February 13, 2012 with Elder Baxter in Melo

Hey all,

So, this is it. The penultimate email of my mission. I can't believe
I'm almost there. It's so weird. People are constantly asking how I
feel. Do you want to go home? Are you nervous? Are you happy with how
the mission has gone? Yes. To all of the above. I've been really
really happy lately. The work's going really well. Rene got baptized
on Saturday and confirmed yesterday. Fernanda also got confirmed
yesterday. So we're now all up to date on our confirmations. We've
been finding tons of people that have all accepted baptismal dates.
Unfortunately, they're all for the 25th of February and the 3rd of
March...so I won't be here, but I know I'm leaving the area in good
shape for the new elder who comes in. At least I'll get to see a
sealing the 25th. We have a goal in the mission to have a baptism
every week. When I get home I'll have to see if we can help some
people get baptized too.

The weather's pretty nice. Just a little hot. I've now started wearing
the wide-brimmed gaucho hat I bought as a souvenir. It's nice and
cool. Upper 40's is sounding pretty nice though, since right now we're
lower 30's celsius. Kinda sad I won't get to come home to snow. Oh
well. I'll have to just go snowboarding to see it.

I haven't gotten my trunky packet yet. The offices are really slow
these days. It's impossible to get anything sent up here to Melo. We
don't even get copies of the Book of Mormon, Restoration Pamphlets, or
Baptismal records to create membership accounts, which we need. We
know it's not lost, but usually they don't send a box the week before
change day, so we don't know if it's coming or if they'll just give it
to me next tuesday. OH well. Either way, I'll be coming home. I don't
think it's that big of a deal. I'm thinking of calling Elder Pike to
ask him about details so I can start packing today.

Sounds good for the release time and sacrament meeting talks and such.
Sounds like a really busy week I have ahead of me. Fwa! I don't know
about the whole ward thing. I'd like to start out with you guys I
think. Maybe switch over to the singles ward once I'm a little more
normal and integrated into normal Utahn society. I'm still gonna have
a lot of countryside Uruguayan customs, like saying "Ohhhpa.." instead
of "hey" If I go to a singles ward right away, I don't have a chance
of getting married. If the bishop asks (or reads this blog) let him
know I'm willing to help out in any calling.

It'll be really exciting to see what happens when I get home. I'm
gonna have to do some serious adjusting. Just a heads up to anyone
reading this. If you talk to me when I get back, you might not
understand me very well. If I say "Cualquier cosa" or "Yo que se" just
don't worry about it. I say them a lot and don't know how to say
cualquier cosa in english.