Bye Elder Bentley!! Dec. 4, 2014

Hey guys I'm glad to hear that you guys had a good Thanksgiving! Everyone looked good and it sounds like you had a fun time with the family. Congrats to Matt for being invited to Florida, that is sooo sick! Sounds like Dad and Josh are also going to be having a good stay there in nice sunny Florida...sorry mom;) 

This past week has been absolutely crazy though!! We knew for sure that this was going to be our last week together because President already told Elder Bentley he was going to the offices two weeks ago, so we were basically just sitting here waiting to hear who was going to be my new comp. On Friday President called me and said that the area of the zone leaders in Rivera was changing to Santa Isabel Bis, and I was like, thats my area, and he was like, I know, you and your new comp are going to be the zone leaders in Rivera. Haha I hope that President couldn't tell how shocked I was but he told me who my new comp is, Elder Toledo from Chile. I new him before in the mission and he is an awesome guy that is getting close to ending the mission, so I'm really glad that he will be able to help me out. I'm freaking out a little bit to be honest but I'm super excited at the same time!! Tonight I go at midnight to drop off Elder Bentley to go to Montevideo, and then I have to stay in Centro all day to get missionaries to the bus terminal and help them get where they need to be, go to the Brazilian bus terminal to pick up my comp, back to the Rivera terminal to welcome all the new guys coming in, go home for a minute, and then come back at midnight again to pick up the people in our zone that are went to montevideo to pick up the new misisonaries they are training. 

So apart from the fact that I am staying in the same place but getting my world flip upside down, this week was awesome! We were getting Ernesto all set for his baptism, and he was so stoked! The only thing that kinda startled us was that two days before he dyed his hair jet black. Just cause. Apart from that though, he showed up to church, enjoyed the clases and then afterward we had the baptisimal service and he and Elder Bentley did a great job! Elder Bentley made me so proud getting in there and performing the baptism flawlessly! Ernesto came out and wanted to do it again, it was awesome! I was so glad that everything worked out because we spent a ton of time working on the font in our church to make it clean and use clean water, and for a minute it looked like it wouldnt work, then worked out good in the end. I love Ernesto so much!! He is such a good guy and after his baptism he shared his humble testimony that he wants to keep learning and now that he is on the path, he is never leaving it!!

Also, this Sunday was the last day of  the national elections in Uruguay that is mandatory for all citizens, so our church attendance took a pretty bit hit. It was tough because we had been growing so well and everything was going up beautifully, and then we had a tough day for that. But luckily now we can move forward with no obstacles like elections! Haha we also got home from our choir practice sunday night, after it had rained all afternoon super hard, and we were just going to relax mi and Bentley alone, but we walked in to half our home with half a inch of standing water. We just looked at it, changed our clothes, and worked for about the next two hours getting all the water out and scrubbing all the floors. Luckily, carpet doesnt exist here, so we just used squigies(?) to do everything on our tile floor. Just getting a head jump on our cleaning day:) 

Lastly, I want to shout out to my boy Elder Bentley!! He is such a boss and has been an awesome companion and has helped me out so much and he gets serious work done! Santa Isabel and Elder Degn really are going to miss this kid, but he is truly going were the Lord needs him to be.

I love you all so much, thanks for everything!!
Elder Degn

He is the Gift. 

El es la Dadiva