Week 12: Cadiz Casco Antiguo, Cadiz District
11:13 AMMonday- So this P day, we just did the usual stuff, then got together one last time with our district before all the transfers this Wednesday. It'll be sad losing such great people here and splitting our district but it'll be fine. We just played some ping pong at this local like hang out place called the Casa de Juventud then played some soccer and that was way fun. Then the rest of the day was just contacting a bunch of references. Everyone that we contacted didn't have time today and said they'd be out of town this week!! But oh well.
Tuesday- Today was the last district meeting of this transfer so it was goodbyes to our district leader and to hermana Nelson in Cadiz. It was a very good district meeting though, and I'm going to miss having such a big and fun group. After that, we went and contacted some more references. Elder Stephens is now making me take the lead on lots of stuff like phone calls and knocking doors and what not, and I will say it is stressful. It's very difficult for me to understand people as it is, it's even harder on a phone, but hey, it's all good! It's a great way to learn. If I ever get incredibly lost, he'll help me out and stuff so it's fine, and it's been fun for me. So none of our references worked out today, and most of our appointments got cancelled so that was a little sad, but we still had an amazing lesson! We had our usual Family Home Evening with an awesome family in the ward, and they brought a non member friend who has been having difficulties and has known about the church for 20 years, but has finally agreed to have missionaries come by her house. We could tell she was feeling the spirit during our lesson, and the members shared some amazing experiences. Honestly, if there is one thing I can name that is the most important part of missionary work, it is for sure members. Without members, teaching isn't as successful.
Wednesday-
The day of transfers. Our morning was basically helping others out
with transfers and stuff so nothing too special happened. It will
different without hermana Nelson here in Cadiz but i know that it'll all
be okay. Then for lunch we went over to our friend Luis from English
class's for lunch. He and his wife honestly couldn't be nicer people.
They made us chili and had infinite amounts of cheese and bread and
drinks and kept offering us more and were so kind to us. They even
invited us over for Thanksgiving and Christmas! They are such nice
people. Unfortunately, there also could't be a more anti-mormon person,
he brought out his Book of Mormon which was marked up everywhere and
had tabs and everything, but all it was intended for was stuff that
disproved the Book of Mormon. He's so polite though that he didn't share
any of it with us, and still listened to our short message, but
unfortunately, I don't think Luis and his Wife will be baptized any time
soon. Then our night was going to new less actives we found. One was a
man named Juan who served a mission in Madrid and kind of confused me.
He said he still has a huge testimony of everything in the church and
the Book of Mormon, he just doesn't think members are as strong anymore
or something? I don't really get it. Then we had an appointment with
Antonio with baptism date, but he kind of fell through on us. Then that
night we helped the new hermana of Cadiz, hermana Anderson move in
here.
Thursday-
Today was just the normal weekly planning routine. We weekly planned
all morning and then lunch at Juani's. It was a really great message at
Juani's. We were talking about the importance of tithing and it was
funny, Juani got almost frustrated. She basically said "I don't like it
when members say that can't pay a full tithe because they're worried
about being able to support their family. Name one person that you know
that keeps all the commandments and pays a full tithe, and doesn't have
food to feed their family. That person doesn't exist because God will
do as Malachi promises in Malachi 3:10 that
we will be so blessed, we won't have room to receive it." It changed my
entire perspective on tithing. That 10% isn't anything we earned, it's
just a small portion of the 100% God has blessed us with on this
earth. So later we visited a Less active recent convert, and she said
she'd come to church this week so I hope that happens. We went to that
lesson with a Young Single Adult of the ward named Fernando, who
basically is exactly like my Brother James, but the Spanish Version. He
was awesome and helped us out and also introduced us to another Young
Single Adult named Guillermo that's a little less active, and we got him
to promise that he would go to institute tomorrow.
Then on our way home, there was an enormous protest about women abuse
or something going on outside the main government building in the
central of Cadiz so that made it a little difficult to get home, but we
eventually did.
Friday-
So this morning, we went to another city or Pueblo that's apart of our
area called Puerto Real to have lunch with the second counselor of the
stake Antonio. The family was very nice, and we tried doing some work
there as well. Puerto Real is completely different than Cadiz, so it was
kind of weird. Then we returned to Cadiz that evening and met with
Javi, our 17 year old investigator. Man, all these Jovens though, they
can difficult. Unfortunately, I don't think they take us very
seriously, and they only care about Futbol and las chicas. I guess
that's what you'd expect from a 17 year old in Spain. But we met his
friend Fernando, who is a way awesome guy. He's also a joven of 15
years, but he's way nice and he seems to be really interested because he
says his family is non practicing catholics (which is just about all of
Spain it seems) but that he really has faith in Christ. And we
explained some of the Book of Mormon to him, and he seemed to think that
it would make sense that God would not only speak to people in Israel
but in other parts of the world, so he wants to learn more. Hopefully
we can get him to church (and maybe Javi if he would agree to wake up
earlier than noon,
man kids these days). Then we met Antonio and brought him to our stake
Institute class taught by our stake president, conveniently in Cadiz,
and he seemed to like it and enjoyed talking with people. We just need
to meet with him more so he can receive all the lessons and start
making changes in his life. The worst part was he called on me to
answer a Question in institute!! I didn't give the most amazing answer,
mostly because of the fear of messing up my Spanish in front of all the
cool institute people, so it was way short. But yea, so that happened.
Saturday-
unfortunately we had no Futbol in the morning, so we just did lots of
street contacting. We met many people, most of which were not very
interested. Then later that day we just did a ton of door knocking. We
knocked on the doors of an entire building near our church and figured
by the end of the night, we knocked probably around 70 doors in total!
We did get about 8 people who were interested by the end of the day so
that was cool! I will say, that was an exhausting night. Then on the way
home, we ran into our favorite hooligans from my 2nd or so week here.
They were super nice again and wanted us to come by another time to
their little hangout place and talk. It's so interesting how the people
you expect to me mean or robbing you end up being some of the nicest
people to you. A mission can truly change your perspective on who people
really are. How people treat others becomes much more important to you
than how they look or anything like that. You start to remember that God
"looketh upon the heart, and not the outward appearance"
Sunday-
so today was just normal church as usual. Unfortunately, Antonio was
in Jarez this weekend so he couldn't come which was sad. But we did have
a less active we we've started visiting show up. He's way awesome, he
served a mission, but he just sort of fell away from church after.
Always said he had a way strong testimony though. Then after church, we
ate at Milagros and Guillermo's house and they were super spiritually
amazing as usual! Then we were asked by another less active in the ward
to come to her new house and give it a blessing, so we went with Juan
ferrezuelo and did that. Then we just went to see if we could pass by
our Dominican investigator who we found out returned on Monday
but she wasn't in her house. Then we went to follow up on some people
we talked to yesterday but nobody was home which was strange for a Sunday night.
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