome afterwards!! This work is real and the gospel is more important than anything. Never forget all that!! 

This was actually sent by Mark on August 28th

Okay so this weeks is really short nothing interesting really happened. We found 3 new investigators and we set 5 people up with baptismal dates, 4 of which are in december -_- and the one that is sooner he is really interesting and I can't tell if he's meeting with us because he is bored and just likes us or actually  is picking up what were putting down. Most of the kids fam are members but they don't want to go to church or anything. Were afraid if we baptize him he'll just go inactive. It’s really nerve wracking. The other 4 are 2 couples that need to get married. Two of them are super solid and are trying to get a date ASAP and said we might even bring up a baptismal date, which would be way baller. The other couple is more like a whole family and if we can get the parents then the rest of the fam might join as well, at least the younger ones! The only thing holding them back is the mom. She doesn't think she needs the gospel because she doesn't think she needs any blessings because her life is going really well (-_-`) which is really frustrating. Well that's about all I gotta say this week! Oh, one more thing, we had a multizone conference where I had to say the opening prayer, which was kind of nerve wracking because I had to do it in spanish, so it was super basic and simple. Apparently while we there (it was like an hour away via bus) our area was in an orange alert which means we shouldn't go outside unless we have a lesson but we weren't there so oh well!  

Sorry, I'm a little late, Thank you to Jacee Hughes for helping me get caught up!
Here is August 21:

Well I’m in Uruguay! I left the MTC at 4:50am by myself because I took my companion to the travel office at 3:30 that morning so that was interesting. I traveled to the airport on some busses and trains then grabbed some cafe rio at the airport and hopped on a plane to Atlanta, chilled there for little over 6 hours and bumped into a bunch of missionaries from my zone going to 'Tina (Argentina) that was really cool. I then flew to Sao Paulo Brazil was there for like 2 hours then got on a plane to Montevideo as soon as I landed President Eddy and his wife and the AP's were there waiting for me. I was the 5th trip to the airport and the last. We went to the mission home and I met all the people I was supposed to be with in mexico... oops.... oh well... I then had a little orientation and had a interview with the boss man that apparently everyone else had the day before or earlier that morning because everyone got there early early or the previous day except me. The next day I met with my trainer named Elder Christensen from Kentucky. He's super super nice to me probably too nice. We share a casa with 2 other elder's, Elder Vera  and Elder Guarniz (he's new like me) they're both from Peru super cool and funny. We had some chats with some people that day and we have a couple people with baptismal dates one which is in September and some in December which is awesome. We did some street contacting and taught a lesson in the park which was awesome but then we found out later when we tried to find their house that they actually live in the Montevideo West Mission so we had to call the elder's there and tell them about so idk what's going on with them anymore. Saturday and Sunday we had quite a bit of bad luck trying to find people but we've been meeting with quite a lot of less actives which has been awesome. One of them came to church one Sunday where I had to bear my testimony which lasted about a solid 40 seconds 30 if I wouldn't have stuttered. Here's the weird thing that happened to me though. That less active that came to church, well when we met with them we were just trying to share a scripture and invite them to church and dip, but while we were trying to read they were feeding this weird bread stuff, that wasn't too bad actually, and some cola but then when we got done reading I sniffled a little because this country is super humid so my nose isn't used to it yet and one of them bolt's out of his chair to grabs this nasal spray and comes back and the mom walks over to me, grabs my head tilts it back, and dumps more than half of it in my nose. I don't know what moonshine taste or feels like but that's what I imagine it's like. So after that I try to bear my testimony about prayer and I get about half way through it and this lady (their sister) kicks open the door and starts giving us this weird pannukakku (german pancake) with ham in it. Let me just paint you the scene, I'm trying to bear my testimony with moonshine drink dripping from my nose because I unwillingly snorted the better half of a shot of it while being force fed pannukakku ham in a small weird house in Uruguay and i'm doing this while speaking really bad Spanish. But she came to church the next day which was awesome! Oh and earlier that day some random man kissed my cheek. So that's what the first few days here have been like and it's been awesome. We had a zone activity this morning where we ate some pizza and played dodgeball. It's been super baller! Here's some pics.

first pic is me and my travel group eating some cafe rio