I love to see the temple

So this past weekend I went to Uruguay again, this time I just went with Monica, it wasn't a stake trip. I was really excited, but also nervous, because I had never done this kind of traveling before, and I had no idea really how to get to the temple, because I had been with the stake before and they had organized everything.
Thursday we left to go to Uruguay, all day I was super busy and stressed out of my mind! Finally night time came and Monica got to my apartment, and we left. After waiting for a little while we got on the boat and we were off!! I couldn't really believe we were finally going to the temple!! We had been trying to do this for a long time!! While on the boat I saw some people I thought I recognized, they looked like members. Well when we got off the boat they were all headed to the same bus, I found out who the lady in charge was and asked if we could ride with them, because their bus was going straight to the temple, where as we would have to take several different buses to find our way. At first the lady in charge said no, that there was no room, then she said there was room, but not very much. After a long time of going back and forth she finally said there was only one seat, so we walked away to find a different bus. Then she came up to us and said there were actually 2 seats. We were so happy and went back, because we had no idea how to get to the temple otherwise. When we climbed up unto the bus we saw that there were actually 4 or more seats available, but whatever at least we got a seat!!

After a long and exhausting trip through the night we finally made it to the temple, got our room and had time to shower and get ready, no rest for the weary! Turns out when I paid for the room in BsAs, it didn't show up in the system in Uruguay, and I didn't bring the receipt with me and they were saying I would have to pay again, I was a little frustrated, it really isn't a lot of money, but still the fact that I would have to pay twice really annoyed me. Luckily the guy sent an email to the people in BsAs and they found my transaction so I didn't have to pay twice!

Finally we got to the temple, and it was AMAZING!! Monica absolutely loved it, and it was just a really special experience. I think this is one of the most amazing things to experience as a return missionary, to see your converts in the temple!!

After the temple one of my friends from the mission who lives close by came to the session and invited us over for lunch. So we went to his house and ate lunch and then he showed us around Montevideo a little bit. We were both so exhausted so we didn't do much, but we did go to the beach!! I was so excited, I love the beach, we had fun walking in the sand and getting our feet wet!

Monica and I were both so tired after not getting much sleep so we went back to the hostel and ended up going to bed at like 9:30!! That was good though because we woke up at like 5:30 because we wanted to make it for the first session of the day, which was at 7! We made it just in time and loved every minute of it. After that we went back to our room and got everything packed and ready to go, then ate lunch. As we were eating lunch I saw one of my mission companions walk by. I couldn't believe it! I jumped up and ran to say hi to her, I have now seen all of my mission comps except one!!

Finally we headed back to BsAs, but not without a few problems first of course!! We were almost left by the bus, then we finally got to the boat, and once we were all on the boat and just waiting for it to leave we heard a big crash and the whole boat started shaking. I thought we hit an iceberg!!! haha ok not really, we were still docked, but everyone went running to the front of the boat to see what happened, after waiting for a few minutes to see what happened someone finally announced that a car had crashed into the port door as it was being loaded on the boat and they were trying to fix it. After waiting for 3 hours they finally called for a boat from BsAs to come get us so we could go home. All in all we were supposed to get him at like 9:30 or 10pm, we didn't get home until 2:30am. Below is a pic of our broken boat!

There were a lot of ups and downs about this trip, but so totally worth it, and to be honest everything worked out in the end!!

I'm so grateful for the restored gospel on the earth today!!!