Bicycle Woes and Pictures... YAY!

Wow, another week on the mission gone by! Well family, I’m doing pretty good even though I’m dirt poor broke and very tired. For the past few days, I have been in Durazno. My companion and I have been working with the zone leaders. We are here because this morning at three o’clock, I had to go all the way to Montevideo for some medical testing. The way the bus schedule works, we had to stay in Durazno. The testing was part of getting my visa to stay in the country legally. So my new companion for the day has been Elder Moncada. He’s also an Oro and he’s from Chicago. (They call all new missionaries here "Oros". Oro means gold in Spanish) He speaks perfect Spanish because he’s Mexican. Well anyway, this morning when we went to get on the bus, they said they had no more seats. We had to stand up for the whole two and a half hour trip to Montevideo, so I’m pretty darned tired.

I’m getting pretty skinny. At my check up, the doctor said I’m 180 lbs. All of my pants don’t fit me anymore and my belts are on the last notch. While at the clinic, I met the new president and his wife from the Montevideo temple. They were there for the same reason I was. Interestingly enough, she is from Bakersfield Ca, so we sat and talked about lots of stuff while we waited for hours in the clinic. It was awesome. Your choir got brought up dad and she was just thrilled to hear all that I knew about it. Sorry, I don’t really remember their names.

Hey… I need to know why the pin number got changed on my account. Is it a new account? I’m very confused. I learned that for safety precautions, here in Uruguay, the ATMs will keep your card if you type in the wrong pin number. If you can send me another email, I’ll just check it again in the next few days. I still haven’t received my new card. I kind of wish you could have over-nighted it to me because I’m really hurting for money. My reimbursements haven’t gone through yet.

I found out that it takes a month or two to receive packages here, just so you know. I sent you a hand written letter with my Christmas wish list. If you can’t send all of it, that’s fine. What I really need is a new bike! Maybe instead of all that stuff in my letter, you could just deposit money in my account so I could buy a new bike. The bike I have right now was made in the 1980’s and I’m constantly fixing it. It has become a money pit. Please give me some counsel on this matter. I’m dying for a new bike and if I buy one here it will go with me to all my different areas throughout my mission.

About the church here; there is only one ward of about 150 members in Sarandi Del Yi. It’s a great little ward and they take great care of the missionaries. The bishop is a firefighter and is an awesome guy. He actually reminds me a lot of Trevik Jenkins dad who was also the bishop in Las Vegas. But of course he only speaks Spanish… ha ha ha.

Our baptism fell through this weekend. In two weeks, we have two more baptisms planned for Saturday, so it was okay that things didn’t quite work out. Right now, we’re teaching a guy named Luis; he’s awesome. Luis completely quit smoking and is so eager to get baptized in two weeks. He has gone to all of the church meetings and talks about how badly he wants the priesthood. It’s awesome. We are also trying to get a young couple married right now too. It’s been kind of hard, but I have faith that it can be done.

We have a church building that is actually really huge for Uruguay. It’s on the corner of Garibaldi and Oribe if you wanna look it up on Google Earth. My shack is just down the street from there. Well I don’t have much more time and I’ve got to go. I’ll write another letter concerning more spiritual things. Later you’ll have to tell me how long it takes to get a letter from me through the mail. Oh hey, because I’m short on money, I will be including other letters with the letter I send to you guys. So sorry, I know you guys are busy, but if you could distribute them that would be awesome.

Love you,
Elder Sluder

Elder Sluder

Elder Vargas

The kitchen (check out the stove and sink!)

The "shack" (nice ladder)

The Sarandi sky after a thunderstorm