Day of Nostalgia--gotta love the 80's

This is the letter Ben wrote on August 23, 2014.

Hola Familia,

How is everyone going? I'm doing great! Today is Day of Nostalgia in Uruguay. Lots of people here are dressing like they're from the70's and 80's and almost every bus and market is blasting the kind of music that Dad always listened to in the car. It's been a little difficult to not think back to Dad having the words to every song perfectly memorized.

How's Dad's diet going? I'm really proud of all of you for supporting him so much. The salsa looks delicious. (We got 3 bushels of tomatoes and ended up canning 84 quarts of salsa and 25 pints & 8 quarts of chili sauce last weekend). Down here it feels like summer. The other day it got up to 25°C. I have no idea how much that is, but it was warm. (that is around 77 degrees) 

This week Elder Galeano and I finished switching jobs. We've also taken on a new project. Recently the church has contracted out with Aetna International to provide medical coverage and provider coordination internationally. We used to deal with all the medical insurance reimbursement claims for the missionaries from the United States and Canada; once we make the change from the churches reimbursement method to Aetna a lot of work should be eliminated for us. We´re getting ready for the change and trying to get our most frequently used hospitals to participate in the Aetna Network of Provider. It should be interesting to get to see all of this take place down here. Hopefully we will have a larger choice of hospitals in the interior, right now almost every missionary needs to come all the way to Montevideo to get decent health care (Some missionaries travel up to 6 hours for a simple appointment).

This next week we will be having cambios. Almost every missionary will be coming down here to our chapel in Malvin. The oros (new missionaries) will be arriving this Tuesday and the Valientes (the returning missionaries) go home on Thursday. We have 16 Oros and 12 Valientes these cambios.

I was helping the secretaries with the baptismal records and had to call the Germany Frankfurt Mission to have a recent converts record transferred to her town in Worms Germany (she was a foreign exchange student who  has been here back and forth for over 4 years). The office missionary that answered the phone was someone from Zionsville, Indiana and participated in the Marching Band (we had competed against each other). Small world, right?

Well I continue working in the "How to Become a Preach My Gospel Missionary" packet we were given. It's been a very edifying experience. I'm learning so much and it is really helping me to have a much more focused and uplifting study. The questions would really be the best way for someone to prepare for missionary service; full time and every day missionary work.

I love you all so much and I hope that ya'll have a great week!

Élder Benjamin Taylor