Hello Again

zone conference

Hey everyone!

So as you can see and have probably noticed, my P-day was changed again and is on Tuesday this time. This time, it was because we had a lot of office work to do yesterday that couldn´t wait, so we moved it to today so that we could get everything done in time. Well, Last P-day was on Thursday, so not a lot of time has gone by, but I will try and fill you in as best as I can. 

On Friday, we went and helped a member move to a new apartment. Unfortunately, she told the ward really last minute, and she started right in the middle of the day when most of the members had work, so nobody was able to come. We also had Zone Conference the same day, so we weren´t able to come until the very end, unfortunately. We were able to make it to help with the last load that she did. She had such a great attitude about it; though, and she is the nicest lady. 

We did stay at her place though to help her set up the Bunk Bed for her kids. She said it was the simplest one that IKEA had, but I have never been so confused in my life. Ha. it is all finished now; though, so the confusion is past, I am calm, and the family is getting settled. 

Zone Conference went pretty well. We had a lot of tech problems which made things a little stressful. (Biggest of those being the projector going haywire at every possible second.) Then half way through the conference, the front lens kind of melted; so that was rather unfortunate. Ha! The majority of the morning half of conference was President and Hermana Bussey doing training while I sat next to them fidgeting with the projector. It all worked out in the end though, and it was a pretty good conference. 

The focus this time was on Exact Obedience and how to exercise the Power and Authority of our calling as missionaries. There was also a big focus on the Holy Ghost. There were a lot of things that stuck out to me that I really enjoyed. One thing that was talked about was the importance of completely dedicating ourselves to the work at which we are about, keeping our focus on our missions and letting ourselves be changed to help us become true disciples of Christ.

The people that we are teaching are doing well. On Saturday was the baptism of a man named Jorge who was being taught by the sisters. Daniela and Noemi came early to the baptism, and we were able to teach them a little bit before. They also came to church the next day and even though they had to head out afterwards pretty quickly, we were able to still teach them later that day through a video call, "YAY for the blessings of technology!!!". They are both doing great and are on track to be baptized the week after General Conference. 

El fin viene ya

Hola mis amigos queridos!!!!

Greetings from Madrid Spain! Life here is going very well, and I'm keeping very busy. This past week we had a lot of cool experiences. As always, I'll go about it in sections.

One big thing that happened is that we had the last zone conferences of the Packs. That was very emotional; I even started to tear up a bit at one point. It's going to be very sad to say goodbye to the Packs. Of course, we are excited to welcome the Busseys, but the Packs are going to be very missed. This past conference we talked about the importance of obedience and being the best missionaries that we can be. It really impacted me. One part I really liked was Hermana Pack’s section on our purpose. She talked about the 2 action words of the purpose, "invite” and “help". It was a good conference; it left me with a lot of renewed desires to be a better missionary.

We also had an intercambio with the zone leaders. We ended up going to their area, which is called Torrejon. That was a really good intercambio. We ended up getting pretty busy, but we were able to find a little bit of time to talk to people. We went to another area for a baptism, which was really cool. While I was there, I started talking to this random girl. It turns out she is from Chicago and is here for an exchange program. That was just a funny little thing, finding a 20-year-old girl from Chicago in Alcalá, Spain. Then again, I guess it's about as weird as finding a 20-year-old guy from California there, too.

I had one really cool conversation this past week that comes to my mind. We were on our way to Torrejón to start our intercambios; while we were on the train, I sat down next to a guy who looked really tired. So I started to talk to him, and he is a super cool guy. He moved here about 8 years ago from Venezuela. He works in a little supermarket; he usually does about 11 hours a day which explained a bit why he was so exhausted. We talked a bit about his country and all of the hard stuff that was going on there right now. 

One thing I've noticed, and that I mentioned to this man, is that despite all of the trials and difficulties that many people in South America and his country face, as a people they have a very powerful and strong faith. I think in part it's due to some of those trials. This man and others I've met are just some of the most humble and faithful people you will ever find. 

Our investigators are doing pretty well. They are all moving at their own paces, but they are progressing pretty well. We currently have 3 people on fecha. 1 for the 23rd and 2 for the 14th. The 1 on the 23rd is an 8-year-old boy named Jose who is part of a less active family that has started coming back to church He is very prepared and right now his only obstacle would be his church attendance. His family lives a little far away, and they don't have enough money to buy a bus pass. So, we are currently working on organizing rides from the other members so that they can get to church.

The other 2 are named Noemi and Daniela. I don't remember if I mentioned them last time, but Noemi is the mother and Daniela is her young daughter. Noemi' s husband was in an accident a while back and has been in the hospital. We have been meeting with them and helping them get through it. They are doing a lot better now. We have started to teach them about the gospel, and they are really seeming to enjoy it. Daniela is being a really great example for her mom and is starting to read a lot in The Book of Mormon. She even looked up and watched the restoration video on her own free time.

Well fam, sorry, but I have to go. I hope you have a great one and that you enjoy your week, wish me luck for transfers! I start working on them this next week.  It’s a little early for that, but we are preparing to merge the two missions.

- Elder Bassett 

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. 

Greetings

We had a great a zone conference!

Hey everyone! 

It's been a pretty good week! We had zone conference, which went very well. We talked about safeguards for using technology and about ways that we can use technology more in the work. That's where we came up with the idea for the sweep the earth initiative. If you haven't seen it, it is basically a small calender of things we can do everyday to share the gospel through social media. The same general idea as light the world but all with technology and focused on missionary work a little more. If you haven't seen it or started it, I recommend doing so! It has been pretty cool already, and it's never to late to hop in! I'll attach the photos with this email. 

Hey Guys!

On the way to zone conference!

So it's been a pretty crazy week. So we had zone conference, and it was just awesome. The majority of the focus was on how we can use the new technology to focus on our mission purpose and to help further the work. I am so excited to see all the advances in the work that are going to be coming; the Lord is truly hastening His work. 

So one cool thing that happened this week was that as a district, we went out to a busy street and set up this poster of Christ, and then sang hymns by it for a bit. It was an idea we had to mix things up a bit and to see how it worked. I was a little apprehensive about it, but it ended up being a super cool experience. We ended up meeting this super nice old Canarian lady who was like our only audience. It was super fun though, she was calling out to people as they walked by and telling them to come listen to us, ha. She was super sweet, and funny. I attached a picture of her below. 

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.

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.