May 19th, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been quite hilarious and fun in several ways. Here in Prosperidad we have a hilarious crazy mission leader who is like no one else. So I taught him the English word for Pimples and ever since he has called me Elder Pimples. And he calls me that, EVERYWHERE. In lessons with investigators, (Now they think my name is literally Elder Pimples), at the past stake conference we saw him and he yelled hey! Brother freaking Pimples! Come here! (He knows only a little English and almost all of it is bad or gross and he talks about those things all the time. It is beyond funny. Especially in lessons because he comes often.) While everyone was standing there talking. Our mission President even came to the stake conferenceand I was talking to his wife at the end when he did that. Beyond funny. Me and my companion couldn´t stop laughing about it. Quite awkward for me though. No matter though!

Another crazy old man kissed at me at the bus stop and then stared at me on the bus last Monday which was awkward and weird. But, very funny at the same time.

We also have a 14 year old in our branch here who plays piano better than most people who have played for 15 years in the states. He can play extremely complicated songs and hymns and make it look easy. He can play that very complicated theme song of Pirates of the Carribean. So he was playing at a ward baptism for his 8 year old little brother when the wife of our branch president came over and started headbanging to his playing. And she is a rich serious woman so that was also very hilarious. We were all standing there marvelling and then she came over, marvelled and then started headbanging. It was so awesome.

We also had some problems with teenagers and knew where they live so we told our crazy mission leader, he went to the boys house, told the father, and the father immediately got the boy and slapped him. We definitely have the best mission leader.

On the bus this week we were all very squished together as usual when the person you pay on the bus suddenly started yelling for everyone to get on the bus faster and then told all the people to suck in their stomachs which was hilarious. There was a bunch of fat people so we just started laughing and looked away.

Something gross is we saw kids drinking out of the disgusting cewer/canal/water drainage system. That was disgusting and humbling and just so many different things. 

Something political is they are having President elections soon and someone called Pedro is running so it´s awesome to see signs that say ¨Votá por Pedro¨ which means vote for Pedro. Remember Napolean Dynamite when you read that.

Last thing was some dumb guy on a motorcycle swerved to try and hit me so I jumped out of the way and mumbled bad things under my breath for the rest of the way to the investigator´s house. I don´t know if he really would have hit me but that is the thing to do hear. He have dumb teenagers swerve their bikes in front of us all the times. But a motorcycle made my heart stop haha. I am still learning how to be Christ like and no curse my enemies. Harder than I thought it would be! 

Don´t worry I do have spiritual experiences here and learn a lot and have great stuff but I figure you guys just want to hear the funny crazy weird stuff so I hope you enjoyed! Love you all, have a great week! Talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Moss

May 12th, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been awesome for several reasons. Last Sunday was mother´s day so it was awesome to have the opportunity to skype home for forty minutes and see my lovely family again. Had to hold in the tears of course. My pride is still strong haha. 

In other reguards we have some new investigators that seem promising which makes the work so much easier.The work is incredible when you actually get to teach and feel the spirit. Walking around aimlessly 7-8 hours a day is obviously torture. I feel bad for American missionaries in that reguard. We always have people walking around and can talk. Most reject or are just being nice but at least someone there to talk to! But heating and air conditioning is nice on the other hand... Hard to judge! Haha. 

In weird reguards, we see people selling stuff and offering services in the street often like wash windows, sell flowers etc but this week we saw a fire juggler for entertainment while in the bus. Sick huh!? Way cool to see something new. Wish I could have given him a few pesos, that was awesome.

Other than that, we had transfers for a day, I forgot how to say it in English. Anyways, my comp went with the district leader and I got a old missionary with 22 months and we just went to members homes because he wanted to be lazy. It was really funny. I felt like I was taking a day off from the work. I felt bad but we still taught them and plus, I am the greeny that doesn´t speak Spanish and he didn´t speak English so it isn´t my fault. I wash my hands in front of you. (Read Jesus the Christ to get that reference.)The members always give food, have us in the house so we can sit down for once and it was just really easy. He sure does take advantage of the time when the district leader is away. 

We also had a multizone conference in the city so that was awesome, inspiring, and way fun overall. We all got free pizza, fruit and alfajores. So much fun and easier than working. You really come to appreciate the small things in a mission.  Thanks everything for the letters, packages, and emails. They are just so awesome to recieve and a great break from thinking about the work. You love the work but breaks are necessary. Hope all is well back home and you all are having fun! Even without me. Just kidding :) Love you guys.

Elder Moss

May 5th, 2014

Dear Family and Friends!

This past week has been a bit slow since we have no progressing investigators. The work sucks when no one acts on their faith. They say they will be baptized and then they don´t even go to church. It is a struggle. Plus we have a ridiculous amount of less actives here who won´t go. One ward down here has 5% activity rate. The activity in the church down here struggles. Truly struggles. But! Missionaries here work hard and do their best. We got a new district leader who is way better than the last. The last one was extremely competetive, and ¨all knowledgable¨ and just annoying. Always telling me how I should do things (personal things not mission things).So it is nice having a new one. He is a much better leader and much kinder too. 

On the home front, the hot water still sucks. I took a shower basically attached to the wall because the semi warm water comes out at at half the rate a kitchen faucet does in America. Very annoying but still funny.

In church I saw the first testimony meeting where a couple went up. Strange but cool. Couldn´t say I saw that before.

This last week we tried to visit a investigator and we couldn´t get to the house for like a half hour because this devil dog tried to bite us and kept barking like crazy so we went to the house, saw us and chased us away, got bored, we go back, he chased us back again etc. It was extremely funny. That dog must have demons to repel missionaries haha. Another time we went to a house, stood outside of it and waited. Then a man came, walked past, walked into the house and didn´t answer despite lots of clapping.

 I forgot to tell you guys! Everyone here claps to knock. They all have gates so we are like 100 feet from houses and clap as hard as we can to get them to come. Plus they all kiss here so we try not to but we get kissed a lot. It´s way funny. Like everyone. Men kiss men´s cheeks, women kiss women´s cheeks and whatever else. It´s funny because people forget to not do it with missionaries and we can´t be rude so it´s awkward because we don´t kiss back. 

There is also some weird old men here. Some of the 70 year old men play racing games in the Cyber which is really funny. 

Last week was Day of the Worker on Thursday so no one worked and we had no buses which sucked. Needless to I got a lot more foot callus that day. As if I didn´t have enough.

Humidity is crazy. I got a hot shower once a few days ago and with the cold, I could just blow and it was like I was smoking a giant cigarette. The water in my breath was beyond thick. It is like Gandalf when he smokes the Pipeweed in the first Lord of the Rings. Speaking of movies, we were on the craziest bus a few weeks ago that just flew through neighborhoods at like 50 MPH. I felt like I was on the insane double decker bus from Harry Potter. The one with the hanging head! haha. It was awesome though. Very terrifying. Other than that, love you all! Miss you all, hope you had a great week and have another great week! Take care!

Love,

Elder Moss

Addresses for Elder Moss

These are Elder Moss' mail and email addresses.
Apparently the email address is not restricted to family and by the way Derek loves to get mail.





Elder Derek Thomas Moss
Uruguay Montevideo Mission
Dalmiro Costa 4635 Bis
Malvin
11400 Montevideo
Uruguay

derek.moss@myldsmail.net

April 28th, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This last week was pretty relaxed and crazy. We got our house renovated so lot´s of bugs and moving stuff and whatever but now we have a clean house and a new fridge that actually works and a microwave that won´t give you Tetnis! Everything is rusting and sharp and whatever so we are getting stuff replaced. 

They replaced our water heater and forgot to hook up the hot water to the shower or something else is wrong. Either way, I have been taking my showers in a bucket filled with hot water from the sink. I took a glass and transfered water from the sink to the bucket and then washed. It sucks but is way funny. New experiences I guess. Keep in mind when we wake up, it is so cold we can see our breath and then think about my showers in a bucket. New perspective? 

We had the workers who are members make lunch with us so now I know a few Uruguayan recipes for Gizo, Arroz con Leche, and I forgot the other. They are way good though. One is a desert and weird but good. It is basically warm rice with sugar, milk, and cream. Trust me, it´s weird. But still very good.

One rich guy in our ward went to Brazil and brought us back these Brazilian chocolates that are phenonamal. The kindness of these members is outstanding. I love this ward so much. You guys have no idea how kind and caring and funny they are. Just great great people.

Another funny experience was we were at a bus stop trying to go to a zone meeting and the Jehovahs witnesses started preaching to us. It was just one that came up to us. She was nervous so she just said like three lines, handed us pamphlets and left quickly. She didn´t give us any opportunity to correct her or bible bash or anything! Just kidding. We wouldn´t do that. But one guy yesterday tried to preach to us and said a bunch of weird stuff so my companion corrected him a lot. He even said Nicodemus wrong so my companion corrected him making him feel like he knew nothing. Afterwards my companion said he felt good. Way too funny. He was like, I won. Hahahaha. We just laughed and left. Other than that not too much happened this week. Or I just forgot. Either way it was a good week. Hope all is well back home! Love you guys! Until next week!

Enjoy the picture of how Uruguayans fix their potholes, and our house under construction!

Love,

Elder Moss

Pictures for 14 and 22 April 2014

April 22, 2014

Dear Friends and Family,

So first cambios are done and I am still alive and doing well. Still with my trainer and in this sweet area of Prosperidad(Prosperity). Not too much happened this week in regards of weird things but we are working hard!

I hate that I am allergic to every bug here. I apply bug bite cream daily. No joke. The bugs won´t die! It´s freezing at night and they just won´t die! It is going to be a loooooong two years with these stupid bugs. 

We ran into my first German this last week as a matter of fact and then I see a lot of Germany soccer jerseys which I try to always compliment. I also saw a shirt today in German so that was cool too. I only spoke to one who was visiting friends here for Easter and he had a sweet German accent on his Spanish. I told him my mother is from Karlsruhe which he thought was cool!

This last Sunday was Easter as you know and I had to awesome terrible opportunity to give a talk. I had to talk about the atonement for 10 minutes and I actually took too long which was cool! I had only a tiny bit of help from my companion and people said they understood and appreciated the message so I was content.

We could be the dumb bad missionaries who just baptize children and then they go inactive for their whole lives but we aren´t doing that. Those missionaries are made fun of here. The people are great and receptive but lazy and never home. to bring five people to the waters of baptism. They struggle to even come to church so not too much progress but we are working with them.On Easter we went to 14 homes and not one would either let us in or were home. They were either empty or busy. Very frustrating but whatever. Needless to say I have gained leg muscle mass. I estimate we walk 5-10 kms a day which actually isn´t too bad compared to some areas.

What was hard to look away from was some members were watching one of my favorite movies Happy Gilmore and didn´t turn it off when we came in. So I stared at the floor for like 30 minutes and ocassionally peeked. I felt bad but it was too much of a temptation. Such a fun movie!

We also went to a recent converts house and killed snails by stepping on them which was really funny. The 10 year old got way into it. 

Getting used to sheep, horses, cows, ducks, chickens, roosters, dogs, cats etc EVERYWHERE is still weird. But way cool. We mess with them a lot. We tried to feed some ducks with nuts but it didn´t work. Oh well.

Since everything is really expensive we make our own peanut butter, tortas fritas, and weird other stuff. Peanut butter is way fun to make and really easy and better than store bought anyways. We are going to make a kg worth of peanut butter today, wish us luck! 

Love you guys!

Elder Moss