Week 14: Cadiz Casco Antiguo, Cadiz District
11:51 AM
Monday- So this P day, our whole zone came over to Cadiz to celebrate thanksgiving. It was way fun and the food was very good. (I feel bad because Elder Stephens did like all the work for this whole thing) I basically played foosball the entire time. Nobody and I mean nobody could beat me. Elder childs who is the other district leader for the district that split from ours is pretty darn good and would get close, but I'd always win against everyone. The only time I lost was when they had two of the best other players playing just me, and I lost by one and i was mad at myself. But that's okay, it was such a fun game. Then that night we went to our usual family home evening that we teach but unfortunately the usual fun bunch wasn't there, so it was a short visit. But we brought Jose from Guatemala. Poor guy, he has nothing to do in the night. He works all day, and then doesn't go out with other people during the night because he says they do bad stuff, so he's just been going out with us the missionaries almost every night. But he says he loves sharing the gospel so it's okay. Honestly, He is just the coolest guy in the world!!!
Tuesday- Today, Elder Stephens had district leader training in San Fernando, so Elder Berry from Chiclana came to Cadiz with me. Elder Berry is only one group ahead of me so we're both very new but we had a great time. We tried talking to people in the streets and we were able to teach a lesson to a less active. It was way fun being with Elder Berry. Then I went back to San Fernando to get Elder Stephens and President Andersen was there! I love seeing President Andersen because I never get to very often. He's the complete definition of "Hastening the Work." He gathered all us Elders in a group in a circle outside the church and told us how we need to tell investigators before they begin progressing that because this message is of eternal salvation, Satan will be working super hard against them. So they must fight and press on. After that he said, well Adios Elders and got in his car and left. So he gave us a very good little sermon and then went on to continue his work, and apparently he is famous for doing that, and it's way cool to me. Then me and Elder Stephens went back to Cadiz and Elder Stephens had to to an interview for the Hermanas investigator and he's being baptized this Sunday so that's way awesome. Then we had a Family home evening with Domingo, the guy who's step son is on a mission and wants him to baptize him. We think, maybe if we befriend Domingo more, he will want to be baptized sooner. If not, I guess we'll just wait.
Wednesday- So something interesting happened in the morning. Last night on our way home, this group of homeless people came up to us asking for money, and the main one was kind of this older lady. We said we couldn’t give them money, and as we were walking away the lady was just yelling "MORMONS!!!! MORMONS!!" very angrily. The next morning, we ran into one of our good homeless friends ( basically the town drunk but he's way nice to us) we always talk to in the street and the yelling lady was with him. So we talked with them a bit and she apologized for yelling at us, she said she did it just because there were other people around or something like that. By the end, she loved us. Just goes to show you, fight fire with love. Then we were supposed to teach Antonio, but because his phone is broken, it's very difficult to reach him! So we weren't able to find him in time, but we eventually did meet him and his flamenco choir that he's in and we talked to a lot of people there. But we couldn't teach Antonio. After that, we went to talk with Javi. Still he's difficult to get to church because he's just a teenager who enjoys sleeping in. Then, our friend Jose from Guatemala we found out is leaving Thursday morning to go to Malta. His boss randomly reassigned him there. We are going to miss him so much, he was so cool and he was such an awesome missionary and always wanted to go with us to teach and stuff. So we took him to eat and said our goodbyes which was sad.
Thursday- Happy thanksgiving everyone! I'm very grateful for all the blessings I have in this day, especially for the amazing opportunity I have to be serving a mission here in the best mission in the World! I'm very grateful for my family who is absolutely amazing, every one of them including all of my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. I've come to appreciate family so much here on the mission. I'm also really grateful for my Companion Elder Stephens who has been an amazing trainer, and for all the people here in Cadiz who have done so much for us. I'm so grateful for the Book of Mormon, I know that it is true with all of my heart and it has given me so much knowledge. And of course, I'm grateful for my father in heaven and his son Jesus Christ. So this day, we had district meeting, and we combined it with the other district of San Fernando so we could celebrate thanksgiving. I gave a lesson on what it means to be a successful missionary. Then We had thanksgiving (Spain style which consisted of chicken because turkey is impossible to find) and that was awesome. Then we had to go to San Fernando for Elder Stephens to do a baptismal interview for the investigator of the hermanas there (but the girl never showed up) so we went back and had another thanksgiving with the Cadiz Hermanas and the French and Moroccan girls we met last week. (they really wanted to have their first thanksgiving with us) That went well and we taught them about how to be thankful and how all things are from god.
Friday- So this morning was weekly planning and more service, but unfortunately our service activity sort of fell through for annoying reasons which result from our Apartment not having cell service. But we did get to have a quick lunch of paella with some members and teach a quick lesson. Then our washing machine broke (well I kind of broke it...) so we called our landlady and she came and said she'd pay for it to be fixed so that was nice. Then we went back to San Fernando to do the interview again and she did show up and she passed so they'll have a baptism over in San Fernando. And that was honestly all of our day.
Saturday- today was a big service project for us. We did a huge recogida de comida (collection of food) for the poor in Cadiz. We stood outside a store with some members, had a huge cart, and asked people to get something to give to the poor, and we received a lot so that was way awesome. We started at 9:30 and went until about 5:30 with all the work. It was insane and I was so tired after. But we collected so much food. And something amazing happened. Antonio and Javi helped with this whole service project. Javi promised he would come to church on Sunday, and we were able to teach antonio, but I'll get to that later. So member Juan has basically been such an important tool in everything that's happened here in Cadiz. Without him, our work would be probably nothing right now. This just goes to show you how important member missionary work is. Without it, it is nowhere near as effective. So later, we met up with a new investigator who we met through Antonio named Alex. Alex is the director of the Cadiz Flamenco Choir at the Merced which is this super famous theatre in Casco Antiguo. Antonio plays percussion in that Choir and basically has been preaching to everyone about us in his choir. We met Alex one night and he said he would really like to meet with us. So we took him to the church tonight and taught him about LDS church services. Then, Antonio showed up which was great and we taught them both about the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Importance of baptism, and other commandments. Then we invited Alex to be baptized and he said yes! We will set a date with him once we actually teach him about the Book of Mormon and the restoration, because we weren't able to talk about that because we needed to get home and had already taught a lot of stuff.
Sunday- So today was a sad day at church, just for the fact that the Hermanas baptism called off his baptism tonight which we've been making huge preparations for all week. The hermanas were very sad at church. But the rest went pretty well. Our investigator Javi came to church!! The 17 year old who said he'd never be able to wake up that early but he did, and it was all thanks to member Juan! What would we do without Juan. So after that, we had lunch at Juani's because we couldn't this last Thursday. Then after that, we went over to Juan's and taught Antonio the Ten Commandments and Javi was there as well and we were able to talk a lot with him about commandments as well. 10 commandments is a huge thing here because once you get to the second commandment, that's something huge. Why you may ask? Because everyone here worships saints and virgins in some form, and explaining the second commandment as it is in the book of mormon and the old testament is very important. But all that went well. Then we went and visited a less active member with a member and talked about Christmas and its significance. And that was basically our night!
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