Monday- p day was good. We played tennis and had a lot of fun. All those lessons as a kid paid off, I felt like I was playing pretty well. Although elder Llavina has never played tennis before so that
could've helped. But we did that and also ate at
dominoes. Then because we had a
zone conference in Malaga, the valdepeñas elders came to stay with us because we had an early train. Me
and my district leader, Elder
Castillo from Peru, went and taught our investigator Ronald. It was an awesome lesson and elder Castillo
was great. Ronald still is having
problems understanding the importance of an organized church and the priesthood so we are really going to
work on that. P.s. I was told by
my parents that my photos I send aren't very good and that I should take more pictures of food and
better stuff so I'll try and do
that from now on.
Tuesday- woooooo we went to Malaga! I love Andalusia so much (the south western province of Spain which includes Cadiz and Malaga and stuff). Andalucía is literally my favorite I miss it so much. Malaga was really cool and our zone conference was way awesome. We talked a lot about the importance of declaring repentance and baptizing converts, or in other words, our purpose. We also had some talks by our APs, one about just plainly opening up our mouths and contacting more and having no fear, the other about teaching in the street. Also had a few talks about learning Spanish better and making sure we dress well It was a great conference and I just loved seeing all my friends and being once again in warm, sunny Andalusia. I hope I serve in Málaga at one point, it seems awesome.
Wednesday- in the morning, we went and taught Ronald and his mom Lenny. It was more centered around Lenny and we'd like to try and get her to church as well. She doesn't seem to have any problems with what we teach, just that she doesn't really want to commit to anything. But we'll continue and see what happens. Then we went trying to find some less actives and on the way I contacted a guy from Paraguay (I see someone from South America, I am willing to run to try and teach them) but for the first time in my mission, I met an atheist South American. We talked for a really long time and he had some really difficult questions but we could definitely feel the spirit talking with him and we gave him something about the plan of salvation to read. He gave us his number and said he'd be willing to meet with us to talk more. It was a good experience. Then that night, we taught Alisia. She's doing super well, and has read in the Book of Mormon a lot. She doesn't understand it too well so we need to get her to pray as well and help her recognize the spirit. We showed her the restoration video (with a speaker on full blast so she could hear) and after we asked what she thought and she said "it's the truth" I love that answer!!! We challenged her to really pray about it. Then we met with Toni (the 17 year old Chinese kid who was born here in Ciudad Real) and taught him a little. Boy, I don't think I'll ever get sick of teaching the law of chastity on the first lesson! I've been teaching lots of teenagers my mission so that seems to be a common theme. This is the 4th time it's happened. It's always the first questions they ask. We also talked about the plan of salvation too. But after, he said the coolest quote I've heard my whole mission in his broken English (he likes to try and speak English with us) "wow you guys are dope (we taught him that word), because you believe in God!" I love it! I heard so many great one liners today! Then we taught English classes after and a lot of people came so that's good.
Thursday- weekly planning in the morning. Then we had a lesson with Jennry Yeranni and Valentine in the house of kris and that went well. They just can't be baptized because Jenny and Valentine don't want to get married and Yeranni wants to wait for her parents so.. Erghhh. It's annoying. Then we went to manuel's house to talk about his baptism. He said he wanted to move it because he got the flue and also sliced open his finger and so he wanted to do it next Saturday, which is definitely okay. So we set up his interview for Tuesday and he will be baptized a week from Saturday so that's way cool! And that was pretty much the most exciting stuff I can remember from Thursday
Friday- we had a meeting with Luis, the king of swag. He likes to talk a lot... Then we had a lesson with a reference from Kriss (who also came to the lesson), her friend from her driving school Lorena who's from Columbia. It was a really great lesson and Lorena definitely has a lot of potential. She said she's always felt like Joseph smith, knowing there is something but not able to find the truth so that's cool. Then that night it rained like crazy and we couldn't find people's house to go to so we spent a lot of time in the streets and got really wet... And cold. But it's good for the soul. Then we went to our branch president's house and one of his daughters had a friend over so we taught her a little bit and gave her a pamphlet and we hope they can try and get her to church and we could teach her.
Saturday- today was absolutely freezing. Just like to the bone freezing, and it was humid enough that it didn't matter how much clothing I wore. It was predicted to snow but it never did so we were really sad. But in the morning we did our new tradition of going to the park and contacting there (like back in the MTC days in Madrid!). Unfortunately everyone we talked to told us they didn't want to stop and talk because it was too cold... But we did talk to one older gentlemen for a very long time and he said something after talking for a while that I didn't like "when you get to my age, you find out you don't need a god anymore to be a good person. You young guys, you'll believe anything just to try and fit in to society and that's why you're here." That doesn't make any sense to me! Oh well, we shared with him our testimonies and went our separate ways. Then that night, we left to go at our normal time and there were zero people In the street. It looked like the whole city had just shut down. We arrived at a less actives house and he told us why. It was the Match between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid so everyone was home watching it. We had to wait for that to be done to do anything... It ended and Just so you know Atletico won from what everyone told us. Then we visited a different less active Nieves and that went alright. Then we went and played Futbol with our Bolivian friends and I scored two goals, and two of our investigators came so that's cool.
Sunday- a lot of people who committed to come to church didn't. But we had Manuel, Alisia, and Jenny Yeranni and Valentine so that's good. We talked with Manuel about his baptism and he wanted us to invite the branch and what he should wear and everything. We then taught the Sunday school class about the Isaiah chapters and that's hard enough in English but in Spanish it even more fun. It was great! Also a huge miracle happened. This just random guy from the outside just walked in the church and started talking to a member. He said he often walked down the street and had seen the plaque of our church and heard of us but didn't know much and really wanted to learn more. The member got his number and explained that we have missionaries that would love to explain to you everything and he was happy about that. His name is Angel and he's from Mexico so that's sweet! Then we went and ate at Ana's house as usual. I tried a new cool lesson elder Llavina and I have been preparing to answer one question we get so often "if there is a god and he is just why do bad things happen to good people?" We wanted to test in on members and it went really well so we will definitely use it with investigators and stuff. Then we went and taught Toni. He read the entire plan of salvation pamphlet and like actually for real. He started with "so I have the potential to go to the celestial kingdom, I just have to repent and be baptized" he clearly understands everything, he just wants to find out if it's true. He asked if he could try doing a prayer. Of course! So he did his first prayer and then we challenged him to do one on his own. He had a lot of really good questions too.
Well it was a great week. Monday was a nice warm day, and the rest of the week, I don't think I've ever been so cold in my mission. It was just outright freezing. Maybe I was just accustomed to the nice Andalusian whether before I came here.
Well I just want to give thanks to my two friends Elder Durfee and Elder Jones and my two cousins (another) Elder Jones and Elder Hogan who are all out serving the lord as well. They are such great examples to me and I can only hope to be as half as good of a missionary as they are. It's interesting, one will always notice that we all say the exact same thing every single week and that is "We Love Being Missionaries"! It's the best, and there's no other way to describe it.
Tuesday- woooooo we went to Malaga! I love Andalusia so much (the south western province of Spain which includes Cadiz and Malaga and stuff). Andalucía is literally my favorite I miss it so much. Malaga was really cool and our zone conference was way awesome. We talked a lot about the importance of declaring repentance and baptizing converts, or in other words, our purpose. We also had some talks by our APs, one about just plainly opening up our mouths and contacting more and having no fear, the other about teaching in the street. Also had a few talks about learning Spanish better and making sure we dress well It was a great conference and I just loved seeing all my friends and being once again in warm, sunny Andalusia. I hope I serve in Málaga at one point, it seems awesome.
Wednesday- in the morning, we went and taught Ronald and his mom Lenny. It was more centered around Lenny and we'd like to try and get her to church as well. She doesn't seem to have any problems with what we teach, just that she doesn't really want to commit to anything. But we'll continue and see what happens. Then we went trying to find some less actives and on the way I contacted a guy from Paraguay (I see someone from South America, I am willing to run to try and teach them) but for the first time in my mission, I met an atheist South American. We talked for a really long time and he had some really difficult questions but we could definitely feel the spirit talking with him and we gave him something about the plan of salvation to read. He gave us his number and said he'd be willing to meet with us to talk more. It was a good experience. Then that night, we taught Alisia. She's doing super well, and has read in the Book of Mormon a lot. She doesn't understand it too well so we need to get her to pray as well and help her recognize the spirit. We showed her the restoration video (with a speaker on full blast so she could hear) and after we asked what she thought and she said "it's the truth" I love that answer!!! We challenged her to really pray about it. Then we met with Toni (the 17 year old Chinese kid who was born here in Ciudad Real) and taught him a little. Boy, I don't think I'll ever get sick of teaching the law of chastity on the first lesson! I've been teaching lots of teenagers my mission so that seems to be a common theme. This is the 4th time it's happened. It's always the first questions they ask. We also talked about the plan of salvation too. But after, he said the coolest quote I've heard my whole mission in his broken English (he likes to try and speak English with us) "wow you guys are dope (we taught him that word), because you believe in God!" I love it! I heard so many great one liners today! Then we taught English classes after and a lot of people came so that's good.
Thursday- weekly planning in the morning. Then we had a lesson with Jennry Yeranni and Valentine in the house of kris and that went well. They just can't be baptized because Jenny and Valentine don't want to get married and Yeranni wants to wait for her parents so.. Erghhh. It's annoying. Then we went to manuel's house to talk about his baptism. He said he wanted to move it because he got the flue and also sliced open his finger and so he wanted to do it next Saturday, which is definitely okay. So we set up his interview for Tuesday and he will be baptized a week from Saturday so that's way cool! And that was pretty much the most exciting stuff I can remember from Thursday
Friday- we had a meeting with Luis, the king of swag. He likes to talk a lot... Then we had a lesson with a reference from Kriss (who also came to the lesson), her friend from her driving school Lorena who's from Columbia. It was a really great lesson and Lorena definitely has a lot of potential. She said she's always felt like Joseph smith, knowing there is something but not able to find the truth so that's cool. Then that night it rained like crazy and we couldn't find people's house to go to so we spent a lot of time in the streets and got really wet... And cold. But it's good for the soul. Then we went to our branch president's house and one of his daughters had a friend over so we taught her a little bit and gave her a pamphlet and we hope they can try and get her to church and we could teach her.
Saturday- today was absolutely freezing. Just like to the bone freezing, and it was humid enough that it didn't matter how much clothing I wore. It was predicted to snow but it never did so we were really sad. But in the morning we did our new tradition of going to the park and contacting there (like back in the MTC days in Madrid!). Unfortunately everyone we talked to told us they didn't want to stop and talk because it was too cold... But we did talk to one older gentlemen for a very long time and he said something after talking for a while that I didn't like "when you get to my age, you find out you don't need a god anymore to be a good person. You young guys, you'll believe anything just to try and fit in to society and that's why you're here." That doesn't make any sense to me! Oh well, we shared with him our testimonies and went our separate ways. Then that night, we left to go at our normal time and there were zero people In the street. It looked like the whole city had just shut down. We arrived at a less actives house and he told us why. It was the Match between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid so everyone was home watching it. We had to wait for that to be done to do anything... It ended and Just so you know Atletico won from what everyone told us. Then we visited a different less active Nieves and that went alright. Then we went and played Futbol with our Bolivian friends and I scored two goals, and two of our investigators came so that's cool.
Sunday- a lot of people who committed to come to church didn't. But we had Manuel, Alisia, and Jenny Yeranni and Valentine so that's good. We talked with Manuel about his baptism and he wanted us to invite the branch and what he should wear and everything. We then taught the Sunday school class about the Isaiah chapters and that's hard enough in English but in Spanish it even more fun. It was great! Also a huge miracle happened. This just random guy from the outside just walked in the church and started talking to a member. He said he often walked down the street and had seen the plaque of our church and heard of us but didn't know much and really wanted to learn more. The member got his number and explained that we have missionaries that would love to explain to you everything and he was happy about that. His name is Angel and he's from Mexico so that's sweet! Then we went and ate at Ana's house as usual. I tried a new cool lesson elder Llavina and I have been preparing to answer one question we get so often "if there is a god and he is just why do bad things happen to good people?" We wanted to test in on members and it went really well so we will definitely use it with investigators and stuff. Then we went and taught Toni. He read the entire plan of salvation pamphlet and like actually for real. He started with "so I have the potential to go to the celestial kingdom, I just have to repent and be baptized" he clearly understands everything, he just wants to find out if it's true. He asked if he could try doing a prayer. Of course! So he did his first prayer and then we challenged him to do one on his own. He had a lot of really good questions too.
Well it was a great week. Monday was a nice warm day, and the rest of the week, I don't think I've ever been so cold in my mission. It was just outright freezing. Maybe I was just accustomed to the nice Andalusian whether before I came here.
Well I just want to give thanks to my two friends Elder Durfee and Elder Jones and my two cousins (another) Elder Jones and Elder Hogan who are all out serving the lord as well. They are such great examples to me and I can only hope to be as half as good of a missionary as they are. It's interesting, one will always notice that we all say the exact same thing every single week and that is "We Love Being Missionaries"! It's the best, and there's no other way to describe it.
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