Tuesday- They day began with our district meeting.  It was very good and I love my district so much.  The San Fernando District is the best district in the best Mission in the world!!! :) We had some great discussions and learned a lot, and after, just for fun, we had some deep doctrine discussions.  Sure it's not sometimes the best way to use your time on a mission, but it's kind of fun to discuss some of the more complicated gospel principles that we don't ever get to discuss very often.  Then we returned and did some studying.  We then had a meeting with our Ward Mission Leader Antonio and we discussed some very good way to help some less actives and investigators.  Then we met with a less active and her non member daughter Adriana and Adrianita.  They are from Mexico and they are super cool, it was great to finally be able to meet them and teach a little.  Then we had a family home evening planned, but when we arrived, there was a huge soccer match between Barcelona and someone else, so they asked if we could reschedule it.  Hahaha these Spaniards sure take their soccer seriously.  Then we visited our less active and her non member husband who have a son on a mission in England London.  The didn't have time to meet tonight, so we set another appointment with them later.

Wednesday- Man, this day ended up being a little disappointing.  All of our appointments feel through with investigators and we only had 1 appointment with a less active member in the morning and 1 appointment with another less active member in the night.  All of our plans called and changed on us.  It means we have a busy week ahead, but today just sort of fell through.  We did a little street contacting in a park (which i've really got to work on) and some other contacting but nothing was working out super well.  I guess not all days can work out perfectly, and that's okay.  We taught english classes as well today and that was fun as always, but nobody in our class is really interested in the gospel, but that doesn't mean we can't at least share a gospel message after.  

Thursday- today was just our regular weekly planning schedule. Then we had our regular Thursday lunch with Juani who always feeds us until we can't move.  Especially me, because I'm apparently too skinny and need to get bigger.  Haha, it is always great to eat at Juani's but just a little difficult because I have to physically prepare myself to be able to eat that much food.  Then we had this awesome lesson planned out with our 17 year old investigator Javi, we even had one of the young men in the ward the same age come with us, but Javi cancelled the last second.  So we did our back up plan and visited a recent convert and that went well.  Then we had another lesson planned again with our investigators from Mexico, but when we arrived, they weren't there!! All these plans falling through.  So we did some back up plans and tried to get some new investigators but we didn't find much success. Then one of the families here invited us to do a family home evening with them and that was really super fun, we had a great time.  And they all said that I apparently look like David Archileta ( I don't know how to spell that) which was a new one. I guess I've done my hair Kind of differently now and apparently it's made me look famous. 

Friday- Today was a little rough.  Literally everything cancelled on us except for one lesson with a less active and none of our contacting ended up being very successful. But I'm going to look at the positive in this.  One, it's a good character builder, a good reminder that not every day is going to work out and that this mission isn't supposed to be easy.  We're always supposed to be learning something and recognizing our weaknesses so that we can remember to be humble.  Two, we have really good hopes of rescuing (The term for reactivating a less active into the church) the less active we taught and we're really excited for that.  A rescue is often just as important as a baptism in a mission and that's great that we've worked with her very well.  She attended church last week and we hope she will again this week.  So not all the work we did yielded no results.  It eventually pays off in ways that, if we choose to recognize, are marvelous.  Oh, and we also were asked by the young Womens president during the day to help prepare the ward building for a huge baby shower they were throwing that night.  And that was pretty fun, although we weren't really invited to attend as it was an all women thing, so... yea.  But it was still great to help!

Saturday- So we once again played some Futbol this morning as our saturday morning tradition with friends in our ward.  I have to say, playing with these Spaniards all the time, I feel like I'm getting a little better, but I'm still not super good.  We saw our 17 year old future we have hope for and he said he'd come to church tomorrow.  We hope he really does.  Then after that, our church was holding a huge family history activity at the ward so we helped set that up and do stuff there. It was fun and a lot of people showed up and were working really hard doing all sorts of family history stuff, because their trip to Madrid for the temple is in the first week of December so they're getting prepared for that. And our less active Alisia who we've really been trying to 'Rescue" was there so that was cool!! We really think she's going to start being active again and we're happy about that.   Then, once again almost all of our appointments called and cancelled on us.  So we visited some less actives and invited them to church and some said they'd try to come.  Then we did some contacting, but weekends here in Cadiz are a little crazy so sometimes it's not the best time to contact.  Especially in the streets... and nobody is every really home weekend nights so there wasn't a lot of success there.  

Sunday- Today was a good day at church and we had a couple less actives attend so that was good.  But no Javi :( And then we had a great eating appointment with our first counselor and his family and that was a lot of fun.  Then we went back and we did some studying.  Then we went and did some contacting with not huge amount of success.  Then with a member we visited our recent convert and our investigator who still won't really progress.  The Word of Wisdom can be a big problem here in Spain.  So that was it for this day.  Today was day light savings in Spain, so we've gone to a new schedule of everything being pushed back a half hour.  If you didn't know with this mission, we wake up at 7:30 and our bed time is 11:30, but now our winter schedule is up at 7:00 and in bed at 11:00. So this might be difficult to get accustomed to, but oh well.

Overall, the week was a little difficult.  We didn't have enormous amounts of success as far as numbers go, but it's great that we've been helping lots of less actives.  The goal is to invite all unto christ, not just baptize people in the church.  Retention is just as important as baptism, and i guess that's where we've been really coming in.  I'm so grateful for the awesome ward that I'm in and for being in such a cool place such as Cadiz and the Malaga Mission. I'm so grateful for the Book of Mormon and I can say that it's probably one of the main reasons I'm on my mission. I know it to be the word of God.

Elder Hirst

Throwback to my dad's mission in South Africa!