Another Really Tough Week!

January 11, 2010

Dear family,

Well... I’m still alive and still in my small town of Sarandi del Yi.

A few weeks ago, I lost the cable that goes to my digital camera. I can’t find it anywhere. This past week I’ve been looking everywhere in Uruguay to find a new one and no one seems to have one. The battery on my camera was very low, so I haven’t used it much. Then last night I really did something stupid. I looked at the charger for my DVD player and found that my camera had the same kind of plug on the side of it. I read the symbols and some of the information and every thing seemed like it was the same, so being over excited, I plugged my camera into this charger for the DVD player. After a few seconds I realized that the light for charging wasn’t coming on, so I disconnected it. I didn’t smell burned electronics and nothing made any funny noises, but now the camera will not even turn on. I pulled the battery out and there’s nothing wrong with it. I put it on my tongue and it has charge. I don’t know exactly what I did, but I think I destroyed my camera. I read into it a little further and found that the voltage for the DVD player is higher than that of my camera charger. It about brought me to tears, I’m so sorry. What do I do? Should I send you the camera? So for now, I can’t take pictures. If you want to email me back tonight that would be great. I’ll look at my email tomorrow. I’ll also include all the information on my camera in this email, so that you can look into it further for me. Thanks and yes I know, it was a really stupid thing to do.

I’ve had even more bad luck this week also. I’ll start with last Monday. After I got done emailing last week, we went and apologized to the sister who said we had offended her. Being stubborn, she said she was never offended by us, but that the ward had offended her. And she would no longer attend any meetings until the entire ward apologized. Yes it’s ridiculous, I know, but then she was in sacrament meeting yesterday!

On Monday night, I got a call from my district leader who asked me if I could do a special intercambio (exchange) with him in Trinidad the next day (Trinidad is about 25 miles west of Durazno). He was having some”issues” with his comp and needed some time off. So, I went to Trinidad. On my first night in Trinidad, we met with a lot of neat people, did several lessons and called it a night. I stayed with three other American elders; Elder Bullock from Orem, Utah (His dad is currently a mission president in Mexico); Elder Wally from Roy, Utah (He’s awesome and kept us entertained, but definitely a different kind of guy); and my district leader, Elder Thorderson from Salt Lake City, Utah. We had an awesome time and it was good for me to get away from my area for a while and have the opportunity to speak English. That night when Elder Thorderson and I came in from proselytizing, we both got kind of sick. Then I got really, really sick and wasn’t able to leave the house at all on Wednesday. On Thursday, we started to head back from Trinidad to Sarandi, about a two and a half hour trip. All I’m going to say is that I’m grateful that there was a bathroom on our bus going back. Once I arrived back in Sarandi, I laid in bed the rest of the day. During that day, my comp went out and proselytized with one of the members in the ward, while several other members of the ward took care of me. I received several blessings and I followed the directions of the mission doctor exactly. On Friday, I woke up and all my stomach pain and problems were gone. I’m much better now and can honestly say that I think it was a miracle that I was able to recover so fast. I was so grateful for all the people who took care of me and have really come to love and enjoy the people of the ward here in Sarandi. Friday I went out and had awesome experiences and a very good day of hard work. The same thing happened on Saturday and Sunday. I felt very good with the work we have had this past week and look forward with hope of progress for next week.

On Saturday, I think that the Lord wanted me to walk because my bike broke 5 times over. I have fixed as much as I can fix myself, but my wheels are both bent, my derailleur and my gears are all bound up and no longer function. I’m kind of mad right now that I didn’t just buy a new bike. When it broke and fell apart, it did just that, it broke and fell apart. I wasn’t jumping it or really riding rough. I have an odometer and it reads that I have ridden 700 kilometers in one month since I had it all repaired and made like new. This thing is just a money pit. What should I do Dad? I can go have it repaired again. That’s not a problem for me, but I think is going to cost me about a 1000 pesos (almost 50 dollars American and not reimbursable). I didn’t plan for this in my finances, so if I fix it, I will need your assistance. Yes, I know it’s always money with me. For now we’re walking. It’s been very tough because our area is so huge and we can’t go visit our investigators that live four kilometers out of town in a small housing complex until I get it fixed. So I’m going to do the best to get by for now, but let me know what you think.

We are working really hard and struggling to get our investigators to keep commitments. As I said earlier, I’m looking forward this week, with hope that all this hard work will pay off. Dad your email was perfect. Thank you so much, I really needed that. Our new mission president, President Da Silva wants us to attend the temple as missionaries and thinks it will help us with the work. Next week on the 20th, we are planning to go to the temple in Montevideo. I’m so excited; it will be my first time in the temple here in Uruguay. I’ll let you know how it was. Thanks for everything. Let me know what I need to do and if there’s any thing I need to do to help. I love you all and hope that you all have a safe and good week.

Love, Elder John P. Sluder

Note from Dad: I replied to John this evening. I told him not to worry about the small stuff that he can't do anything about. We will put some money into his account to fix the bike. We can replace the camera in a few weeks. No big deal.