Week 28: Ciudad Real, La Mancha District
8:59 AM
Monday- we went to this sweet park for p day where there's all these cool things to do. Then we visited Lenny and Ronald. Ronald was sick with the flu this week so he couldn't come to church. But they're doing well, but we need to focus more on the big lessons for Ronald. Then we went help a members friend with English. I've been teaching a lot of English.
Tuesday- we had district meeting in the morning. Then I went to do companion exchanges and I went with elder Rojas to the city of Valdapeñas. We taught this sweet Colombian guy first and he was super tall and loved basketball and was way chill and the missionaries have taught him once. His good friend, a less active in valadapeñas, Junior was there and they both loved me because I'm tall and like American football. But we taught the investigator and it was an awesome lesson, and at the end I invited him to be baptized and he said yes! I sure hope that ends up happening. Then we went and taught a less active which is Junior's sister and she had two friends there. Neither were really interested but they both agreed that they'd at least like to learn more. Then we got a call from the zone leaders in Malaga (still don't know why the La Mancha district pertains to Malaga, we're a 4 hour train ride away) saying zone meeting was actually coming up the next day! So we would have to wake up way early the next day to catch a bus from Valdapeñas to Ciudad Real. But we talked to some more people in the street and found a couple interested people which is awesome! Then we went and I met the branch president in Valdapeñas and his family and they were cool.
Helicopter park
Pickey machu (famous Bolivian dish)
Wednesday- took
and Early bus and arrived in Ciudad Real. We had Zone Meeting, kind of, and then we all drove to Puertollano
to go to a super famous (in the
missionary world) burrito place there. It truly was one of the best burritos I've had. But it was cool
because in just one day I had been
in 3/4 areas in La Mancha! That night, back with Elder Llavina, we didn't have too much. Mostly
contacting people and not too much
happened. Then we taught English classes and Toni brought his older sister and two new people came as well. That
was kind of sucky for me because
it was my turn to teach the beginner class and with the two new people that came, it was literally
ground 0... They knew nothing so
I'll have to prepare for that next time. But it was good because we talked to them about the church and
one said she was devout
Evangelical but we'll see what happens. And we may be able to teach Toni's older sister too.
The make-shift font
Thursday- the
morning, we helped our friend from English class Jose, prepare for his C2 English class which was the next
day in Madrid. In Spain the C2
English test is the most advanced test there is, and if you pass it mains you are basically a native English
speaker. We taught him about
prayer and how it would help him with his test. He said he would try praying before his test. After this,
we plan on meeting with him more
and being officially teaching him. Then we cleaned the church because it was our turn. Then we
went and ate with some Bolivian
investigators who are super cool. They fed us a famous Bolivian dish pickey machu. They love us a lot,
but the problem is they are very
evangelical and sometimes they like to invite their local minister and he just enjoys bible bashing which
every missionary in the world will
tell you doesn't work. Luckily this time just his son came so no bible bashing, but we weren't able to
teach a full lesson because it was
a little crazy, but we plan on retuning and talking more about the restoration. Then that night we
met with Manuel to talk about his
baptism and everything. He was all ready and we did all the paper work.
Investigators Sonya, David, and Edwin
Friday- in the
morning, we met with swag master Luis for mission correlation. Then we met with Lorena and we showed her
the Joseph smith video. She said
that every time she's wanted to come to church but that something has come up last minute. Our member
Kriss had explained earlier (like
the amazing member she is) that this is something Satan will try and do because he knows how important it is
for her to go so he's going to do everything to
prevent her from doing so. She
read the Book of Mormon a little and also prayed so that's way good! She's progressing very well. Then we went and
taught Ronald and he's not progressing
so well unfortunately. But we met one of his friends from Columbia and he was cool and he said he'd
like to go to English classes and
see what our church is about. Then we went to some member's friends house for dinner who are very devout
Catholic so want nothing to do
with our message, but they love us so always want to feed us very Spanish food. It was a very Spanish meal
(which I may have discovered I'm
actually a bigger fan of South American food now....) then we went to start setting up the
baptismal font and the fun had
just started...
Famous burrito place in Puertollano with the district
Saturday- transfers! Both me and elder Llavina stay and elder Llavina will be the new district leader. Well the night before we hadn't figured out much with the font so we went back. The font is actually a big plastic pool (because I'm in a small branch) and setting up was really confusing. After hours of work, we finally set it up and started filling it up by connecting a hose to the sink, and Siphoning it. President Andersen and his wife have been in La Mancha all week reorganizing the distinct presidency and branch presidencies so we sat and talked to hermana Andersen while president was interviewing people and that was good. Then Satan started working... We left for Medio Dia and went to make some lunch. We return 1.5 later and the siphoned hose had fallen and was spilling the water from the font to the floor. It took us a good 2 hours of mopping to clean the now flooded church. But eventually all was worked out and we filled the font. But the bad thing is, is that it was filled with freezing cold water because the hot water had broke. Yea, Satan was fighting way hard today but we just punched him right in the gut and the baptism was all worked out! Manuel came and 5 other investigators showed up and like the whole branch, the missionaries of La Mancha all came, we had a musical number and I played my clarinet, and Member Carlos baptized Manuel!
Woohooo!
MTC pictures I found!
Sunday- we had a huge change in the district and branch presidency this week. The district president (who's from Ciuad Real) after being district president for 11 years in La Manch was released. Our current breach president was called as district president. Swag master Luis was called as a district counselor. And Carlos was called as our new branch president which is way cool! We also confirmed Manuel as a member of the church. We had Alisia who is my favorite person ever and she came to the baptism too and loved it and said she wants to be next. She loves this church and we just need to really work hard with her to get her prepared. Lorena didn't come...but hey I was so happy at church with Manuel confirmed and Alisia and stuff and Carlos as branch president, it was a great day! We then took lots of time to take down and drain the font. Then we met with Toni and taught him a little and helped him with English. He was In Barcelona most the week so he had an excuse for not coming to church.
This was one of my busiest weeks of my mission and we are just absolutely exhausted right now. But it's a good exhausted because we know we worked hard and just kept pushing and it was awesome to see such a great reward for the work in seeing Manuel be baptized. More importantly, Manuel has just changed his entire life forever and that's what counts the most. I'm excited to spend another transfer with elder Llavina, it'll be my first companion ever that I'll spend a whole 2 transfers with! We'll keep trying to baptized up here in ciudad real.
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