Week 13: Cadiz Casco Antiguo, Cadiz District

7:45 AM


Monday- So a lot of our zone came down to Cadiz to hang out and go see some stuff.  So we went to see some supposed castle on the end of this narrow strip of land extending out from Cadiz, but it was a little anti climactic. It's more of just remnants of a castle, there's not really anything there.  But it was way fun to hang out with our zone and see some of my friends and talk with them  Then we did some contacting right after and didn't find too much success with that.  Then we went to a Family Home evening with a less active family and that was way fun.  I tired demonstrating my newly found skill of being able to do the yoga position called the crane, but I totally face planted on the floor and it kinda hurt but it was way funny. Then we shared a great message about being able to recognize the spirit.  


 Tuesday- Today was our first every district meeting with our new small district of mostly hermanas.  It went really well.  Elder Stephens made Chili for it and it tasted really good.  I don't know how Elder Stephens does it, he doesn't measure anything when he cooks but everything he makes almost always turns out pretty darn good.  He always shows me too and it's so funny, I'll ask "how much (blank) do you put in" and the answer is almost always, "until you feel good about it" haha it's absolutely hilarious.  District meeting went very well and we talked about using members more in our work.  Then we left and went to the family Camacho's house and I just feel so bad for them.  Both of them have struggled with cancer for the past 10 years and it's just so disheartening.  They can't come to church because his treatment for his lung cancer is in Sevilla and he has to recover there after that.  But they still have faith in everything and they said they won't give up on God.  We taught Mosiah 24 which is a wonderful chapter.  It's how god won't always take away our burdens, but if we pray to him, he can alleviate them.  It's amazing. Then we went to teaching appointments with investigators, but no one was there  :(  Then we had to go back to the church because I forgot my suit coat there... 

Wednesday- the morning was just a meeting with our ward mission leader. Then after we did some street contacting and not a lot happened with that. Then we had lunch with our less active YSA friends Guillermo and Fernando. I think it's very hard to be a young single adult here in Spain, there's just really not many people here and going to church I imagine is a little hard when you're almost the only people your age group out with a bunch of older people. I don't know, they're definitely not less active because they don't have testimonies, they have very very strong testimonies. Both were kind of recently baptized in the church and were't supported by their families, but still had faith enough to continue. Then the rest of the night was doing some street contacting. Our zone leaders want us to try and do a lot of that.  Then we taught english classes and that was way fun as usual, and that was basically my night.


 Thursday- Oh my goodness, today was just... Wow. All morning was a huge amount of service.  First we helped a less active member move all her stuff from her old house to her new house including a washing machine!!! Then we helped member Antonio move like 45 bags of concrete down from a apartment he recently bought and is fixing up to sell and so me and Elder Stephens were just beat up today! Good thing we've been doing those body beast videos in the morning otherwise we might be a little sore. Release your inner beast!!! After that we met up with our new best friend Jose, from Guatemala.  He is working for a cruise ship and the ship is stationed here for a month.  He just walked in to the church last Sunday and was so happy to find a church.  He speaks english perfectly as well.  He was baptized at age 17 and served a mission in Peru and was a Zone Leader half his mission.  We went and taught a lesson with him to a less active and after, the moment of truth came.  We have an investigator who all his family is LDS.  His step son is serving a mission in London right now and He wants to wait for his step son to return to get baptized which is in a year.  So we had an idea to teach him about going to the temple.  We said he could be baptized now and go through the temple with his step son when he returns.  It was a great lesson, we taught well, we had awesome Jose with us bare amazing testimonies about the gospel and... our investigator just downright said no without even thinking.  We were super bummed about that.  We had prayed so hard for that lesson and really felt good about it.  But everyone has their own time.  


Friday- So the morning was our weekly planning since we were serving yesterday.  After that we went to Juani's (because we changed that as well) and I think that was the most full I've ever been so far and that's saying a lot.  Then we went and visited a less active who always promises us he'll go to church on Sunday but never shows and always has an excuse.  But he's very old and ill so we're not that surprised.  Then we went to the church to see if we could find Antonio at institute but he wasn't there.  Ever since he left for a weekend, we haven't seen him, so we have to push his baptismal date back another week.  We found out his phone is broken so we literally have no way of getting hold of him.  It's kind of frustrating.  But oh well.  Then we found out it was our Guatemalan friend Jose's birthday so we brought him to eat some Kebab which is this Moroccan food that we always eat and he's never eaten before.  Jose is the coolest, he's probably one of the best members on the earth.  Only member in his family (they all think the church is crazy) served a mission a year after his baptism, was his ward mission leader once he returned, but now he's just been working and going to church when he can.  He speaks Spanish perfectly and he says that he can't understand people here!! Hopefully that puts in perspective how awful the accent is when trying to understand in Cadiz.  There are also some very different words here or words with different meanings for Spanish.  One word could mean something completely normal here and be a swear word in South and Central America (there really are quite a few words like that here, so I've got to be careful not to use those when I get home.) 


Saturday- Today was sweet!!! So we were invited by the Margari and Enrique in our ward to go to their Campo in Puerto Real.  So first of all, a campo is basically people's cabins out here.  People have huge fields out in the Pueblos of Cadiz where they have all sorts of crops (lots and lots of olives) and houses and animals.  It's way cool and it seems like everyone has campos somewhere.  So Margari and Enrique own lots of property that they rent out to college people so they invited two of the girls that live in there to come as well so we could teach them about the gospel.  One is from Morocco and the other from Northern France.  Both of the speak Arabic (because the one from france's dad is Moroccan) and english and Spanish and French so it was a day of communicating in so many languages! We taught them all about the restored gospel and stuff and they both seem interested. We have a lot of hope for the one from France because she's never heard of Mormons before and thinks all of it is so interesting (we just need to get a Book of Mormon in French) but the one from Morocco would be more complicated... Fist of all, her family would completely disown her if they found out she converted to a Christian church.  Second, there's just a lot of complications with converting a Muslim because it can be a risk to their safety so there's just a lot more to go through with and stuff. So yea... Also, I got to drink milk they came directly from a cow.  I saw them milk it, do whatever they do to prepare it, and then drank a glass of it.  It was pretty good.  Then we got back and visited one of our less active members who is doing so great in coming back, he just has depression issues and that can be difficult.  So yea, it was an exciting day.  


Sunday- so today was the regular day at church. But something way cool happened. The first ever convert in all of Cadiz was at church today. He's inactive now, but he came today. He told us the story about when the elders first found his family. They lived in rota and would bike all the way here to Cadiz to work. His family was amazed by their diligence and honestly didn't even think there was another Christian church in Spain. He was baptized at age 9 in the ocean and they would have church in a little apartment on Calle Sacramento. That is so crazy to me. This church has existed for almost 200 years yet Spain's pioneers are still alive. Spain has had religious freedom for such a short time so the church is so young. And now, he said he was a amazed to see how much it's grown here. Our teacher told him that he was basically the seed that grew into an amazing tree which is the whole Cadiz Stake and I think it opened his eyes again.  It was pretty cool thing. Also our investigator Antonio was there. His phone has been broken so we couldn't call him but all is well. His baptismal date is now the fifth of December so we could align It with the hermana's baptism as well and he's just awesome. He's read all of 1 and 2 nephi and when we taught him the word of wisdom, he thought it was great. He said he would have no problem living it. It's all been just too easy... Then the rest of the day wasn't anything too special. Mostly just waiting while elder Stephens did district leader stuff. 

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