Conference!

Hey everyone!

Well, it's been a super crazy and awesome weekend! It all started out with conference, which was super great. I loved the sessions that we were able to watch. One of my favorite talks was the one by Elder Brough where he talked about finding joy amidst hard things. I also really loved Elder Rasband’s and Soares’s talks. They were both very inspiring and really helped me on my own personal questions that I had.

I loved what President Nelson said about the name of the church. He spoke so clearly, and I really felt the power of what he said. As he spoke, I thought of the power of repentance and the chance that we have as a people. It is true that in the past, I've become comfortable with the nickname Mormon; it is oftentimes more well known than the actual name of the church. As we have been explained the importance of the true name of the church, we all have the opportunity to repent and to stop making the same error we did before. 

As the Prophet, he is giving us guidance for ways that we can improve and has promised us the blessings that will come from doing so. I'm excited to experience those blessings as we move forward. And continue to try and improve. I'm so grateful that God sends living prophets to us in our days to communicate to us and help us to grow. How comforting it is to know that God still guides and leads us through a living prophet. That's one principle that we always talk about, but really seemed to hit me more than ever this last conference. 

Noemi and Daniela are doing great. They had their baptismal interview this past Sunday, and they are ready. They should be baptized this Saturday. I'm so excited for them. They have really begun to live the gospel and are seeing the blessings of it in their lives. The opportunity to be a tool for the Lord in helping people experience that is one of my favorite parts of being a missionary.

In other words, we watched one of the sessions of conference at the Bussey’s home. That was a really fun experience to be there with them. We talked a bit about what we had heard and had some insightful moments. Afterwards, President Bussey pulled me into his office, and we talked for a bit. He told me that after praying about it, he had decided on where my next area would be. So with that, he told me that my next companion would be Elder Kohkström, and my next area would be Cadiz. 

I knew it has been coming for a while, and to be honest I'm excited. I've heard a lot of good things about the area and my new companion; I'm excited to go and see what the Lord has in store for me there. It's going to be good to get out and work again as a normal missionary. I am a little sad to say bye to the area and the people I have come to know and love, but they are all in good hands. 

Well, I can't think of anything else to mention, so I'm going to be done writing for today. I just want to say that I love you all, and that I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is God’s church on this earth. And He is guiding and preparing us every day. Take care everyone and talk to you next time! 

- Elder Bassett 

Big Email

President & Sister Bussey 

Hello everyone!
Well, it has been a very interesting week to say the least. I remember that last week my email was super short, but I don´t remember what exactly I talked about. Ha, so I will try to fill you in on a lot of good details from this week to try and make up for it. 

So after p-day, we had a normal Tuesday in the office working on well...office stuff. That night, we went to the train station to pick up all of the zone leaders who would be attending the Mission Leadership council the next day. That night, 8 elders came to our piso to spend the night. Being in the office, we have a lot of extra mattresses for this exact reason. The most I´ve ever seen in our piso was 14 missionaries who were going home plus us 3. 

The next morning, we went off to Concilio; we arrived early and helped get everything set up. We ended up setting up the tables in a big U in the gym to have more of a council like setting. Not going to lie, it felt really cool. I laughed a bit when one of the elders said that he felt like we were in a huge Jedi Council. 

Normally, the office elders help with transportation and setup and then head out, but right as we were about to get started, we realized that they needed someone to translate. So Elder Liza and I stayed to translate while Elder Jäger and Elder Keffer went to the office. Downside of the situation, Elder Liza’s English is pretty decent but not to the point where he could translate very easily. So I ended up translating the entire meeting....10:00-5:00 with an hour lunch break. I downed maybe 6 water bottles, but my throat was still feeling a little hoarse by the end. 

But I really did enjoy being able to attend; it was a very amazing experience. We talked a lot about making sure that we are centered on Christ and that we do all we can to be examples to the other missionaries. A big section was also focused on setting goals as a mission as we progress forward together. It was really cool to see all of the leaders from both the north and the south who used to be from different missions working together and having good open discussions about how we can all improve and get better. I lot of good goals were set, and it was cool to see it all.

Changes

Hey everyone.

So it's only been a couple of days and normally that would mean that not a lot has happened, but it's actually been a pretty busy weekend. So I'll start where I left off last Thursday afternoon.

So that night we received our new companion. His name is Elder Liza, and he comes from the office in the south. He came up with Elder Hernandez who is one of the AP’s from the south. They are both really great guys and missionaries. I'm looking forward to working with them both.

A little more info on Elder Liza. He has been on the mission for about 19 months, and he has been serving in the office for the past 4-5. He is from Peru but has spent most of his life here in Spain in a city close to Pamplona which is part of the Barcelona mission. He is a really great guy and a hard worker. I'm really excited to be with and learn from him as we are companions in this transition. I'm also really loving only talking in Spanish with him. It helps me a lot with my Spanish, which isn't the best, and he helps me out a lot.

So that Thursday night we stayed up a little late preparing a contact list to have ready for President Bussey for when he came into the mission to have a way to get in contact all of the missionaries whenever he needed. The next Friday morning, the Busseys came!

The Packs, the office Elders, and the AP's all went to pick them up that morning from the airport. It was super exciting to welcome them off the plane and say hi to them. After that, we went over to the office so the Packs could brief the Busseys on a few things. So we were there working while the Packs, and the Busseys were talking, and then the Packs came out and said "OK time to go; this is goodbye".

It was pretty abrupt, and not gonna lie, it was pretty hard. We were all getting pretty emotional, and it was rough. I know realistically that we will see them again some day, but it felt for a bit like we were saying goodbye forever. Hermana Pack started to cry, and I was having a hard time holding it back. I'm so grateful for the Packs and all that they have done for me and the mission. 

Busssssyyy!!!

Hey everyone!!!

So I have zero time to write today. Reason for that? Well, transfers, Packs’ farewell, Busseys’ arrival, mission merge, and normal office work. So yeah, we are kept super busy; we’ve had several late nights of working. This past week was good though. Biggest downside is how tired we are; we've been running all over the place for a bit, and we are running a little low on sleep. It's all good though, because things are going well. We are a little behind, but we should be caught up by the time President Bussey comes tomorrow.  We were able to talk to them on a phone call last week and introduce ourselves. He recognized my name form his connection to Dad.

One of the things keeping us busy is going back and forth to the airport to drop off and pick up missionaries. There is a big group leaving and a big group coming. One day we were at the airport waiting for a missionary from the Chile MTC. We had been waiting for him over 3 hours. We were getting worried about him. His connecting flight had been delayed. It’s a really big airport. This was a new missionary, and we had no way to contact him. I was getting panicked and stressed. Maybe he was lost or scared or didn’t know what to do. I worried that maybe we had somehow missed him and should go look in another part of the airport. I said a little prayer for him and asked that I would know what to do to help him. When I opened my eyes I saw a group of pilots. I thought maybe I should go talk to them. But then I realized we’d passed dozens of pilots, and there were hundreds of people all around us; chances were he wouldn’t know anything about him. Then I felt like I should talk to him again, so I wove through all the people and went to talk to him and asked him if he’d seen another young missionary dressed like me. He responded that yeah, he was on his way and just behind him. I felt an amazing sense of relief. I said a prayer of thanks. I was so grateful that we hadn’t lost him.

Jose's baptism went super well. He is a super cute kid, and he was super happy. One drawback, the water was cold. Our chapel is a little strange. When the water heater is on, the air conditioner turns off. With the heat of summer, our leaders decided to opt for cold water and an air-conditioned building.  But it was still a great baptism. There were two children, one from the hermanas and Jose. All the talks were from children their age. It was a super special experience, and there was a really sweet spirit there. 

I’ve been thinking recently on how special it is to be with people and see the change in them as they accept the gospel of Christ. To see them feel what we are sharing and connect to that same Spirit that guides us each day. It's something that really can't be replaced.  I’ve mentioned our investigator Naomi. I found her by going through my cell phone history. She was an old contact that hadn’t gone anywhere with the other missionaries. I decided to call her and see how she was. She responded that she was horrible everything was going really bad. Her husband had just been in a car accident and was in the hospital, and she could use some support. We started talking to her about the peace that comes through Christ and accepting His will and finding strength in Him. Since then, her husband has gotten better and is home in a wheel chair. Ever since then she has been meeting with us and wants to know more about the Gospel. Our lesson with her this week was about the Plan of Salvation. In that lesson, she told us she had been thinking about baptism before we met. She gave the closing prayer and said that she felt the Spirit. There are a lot of ways as a missionary I can improve. There are lot of aspects of missionary work that I love, but most of all I love teaching. I love being in a lesson with people and being able to see the way the Spirit can influence their lives and help them to be better. It’s an irreplaceable feeling. I love being a servant of the Lord and be a conduit of His Spirit and help people feel the love of God. It’s not something I do perfectly, but we do our best.

Hello family 

Man, it's been a pretty crazy week. So, we have been keeping very busy this past week, and we have had little time for everything. But it's been good to be this busy. The investigators are doing well, and we are currently working on finding more, so that when the current ones are baptized, we don't find ourselves with nothing to do.

One of our investigators, Maria was going to be baptized next week, but last minute, she told us she didn't want to next Saturday.....since her sister is going to be out of town. Instead, she now wants to be baptized this Saturday so her sister can be there. Ha! So she has her interview tomorrow, and if she she’s prepared, then she will be baptized this Saturday. As of right now, she really wants to be baptized this Saturday, and we are just making sure that she is completely 100% ready. Better to wait if we have to, to make sure that she is ready. 

So other big news, we haven't been able to say anything up until now, but there are big changes going down in Spain. We received news about our new mission president. His name is President Bussey! I'm excited to meet him when he comes, but I will be sad to say bye to President Pack. He has been such an incredible president, and he has helped me so much. I will be sad to see him go.

The other big change is that there is mission consolidation happening in Spain. Starting in July I believe, there will only be 2 missions in Spain, Barcelona and Madrid. Malaga will be combing with us. It kind of caught us by surprise, but our president explained to us that it is very normal. It's actually happening in a lot of other missions around the world. It’s going to be interesting to see how it all works out. Who knows? I could be serving in the Straits of Gibraltar or in Seville.

Well, I'm sorry guys, but I got Prisa and need to go. I'll see you all next time!

- Elder Bassett