Well I guess you heard the news..

Yep I will be home the 27th of December..... I am not gonna lie I was sad. I love being a missionary so much it is almost impossible for me to imagine myself not being a missionary. I know that another part of my life will need to begin and whatnot but it is still so hard for me to imagine putting on a regular white shirt without stains of long hours of hard work for the lord and then not putting the name of my Saviour over my heart. There is only one place in the world you can do that. Here. i love you all so much thank you for your prayers and for believing in me enough to teach me and love me. I have changed so much I doubt you will even know who I am anymore. Luckily I am a little bit more of who the Savior wants me to be but I still have so much more to grow. But after we will be able to all grow together. I hope in 2 months we will have huge family lessons and I will be teaching you all like crazy all the things I learned here for two years:) 

Anyway this week I had a very special couple of experiences. Lets start with Saturday and Sunday. Well we had our Stake conference here in our stake and we had a couple of amazing experiences. With all the changes and excitement that  our new president and all the focus on missionary work in all the world , our stake president who once did not really trust the missionary effort here has really changed and invited us a long with president Smith to teach all the bishops in our stake. So we went and me and my companion taught and the spirit was very strong and the president taught and we were able to witness the Lord working here in Uruguay changing the beliefs of the bishops here in our mission. Miracles are happening. 

Then sunday Well something cool was that President Smiths wife and Kids (which I love because it is like having fltcher here with me (because Jerry and fletcher would be close friends) came to stake conference and I translated for them the whole meeting. It was a powerful stake conference and president had all of the missionaries stand in the crowd and Shout "HOY ES EL DÏA" which we did luckily  none of us were seated in the chapel but he talked about how the Lord is hastening his work and that we need to get to work. He said....the sabbath day is a day of rest from our labours but not the Lord's then he reminded everyone about Elder Ballard's promise that we all need to invite one person to come and feel the Savior's love before Christmas just one person and we will see miracles and huge amounts of people return to church and visit for the first time. It was powerful and helped give all of the talks excitement as every other speaker also made mention in one point of their talk that today is the day!!! 

When I translated the last talk of our stake president Presidente Cerruti, I was in the middle of translating what he said when I heard and I would like to hear the testimony of a missionary that also believes and feels that today is the day. O f all the missionaries he could´ve asked I was the one chosen to get up and share my testimony with everyone. Powerful spirit was felt there by me on the pulpit.  I just bore testimony and sat down and began to translate again for our stake president who gave an amazing talk about how the Lord is hastening his work and we need to jump on the train. We cannot be left behind. He said I do not know how He is going to do it but He will do it and we need to be there with Him. 

Boy do I know that is true. Recently here in the mission me and my companion uncovered something of such worth it is incredible. We have created the monthly missionary Goals for our ward and our ward is growing so much in desire to serve and participate in the work of salvation one day I will tell you all in person how we really did the whole process and it will confirm to you as it did to me that I can do nothing by myself but with the Lord's help all can be accomplished. God Is there and puts thoughts in our minds when we least expect it. The thing we always need to do is remember to always give Him the credit. As King Benjamin says we are nothing but dust but with God's help we can become even as He is! Wow I love the Gospel. 

I also had a spiritual experience this week with a missionary that does not think he is a good person. I helped him put goals to see more miracles in his life and mission and to give more to the lord. I love him and know he is a great person. And later we had a lesson with a little recent convert who is like 10 and in that lesson we invited her to ask heavenly father if the the celestial kingdom is real which she did the spirit was strong I asked her how do you feel?  she said I feel he told me yes. I asked her who else do you want to feel this feeling that you feel right now and she started giving us name after name of family members she loves. It was a powerful moment for this missionary as well. 

Ladies and gentlemen this Church is True Ask God and you can know for yourself. Say your prayers and be a good and God will answer but only if you stop and listen. I love my Savior I continue daily to learn more about what he did for me and it brings me to tears. 

I love you all be strong I will see you all soon. 

Elder Stewart-Chester

Ps. I have thought about my calls on Christmas a lot and I dont want to just talk about anything and everything. What I want from every one of you everyone expecially you Dad and Christina Is that you all share with me your testimonies All the things you know that are true and then I want to share with you mine before my mantle is taken Away I love you all once again. E´S-C 

More pictures

Uruguay beauty

P day

Our zone title of liberty!!

Zone oeste!!

Drinking sprite with a sour punch straw!

Man it is hard coming up with new subjects

What a week. I dont have too much time lots to do and there was a ton of photos to look at. It looks like everyone is happy and healthy that is what we need. 

This week we taught the Capacitation to all the zone leaders and now this week and the next they will teach it to the whole mission. It went really well and it was someithing that truely works as members you guys need direction on where to focuss our ward missionary efforts so all the mission was excited to put it into practise. 

I am not going to lie I love Concilio it is one of the highlights of my whole mission everytime you feel the spirit so strong and you are able to see the lords hand move forward his work. I love to learn aswell and realize I am so small and lack so much but luckily I have lots to learn and will spend my whole life studying and bringing myself closer to the savior. I love my saviour I could never do any of this without him 

I recently may have lost my debit card so I wont be able to take out money. Good news I took out most of it last week so I am good. I dont even know if you could get me on before my mission ends so I´ll look this week and if not maybe we will just cancel it. 

This week we had a sweet ward activity that we were incharge of and it was a pizza competition and there was some good pizzas. We made one and put tons of hot sauce on it and all the kids were freaking out because here no one likes spicy food really:) It was funny. 

This week We will probably be on divisions most of the week. there are a few problems in our zone with missionaries that dont get a long and missionaries that need help knowing that there are people being prepared in their areas. I pray I can help. Something that God has taught me here in the mission is I can go and teach someone how to find in their area or how to have succes or talk with people and members but they will forget and fall back into old traps of laziness but if I teach a missionary how to convert himself he will always be converted and will never give his second best. 

I love you all like crazy the weeks fly by.... I cannot believe I have already bean here for so long feels like I arrived a month ago... 

I love you be strong I pray for you all always

Elder Stewart-Chester

My son Elder Dio and my grandson with his companionship that split...

Elder degn from utah height scale.  Elder Elliot my trainer would be below me....;)

Pictures 10/21

Poster we made for Halloween activity...

My companion is the artist.  I just drew a little.

The sky at 6:30 pm from our home....

Our pizza activity....

Pizza 

My companion making pizza;)

all the missionaries in concilio (Leaders Conference)

My socks

awesome Elder Eiker from our zone he arrived 2 weeks ago in the mission everyone says he looks like me. He is a convert of 1 year.

A week without much sleep

What a week Ladies and gentlemen. Shall we start with why the title is what it is. Lets just say This last tuesday night I slept a total of 0 hours but it was amazing to me how the lord pushed me a long all week. Because of being ZL in the house right next to the terminal we have to take missionaries to take buses to go to there next area and we do that throughout the night. I tried to sleep at about 2:30 in the morning but the house was so crammed with missionaries that it was impossible on the floor so I just got up at 4:30 and went showered and then did another mornings work in the terminal. Lets just say i was so tired the next day I fell asleep every time we said a prayer in a lesson and I do not even remember when I actually got in bed or what I was doing all I remeber was waking up and woundering where in the world was I. 

But yah since then we taught an amazing capacitation that we taught the one  day after our night without sleep.( we made a sweet title of liberty and everything I´ll send a picture when we take one with our whole zone) and we have begun planning another becuase this thursday we have a meeting with all the zone leaders of the mission and President has asked us to give a capaciation on something we have started to do here in our area. Called our monthly Goals. Should be great. I´ll send you guys the outline I did to send to presidente Smith. 

Something awesome that Happened is I got to see my son and my grandson Which was soooo Cool I need to send that picture aswell. I am not sure how you spell my grandkids last name but I think it is Elder Degn he is from Utah:) he is way huge too which makes me look funny because I am shorter than Elder Dio and Elder Elliott was shorter than me its like a hight scale. 

You´ll all be pleased to find out that more miracles have been happening with Rodrigo as he is out of the hospital again but was super depressed because of all his health problems and felt that everything was a punishment from God because he did not return home with honor from his mission. But God rained blessing down on him and now he has a free ticket to Buenos Aires to visit the best hospital here in this area when it come to the heart and he also has a free place to stay and everything. I just looked at him and said dont doubt the lord This is a miracle he does miracles. They leave tuesday they are a wonderful family. We are now working with his mother and grandmother to get them also to partake once again of the peace that is here for them. 

Life is Good. I got a call from President the other day and he talked me through these changes this last week and we talked about having better communciation and all I can say is he blows my mind all the time with his humility and faith in me and apreciation I think that is something we could all really do better Tell others how much they mean to us and how much they help us it makes one feel on top of the world yet today we dont say it much. What would the world be like if we told others how much they ment to us more... 

What else... I got a package!!! yay super great lots of yummy snacks thank you mom. 

I love you all a lot and it is nutts to me how fast the time flies and how much older everyone is... I know that change however is good new beginning new goals and dreams and tallents. I will be learning Banjo when I get home I have to know one instrument and I feel like it is the one for me. 

I love you all Be good Read your scriptures thank you for your letters they make me cry sometimes expecially teddy:) He is such a good Guy I love you all be examples always

Elder Stewart-Chester

The Lord's Will

Well Folks changes have come once again and you are probably very interested in what has happened to this guy.  Well even though it is extremely strange and never happens.....I have stayed Zone leader here for the 3rd change in a row with my companion and we are staying together another change. I am grateful for the chance to keep working and making a difference here in Oeste I have been blessed by the Lord so much to be here in the mission when the Lord is hastening his work. 

Lots has happened from miracles to conference to changes to personal revelation and I find myself not knowing where to start. 

We´ll start with changes. Well changes here in the mission now are crazy. We had gotten used to the way that President Heaton did changes and it was very predictable but now it is likely that every change 50% of the Zone leaders change every change so you always wonder what is going to happen. All Sunday we awaited our call that normally the ZL's get to tell them where they are going or what is going on in their zone. I am still waiting for that call.... I recieved the changes that they send to all the zone leaders Monday but I would like to know why some things happened. I have felt all day yesterday like the Vine in the mormon message by Elder Christofferson where he talked about a tall beautiful plant that was growing so tall but giving no fruit so the lord of the vineyard prunes and cuts it down and the plant laments. Why did you do this to me?" and the the lord of the vineyard says "I am the gardener and I know how I want you to be and the best way you can give fruit and live up to your potential. Lets just say with these changes they took out all the sisters from our zone and closed two areas in our zone that were going to be important areas for us and changes out lots of missionaries. But God's will is what matters and if it is what He needs we will find our true potential. 

A great thing that happened with Changes is I am going to be a grandfather!!!! My son is Training and I will be able to see him and take a picture with him wednesday! We are stoked. I will send it next week. 

Now Conference. Well in our Zone we put a huge focus on Conference this last month we have been preparing and capacitatiing members and inviting people to come and inviting people to invite. We had worked so hard and we truely saw much fruit from our efforts. We had many investigators in attendance. Me and my companion also participated in another miracle. Me and my companion had worked so hard to be the example for our zone inviting everyone in our ward making zone Goals and ward goals. and when it came down to this last week we found that one by one all of our investigators told us they could not go to conference or that they had emergencies and were in the hospital or something serious came up. All the saturday Sessions we had waited and called but our investigators just disoloved we could not believe it. But instead of waiting and watching the inbetween sessions stuff I sent most of the zone back to their areas to look for people and those few left over worked with us outside and we invited everyone that passed by to come and enjoy conference. 

Not going to lie not 1 of the people that we invited Saturday or Sunday, because we did it the both days,came to conference but we had spiritual experiences and God saw us working as well as our stake presidency. And for that God rained down his blessings. A member brought a friend of his and his daughter to Sunday morning session and an investigator that we thought was not coming found the courage to fight his depression and made it to the last session on Sunday. We were so happy because Sunday morning we truely thought we were going to have a weekend without any investigators in Church to have the spritual experience to listen to the prophet but we had 4.  It was a miracle. 

Something else that happened this week was we received two other sister missionaries and we opened a new area mid week but now with the changes they are both leaving and we have to explain to a bishop that there will be more coming. (or I think so) 

Other than that Rodrigo is in the hospital again because he is retaining lots of liquid so pray for him. He had changed so much  it truely is a miracle. He and his wife have begun helping us a ton in the work of Salvation.   It is amazing to see people start to understand that it is their job as members to share the gospel. 

I wanted to share a little bit of personal revelation that I recieved from General Conference, just a little.  Someday I will show you what I do with my conference notes to find the revelation from God. I wrote down tons of Questions and all that God could answer were answered in conference. It was a miracle and I received so much instruction. I was amazed.   Something I received was the need that parents have to show their children how to study really study the scriptures. I think it would´ve been something of great value for me as I grew to have my parents show me the answers they received in there personal studies of the scriptures. Showing me what I needed to do in my own study. It is never to late to start. 

Something I recieved as revelation from God is that all my life I am going to feel as I live my life that I am so far from perfection and I cannot let that get to me I know but it is something that will always bite at me. But what the lord Gave me Through his servants was what I needed to do in those situations= rely on the atonement. Not only for all my pain and suffering and for forgiveness from my sins but also to help me understand that I am not going to ever be perfect and I must rely to receive the strength I need to say I will just keep working harder.  I cannot be the best teacher, the best missionary but I can work on it as a life goal like president Uchtdorf said. And use the atonement every step of the way. 

I love you all so much This is a long email. I hope you enjoy it! 

Elder Stewart-Chester