Weekly

Hey everyone!

I hope that you are all doing well! Things here in the mission have been going well.  We have been in the office a lot this past week, so there really isn't much to remark on except office stuff. That work is going well though. I was able to finish all of my projects. I also just finished updating my responsibilities packet, which just gives a list of instructions on how to do my job. The idea is that it will help the new missionary that I train when he comes into the office. When I came in, it was super old and out of date. I've been working on it for about a week and a half. When I started, it was 36 pages...now it's 47 pages. The guy who comes in is going to have a lot of reading. 

The people that we are teaching are doing well. Daniela and Noemi are doing great. We finished teaching them all of the commandments, and they have accepted everything. They have been so humble and accepting of everything that we have been teaching; it is so incredible. The faith I have seen in others on my mission is always so inspiring to me. 

I hope everyone is keeping up with the challenge to read in The Book of Mormon. I have been enjoying it so much! If anyone wants to do it and still hasn't been able to find the materials let me know, and I can send it to you. It’s also a great missionary opportunity if you would like to share it with someone. Either message me on my email or Facebook, and I can get back to you. I would definitely recommend it. 

Hello

Seasons greeting outside the season!

This has been a pretty decent week. Things for my job in the office haven't been too crazy this week, so I have been to finish a lot of stuff that I've had tabled for awhile. Of course, it's all going to pick up again in about a week for transfer prep but for now we aren't running around so much. 

The people that we are teaching are doing good. Vilma got a job, which is super exciting. She has really been wanting to work and has been looking for a while. Even better, the work she is doing now is taking care of the baby of one of the members in our ward. It's super great how the members have been helping her out and keeping her included in everything. It’s so nice, because even though her family is open to us right now, she is still having to be a bit of a pioneer, and it hasn't been easy. The ward has been really supportive.

Daniela and Noemi are also doing great! Noemi has a really busy work schedule, so we can only meet on the weekends. We were able to meet with both of them on Saturday and Sunday. They are progressing a lot and have a baptismal date for the end of this month. Keep them in your prayers!

Maybe some have already noticed my posts on Facebook, but the church has started another campaign in Europe. At least, I think it's just in Europe. If not, then awesome; more blessings for everyone! It gives a list of 21 different questions that people might have. Then it gives several questions to respond to and a scripture from The Book of Mormon to read on top of it. I've been doing it myself, and I love it so much. One thing I love about The Book of Mormon is that every time I read a scripture, I feel like I learn something new. I want to invite everyone to do it!  It doesn't have any set dates, so you can start whenever you want! 

If you want to know more about it, or if you want to know where you can find out more, then feel free to message me on Facebook, and I can help you find the list of questions and scriptures for the challenge. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

- Elder Bassett 

I Lost the Game!

Hey guys!

Our district hike last p-day

So about the subject line, I was walking back to piso one day when I remembered and lost the game. A select few of you will have a clue what I'm talking about and because of that will probably be frustrated with me, please forgive. Mom, I know for sure Amanda and Jeffrey will know what it is. If you're confused, ask Amanda; she can explain. Ok, onto the week!

So, it's been a pretty busy week. One thing that stood out is that Elder Hill and I went on intercambios in Puerto de La Cruz with Elders Merril and Tiebing. That ended up being pretty fun. After hours, we made some cookies, talked, hung out, ate the cookies and just laughed around. Good night in general. On the intercambios itself, Elder Tiebing and I had a good time and were pretty busy. We talked to some pretty cool people and had the chance to hand a copy of The Book of Mormon out to this super cool kid that will probably become a new investigator pretty soon, so that was great. 

Hello

Hey everyone! 

This week has been good, not a lot happened.  We spent some time in Puerto. While we were there, we went with a recent convert named Carlos to contact people. That was really great. We had a good time, and he got to share a lot of cards with everyone. He even invited some people to church.  We use the area book a ton. We have an app that combines everything and makes it super easy, or at least better then before. We are actually going to get an updated version this Wednesday.

Another thing that stood out was that I was sick for a couple of days, nothing serious, just a little nausea. 

We also had a mission wide fast to find new investigators. We did that last month, too. We saw a lot of miracles in the mission, so we are doing it again. I'm looking forward to hearing and experiencing the miracles that will come this time. We were so hungry after the fast that we just decided to go all out. We made pancakes, bacon, eggs, the whole deal. It was fantastic.

In Laguna, we have been having the festival of Cristo. It is this big festival that has been lasting about a month. It all kind of came to a climax these past couple of days which was a little irritating. I say that because, even though it's the festival of Christ, it's basically just a big party with lots of drinking, lots of immodesty, and just party like behavior in general, and, ironically, it does not mean that the people are more willing to talk about Christ. 

Chocolate Frosting

Hello my fellow inhabitants of tierra,

It has been a good week here on the island of Tenerife. So first things first. I just want to say that it is a very important day today, because it is the birthday of one W. Mark Bassett. Yeah, Happy Birthday Dad! 

Ok, onto the week. The week starts off with Elder Johnson deciding to make some peanut butter bars for district meeting. At the end of the day, we get back to the piso, and he starts making them. Then he asks me to make the chocolate frosting. So I start making it and right off the bat big problem. The recipe calls for powdered sugar, but we don’t have it. So, being the desperate man I am, I start using white sugar. But, we only have half a cup. Already committed now, I used brown sugar instead. So I make the frosting, and it turns out tasting quite strangely. I kept messing with it trying to make it taste better, but eventually had to give up. In the end, I threw in some eggs, a little flour, and about an hour later we had a bundt cake. No joke, frosting became a bundt cake. And it was actually very delicious. Ha, so we had that for district meeting.

Onto the rest of the week. We have been focusing a lot this week on talking in the street to try and build up our teaching pool. Thankfully, we got a bunch of citas lined up for this week, so we´ll see how those go. We spent a couple days in Puerto this week and a couple in La Laguna. Our plans at this point are to be in Puerto Thursday and Friday and La Laguna every other day. We also spend every other Saturday in Puerto. Both places have a lot of potential, and we are already starting to see a lot of miracles, which is awesome!

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

FIRST OFFICIAL LETTER!

Hey everyone! First email! Man it feels like it's taken forever to get the chance to write everyone. I've literally been watching the clock counting down until I can write everyone; I've never been more excited to write an email in my entire life.

OK, so where to begin? I guess a good start would be the beginning, that makes sense right? Ha! Well. OK The flight in was fine; it felt pretty long, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I just spent the whole time sleeping and writing in my journal. When I got to the Salt Lake airport, I was able to meet up with about 5 other missionaries. From there, we all flew to Paris. In Paris we picked up another missionary from England, then it was off to Spain.

It was definitely really exciting to get to Spain. Our Paris flight was delayed an hour, so I was worried there would be nobody waiting for us, but there was a guy there to welcome us. We loaded the vans, and it was off to the MTC. The MTC is right next to the Madrid Temple, and it is so beautiful! I'll try and see if I can get a pic to send in a bit, but we are only allowed to take photos on p-day and the last day. Since this is our first p-day, I don't really have any pictures, but I'll send some as soon as I can. The MTC really is a special place. It is always so easy to feel the Spirit here. A lot of the missionaries are bugged by the strict rules and busy schedules, but I love it! It's so nice to feel productive, and obeying the rules really helps to bring the Spirit to the environment.

We got here Tuesday afternoon. The first couple of days were just an intro to everything with a lot of devotionals that were really great. We didn't really have our first language lesson until Friday. While I've been here, I've discovered my Spanish is a lot farther along then I've realized, and while I have been here I've progressed so much more. The gift of tongues is real, and I can see it in all of the other missionaries and their progress. It really inspires me. My MTC companion is Elder Heninger from Canada. When he got here he was only able to say the word ‘much of’, which is not ‘mucho’ at all, ha-ha. But just this Monday, we were teaching a lesson, and I was having a convo with our investigator. While Elder Heninger couldn't speak, he was able to tell what we were talking about. After 3 days of language lessons, it is honestly amazing.