This has been the most interesting week of my life.  I've never had so many ups and downs ever and it’s been definitely stressful. My first few days were very rough.  I was extremely homesick and all I could think about were the comforts of home.

Spain is absolutely gorgeous though and the people for the most part are nice.  My district is so freaking funny.  I've got Elder Hammond, Elder Hildebrand, Elder Greenhaugh, elder Garcia, and my companion Elder Whiting.  I will admit, we mess around a lot. Some of the others do struggle with the whole obedience thing, but I always do my best to remain obedient. We are like brothers. We make fun of each other, we laugh with each other, we definitely often fight with each other but at the end of the day, we all love each other.


I have grown so spiritually as well, I’ve come to know the importance of relying on the spirit. One difficulty I have had is that I'm very hard on myself. I was struggling to think I wasn’t progressing in the language, and I’ve never been super athletic, and so I kind suck at sports, and  I was constantly beating myself up over these things.  But I rely on my go to scripture which everyone should read. Ether 12 verse 27. It helps me so much.  I pray so much in the day, and my prayers have so far always been answered as long as I’m patient.  As a companionship, me and Elder Whiting teach and work very well together, but we aren´t the best of friends. But we are working on it.

On Saturday, we actually went proselyting on splits and I was with Elder Reese. Despite not knowing almost any Spanish, we saw great success as we had good conversations with many people, luckily some of which were in  English.  one man started to tear up as we told him how the el libro de mormon  testfica de la verdadero, y amroroso de jesucristo y su evengelio. Put that in google translate, it most likely is incorrect though... but anyway, the food is good, we work hard and we are always tired, but the spirit has helped me so much.  I love and miss everyone back home         
              

Love,

Elder Hirst 

P.S. you can send me letters any time and I really want some.  Just do it through dearelder.com. Also when I get in the field, I’ll have my own ipad and I can check email any time then.