I wish it would snow here!

Hey family,
How is everything? Everything is going great here in T-bo. Maria Rosano was baptized last Saturday. I have to tell you what happened. Hermano Sosa is our ward mission leader and he was going to fill up the font for us at 4 o’clock because the service was at 5 30. Elder McClellan and I were walking back to change into our suits and we see Hermano Sosa and he told us the there wasn’t gas to run the Califon so we weren’t going to have the baptism. But there was gas the whole time he just couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. So we went and turned it on and had the baptism an hour and a half late. It went well it was just a joke trying to get everything done. Yesterday some drunk guy was yelling at us and telling us to go back to our own country it was really funny. The weather here is getting hot. It has rained really hard here yesterday and today but I love preaching in the rain. I liked the package you sent next week I’m going to try to send some pictures. That is awesome that Aaron got a job in Utah, and they are going to be living with Elyse. She will love that. That stinks that Dad and Taylor can’t ever go duck hunting. It is because I’m not there. Is there still a little leak in Donald? Be safe and have a lot of fun on Thursday. What gun is Taylor using? He can use mine if he doesn’t have one. Our investigators are doing ok. We didn’t have a lot in church it was a huge bummer but they will come this next week. My Spanish has gotten a lot better in the last couple of weeks because I talk a lot more and understand almost all of it. I don’t understand every word but I can understand the concepts. I love speaking Spanish. I hope you can go see Elder Hansen’s homecoming. I sent my picture card home with him. Tell him thanks for all he did for me and for his great example. Have a great week and remember I love you all. Elder Tate

Another week from the Guay

Hola mi familia,

How are you all doing this week? Did you like conference? I thought it was so good. I thought the talks were short though. Did you hear the talk by Elder Aidukaitis? That is what our zone conference was like for two and a half hours. I loved President Monson´s talks. So my new compainion is Elder McClellan. He is from southern California. He has been on his mission for one year. His year mark is this Friday. This is his first time being senior comp. We get along really well. We were able to teach some lessons this week with a couple of our investigators. We teach really well with each other. It is fun because now i teach a little bit more with Elder McClellan than i did with Elder Hansen. My spanish is coming along really well. I think by the time i get to call you for Christmas i will be able to speak really good. I talked with Elder Oswald the other week he is doing great. He got transfered to Rivera, so i will see him in a couple of weeks at the zone conference. The zones from Artigas, Rivera, and Tacaurembó all get together for zone conference. We had a baptism last Saturday between the sessions of conference. Daniel was baptized by Elder Hansen it was a great experience. Elder Hansen´s parents were there and i got to meet them. They are great people. I got the package you sent with them thank you. We had a couple of investigators in conference and the said they loved it. Everything is going great here. That stinks that you couldn´t go duck hunting. I think it is funny that Dad brings Taylor and Jess so he can kill 14 more ducks. Do you think Dad will get another dog? I think he should. That is awesome that Aaron is almost graduated from school. I hope he gets the job in Las Vegas or Utah. How is Ali and Taylor doing? The weather is getting hot here. It is crazy to think it is getting cold in Utah. I have heard that it gets up to 50 degrees celcius here. I´m going to sweat to death. I hope Dad´s team does well this week. I love you all thanks for all the support and love. Work hard and have fun. Tengan una buena semana. Les Amo muchisimo.

Chao Elder Tate

Hola Familia

Hey family how are you all doing? We had a really good week here. We had two baptisms Fabio and José last Saturday they went really well. We had 9 investigators in church this week it was so cool to see all of them sitting there and paying attention. It is crazy that it is almost conference, time is flying by. It is changes this week and I can’t believe that Elder Hansen is going home. I’m kind of nervous because I don’t know this mission without him but I’m excited also. I’m not leaving I’ll sill be here in T•bo but I will be with Elder McClellan he comes in tonight at midnight. I don’t know anything about him so I’ll answer those questions next week. P•day during change week is on Tuesday so that is why I’m emailing today. Our investigators are doing really well we should have some good baptisms this coming change. Every time we have a baptism it is the coolest feeling to see them take this step in their lives. Elder Hansen came with Elder Stobbe but they weren’t in the same district in the MTC. I don’t think you spanked me that much Ali is exaggerating. The names of our investigators are Olga, Felicio, Daniel, Blanca, Eduardo, Maria, Carla, and Damian. Those are the ones that are progressing. I can’t believe that it is already time to go get wood. And that Donald is in the backyard again. We had so much fun last year with that. I will miss hunting. That is cool that dad’s golf team took second. How is highland doing this year in football? P•days here we get up and do our studies as if it were a normal day and then we clean the house up and then go to the cyber (email). Sometimes we get together with the other missionaries and do an activity or something we have a lot of fun together. So that waterproof coat isn’t exactly 100% waterproof. It rained yesterday and it kept out 90% of the water. It is starting to get hot here and I get pretty sweaty. Elder Hansen tells me that in the summer it is like 110 or more plus humid I’m going to die. My Spanish is getting pretty good. I still stumble but it is really fun, the people are so nice and help me with it. I did divisions with Elder Pierce and Elder Drishinski last week. Elder Pierce is one of the zone leaders we walked so much that day it was a lot of fun though. With Elder Drishinski he only has two changes in the mission and his Spanish isn’t that good. So we walked around and tried to speak to people it was so much fun. We taught some good lessons and the people understood it was so much fun. Well I better end it for this week I love you all and I’m so grateful for all that you have done for me. Tengan una buena semana. Love your Elder. Chao Elder Tate

What's up?

Hey how is everyone doing back home? Everything is going great here in Uruguay. That is awesome that Taylor and Jess got their hunter safety. Dad will really enjoy that. But tell Taylor that he better practice a lot because i`ll still out shoot him when i get home. Yes we have normal chapels here. There are 4 buildings in Tacuarembò and all of them have their own baptismal font they are just like the ones in the USA. The stake center here in T-bo is probably the nicest building around. There is a taxi system here but we usually don`t us it. We walk everywhere but it isn`t bad. It makes me feel lazy when i think that i would drive to church or even down to Elyse`s house. But my shoes are great and i haven`t had any blisters. We ate Mondongo. That is the cow stomach. It wasn`t to bad. It was really chewy. I didn`t get sick from it. I haven`t gotten sick at all so far. We have a really good investigator. It was a part member family the whole family is members but the dad isn`t. He was an alcoholic and they were about to separate. But he told us that he would stop drinking and be baptized and he hasn`t had a drink since then. It was really cool because we saved a marriage and he is going to be baptized. We didn`t have a baptism this last week but we have two planned por el sabado que viene. Josè y Fabio. I love speaking Spanish it is so much fun. We have an hour to an hour and a half to do email. I hope that Aaron does well in his interviews. That is crazy to think that he is almost done with school. I hope everything is going great back home. I think of you all and pray for you all. Les amo muchisimo. Me encanta ser misionero. Estoy tan agradecido por la oportunidad estar aquì en Uruguay y servir la gente aquì. Tambièn estoy muy agradecido por ustedes por sus apoya para mi. Tengan una buena semana. Choa Elder Tate

Hola

Hey, How is everyone doing this week? This week was amazing we had our sector conference and the zones of Artigas and Rivera came down to Tacuarembó. A member of the area presidecy was there, his name is Elder Aidukaitis. It was so good. He talked about what we need to do to double our baptisms what President Hinkley said like 10 years ago. It was awesome when he bore is testimony at the end the spirit was so strong it was unreal. Then that night we went out to work at like 4:30 and in 4 and a half hours we found 13 people. He said that we should have a baptism every weekend and we have 1 planed for this coming Saturday or Sunday and then we will have 3 the week after that. We are working really hard and we are having a lot of fun. Yesterday we had the baptism of Irma Diaz it went really well. My spanish is getting a lot better. I can understand all of it if the people speak clearly. It is really cool to speak another language. Yes I got 2 packages last Thursday one from Elyse and the other from Aaron and Jodi. They were great it was like christmas. Montevideo is like 5 and a half hours away. The weather here is really crazy. We have had some rain but not a ton. The weather changes daily yesterday was great sunny and warm and today is cloudy and cold i never know what it is going to be like. The parents of my companion are leaving like the 2nd of October but make sure you get whatever you are sending down to them before the 30th of September. The only thing that i think i need is the cords for my camera so i can send you pictures. The homecoming of my companion is on the 19th of October. I don´t know what time his church starts at but that is the date. Everything is going great down here. We eat really good the members take really good care of us they are amazing. I´m glad everything is going great back home i´ll write you next week. Hey i forgot to tell you that i milked a cow for one of the members in the ward it was really fun. If you had to do that everyday your forearms would be so strong. Chao. Elder Tate

Howdy from Uruguay

Hola, How is everyone doing this week? Last week went by so fast. I went on divisions with the zone leader and the district leader in one week it was really fun. When I was with Elder Heilpern we thought we were going to get attacked by a dog but then it hit the end of the chain. I was so scared my heart was pounding so fast. Afterwards I looked at him and said we were about to have a race not between us and the dog but between me and you. It was really funny I’m pretty sure that I could have out run him. This last week has had all different temperatures. Tuesday was really hot and humid, Wednesday was a little bit colder but not bad same thing on Thursday, but Friday was the coldest day in Uruguay out of all the winter. It was so cold. I had my thermal garments and a sweater and my big coat and it was still pretty cold. I love my sleeping bag it is amazing. That is cool that Utah is dong so good in football and that Dad’s golf team is doing so good. This week we had 7 investigators in church but that family we are teaching didn’t come. We are going to have a baptism on the 20th of September. We have our first sector conference this week and one of the members of the area presidency is coming it will be a lot of fun. We have a busy week coming up this week it will be a lot of fun. My shoes are great I haven’t gotten any blisters yet. I hope everything with your neighbors works out alright. If not have Taylor calls his friends and they could try to relive the glory days. Tell Taylor congratulations on getting his hunters safety that is just 7 more duck dad and I will get to kill in 2 years. I hope everything goes great this week and you all have a lot of fun. I’m doing great down here in Tacuarembó it is a lot of fun. Thanks for all the love and support from everyone. Chao Elder Tate

September 1st 2008

Hey hope everything went good this last week i`m doing great here in Uruguay. We had an awesome week this week it was so much fun. We found 23 new investigators this week it was amazing everyone would listen to us and they wanted us to come back. The food is really good we have eaten milanesa ( chicken fried steak) it was good. Canalones, they were so good probably my favorite thing. They are tortillas with meat and some other stuff in them covered in a sauce they are really good. On Thursday it rained so hard. But that didn`t stop us we went out and worked all day and by the end of the day i was soaked. I could have walked through a river 2 or 3 feet deep and i wouldn`t have gotten any more wet. It was so much fun. I wore my boots and at the end of the day i dumped the water out of them it was really funny i have some pictures. I hope dad had a good birthday 50 years old WOW! That is sad about Grandpa Kirk i hope he isn`t in to much pain i feel really bad. GO UTES! Do they look good this year? The language is coming along really well when we have a lesson planned out i teach like 40 percent of it. We walk so much here it really is amazing i wish i had one of those things that counts your steps it would be an unreal number for one day. My shoes on the other hand are great and i haven`t had any problems with them. The roof on our house is made of the same stuff that we had on the wood shed before we put up the wood, that tin stuff. So when it rains at night we hear it and it poured the other night i couldn`t believe how loud it was. I`m doing really good here and i have adapted great i just wish i was fluent in Spanish. I love the mission it is really fun. Thanks for all the love and support from everyone back home. Tell everyone i love them and i`m doing great. Elder Tate ( TawTay) Chao