Probably my busiest week of the mission.

this is the design my companion made for a zone hat we are making to boost the brotherhood here!!

Mom first off forgive me but I still am no where close to finishing those essays. I still have not begun and I will not have time today nor next week. I am going to try and write a little bit every morning but I first need to catch up on my journal because with everything going on I have fallen very far behind. Not sure when I can send them.But I will push myself it's just my N1 priority is the Lord and His missionaries and I have to plan lots for a Zone capacitation tomorrow. 

So Tuesday after district meeting we were informed that Thursday we would be having a mission leader meeting that was going to begin Thursday early and was going to finish Friday afternoon. This was unheard of and unprecedented but one of the most life changing experiences I have ever had. We had some difficulties because a new sister missionary that had just started her mission in our zone had a problem with a recent sergury that she did not put in her mission papers.  She had to go home because she was  unable to walk after 1 day of hard work. So with that and trying to visit as many of our investigators as possible we had to get ready for the two day capaciation. We arrived there in the temple hostle its called and we were all the zone leaders from throughout the mission (tons of my friends) and hermana leaders and we began to be so filled with the spirit and learned so much I took 14 pages of notes. It was powerful we all received new ties to ´tie us together´. I will never forget the spirit I felt there. There are times if you just sit back and ponder in your heart how do I feel?  Is this true? The spirit will cause an unmistakable burning in your heart. I felt one of the most spiritual impressions and we talked about how the mission was going to change and how we could help others really learn how to use the Book of mormon in their lives and I felt such a burning and it would not leave! The Church is True I know It! The main focus that I feel the lord needs from us all here is that We need to create the opportunity for others to have spiritual experiences not on there own when they kneel and pray on their own but instead with us when the spirit is the strongest! 

We already put it into practice on saturday and after teaching an amazing investigator about how to ponder in his heart we asked him to ask God and that is what he did and he ended in tears:) How I love this gospel! All you have to do is ask God thats it and then listen not with your thoughts but with your heart. 

WE also went to the temple with our president and all the leaders from all over the mission what a powerful experience with so many young servants of God trying to purify our hearts and find the will of God in our areas and zones. an amazing site how I love the temple. 

We also ate some of the best food I have eaten in 1 and a half years wow:) 

Something awesome is that my president's son Jerry is Fletcher in the flesh. I spent quite a lot of time talking to the guy and wow it made me miss fletch I love him. 

Anyway that is a little bit of the week. i hope to have time to look for shoes today but we´ll see if I have time with everything. my companion lent me a pair of shoes:) 

Anyway I love my companion I am so blessed to be with him right now.   We are seeing lots of miracles and we are good friends. I am going to go to his wedding in Colombia when I get home without a doubt. 

Anyway I love you thank you for your letters.  I love your letters. i got that package from the ward tell them thank you for thinking of me. 

I love you all remember to be immovable and to never Give up God is the perfect example of this as he never gives up on us! 

i love you all so much

Elder Stewart-Chester

I will try to send pictures in a little bit my computer does not work

What a week! By far the busiest and exciting week of my mission. I experienced tons of stress as we went through changes and my companion heading home. And then there was all the confusion about changes Which as a Zone leader I have a very large part part of making sure it all goes well. And then we had a CVC(guided tours in our chappel) in our area friday and then saturday we arose early to attend the temple. Very busy but oh so rewarding. 

Where do I begin? Well first off my Companion... Not gonna lie we get a long really well.  He will probly be among the lists of my favorite companions. He is a powerful teacher and will be a huge help to our zone. He was a bit nervous in the begining but lost all of that and we saw a lot of success this week in our area now we just have to transmit that to the rest of the zone. 

It was Quite a week Honestly the Temple was amazing! It was a very powerful experience to go through completely in spanish and understand it all this time and feel the spirit so so strongly. 

The temple was spectacular. I dont know if it is because I have learned a lot better in the mission what is a spiritual impression but wow I felt the spirit very strongly. It was as if my heart would burst. How I love that place. It was something else also to know that I had a small part in helping a family be sealed for time and all eternity. I felt such strong desires afterwards to teach the law of chastity better and with more conviction. There is so much love in the temple pure Christlike love something you do not see anywhere else. That is how it should be here in the world.

    We arrived a little early and were able to go through and work a little bit in the room where they do the sealings as witnesses. Wow. 

When we got to the live sealing of the familia Alvez I just was at peace and I was amazed at the gravity of what was being done as he told them this is the last greatest ordinance  one can do on the road to the kingdom of God. What a step that will be. How I love the temple.   I pray to be able to spend hours and hours there every week When I return. 

The CVC that we had on Friday was a big succes. We were a little disappionted in the beginning because a lot of members did not come with investigators to share this amazing gospel but towards the end some very prepared people came and we may have found a very prepared lady aswell. WE are excited! We also are going to have the opportunity to do it again with another ward that shares our chapel so we are going to guilt trip the members who did not come:) hahha just kidding we`re just going to help them more to invite. and keep inviting!

I love this gospel I love The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love our dotrine I love being able to testify to my brothers and sisters that there is a church a religion that does not have just 20% of what Jesus Christ had in His Or even 99% of what Jesus had and left us with. There is one Organization that has 100% and I was born into it I have been so blessed by our father in Heaven. I dont want to be somewhere with 99% of the truth I want it all I want apostles and prophets, Patriarchs, temples with sealing power! I want the Holy Ghost as a constant companion and I want everyone else to have this as well. 

I know this church is true I prayed and God answered my question and took away my doubt. How blessed we are! I love you all be strong and immovable The gospel is the only way to live in such a dark world. 

Elder Stewart-Chester

We went bowling with our zone on a Pday!  

I bought this amazing traditional outfit instead of buying my shoes.

The guided your of the chapel and our temple trip..

Beautiful temple in Montevideo Uruguay!

The end of Elder Manning

Well this week was the last of Elder Manning he is still with me but goes to the mission home tomorrow morning and then from there he leaves thursday night to arrive in Las Vegas Friday morning. It amazes me how fast time just flies by. 

To answer your question Dad the truth is I only just met President this last Tuesday right after I sent my last email. But wow oh my what an inspired man. He had me in tears many times. As the first convert to the church in his family he went on a mission and eventually baptised his entire family. He served here in Uruguay as well. Yes mom Hermana Smith does remember you funny how small the world is. Their family is super Californian.  Their 16 year old son walked in and I felt like it was Fletcher. It is amazing to have him here.   The mission is filled with excitement and pure joy to do the Lord's work. Our mission president's joy to be doing the Lords work is very contagious. 

Oh my I still have not told you all my Change: 

Drum roll please:

New companion: my new comapnion is called Elder Miranda from Columbia and he is already a friend of mine. We both began the mission sharing the same ward. He is Elder McCraney's son. He is 24+- and already has recieved his degree and worked as a well paid arquitecto he had a girl friend and a good job and he left it all for the mission. I am really excited for this change. 

This change will be very interesting because we have sister missionaries coming to our zone. Which is very crazy because a few of the areas here in Montevideo are a little dangerous but the part where they are headed it is not too bad. More work for us ( sisters) hahaha but it will bring a new element to the zone that will come with a lot of miracles. 

Guess what! Want to know how amazing our Heavenly father is!? Well when Presidente called me on sunday to tell me about who my companion was going to be he also informed me that someone he had taught was going through the temple on saturday so I needed to change my next P-day to saturday so we could GO to a TEMPLE SEALING!!! I was excited and assumed that it would be someone elder Miranda taught in Dolores his first area. But no I called him this morning to get the whole times and things figured out and amazingly he told me who it was. Remeber how the last time I was in Montevideo I was with Elder Vargas in Cerro 16 well when I left Elder Miranda came to replace me. An inactive family we worked with a ton are called the familia Alves and my last sunday there the Hermana Alves finally went with her husband once again to church. Guess who is getting sealled!! They ARE!! and I will be there!! That also means though that I will email this saturday instead of monday so dont forget. 

This week will be so so so busy with changes new companion Hermanas in our zone, and this friday we have a ward open house! which should be fantastic! I am super excited. Lots to do lots to see. 

Ok now to answer some questions: I did not buy new shoes I thought I could make them last but the other day a homeless guy made fun of my shoes and told me that I had worse shoes than him and He is on the street... They´re bad I´ll send a picture. But I feel we should see if we can get another pair free I mean they have a 2 year guarantee and I have destroyed them. I mean I may have spent money on that giant traditional hat and pants you see in the foto but I can save up some money to buy shoes I was thinking about buying well kept shoes from an elder who is headed home. 

About the essays I have goals to do them today but I still do not know how much time I am going to have with it being my comps last day here I will do what he wants to do. I am trying it is so hard. 

Oh and that talk about the Grace was amazing I had never looked at it that way before. I have used the dot thing to teach as well. 

https://www.lds.org/youth/article/his-grace-is-sufficient?lang=eng

anyway I love you all just know the church is true I feel it deep inside and love following the spirit it is the best feeling in the world to be on the lords errand!! 

I love you all 

Elder Stewart-Chester

Instead of buying new shoes Brady bought this;) 

this is mold that grew on my sheo after just 3 days of them being soaked and me leaving them to dry

Diary entry see picture!!!

Well folks after looking at so many trunky fotos of you all. I better write  spiritual stuff to bring myself back home. 

First off I sent that picture of my diary entry from yesterday so that you could read all bout that awesome experience we had yesterday. How I love being the Lord's servant and realizing that God was guiding us all along. I hope you enjoy it and mom publish it on the Blog and Facebook and whatever so that others can learn about the awesomeness of missionary work.

What can I say more than I have already said in the first picture I sent with us sat down and my son (Elder Dio) is in it that was my district in Rivera. The Bowling was our Zone Bowling Activity that we had. It is our whole zone minus the office elders whom have a different p-day than the rest of us so they could not come. The last fotos were from today as we walked arround buying some stuff for my companion as he Goes back to sin City next week... The truth is I am not that trunky, but it is harder when you are killing an elder(figuratively he is finshing his mission) but we work hard we had an awesome day yesterday as you can read in the journal pages. 

Other fotos hmm funny stuff my companion is a jokester we have fun and I aways take fotos of him while he is doing wierd stuff. 

I received my package Haleluya! that was amazing I am not going to lie that was a fun one that has enertained me for hours. Please in every letter you send instead of taco packets send me booster packs it is so fun and so filled with randomness that it makes for happy days here in the mission. 

I would just like to say Happy Birthday Bo!! Do you know what I did for the 4th ladies and gentlemen?... lots of contacting:) I was going to make Rootbeer but I forgot we were just deeply absorbed in the work. 

Oh I also contacted some awesome young teenagers the other day that guess what they did!! Tai-kuando we talked to them for a long time super awesome kids They told us that they were headed to Little Rock Arkansaw for the world tornament of Taikuando! So they will not be back until the 16th but that is alright. I told them I wanted to fight them haha but that I could´t because I was a servant of God. Sebastian was 17 and Victoria(yes she is a girl who does Taikuando) is like 16. I am excited to try and teach them. 

Anyways this email is more informative than anything else. But you can read my journal entry for the spiritual part. I love testifying about the Restoration of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints how blessed we are to be able to say We Know that all the truth that Jesus Christ left of the Earth and then was lost but now it is restored in its fullness!!! How blessed we are! 

I love you all things go well here Miracles as always you just need to know that many times they are small and hidden miracles and no one looks for them. I love you 

Elder Stewart-Chester

Such a great day!!!

Bowling with our zone...

My companion is always doing funny stuff.  I take pictures of him doing crazy things all the time..

Shopping in Montevideo!

Ahhhhhhh no time

Well lets get started shall we because I started late. We went bowling as a zone today because we made our zone goal which was awesome. I,ll send you pictures next week. We have had a crazy week that is for sure. Still no packages but letters see thank all of you that take the time to write me I am so blessed to have you all in my life. It fills me so filled with wonder to know that I have been given so much through each of you to reach where I am now. 

First off Our mission president has now flown home. He is now in Ceder City Utah and it was a sad thing to watch him go because I love him and Hermana Heaton very much what wonderful parents they have been to me here. I was probably one of the last missionaries to say goodbye to him. Our zone had personal interviews with him wednesday to say Goodbye and I got to hug Hermana Heaton too!!!! But also they came to our ward on sunday. They came with missionary couple that were doing a presentation in our ward for a ward visiting center activity we are going to do in our chappel on the 19th. Already releaved without mission placks President and Hermana Heaton came aswel. Me and my companion both spoke in Sacrament aswell which was special and so did a recent convirt. all about mission work. It was powerful stuff. I spoke on Life Goals once again I felt the impression and our devine potential. I talked about how life is like going up a down escator if we are not going up we are going down if we do not put goals like this year I will bring the chance to someone to hear the gospel or this year I will finish the Book of Mormon or this year I will develope this attribute of christ we are going to get to old age look behind and this to ourselves I could´ve done so much more. 

I see a lot of the problems in the world today beginning in families where there are no goals no dreams nothing asked of them and children that would rather just pass for mediocre. 

Teddy Happy birthday My man and Bo in like 3 days its yours!!! How old we all got whats happening? Something pretty funny that happened this week is a got a bloody nose while we were knocking doors this past week and it was pretty funny I am sure all the people here think that someone hit a missionary in the face here. I just kept going so we would not doors and I would stand off to the side and my companion would talk;) 

We are reactivating and going to baptise an awesome family pretty soon. The husband needs to get devorced first but he is awesome. Sometimes he works all night and he stiil comes to church Sunday morning. This last week he brought 4 of his kids by himself to church. He is awesome. His name is Claudio and use to be an athiest. 

We will have some interesting weeks ahead with a new presidente and helping him out and my companion that will be going home at the end of this change. It will be an exciting time. I pray for you all I love you all so much I cannot wait to squeez you all with big bear hugs. How it amazes me how much little Flynn looks like a little man to me already. I love you all like crazy be an example of the believers

Elder Stewart-Chester