Hola Familia-More Photos!

We got lots of photos from Ben this week. His letter was fairly short, but all of the photos and explanations made up for it. It is great to see him so happy and loving Uruguay and the people!

Just another great week in South America. I took a ton of pictures this week, I'll send as many as I can. This first one is me and Élder Ve'e wearing Lava-lavas in the house for fun (remember that his family is from Samoa). I think Ben looks pretty good in his :)

All the people have giant paragalas (I dont know if thats the name). It is these grapes and their vines that they use for shade. Almost no one actually eats them, so we always ask if we can take some right before they go bad. I looked online and found that the most common variety of grapes in Uruguay is Tannat, which is used for wine making. These look like them.

P-day activity: Me, Élder Ve'e, Élder Lord, Élder Lambert, Hermano Castro (white shirt), and Hermano Agustín (black and white shirt)

Hermano Castro and I at the P-Day activity. We played fútbol, football, and basketball. I actually enjoyed it! (If you know Ben, you know that before going on his mission, you would never find him playing any sport--he was all about music. It is so good to see him embracing the activities available with the other Elders and members of the Ward and "enjoying it".)
This week was crazy. It was fun though. I don't have as much time as normal to send emails, but I hope you enjoy the photos.

This week started Carnaval. We aren't allowed to go to the actual festival area in our town to do contacts or anything, and almost all the people are either at carnaval, or out visiting family.

We're having a little bit of a hard time finding people to talk to. This week we also got to do some service with the Élder's quorum. An hermano (brother) is building a house for his son-in-law, who just had a grave accident.  We went and pretty much worked with concrete all day. Remember that there are not houses made of wood here. Only concrete. They made all the walls out of concrete then they chizzle out holes to put the windows. This was my job all day, I chizzled out window holes in the size they wanted.

It was crazy. I was covered in so much dust from the cement. This week was awesome! Sorry I don't have more time to email, but just know I love you guys so much. I'm learning so much.

P.S. This week my goal is to have an English fast. Hopefuly I'll have the Self-discipline to do it all week, Haha. It's not very fun, and not very easy but it's something I know I need to do if I want to improve. I understand everything (96%), no I just need to work on the whole talking part. 

P.P.S. This last week I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish for the first time. I started about 4 weeks into the CCM. I didn't really understand anything until I got to 3 Nephi, but hey, now I get it! and I´m excited to start over again to get even more. 

Love you guys,

Élder Taylor

Conference earlier this week in the chapel at the Uruguay Montevideo Misión. It was super informative and very helpful. We had it with our substitute Mission President and his wife, Pres. Etchegaray (they are native Uruguayos, and I think he is either an Area Seventy or was in the past). We learned a lot about retention and working with the ward.

The chapel where the Mission offices are