Hey everyone 

Super sorry but I don't have any time at all today. We had our temple pday. Then we had to go pick up the Busseys from the airport, so we haven't had anytime at all today. I just wanted to check in and tell you all that I'm doing good. The area is going well and the work is progressing, till next time!

- Elder Bassett 

Enjoy the pictures!

This is some of our district minus Elders Liza and Gergov who were in the front seat.

We did apartment checks in mostoles and I got to pass by Alvaro! 

Elder Liza was giving me a haircut last night, because it was crazy long. (And Elder Gergov watching.)

We need to take the first step

The Best-Alvaro's baptism

Sup! 

I greet the people who read these letters. Man, it's been a crazy week! We have been super busy this week, but not really in the best ways. By that, I mean we haven't had a lot of time to talk to people this week, which was a little frustrating sometimes. But we'll have more time this week, so I'm excited. Things are good here; just pushing forward.

And it’s another big day for the family, Happy Birthday Jeffrey. Man, I can't believe that Jeff is already 16. Is he still tiny or is his working out starting to build him up? He really only needs to eat more, if he does then he can get huge like Taylor.

So, last week we had zone conference, which was nice. Because we are in the islands, a couple groups had to be video conferenced into the meeting. That's part of why we had no time last week. Since everything was being broadcasted from our island and capilla, we were put in charge of the video conference. We had a member of the ward helping us out while we were getting that set up and tested; that took about a day. Then, as always, when the time for zone conference came around, everything failed. Ha! The tech was a little all over the place. Zone conference was good though; the emphasis was on teaching simply and using our time wisely.

Big Changes!

Hey everyone!

Ok, so this has been a super crazy week!

It all started with this last preparation day. I was in piso folding some laundry when our phone started going off. I go to check it, and it’s President Pack. I answer; he asks me how I’m doing. I tell him I’m fine. Then he goes on to tell me that I need to start packing, because I´m getting emergency transferred. That caught me by surprise. I mean I’d only been with Elder Freire for one week.

My new area is......the city La Laguna of the island Tennerife. Yeah, I’m in the Canary Islands. It turns out that I´m actually swapping with Elder Brasher; he is now serving in the office, and I’m companions with his previous companion, Elder Johnson.

So, when we received the news, there wasn’t a lot of time for anything. Because it was an emergency transfer, it was super last minute, and I had to leave the next morning.  I had time to meet with one family and say goodbye to Alvaro. Then the next morning, I was out of Móstoles. It was a little hard not being able to say goodbye to all of the investigators and members I have come to know over the past 5 months, but I bet one day I’ll be able to visit again and say high.

Big day coming up!

Hey guys!

Ok, man! So it's been a crazy week. Pretty good, but crazy. So what to talk about? After transfers, we just started getting right to work. But there was some kind of mix up with transfers and all of our data on our area book app got sent all over the place. So this past week we have been working pretty much relying on my memory for all the appointments we had. It’s been a little rough, but we are working through it. So let's see stuff that has gone down. 

We've been super busy with a lot of traveling and a lot of meetings. As far as our investigators this week we finished teaching Alvaro everything. He received and passed his baptismal interview. His baptism is this Saturday. He is super pumped, and so am I. I'm so excited for him; he's just so chill.

At one point in the week, we went to a pueblo called Arroyomolinos. On our way back my pass for the bus ran out leaving us stranded in this pueblo way outside of the city. We were gonna walk back, but luckily we were able to get picked up in a car by one of our investigators. Pretty cool. 

Recently I have been focusing a lot on the Spirit and the importance of receiving personal revelation. I think a lot of times when we are faced with an important decision or something that is stressing us out or is really important, we fall back on our own knowledge and experience. Through that we can learn, progress, and make good decisions, but not nearly as well as when we rely on the wisdom of our Heavenly Father. Receiving personal guidance through the Spirit isn't always easy, and we have to work for it sometimes, but it is some of the best guidance we can receive. I invite everyone to try and rely on the Spirit more in their lives. When we do it, we can become so much greater then we are.

I love you all!

- Elder Bassett 

Country view of Arroyomolinos

Transer Eve

Hello my friends, I greet you. 

This is the last p-day before transfers next week, and there are going to be some big changes. Elder Simmons is for sure going to head out; both Elder Phillips and Elder Ferguson will be going home, and we might be getting a new companionship of sisters. It's gonna be crazy! We'll see though. It’s not for a while; and we never really know what's gonna happen till it happens, but onto the week!

Not a lot happened, just a lot of talking and a lot of calls. It's been getting hotter and hotter every day. It’s been an average of 37 Celsius (100° F) the past couple of days. A little more everyday, not as bad as the Malaga mission or anything, but still pretty hot. We're surviving though.

There were 3 new things we did this week that were fun.

The first is that we did service in a residency center nearby in a pueblo called Navalcanero. We brought Alvaro with us, and we went and just talked to old people there for about an hour. It was good; although, I understood practically nothing of what was said. There were some very think accents being spoken; even Alvaro was having trouble understanding, so you can imagine how lost I was. We also did service at another pueblo; we just helped move a bunch of stuff on this little farm into a storage compartment. 

I really love the smoothie I'm drinking right now

Hello my peeps!

Ok, so it's been a pretty good couple days. So to be honest not a lot happened, it’s been a pretty good couple of days though. I had an intercambio in Alcorcon with Elder Ferguson. That was good, we had trouble finding people to talk to though, because Madrid was hit with a huge thunderstorm. It kind of caught us off guard, and it was an intercambio, so I didn't have my raincoat. I borrowed one from Elder Mangum’s closet, but he's about half a foot shorter then me, so the jacket didn't really fit. Yeah, I got very wet. It was fun though; we had a good time.

Saturday we played futbol again. 2 of our investigators came, which was great. Other then that we were just talking in the street all day. One cool thing that happened is that we were able to meet with Alvaro and his parents to get permission for him to be baptized. So that's good. I'll keep ya updated on that.

Another crazy thing happened while I was in Alcorcon. I noticed the elders had a scale, and I figured I'd weigh myself for the first time since I left the MTC. Come to find out, I've lost 20 pounds. Kinda caught me off guard. I thought it was broken at first; turns out it wasn't.

Ok, so that was it for this week. I love you all; sorry I didn't write a lot this week. It’s only been a couple days after all. This week I wanted to talk a little bit more about The Book of Mormon. I'm reading right now in Alma about Captain Moroni, he was not only an amazing leader, but also a man of great faith. I started thinking about that a little bit more this week. He had his position as a military leader, but everything he did was centered in Christ and helping others. Often times in our lives, we are so focused on the day to day things that we leave Christ out of it, but when we look at Moroni’s example, having Christ in our lives only strengthens us more. Never forget Christ, when you’re stressed, when your tired, when your angry, or when your depressed, always remember Him and strive to follow Him. If we do that, we, too, can be firm in the faith, and true representatives of Christ.

I love you all, till next week 

- Elder Bassett 

Sorry no pics 

Happy Birthday America!

Hello everyone!

It's been a while, hasn't it? So what exactly has gone on the past week and 2 days? We had zone conference. I think this has been my favorite so far. It was really powerful, and I feel like I learned a lot. The focus of the zone conference was refocusing on our missionary purpose. One new thing we are doing as a mission is trying to teach the Restoration to every single active member in the mission by this September. As a part of that, President wants us to practice teaching it in just 4 minutes, so we can just be in and out and have more emphasis on the spirit and the power of the message.

Elder Simmons and I have already had a couple appointments like that, and they are really great. It’s a little hard teaching that short sometimes, but we are practicing it a bunch and trying to get it better.

After zone conference, we had our interviews for the transfer. They were super good. I always love meeting and talking with President Pack one on one. It's always a very edifying experience.

One thing we learned at zone conference that is kind of crazy, in the next 3 transfers, 71 missionaries will be going home and 61 new missionaries will be coming in. That's when we have a total of 180 missionaries in our mission. So we are going to be having some big changes in the coming months.

At the end of the week, we had futbol again, and we were able to get a couple of our investigators to come which was great. Afterwords, we had a super good lesson with one of those investigators whose name is Alvaro. He is this 13 year old who comes to play almost every week and already has a super good relationship with the members and missionaries. He told us he is interested and wants to come to church. He's a really good kid. We ran into his mom at sometime in the week, and she told us how much he loves talking to us and that one day after meeting with us he came to her and said a prayer with her in their living room. He really is a good kid; I'm excited to see how things work out for him.

Ok, Hello AGAIN!

It turns out my email isn't quite fixed after all. It is working right now, but we’ll see for how long and if this sends. If it doesn't, well, lo siento.

Ok so it's been a pretty good week. We had a lot of time for talking this week, so that was good. We were able to have 6 lessons which was even better. A couple guys that we are meeting seem pretty cool and will continue to meet with us. One guy named Jason was actually taking notes during our lesson with him; that was kinda cool and definitely a first for me.

A little bit of an update on our other investigators: Carmen is still on fecha; although, we need to move her date back a bunch. Mario's stopped answering our calls and the door, so we had to drop him. The family with whom Vivian is living doesn't like when we pass by, so we have had to stop meeting with her. Juan is still meeting with us and is still reading and praying. Juan is a pretty cool guy. The only downside is that he works for the Spanish government so he isn’t free to meet often. It's all good though. Things here in Móstoles are pretty good.

So a little update, because I'm not really sure what everyone back home knows. My companion is still Elder Simmons. This is our third transfer together. The only person in our zone to leave last transfer was Elder Schwanky,  and he was replaced by Elder Mangum.

So big things that happened last week. We went on intercambios with the elders from Alcorcon. I was with Elder Mangum, and Elder Simmons was with Elder Ferguson. That was pretty good; it's always nice to mix things up a little. Another fun thing, we might start teaching this kid named Alvaro. He is 13 and always comes to play futbol with us on Saturdays. He is a pretty cool kid and is super interested. We just need to get permission from his parents before we can teach him.

So what else what else....well, the language is still coming. There are good moments and bad ones.  It's coming though. It’s honestly a lot of fun to be able to speak in another language.

Two other cool things that happened this week. I finished The Book of Mormon in Spanish, so that was super cool. Then we received an assignment from President Pack to read The Book of Mormon in the next 4 weeks. I have been having to really bump up my reading in order to finish it in time, and I'm honestly loving it. I think the way I have grown the most since I became a missionary is my love for The Book of Mormon. It is so powerful, and it helps guide us so much in this life. I love the quote by Joseph Smith where he says that we can become closer to God by reading in this book than by reading in any other book. It really is that great. I want to invite everyone to start to read it if you aren't right now, and to set a goal for when you want to finish it. Make it realistic, but also push yourselves. I can promise you all that as you continue to read in it, your faith in God will be strengthened and you will be able to feel His spirit more in your life.

I love you all till next time!

- Elder Bassett