Móstoles

Hey everyone!

Man it feels like forever since I last wrote everyone. A lot has happened since then. So, I'm officially out of the MTC now, and I'm in the field. Things have been great so far, still a little bit of a transition, and it's taking some getting used to, but it's great. The first days were a little rough, because I felt very out of place. And I was really missing everyone from the MTC; we became so close. It really felt like saying goodbye to the family again. I am coming to love it here. There are still hard moments every once in awhile, but it's not too bad.

After Monday and the last short little email I sent, we had a district devotional that was pretty good. Then we took some pictures as a district then went to bed. Everyone who was going to Barcelona or Málaga was up at 5 in the morning and that included Elder Castagnetto and Elder Heninger, so I just got up and got ready and the same time. I went downstairs with the missionaries who were leaving and said bye to everyone; that was a little hard. We had all become pretty close and since we are in different missions, we wouldn't see each other for pretty much the foreseeable future. So I said goodbye and then headed back upstairs, I still had 2-3 hours before the assistants for our mission were going to pick us up, so I just cleaned up the room a bit and packed the last minute stuff. After that, the entire Madrid mission group got together, and we just waited. Eventually we got picked up, and we went to an outlook over Madrid. That's where we met with President Pack. We had a short devotional and then spent a few minutes picking up trash around the area then it was off to the mission home.

Goodbyes

Monday, March 20, 2017

 

Goodbye to the Moroni District

Hey Mom and Dad, 

I'm already back emailing. Man these past couple of days have gone by so quickly. As you can imagine, there isn't a lot to email, because it's only been a couple of days. This is really more of a transition email, but there are a lot of cool things that I want to include.

Saturday was our last park day. I was able to have my actual companion as my park companion this last time, which was really cool. We were able to get 2 referrals; I really felt guided by the Spirit as I was working.

Cousins reunited!

Hey everyone!

This is going to be a really short email; we found out that we actually aren't allowed to prep emails before hand. Last time was just a miscommunication. So it's back to one hour for writing.

Man, it’s been a great week. Time is flying by so fast here. It’s hard to believe that in 4 more days I'll be in the field. I'm definitely going to miss the MTC and everyone I've come to love here, but I'm so excited to get out and start serving.

Here’s a really cool thing that happened. I was studying in class and president came in and pulled me out. He then proceeded to tell me that, because he trusted me to be brief, I could go outside and say hi to Elder Brasher who was going to the temple. It was definitely cool to see him again. I'm really grateful that President gave me that opportunity to go see him.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Hey Guys!

So I found out that in our free time at night, we are allowed to prep emails so that we don't have to rush to write and send everything in the hour we have on Thursday -kind of nice! Hopefully, it will help me to be able to put in more detail.

Mom, thank you for that scripture from Jacob. It really did make me feel better. I'm happy to hear that things are going so well in primary. I definitely know what you are talking about with the Spirit, and it's really cool. I may not be in the field yet, but we teach lessons everyday.

On to last week. When I finished my letter, as always we went to the temple, and as always, it was a very special experience. After that, we came back had lunch and then went off to check out a museum called The Rein a Sofia. It's a pretty famous museum. It has a lot of modern art, cubism, a bunch of Picasso pieces. Not going to lie- that whole museum kind of worried me out. It was confusing, weird, and a lot of it didn't make any sense at all. Plus another downside, a lot of the stuff had way too much nudity. I honestly don't feel like it is a museum that missionaries should be going to. I guess I was right, too, because we later found out that we went to the wrong museum and weren't actually supposed to go to that one. That explained a lot.  After that, we went to Plaza de Sol again. No churros this time, but I did get gelato and a burger from McDonald's. I was honestly surprised how much I missed burgers. All of the Spanish food is great, but I do miss food from home. After that, we came back and watched a devotional by Elder Hinckley. It was really good. We had a great spiritual discussion about it in our district.

No gelato for me?

So on to the next day, it was Friday. We usually do service on Fridays, but since we were going to be fasting the next day and unable to do sports, we did sports instead. A little change to our schedule, so that's what stood out on Friday.  On Saturday we went to the park. My companion was Elder Lukatch from Ukraine. Elder Lukatch speaks English, Ukrainian and Russian but no Spanish, so I was really feeling the pressure while we were at the park. He did his best to help though. He had so fun learning “Hola” and “¿Como estas?” It was pretty fun. We had a lot of good conversations. We were blessed enough to find two different groups that spoke Ukrainian. That was definitely cool for him and for me to be apart of it.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

 Hey everyone!

Man, it really feels like it's been a busy week; a lot has gone down. So starting from last p-day after emails and the temple, we went to a museum that was pretty cool.

 The next couple of days were pretty good. My park companion was Elder Pierce from Alaska. We did pretty well and had a bunch of good conversations, some weird ones, too. Like the one old guy who wouldn't stop talking about capitalism, and how it's ruining the world; at least, that's what I think he was saying. He was talking pretty fast and had a thick accent.

After the park we had an experience that I'm still I little frustrated about. We were on the metro back to the MTC. Elder Pierce and I kept getting looks from this one guy. I kept telling myself, “No, he's on the opposite side of the train; there's no need.” Finally, we decided to go talk to him. Immediately, I could tell he was super receptive; he definitely seemed eager to listen to us. But as soon as we said we were missionaries, we reached our stop and had to get off. I was so annoyed at myself and wished we had gone and talked to him sooner. He took a copy of The Book of Mormon, and it had a pass along card inside. I just hope that he calls to find out more.