1 transfer down, a whole lot more to go

So yea, already one transfer down! Kinda crazy. The transfer changes kinda drowned out all of the other small things that happened, so I'm having trouble remembering a lot of the other stuff that happened. So, some things I remember:

 

Elders Merrill and I had intercambios this week. (An intercambio is when you switch companions and areas to learn from someone different.) It went great; he is a cool guy and has read Brandon Sanderson and is a fan which makes him even cooler.  Elder Merrill also gave me this map of all the areas in the mission. I thought you might want to see it. But, Elder Merrill was transferred and will be leaving our district.

So further information on our investigators: one great thing that happened this week we were able to commit both Vivian and Carlos to a Fecha for a baptism. I'm still a little worried about Carlos; though, because we still have trouble meeting with him, and he is constantly failing us for our appointments. He seemed sincere when we asked him, but I'm getting the feeling that he isn't taking it serious enough. It's like we are more of an afterthought. We are going to keep working with him though and try to get him to commit a little more. I'll keep you updated. Vivian, however, is doing awesome. She has a lot of desires to learn and understand, and she is praying to receive an answer which is great, and she really wants to know. I'm really excited for her. She even gave us a couple of references to check out, too, which was cool. Normally when we ask if people know someone else who would be interested, they just say I don't know.

That also reminded me, another cool thing happened. We had our first investigator in church; her name is Carmen.  That’s really great news. Unfortunately, although we have been trying we cannot get into contact with him, we have called Juan Carlos, and we keep passing by his house, but he isn't there. If we ever find him we will try and teach him again, hopefully. We will see. At this point though, we think it's time to take a break and focus more on our investigators right now. But yea, that's the update on the people for this week.

Me gusta comida!

Elder Phillips was mocking me for starting every single email the same way, so I decided to change it up a bit with something unexpected.

Man this has been a really great week. So one thing that happened, we had a district meeting and the ap's came, and they brought that package that the family sent me so I was able to open it. That was great. It was fun to read all of the letters, and the candy was very much appreciated. At that meeting, we went and got kebab for the first time since I've been here. For all of the missionaries reading this that have served in Spain and are amazed at how long it's taken me, remember, that we eat with members a lot.

 

My rocking birthday package

We also had this specialized training for the new missionaries that was really great. I learned a lot and a lot of stuff for was cleared up. We also had interviews with President last week, which was great. It was really good to sit and talk with President and resolve some questions that I'd had. It is crazy how busy mission presidents are. Just to give some perspective, there are 8 zones and 200 missionaries. President has to organize and attend a conference for ever zone and do an interview for every missionary every transfer, which is each month and a half. He also has random meetings throughout the transfer that he has to organize plus transfers, too, which is a huge responsibility, plus a whole bunch of other stuff that I probably don't know about. It's honestly crazy. I always knew that mission presidents were super busy from when Dad was one, but I never realized exactly how much stuff that they did. I'm super grateful for him. He is a very wise man and a great blessing to all of us serving in the Madrid Mission.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Happy Easter everyone!

What a great opportunity to remember and talk about our Savior! It has been such a great couple of days. Man with having p-day last Wednesday, this p-day feels like it came so fast. Because it has only been a half-week, I don't really have a lot to talk about, but I'll do my best.

So one thing that stood out is that we played futbol on Saturday. We don't really stay that long when we go, just long enough to get our exercise in for the day and to talk to the members a bit. Elder Chabot and Elder Phillips were able to get a less active member to come with his son and a friend. Plus we were able to share a message with everyone as we were leaving which was great. The less active member is named Eduardo, and he was able to come to church the next day which was great.

One other thing that stood out was that Elder Simmons gave me a haircut. It was an interesting experience. I was the fifth haircut he has ever given. I have to say, I don't think I have ever heard someone say dang it and whoops underneath their breath so much while giving a haircut. It's not that bad though. It is a little to short, but hair does grow back, so oh well.

FUFU!

Another thing that stood out, Elder Phillips has been trying to find this one African dish that a member fed him once called “fufu”. He was able to get some and we made it in the piso. So what it is, is this ball of dough that you break chunks off of. Then you dip it in soup and swallow it whole. It was fun to do it for the experience, but it felt super weird. Plus the soup we made wasn’t the best; it was just a chicken broth. But maybe we will make a better soup some day and try it again.

Hey everyone!

Again, sorry that I didn’t send the email last week! I totally thought that I had sent it, but I guess that I didn’t. And today was super busy, so unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to write, so I'm going to need to be super quick.

Elder Simmons and I at the Madrid Temple

Today was our p-day instead of Monday, because it was our zone’s turn to go to the temple. The temple was really great, and it was good to go back again. One weird thing though was that I got a random bloody nose right towards the end of the session, luckily none of the blood got on anything, but it really caught me off guard. After that we went and played futbol back in the pit once again for a while which was a lot of fun. Then it was back to our Piso for groceries and naps (naps because we had to wake up super early to go to the temple).

This past week has been super busy, and it has been really great. The Tuesday after p-day we had zone conference, which was awesome. It was really fun to meet with a bunch of other missionaries and a bunch of missionaries from the MTC were there, so it was cool to see them again. A big focus of the conference was about talking versus contacting. It was a good conference, and it answered a lot of questions, so that was nice.

Last Week's Missing Email

Hello from Móstoles, Spain!

Another week down, and it was pretty good! I'm having a good time. I'm keeping pretty busy. I can't wait for the day when my legs stop being sore at the end of the day, if that ever happens, ha, but it's been good. The work is hard, but we have a good time, and we have a lot of great conversations from people from all over the world. I've been working this week on my accent and trying to use the Spanish theta more, it's taking some getting used to, but it will come with time.

We had a busy week, but I'm having trouble remembering stuff to write down. We didn't have as many meetings this week as we did the first, so we spent a lot more time contacting in the streets. I feel pretty settled in at this point. I'm grateful for is how quickly it took me to get settled in. One thing we did last week was go to a mall on p-day and get this little 3 euro backpack that all of the Madrid missionaries have and now I do, too. After that we just walked around the mall for a bit and the elders got some ties. I don't really remember what I did throughout the week so I'll just talk about some other people I'm coming to know in the area that are pretty cool.

Juan playing the guitarra

The first guy I want to talk about is named Juan. He is a member that is really cool and is always coming with us to meet with investigators. He is a little old, so he is really hard for me (and even Elder Simmons) to understand. He is a really fun guy though always has a smile on his face, and he is really happy to help and serve others. What's crazy to me is that he is the ward pianist, and he even plays the guitar too, yet he is pretty blind. I don't think I've ever seen him not wearing his glasses. He just plays everything from memory. He is a really fun guy.

Another person I want to talk about is Paco. Paco is a member of our English classes that we teach. He is a teacher, and his English is pretty good so we just have a lot of fun conversations. He is a really nice guy and is always really cheerful and has a lot of interesting questions. One thing he wants to learn is common English sayings that might not exist in Spanish. If anyone has any phrases they want to share, I'm open because he has wrung me dry. He is a really smart guy, and we always have such interesting conversations.