Hey everyone!

Once there was a snowman (Lots more pictures below!)

So it's been a good week again. We have had a lot to do, and we are keeping super busy. To be honest, this week I'm having a hard time remembering all of the stuff that we did. I'll try and mention what comes to my mind right now.

One set of big news we received is about the new mission lines. Our new mission will have Seville, Granada, and Cadiz. Our mission is going to be huge after this! With the added missionaries, areas, and districts, it's going to be a lot to handle for the new mission president.

We went to a member's house for dinner last week. Awesome dinner, at least I thought so. Elder Keffer almost threw up when I ate the eye. Ha, he wasn't having any if it! The members were laughing super hard. 

Misadventures and Miracles

Hey!!!!

So it's only been a couple of days since the last time that I wrote, but they were an eventful couple of days. So I'll try to keep you filled in on the fun and spiritual things that happened.

So we had zone conference on Friday, which went super well. I was a little nervous, because it was with 4 zones and one of my responsibilities was to order the pizza for lunch. First time I've ever ordered 36 pizzas, and I was slightly worried that the pizza would never show up. Thankfully it did, and everyone was happy!

So another fun thing that happened is that the morning of zone conference while we were moving packages of missionaries into the chapel, our companion Elder Jäger ripped his pants. Pretty badly, too. So he was stranded in the bathroom while we had one of the matrimony sisters sew his pants back up for him. It was super funny, and we were all just laughing so hard about it. They were able to get it fixed though, and Elder Jäger was able to leave the bathroom. 

The zone conference itself was really great. We talked about how to improve our teaching and the importance of invitations and commitments. That is something that we are trying to work and improve on. I really enjoyed President's words. 

Hey everyone! 

So life is going pretty good here in the office. We have been keeping pretty busy, but we have made sure to have some time to go out and proselyte, so that has been pretty great. I have finished a lot of my bigger projects, so my workload is starting to die down a little, which is nice. Based on what Elder Tarver, the last secretary, around weeks 3 and 4 of the transfer things start getting a little more tranquilo letting us focus on normal missionary work for a bit. Then comes the business of weeks 5 and 6 and transfers starting everything up again. 

I don't remember if I mentioned it last week, but we had a really cool miracle happen to us about 2 weeks ago. On Sunday 2 weeks ago, a woman came to church who is a member, but hasn't been active for over 20 years. She just recently felt like she should come back to church, and so she came to church that Sunday with her 13-year-old son. Their names are Leandro and Carolina, and we have started to teach Leandro. He is a super cool kid and has a date to be Baptized for the 12 of May, so keep him in your prayers guys!

Other cool news, I recently found out that 2 of the investigators that I was teaching in Ferrol (my last area) got baptized. That made me super happy. It's the sister and daughter of the other woman (Militza) that we baptized while I was there in Ferrol. It makes me so happy to see that the family is all coming together and being unified in the church; it is such a testimony to me of the blessing and beauty of eternal families. 

This past week or so, I have been thinking and studying a little bit more about gratitude. I think that a lot of times in my life I've taken for granted all of the blessings that God has given to me and to my family. One thing that I have come to see and that has really opened my eyes on the mission is really how much some families in the world struggle. 

In every family I have met who are struggling to put food on the table or clothes in the closet, the happiest have always been those who openly talk about and acknowledge how many blessings from God that they have. That is just so incredible to me, to see the faith of some of these families. It's something that really motivates me. 

One thing I have been trying to do recently is every night when I say my prayers, I make a list in my head of all of the things that I was sincerely grateful for that day. It always helps me have a positive end of the day, and I wanted to invite everyone else to do it as well. I love you all and am so grateful for your prayers and examples!

- Elder Bassett 

I got a package!! It had a lot of candy in it...the candy disappeared very quickly. I also got a tie, which is very beautiful. Also a box of poptarts! All things were awesome and for all of them I have no idea who they are from. Early birthday? I'm 99% sure it's mom and dad, so thanks a bunch! It is always fun to get packages! 

Checking In

Hey everyone.

So not much has happened since the last time I wrote. We had a pretty standard weekend. Normally, we try and save Saturday for proselyting, but unfortunately, we had to come in so I could finish a couple things for this week. That's a big thing that we are working on right now- making sure that our proselyting is our priority and not the office work.

That's something that I want to try focusing on, because as of right now, I kind of have the mindset that when I receive a new job or that there is something that needs to get done, then I need to do it right then. If I do that every time though, then we would almost never leave the office. So one focus I have right now is on prioritizing.

Transfers and Conference

Hey everyone!!!!

So this past week has been super crazy, one of the busiest of my mission. Pretty much the main focus of my week was all on transfers. We received transfers Wednesday night, but before that we had already been in the office a bunch of times to start doing things to prep for transfers. So we received transfers Wednesday night at around 8 and immediately got to work finishing that night at around 10 or 11. Because I don't have a lot of time to be trained, Elder Tarver gave me a super brief rundown and then let me handle everything. Kind of like throwing your kid in the pool so he can learn to swim.

So we came in the next day, Thursday, right after studies, and we worked all day buying tickets, planning, and organizing. We took about a half hour lunch break and then got back to work finishing around 10:30. We repeated that Friday, finishing prepping and buying tickets Friday night.