A Letter to the RS sisters in GB

This is Elder Bassett checking in from Tenerife Spain! 

Life here is good. We keep pretty busy; it's awesome spending everyday striving to help people come closer unto Christ. Things are great. I meet lots of amazing people all the time from all over the world, talk in Spanish a lot, and see miracles everyday!

Missionary life really is awesome.  I have definitely learned a lot while I have been here, one of those things being the importance of relief society. When I was still in Móstoles, there was a member who didn't have a job, or papers. Then one day, she got kicked out of her apartment with her 2 year old son to the street. That same day, the relief society sisters helped her pack all of her stuff, store it in the church and start the search for a new apartment. She stayed in one of the sister's houses until the next day when she could move into another apartment that a fellow sister had already found. Now, not all of the service that the relief society does are as big as that, but they are still just as important. A helping hand in times of discouragement, a call to show that you're loved, or a visit from a your visiting teachers. Each of those can help someone just as much as helping someone move and find a house.  

Thank you all for your service. I love you, and I testify that God loves you!

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. 

BIG Changes!

Hey everyone!

Our view Mt. Teide from our apartment in Puerto-no clouds! It's the highest point on the island.

So transfers came in this weekend....and nothing changed, the subject of the email is a lie. Ha! So Elder Johnson is still over here in La Laguna with me and the hermanas. Our district is staying the same. So yea, that was transfers. 

Our week was pretty good. As always, we spent 5 days in La Laguna and 2 days in Puerto. We had a lot of time to talk in the street this week, and we were able to get a couple references, so that was great. We are going to be trying to meet with them this week so that we can start getting some new investigators. What's hard is that for some reason it seems like the people in Puerto are just more willing to talk. Because of that, most of our references are from Puerto. It's hard, because it means we only have a 2-day window to try and meet with people. We think though that we might start staying in Puerto Saturdays to fit in more people. 

Oh man, I just remembered we got some big news! So this last week, President sent out a message to the whole mission to tell us all that he had been working with the missionary department and that our mission has just been officially approved to begin online proselyting. So this means that we can start using sites like Facebook, Instagram, and google hangouts to help further the work. On top of that we will soon be getting new phones that will allow us to use whatsapp. These are both huge steps for our mission. The online proselyting opens so many new windows for finding new investigators, and it is so exciting. On top of that, having whatsapp will help us to stay in touch with our investigators so much more. I can't even begin to describe how many investigators we can't get into contact with, because we don't have whatsapp. This is super big! 

Better late than never!

Hello my peeps!

Punto de Hildalgo on the northern part of the island

So, it's been a pretty good week, pretty busy again. On Tuesday we had intercambios with the zone leaders. That was a bunch of fun; we had to fly over to Las Palmas for that. It was cool and a super beautiful place. 

After that we went about our week. We had service with a family on Friday, which was great. The service that day was a lot like at grandma's; we spent a lot of time clearing plots of land, planting, and turning dirt.  We worked on a little farm on a cliff right next to the ocean. That was super beautiful. I didn't have a camera though, so no pictures of that. I'll try and take some if we ever do service there again. 

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.