Hasta luego!

I don't know if I've ever mentioned, but it's kinda of a thing to say bye here in Spain as a greeting. Most of the time, they just keep walking though. As crazy as it sounds, it's true. 

Thus past week has gone well. It was transfers so we were super busy. They have been finished though, and there weren't too many problems. It's always a huge relief when transfers end. Not gonna lie, that is always a stressful 2 weeks. 

With this transfer, we said bye to one of my companions, Elder Keffer. He has been in the office since last November, and he was definitely ready to head out. He has been my companion for the past 6 months, and I'll miss him, but I think he will have a good time in his new area. 

In other words, I also received another new companion named Elder Sullivan. I've only been with him for a couple of days, but I'm excited. He seems like another great missionary. I will be training him, and he will replace me in the office, so I can leave soon as well.

So right now, my companionship consists of Elder Sullivan, Elder Sure, Elder Kraut, Elder Gergov, and myself. I will try and send a pic today as best I can.

The best I could get

In other news, this past week we had the open doors activity of our chapel. The members put in a lot of work, and it was geared up to be a pretty big event. Unfortunately, only about 10 nonmembers came the whole day. Some members were a little sad, but those ten people who came had a good experience.

I love you all, and I hope that you have a great week. Talk to you next time!

- Elder Bassett 

Transfers

Saying goodbye to my 'mission Dad', Elder Simmons.
He went home yesterday which felt really weird.

Hey everyone!!!

Man this past week and a half has been so crazy!!! We have been working on transfers and that has been filling every wakeful and sleepful moment. This was the first transfer as a merged mission, and it was super, crazy and hectic. There were A LOT of changes. Over 86...which is not very easy when you only have 3 days to make plans, but tickets, and organize the movement of over 260 missionaries. Yeah I'm a little tired. It's all finished though. 

Due to transfers, we didn't have much time to meet with the people that we have been teaching. But most of them are doing pretty well. Vilma has been getting fellowshipped so much by the ward right now, and it's awesome! They love her so much. Her family is starting to open up so much to us, which us awesome. 

Update on the companionship: with the change, we went from 3 To 5. Our new companions are Elder Eyre and Gergov. Elder Gergov will be replacing Elder Liza, and Elder Eyre will be having the new job of the fulltime technology elder. 

The office can take some getting used to. The late nights are exhausting.

It's super nice, because he will be taking a lot of my responsibilities off my plate. It's going to help a lot, because to be honest, I've been a little overwhelmed this past transfer with all of the changes.

One unique thing that we learned recently is that with the merge our mission is the 3rd largest geographically in the world. Definitely could feel that sometimes buying tickets and scheduling interviews for all of them. But a change has been announced that will change that.

It is so exciting, because in Galicia (where I served before in the northern Spain) a new stake was created. It's a special time, and it's so amazing to see the joy of the members there. Many of them have waited over 40 years to have a stake. I'm so happy for the members and to see the way that the church is growing is wonderful. 

With that creation, it was announced that the new stake will be part of the Barcelona mission. It's not official yet, but when it's approved, we will be losing the north part of our mission. I'm happy to see the growth, but sad to say goodbye to the members and missionaries there. I have a lot of good friends serving there, and it's sad to know that for some we won't be seeing them again. It's the way of things sometimes. This church is a church of change and growth! And that's great. It's a part of progression.

Baptism Day!

Hello my family and friends!

Things here are going pretty well! This past week has been really great and super busy. The office has been keeping us super busy. The biggest thing that has been keeping us busy has been prepping for transfers. It's been super crazy, but it's working out. (Our office credit card isn’t working correctly, so we can’t buy travel tickets.)

This past week Vilma was baptized! The service was super great! Afterwards, Vilma shared her testimony; the Spirit was there so strongly. I think that was probably my favorite part. I love being able to see and hear the testimonies of the people we meet here in Spain. She was super happy, and it was a special experience.

We have started to meet with Vilma’s family, too, which has been great. When we first met them, they were a little cold with us and didn't want to talk too much, but they have opened up a bunch since that first time. They are still opening up little by little, but this last week after the baptism, we were able to share the restoration with them. The message seemed to touch them. We are going to be passing by to drop off some Books of Mormons for the rest of the family. 

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.

Super tired, and we just talked yesterday "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY" so here are a bunch of pics! If you have any specific questions shoot me a message. This past week has been very uneventful. I was locked away in the office for the majority of it. I didn't leave that much, so there isn't really anything to report on.  Here are a bunch of district pics, with Elder Tarver and Brasher, who we got to see. 

Lucia's baptism!

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. 

Surprise, surprise!

Hey y’all!

So this has been a pretty crazy/surprising week. Things in Ferrol are going pretty good, and our investigators were starting to progress. It was a looking out to be a pretty normal week until we got back to the piso on Tuesday, and I saw that I had 3 missed calls from President....😓 never a good sign. He proceeded to tell me that he needed me to come serve in the office. That's the story about how I got emergency transferred for the second time.

I got the call at 13:15 on Tuesday. President told me that I needed to come down and fast. I packed as quickly as I could, and at 14:30, I was on a bus headed to the train station in A Coruña. I said bye to my comp and a couple elders from the district, and then got on a train and headed to Madrid arriving in my new apartment around 23:00. I was a little sad to not have time to say bye to the members and our investigators, but I'm confident that they are in the Lord's hands, and that Elder Henrie and his new Companion will take care of them.

So, our situation in the office is kind of interesting. Normally, the office Elders are a trio, right now we are 5 missionaries....very interesting. So there are 3 different jobs in the office: residency, secretary, and pisos. Residency deals with orders and residency in Spain; secretary is miscellaneous, and piso deals with buying and selling apartments. I will be coming in as the new Secretary; I'll be trained by Elder Tarver. Elder Jäger from Germany is the residency elder, and he is just finishing his training by Elder Brasher. Then there is Elder Keffer who is the piso elder. We are 5 right now because 2 are getting trained at the same time, but both Elder Brasher and Elder Tarver will be out in about a week.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Hey everyone!!

Elder Bassett and Elder Jordan

Man so it has been one crazy week! Lot of changes and adjustments, but honestly, I am loving it! Like I said last time, my new area is El Ferrol, and it is incredible! It's super beautiful here. It's not as cold as I thought it would be. It does rain a lot, though. We always need to carry umbrellas around, because you never know when a random rainstorm might come through.

So, I left the island Monday night and spent the night in Madrid. The next morning I caught a train that took me to the north. It was about a 6-hour trip. Not gonna lie, it felt pretty long at times. My train got in early, so I had to go find a payphone to give the elders a call to come pick me up...so that's the story of the first time I've used a payphone on my mission. 

That night, we dropped my stuff off and then went and got to work. My new companion is a pretty cool guy. His name is Elder Jordan, and he is from Mesa, Arizona. He just finished his training, so I am his second companion. He seems like a hard worker, and he is a pretty funny guy, so I am looking forward to this next transfer with him. 

Surprise, Surprise!

Day 162 on the island...things are getting more and more desperate....the food is running low and the piso hasn't been cleaned in a while.....we are in desperate need of help, but I can't say it's ever going to come.....if anyone finds this note, please remember me....remember Elder Bassett.....

Ok, so ever since I got on the island, I've wanted to start an email like that, but I always forgot...but not today!!!! Ha! So with that as the intro, it's been a pretty good week. We had some trouble meeting with our investigators this week, so we spent a lot of time in the street talking to people and doing some passby’s. We had some pretty cool miracles and experiences though; that's just because it's awesome to be in the service of the Lord!

I did an intercambio in Puerto this week, which was fun. I was with Elder Tiebing who I served in a trio with for 2 weeks. It was fun to go back to an area and a piso I hadn't been to in such a long time...."like 4 weeks". Ha, it was a pretty good day. We had a cita, did some service on a local farm, and talked with the people for a bit.

So transfers went down, and we got the news and… surprise, surprise, but I am out! It really caught me off guard, because I was only halfway through the training of Elder Johnson, but it happened anyway. That doesn't happen to often, but obviously it does happen every once and a while. So I'm off to the north of Spain, a providence called Galicia. I will be serving in the town of El Ferrol. It’s supposed to be super cold and rainy over there but super beautiful. They have a branch that's pretty big and is working hard with the missionaries to become a ward. I'm super excited to get to a new area and have a fresh start, but at the same time, I'm definitely going to miss the island. 4+ transfers....a little over 5 months. It will be good to see a new area, but at the same time, I'm really going to miss the people and the district. 

 

We have such a great zone. I'm gonna miss them.

Busy!!

Man it's been crazy week!

So the week started out, and we had almost nothing to do. We had a bunch of training meetings at the beginning of the week, and we didn't know when our new companions would get in, so we weren't really able to set up any appointments. One day was super fun. We had a couple meetings that we had to attend through Skype, so we went to the church and brought a pizza that we ordered and ate pizza while watching this training and taking notes. It was pretty relaxed. An even cooler bonus, I learned a lot from the training video. A lot of my goals for this next transfer are on making sure I'm setting a good example for my companion, that we get along super well, and that we have good district unity. 

In the end, our new companions didn't get into the mission until Thursday. My new companion is Elder Hill. He is a super cool guy; he is from Fresno California and played water polo back home. Really cool guy. I'll make sure to send a pic. 

So, the downside was that because nobody got in until Thursday, everything got pushed until the weekend. Because of that, this weekend we all had district meeting, weekly planning, correlation, a bunch of 12 weeks, and all the setup we had to do technology-wise for Elder Hill. Basically, it means we have been inside a lot and doing all kinds of studies. At least on that note, we have been busy. 

Then being district leader and have 10 missionaries means I'm even busier! One thing that missionaries do is ‘weekly calls.’ This is where the missionary talks to his or her district leader, reports on the week and tells him how they are doing. Then the district leader writes a report on that and sends it to the zone leaders. So I need to talk to all of the companionship Saturday night. That was good, but it took literally all night. These past 3 nights I haven't even had time to write in my journal. It's great though. It’s nice to be this busy.

This week, I want to share a message on charity. One thing I have been focusing a lot on these past couple of weeks is really loving my companion and every member of my district. What I've seen from it is that even though we sometimes have disagreements, sometimes we have hard times, but a Christlike love can help us find joy and peace in every situation. A scripture that I really love is Moroni 7:45-47 where charity is described and explained really well. Like it says, without the pure love of Christ in the last days we will be nothing. We need that love, that feeling in our lives, but sometimes it's hard to find it. That's why it's important to follow the advice given in the next verse, number 48. I invite you all to follow it's advice and to pray to have charity more in your lives, so that we all can be more purified and joyful through Christ.

I love you guys, have a great WEEK!

- Elder Bassett  

Transfers = 0 changes

Thanks to the GB 1st ward for looking after Brandon!

Hey guys!

So it's been a pretty interesting week. With whatsapp and the new technology, we have been able to get into contact with our potential investigators a lot easier, and we were able to set up a lot of citas this week, which was awesome. Unfortunately, almost everyone of them failed...ha. It's all good though. We are starting to get stuff set up for this week, though; so I'm still pumped.

This new technology is honestly such a blessing. We are only just starting to see the advances in the work, and it's only been 2 weeks. I will say sorry, though; I haven't been posting on Facebook as much as we were originally thinking. I’m still planning on doing messages frequently. We just haven't been able to decide on a plan of how we are going to use Facebook, and I don't want to go onto it if I don’t already have a clear idea or plan of what I am going to do… Just to make it easier to avoid temptation and to help us use time wisely. 

Traslados

There once was an ancient civilization who when they would go to war, would consume the hearts of their enemies to help them gain their strength and become victorious.... I guess I'll be able to jump a lot higher now, because I tried rabbit heart for the first time this week. Ha. That was part of a pueblos visit that we had this week. That was a cool trip; we spent all day in a pueblos then ate rabbit with a member afterwards.

Our Pueblo visit: Elder Simmons, Elder Phillips, Elder Bassett, Elder Jepson

The zone leaders had a super cool milagro happen to them. They were only talking to people for 20 minutes when they found a woman who said that her daughter was investigating the church. They find the daughter and it turns out she has been in Ecuador for 2 months. While in Ecuador, she was about to be baptized but didn't have time. Since then, she has been looking for the church here in Spain. She came with us to a member cita and already is starting to hit it off with them, which is great.