"...We all thought thanksgiving was last thursday" but..."I've lost 20 lbs" (November 25, 2013)

Nope I didn´t get transferred. I´m staying here which I´m excited about. No I´m still solid on the stickers. I want music. some good Christmas music preferably. and also if you have any good church movies we can watch we´re always looking. i´ve fallen in love with vocal point so if i can get some of them that’d be great.

Calvin demoing the Sling to nail Goliath (S/O to Abbey Read for the sling)

We brought some recently returned missionaries with us to lessons this week and it helped a lot. We had the member explain authority to our investigator because we really couldn´t explain it clearly enough. She says she knows what she has to do and wants to know if the Book of Mormon is true.

We had a lesson with our 16 year old investigator and she had a friend over and he´s an atheist. It was really hard to teach because we had a lesson planned, but at the same time we were trying to convince this kid that there is a God. It was a really scattered lesson but it ended pretty well. 

Wednesday we had interviews with President Deere who came down to see us. It was really short and we didn´t talk about much but it was still good to see him.

We thought this last Thursday was thanksgiving but it turns out it wasnt...I woke up pretty sick. It’s like 10 degrees in our piso all the time its terrible. I´m feeling better now though.

We brought a member to a lesson and they became like BFF´s and were gonna go to church together so we were excited about that (but it didnt happen).

It´s really sad we found out like the strongest family in the ward has to move to Germany to look for work. The dad is going to leave for Germany in January, and then everyone else is going to come once school ends in June I think. It´ll be really tough because none of them speak any german. And is like a very accomplished construction manager. There´s just no work here.

The Goliath target

Friday we missionaries were in charge of the youth activity. Elder Buckway and I planned the lesson and we talked about David and Goliath. I brought the sling that Abby Read brought me from Jerusalem and we made a fake Goliath and everyone got a turn trying to hit him with the sling. It was really fun and a good lesson. Then we played broom hockey which was fun but our broom broke :((

After the activity we went to meet Jose Luis, our investigator that has a baptismal date for December 14th, and his girlfriend told us that they arent going to be able to get married for two more months probably. She´s a member but they need to get married before he can get baptized. So that was depressing. 

Saturday we had an Elder´s Quorum activity. We made pancakes and watched Ephraim´s Rescue which is a church movie about the pioneers. It was amazing!!! you should all watch it asap!!! so good!!!

Broom Hockey in the Multi/Chapel after slaying Goliath

Then saturday night we met with Angy, the 16 year old girl who has a baptismal date for December 7th. And she told us that she wasn´t ready for baptism, so we have to drop her fecha. So that was depressing as well. We lost both of our baptismal dates in less than 24 hours!!!! yayy!!!!! o well. we´ll keep working. We have investigator that we just need to meet with more and she´ll be baptsized

no more time love you love you!!!

[to Dad] Well we all thought thanksgiving was last thursday, but we still didn´t do anything for it. We´re going to eat at a members house Thursday afternoon so I guess that´s the celebration. And no we can´t go play any football. Nope I´m not getting transferred. I should be here until the first week of January.

Sister Richardson sent me a letter saying that you went over there telling her family they had to invite over another family to teach them about the Church. 

Guess what? I´ve lost 20 pounds...I weigh like 155. I can´t believe it. It´s pretty much all in my waist I think. I don´t feel any smaller. And it´s only since I´ve been in Chiclana. It´s weird. I don´t understand. I´m trying to eat a lot. But it´s hard...

"We spent the next three hours just running..." (November 11, 2013)

Yeah we get money at the end of every month so everyone always runs out by the end. Yeah the cookies were mostly fine. A little crummy, but still worked. For Christmas I want a copy of Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith in English. They only have spanish copies here...

I also really need a warm sweatshirt to wear in the mornings. It doesn´t matter what it looks like or if its an old one of mine. It just gets really cold in our apartment when we wake up so I want something I can just throw on before I get showered and dressed and stuff. Also I need a jacket to wear out. I only have the long rain jacket which is weird to wear out if it´s just cold outside...I was thinking Domineau could somehow take it with her and then send them from France to here. I dunno.

This week was really good. We found 7 new investigators that we´re really excited about. Our old investigators were terrible so now we can get rid of them.

Two of them we found monday. We went to go teach this teenage kid english, but he wasn´t there, but his parents let us in and we talked with them for like an hour. They kept telling us how irresponsible their kid was and stuff. We shared a message with them and they are really interested in us as missionaries and what we´re sharing. 

Tuesday morning we got a call from a member asking us if we wanted to go eat at her house that afternoon. We said sure and went over to eat. She fed us tortilla de potata which is like an egg potato dish. It was pretty good. Then we left and walked over to the other Elder´s piso because we were going to do exchanges. As we were walking I felt like I was going to puke. We got to their piso and I ran to the bathroom and just puked up everything. As soon as I came out of the bathroom, Elder Buckway ran into the other bathroom and started puking up everything. We spent the next three hours just running to and from the bathroom puking and ...so we decided not to do exchanges. We made it home without [messing] ourselves somehow. I drank a bunch of water but it just literally went right through my body ...We just stayed in the piso that night and puked a little more. The next morning the mission doctor lady told us not to go out and we shouldn't eat too much. We felt a little better but were still puking a bit. The other Elder´s went and taught two of the lessons we had planned, and even put a baptismal date on one of our investigators for us. So that was nice of them. That day was pretty boring mostly. We watched church movies and read church books. That was about it. 

Saturday we went to knock doors in a building and the first door we knocked was a brazilian woman and she let us in and we talked a bit about the Book of Mormon. She had family that were members. We have another lesson with her at 6:30 tonight, so I´ll let you know how it goes next week. 

That was really it. For P-day the whole zone went to this space observatory which was literally the dumbest thing in the world. An investigator of the Elders in San Fernando set up the tour and said it was awesome, but it was just three hours of the most boring thing in the world. All of us in the zone were just laughing at how uninteresting it was. But its ok, we had fun because we were all together.

That´s all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love ya

"One of our investigators popped her head..." (November 18, 2013)

Yeah it´s gone by really fast. And I guess it only gets faster. The week was pretty good. We improved on our weekly lessons again. And we got to double digit investigator lessons. We should be up to like 15 but some of our investigators can be really flojo (wishy-washy/flaky) and will fail us when we set lessons. But last transfer we only had 4-5 investigator lessons a week so we´re getting a lot better. We set two baptismal dates. One is a 16 year old girl who I think is just kind of in love with me. When we met her and her friend she couldnt stop laughing and i asked her what was wrong and she said ¨you´re just too cute´. but she´s reading and praying, and is going to quit smoking. We still have a lot to teach her but she has potential. We gave her mom a date too but she isnt really interested. We´re gonna bring a member to the lessons though to help us out. 

Not much else exciting happened this week. We really focused on trying to get investigators to church, and the night before we thought we were going to have like 6 or 7, but no one showed up! it was really depressing. But then right after sacrament meeting one of our investigators popped her head into the chapel and we went out and talked to her. she showed up late and didnt want to interrupt so she was just listening in the hallway. shes really friendly and has a few members as friends so i think if she gets a little more serious we can baptize her and her son really easily. She can just be really floja though.

o yeah saturday night we went to visit j… l…. who has a baptismal date that we had to move to december 14th, because HE HAD THE SAME CYST THAT I HAD!!! and he has to recover from that before he can get baptized. but we got in their apartment and it jut reeked of pot. and it was obvious that veronica, who´s a member, and his wife, had smoked. i was super enojado and so we had a very clear discussion about the word of wisdom and how marijuana is against the word of wisdom. we didn’t call her out on it but i pretty harshly told them that when you break the word of wisdom you need to repent. she was pretty quiet the rest of the lesson so i think she got the point.

im gonna go by the coat right after i email. i just want a sporty sweatshirt thats really warm and i can wear in the mornings when i wake up. with a hood please. 

we find out transfers on friday but i think im staying. i´ll be really sad if i leave.

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaa

love ya

"We had a lesson with [a] 101 year old." (November 4, 2013)

Wow Gretchen is pregnant already? Wow. Yeah I got the package Wednesday. Thanks! I gave out the spider rings to the beehive and valiant girls… Halloween I guess has only been a holiday for like 10 years here, so not everyone celebrates it. BUT THEY TOOK OFF THURSDAY AND FRIDAY FROM SCHOOL TO CELEBRATE IT!!! AND ITS NOT EVEN THERE HOLIDAY!!!! AND THEY WONDER WHY THEY ARE IN A CRISIS...!!! THEY TAKE OFF TWO DAYS FOR AN AMERICAN HOLIDAY THAT WE DON´T EVEN GET A DAY OFF FROM!!! There was a party for the primary at the capilla Friday. We stopped by for a second. Holy cow though trying to proselyte Thursday and Friday night was so hard. No one wanted anything. 

I just called the Elder´s in Crevillente to try and get the address of a member, and it just filled me up with so much joy. It sounds like everyone´s doing really well there, and a couple that we taught the whole time I was there are getting baptized in a few weeks for sure now. O how I miss that place. They put two more Elders in Crevillente so there are 4 now...crazy.

This week was pretty depressing although our numbers were pretty good. We just aren´t happy that we haven´t been able to find anyone new to teach. For P-day none of us had any money so we just emailed and then played Settler´s of Catan all day. Elder Buckway has two extensions so the game was pretty crazy. I didn´t understand the rules at all and to be honest I was writing letters so I wasn´t paying too much attention. 

Tuesday we had a specialized training in Cadiz. We had to bet there at 9:30 so we had to wake up at like 6:30 to get ready and take the bus there. It was a pretty normal meeting...

The middle of the week was pretty boring. Everything is moving so slow. We find people but they can only meet one day a week so it´s hard to make real progress. Saturday night we found ourselves on a street that we knew some inactive members lived, but we didn´t have any information about them, only their names and address. We knock the door and a woman answers and lets us in. I realized I had met her before at the house of a member, and I remembered that she was a Jehovah´s Witness. It turns out that her parents are members, but her dad is 101 YEARS OLD, and her mom is 81. Neither of them can really talk or do anything. They just sit in a bed all day every day and their kids just wait for them to die. But its crazy the 81 year old seems way worse than her 101 year old husband. We had a lesson with the 101 year old. He could understand well enough, and even bore a little testimony. Something about Jesus Christ …. And he said he wanted us to come by more. I think we´ll prob stop by every week or two.

Hey there is a inactive couple that wants to get in touch with the missionary who baptized them, but they have no way of doing that. Can you try looking up the missionary on facebook? His name is Frank Preston Royer (not sure how exactly to spell Royer). He´d be about 50-55, and lived in Arizona at one point. 

That´s it. Sorry, like I said this week sucked.

Love ya love ya!!!!!!!!!!

"24th was one year since I opened my mission call" (October 28, 2013)

Nothing too exciting this week to be honest. We set really high goals, but we had to deal with so much crap this week that we barely had any time to actually work. One night we were stuck out in the campo and it was raining really hard, but we were still knocking all the doors we passed. We knocked on one guys house, and he said he wasn´t interested in our message. We talked a bit longer about his beliefs and if he prays. Then he just started crying. He said his grand-daughter died a few weeks ago and she was only three, so he´s not sure about his faith. We talked a bit more and he said we can come by another day if he was available. So it was pretty cool to see him change like that. Also, we have a less active member that we visit, and she has a daughter that is a member too, but she is really inactive and wants nothing to do with the church. Somehow we got her to tell us the address of her daughter and we went to visit her. A member told us that this girl and her husband were drug addicts so we should be careful. We knocked her door pretending like we didn´t know who she was, and she was pretty rude and abrasive at first. She said her mother was a member but she didn´t want to hear anything. We talked a bit more about her mom and she opened up a ton. She got a lot nicer and we asked her if she needed any help from us. She said no, but she gave us a bunch of cake, and jus totally changed her demeanor with us in about 2 minutes. It was pretty cool. We´ll stop by to say hello to her every once in a while I think.

We had a lesson with an investigator and his less active girlfriend. The girlfriend is coming back to church, and has a really strong testimony, but is just really lazy. Her boyfriend is trying to quit smoking, and they want to get married and get sealed in the temple. Jose Luis is the guy and he´s awesome. He definitely had a rough time growing up, but he´s a recovering alcoholic and is really trying to change his life. He´s so nice and wants to be a good example for his son who´s 7. It was so funny, he prayed after the lesson, and he kept saying, ¨O Lord, please bless the kids. They need so much help. There are so many kids that are so hungry. And they need to be blessed¨ and he just kept saying stuff like that for like 3 minutes straight. Only about the kids. And then after he said, sorry, it´s just that the children are really important and need help. It was funny.

The 24th was one year since I opened my mission call.

We had the youth activity Friday night and it was a big success. The leaders want us to organize one every week but we told them we dont have time to do that. But we´re gonna try and go to all the activities if were not too busy. We were going to play volleyball on the court outside, but it started raining so we played a game where you tie a balloon to your foot and then try and pop everyone else’s balloon. it was fun and everyone enjoyed it. A lot of youth came. I guess no one ever comes to youth acitvities. And we had 5 non-member youth there. One was one of our investigators who´s 16. We´re teaching him and his mom. And a member kid brought two friends to the activity. One of the friends came to church with the kid yesterday, and then last night the mom called us and said that she invited the family of the kid over to their house this Thursday and we´re gonna go too and have a lesson. I guess the kid was saying he wanted to get baptized, and the family had mentioned stuff about how the world is so confusing with so many religions, so we´re gonna help them out with that.

Friday after the activity we had to go to San Fernando because the sister missionaries there had an investigator who had a baptismal date for the next day, so he needed a baptismal interview. He´s the husband of a member, and has been investigating the church for a while, but he doesnt have a testimony of Joseph Smith. They asked me to come over and do the interview anyways and try and convince him. I was nervous but excited. We went and the two of us talked a bit. I asked him the baptismal question if he believed Joseph Smith restored the Church and he said I don´t know. So we chatted a bit more and then we prayed about it. But he said he still hadn´t received an answer. We talked a bit more, and then I asked him the question again and asked him to really listen to the spirit, but still, he said he didn´t feel like he had received his answer. I told him I thought he had already received it. He believes in all the commandments and everything about the Church. And I said that God had already given him the answer through all of that. But he expects some glorious revelation. So we couldn’t pass him in the interview. O well, I think he´ll get baptized soon. And the Hermana´s weren´t expecting him to pass, they just wanted to try and see what would happen.

That´s really it....yeah there has been some halloween decorations in some stores, but i dont really know what to expect for when the day comes. there’s a party in Cadiz for the youth, but we can’t go. :(

love ya adios

"I thought I was going to explode" (October 21, 2013)

Ok so Tuesday we had 5 lessons which we were going to eat at, because Elder N was leaving the next morning. They were all right after the other. I thought I was going to explode. But it ended ok.

Wednesday Elder Buckway came and the other new Elder in Chiclana, Elder Reynolds too. We had a meeting with our new Ward Mission Leader. His name is I…. he´s 22 and served his mission in Salt Lake Central. He´s a good guy and seems like he´s gonna help us a lot. 

We had a reference that we hadn´t been able to go by, but finally on Thursday we did. Her name is M, and she´s a bit older. Her son just recently killed himself and so a friend of her´s who´s a member told us to go by. Her son was 28 I think and was a police officer. I guess his wife had left him and taken their two young kids, so he just shot himself one day at work. She hadn´t spoken to anyone about it, and refused to let anyone come and talk with her about it. But she opened the door for us and let us in. We had no clue what to talk with her about. But we just talked about how we can find peace in Christ and that now is the time for her to strengthen her faith. She knows a bit about the Church. Her son had read the Book of Mormon several times she said. Right now we´re just trying to help her regroup.

Our convert S went to another Church this week. So I´m not sure if we can count her inactive or not yet...

We were at the house of one of our investigators, and her mom was there. We talked briefly and I realized that she was a member. She told us she wasn´t anymore. She told us she was active many years ago and had had a rough life and had been excommunicated. I asked her if she still believed the Church was true. I expected her to say no way and blow me off, but she paused for a second and said yes, and then started crying a bit. I invited her to come to Church Sunday. She said she was in AA and wants to come back to Church, but wants to wait until she´s fully recovered. We tried to tell her she could start her return now, but she said in a month we can talk with her again. It was a cool experience.

There´s an inactive family that some members told us we should go visit. They lived like 5 miles away in the middle of nowhere but we walked there one night when everything else failed us. We got there and they were just shocked that we had shown up. They said in 10 years living there missionaries had never been to there house. They let us in and we talked for a while. The husband served a mission in Denver, so he was excited to talk with us. They´ve been inactive for at least 3 years, but he prayed at the end of the lesson and then gave us a ride home. Hopefully we can get them to come back to Church.

We had the primary program at Church which was really fun. A ton of people were there for it. Including two of our investigators. We weren´t expecting them, but they came and had a good time. One of them was a kid and he sang in the program too. The husband was crying during sacrament meeting. He´s a nice guy, but he smokes, and he´s not married to the woman he lives with, who is a less active member. So he´s got a ways to go.

Then last night we went by the inactive older couple that we go buy every week. they´re really nice, but have been inactive for about 15 years They were really strong members at one point. I knew that P…., the husband, hadn´t prayed in years and years because he thought God was mad at him and didn´t want to listen. But he didn´t know I knew, so I just casually asked if he would pray at the end of the lesson. He got really flustered and said no. So i poked at his pride a bit and asked if he knew how to pray, and pulled out a little bookmark thing that has the 4 steps to prayer. He said I KNOW HOW TO PRAY!! And then offered the prayer. I could hear in his voice he was nervous, but it was a great prayer. After he asked if I believed God would listen to a guy like him. I said of course! He listens to everyone. He acted really goofy afterwards. He obviously felt very awkward about it. But I feel like he´s felt the love that God has for him. I really think now is the time for them to return. I had thought the members had been visiting them still, but they told us last night that no one had gone by in years. And they seemed pretty annoyed by it.

the areas alright. we have the high goals to find people this week. im excited. buckways good. im excited to work with him. district leader doesnt mean much. sunday nights i have to call the two other companionships and get there numbers for the week, and then give them all to the zone leaders. and lead a meeting once a week. it sucks.

why do you always want to know who is in my zone? there are like a million people. hermana blake is a new hermana in my district. elder berrett too.

yes that pic was in cadiz. and its a destination for cruise ships i think. i dunno.

spanish is good. understanding can still be a little difficult sometimes, but its not too much of an issue anymore.

yeah everythings good!

love ya

"Please Don't Use That Kind of Language" (October 14, 2013)

[Calvin caught Suzie driving  - I'm certain she pulled over to chat with him...!?]

On Oct 14, 2013, at 6:56 AM, "Robert Wiley" <robert.wiley@myldsmail.net> wrote:

   hey whattup

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 4:10 PM, Wiley, Suzanne <swiley@king5.com> wrote:

   Crap!! Driving to work so can't chat!! Love u

On Oct 14, 2013, at 7:15 AM, "Robert Wiley" <robert.wiley@myldsmail.net> wrote:

   please dont use that kind of language

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Wiley, Suzanne <swiley@king5.com> wrote:

   Write me a letter goof!! Not in office yet!!

ok starting now.

This was prob the longest week of my mission. very stressful. but everything turned out great.

Tuesday we had like the most frustrating lesson of my life, but also the most spiritual?? So there is an inactive woman who got baptized back in November. We had never met her before but Bishop asked us to go by. We go by one night, thinking she would be some crazy old lady, but she answers the door, and she´s like this gorgeous 40 year old blonde woman, who looked like a real housewife of beverly hills or something. She was really nice and let us in, and her house was SOOO nice. The biggest TV I´ve ever seen. We were thinking, this is the jackpot, she´s really rich, really nice, she´s gonna invite us over to eat all the time!!

Ok so she tells us she had a dream that an Angel dressed in white told her to get baptized, so she did. But then after the baptism she found out about tithing, and temples. She can´t believe that our church has so many temples around the earth. She says God doesn´t want temples blah blah blah. She told us she´s afraid because she read in the Bible about a Great and Abominable Church of the Devil. But it only mentions a great and abominable church in the BOOK OF MORMON!!!!! She said that the growth of the Church in 200 years was too rapid and that she´s afraid we are the great and abominable church...we bore our testimonies so hard. I´ve never felt the spirit so strong. After I finished my testimony it was really quiet. She looked like she was about to cry. It was obvious she felt the spirit. She stays quiet for a second, and then says ¨I just don´t think God wants temples. I´m afraid this is the great and abominable church¨. It was such a rollercoaster....  I honestly think it´s best if we left her alone for a while. We´ll see. Crazy...

Ok Thursday was the crazy day. So we have S...., who had a baptismal date Saturday. We go over to her house Thursday with the Zone Leader to do the baptismal interview. We all sit down (four of us missionaries) and are chatting with her. And she says, I don´t know, this seems really fast, I don´t know how I feel about it. This is the first time she´s ever had doubts. Then she says, well I heard that mormons have 5 wives. We said no, and explained that. Well you guys don´t believe in the bible, right? we said we do. Well why are there only white people in the church? we said there arent and explained that. We asked if she had any more questions and she said yes, but she couldnt remember. Then someone knocked on the door. It was "someone who comes and helps her with her chores" (although we had never seen or heard of this woman before). She and S.... go into the back room for a second, then S.... comes back and says, it just all seems so fast. i heard that you baptize dead people. i read it in a book. So we realized that that person who came over was a testigo, and she and a bunch of testigos had been talking with her and giving her anti-mormon stuff. We were freakin inside, but then elder lish interviewed her, and we all went into the other room and prayed for her to remember her testimony and stuff. she passed the interview and stuff, but then we left and she left too and was going to hang with her testigo friends all night. i thought for sure she was a goner. that night elder n cried his eyes out as he talked to one of [her] friends who´s a member. the friend said she´d go over and talk with S.... in the morning.

so friday morning was tense we had zone conference, but we were still pretty distressed. the friend called and said that she went and talked with S..., and brought a couple other members over, and they all just shared scriptures in the bible that just whipped up on the testigos, and everything went back to normal. what a relief.

president called after zone conference for transfers. elder nuñez left, and i´m going to be with elder buckway. we were in the mtc together and we were companions one day in the mtc. he´s a good guy, i´m excited. 

friday night the valiant (primary) girls invited us to a dinner at the capilla. we thought it´d be some little thing that they´d probably forget about. but we got there and it was a full meal they all made, with the table set and everything. they all shared a spiritual thought and we ate. they told us how nervous they were for the dinner. it was so adorable i wanted to cry. then they sang a couple songs. i have vids on my camera i´m not sure if they uploaded to dropbox.

then saturday morning, we called S... an hour before the baptism to see if she was on her way, but she told us she wasn't sure if she wanted to get baptized. so we run over there, thinking we´re gonna have [some issues], but we got there and everything was fine. she just had to get dressed. we showed up for the baptism a little late. but it was all good. then yesterday i confirmed her in sacrament, which was tough and i was nervous, but it was better than the last confirmation i did.

yayyy i felt really spiritual!!!!!

transfers were pretty exciting. excited to be in charge of this area [District Leader]. hopefully we can have a few more baptisms this transfer.

love ya!!!

I miss Reeses (October 7, 2013)

Doesn't this look like the Port of Seattle? Cruise Ship and all... (Cadiz)

Let´s see we saw all the sessions except for Sunday afternoon. They showed Saturday afternoon in the chapel between Priesthood and the Sunday morning session which we watched last night. It just wasn´t required so a lot of the members left to go home for a bit. But of course we watched it. I missed a lot of Saturday afternoon though because we had to find a way for one of our investigators to get to conference. I don´t remember seeing anyone with the last name hamilton...was it the sunday afternoon session? I really liked Uchtdorf´s in Priesthood as well. He quoted the Great Gatsby "and we float on, like boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past". Also I really like Ulisses Soares about meekness, but it was hard to follow his talk so I´m gonna have to read it again. Bednar´s talk on tithing was incredible. President Monson´s talk Sunday morning was really good too. There was so much content in it I need to reread it. 

I took some good notes but I don´t have my notebook with me. One thing I remembered I wrote down was "do we keep the commandments because it´s a law, or do we keep them because we want the blessings?"

I miss reece´s

That´s terrible about Maddie [broken arm]. She must not be keeping the commandments. (lol)

I just have Pday with the missionaries here in Chiclana...elder nunez, hall, and gutierrez.

I added some pics from conference. the one at night that i´m not in (because i took it) is with the other elders in chiclana, as well as jacqueline, (the redhead tall girl) who´s a member in our ward and her little sister. i told maddie about J.... her mom is not active and was the only member in the family. one day a couple years ago jacqueline realized she wanted to change her life and she remembered that her mom was a mormon so she just went by herself to church one sunday and then got baptized. no one else in her family is member or really supports her. i invited her to invite her sister to come play soccer with us saturday morning, and she came and then said she wanted to come to conference too so we took her and her sister to conference with us. i´d like to baptize the whole family but i wont get greedy...

also there´s a photo of me and our investigator S... whos getting baptized saturday. shes in the white, and then the two peruvian women are members, and then the other woman is a member as well. FUN FUN!!!!

transfers are next week. i hope elder n leaves because i want to train. there are a bunch of people that can get baptized here and i feel like i can do it... i know thats not very humble but really, i´m ready. 

love ya muchoooooooooooooooo

hope conference was great and spiritual!!!!

A Kerfuffle? Altercation? ... and a happy result.

alright im writing sloppy because i have a pretty crazy story. so last monday. literally right after i emailed. we were waiting for the bus because we were going to go to jerez to go shopping. it was me, elder nunez, and elder hall. we were just standing there at the bus stop, and i look over at elder hall and some huge buff short crazy looking guy with long dark ponytail is up in elder halls face and they are just staring at each other. at first i thought he was an investigator of member or something, but then he starts yelling at elder hall, right in his face. so i realized that this guy isnt friendly, so i walk up and stick my hand out and say hola, and he gets up in my face starts yelling like a crazy guy (obvi on drugs) and claps his hands super hard right in my face which freaked me out. then he shoves me really hard, and comes up to be again and i shove him away from me, and then some woman runs in and breaks us apart and yells at me WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? and i say NOTHING! and shes shoving him away, and then he shoves her really hard, so i run in to break them apart, and he shoves me again and is trying to grab me. then i realize that they are like boyfriend and girlfriend or something. and she shoves him down the sidewalk as he keeps trying to get back at us. it was crazy, we had no idea what happened. so the bus came, and i got on to pay, elder nunez was on the bus waiting behind me, and elder hall was still outside the door of the bus waiting to get on. after i pay i look down the bus to see where to sit, and i see the same huge guy just sprinting down the sidewalk back at us. and i turn back to elder hall and yell GET ON THE BUS, and i grab him and pull him on. the guy would have just leveled him if he had still been outside. so the guy jumps on the bus and is yelling and screaming at us, and then he just shoves me really hard again into the side of the bus. im putting my hands up and shoving him off me, and the girl comes back and pulls him back down the sidewalk. it all happened right next to the driver and i looked at him and he was just acting like nothing happened. it was really weird. 

so then we´re sitting on the bus talking and some guy sits down behind us and asks what happened? so elder nunez explains and we all say yeah the guy was on drugs or something. and then we started talking about how we´re missionaries and blah blah balh and we teach english class and he was interested in that. then elder nunez sits next to him and starts talking about the book of mormon. the guy and his wife were really interested and asking amazing questions. then nunez said that the book was a gift for him and he started crying! because he was so happy! and his wife was really happy too. we took their info and were freaking out after they got off the bus. but then me and elder nunez realized that they live in the other area. so we cant teach them...it was a miracle though. that that guy was messing with us, and it opened up a conversation with golden investigators. 

the next day we did splits and so i was in the other area, and we visited that couple. they are amazing and so nice. before the lesson even started they told us that this was our house and we can come by whenever we wanted. he started crying again during the lesson and she said the closing prayer. they are amazing and would be perfect members. its a shame we cant teach them more but hopefully theyll be baptized soon and come to church and stuff... 

Tri-Zone Conference from the very SW part of Spain. Calvin is third from back left.

thursday night i stayed in puerto santa maria and did splits with an elder there. its a cool little town. friday we had a zone conference in sevilla with the president so that was cool. the chapel in sevilla is really really nice. i think its the nicest in all of spain. the conference was fun. not many of my friends from the mission are serving in this part of spain right now but i still got to see a few people.

thats allllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

love ya!

Surf's Up! 6 months Out - 25% (September 23, 2013)

yeah the six months flew by. like i told domineau, i feel like i really havent started my mission yet. and i´m sure the next 18 months will go by even faster. thats good about christian. i´d like to email him. if you can send me his email i´ll try and send him an email next week before he leaves.

my american comp is leaving tomorrow - he'll be working in the mission home. [...]

we went and ate at the american families house this past week. they live out of the city in kind of a

Hard to believe they have surf this big in his area in Spain but... (not C's pic)

resort-long term vacation area. its in santi petri, which is sooo nice. right on the beach, and has golfing, super nice hotels and everything. there house is literally right on the beach. there backyard is the beach. we ate fajitas which were really good. the family is really nice. they lived in italy for a little while before spain, and they really dont seem to want to move back to the U.S. the wife seems to really not like the u.s. she mentioned that she thought us declaring independence from the UK was a bad move...ok...but theyre nice. robert is like a total surfer guy. he says he goes surfing at least a couple times a week.

our pregnant woman investigator says she wants to get baptized, were gonna wait until after the baby, which should come this week. shes been really moody lately. anything we say to her she finds a way to make it negative. but friday night there was a musical put on by the stake, and it was about the french-spanish war, so nothing about the church. it was a big event in san fernando, and a ton of non members and members were there at nice theater down town. it got a ton of publicity. our pregnant investigator wanted to go so we were able to go to. she got all dressed up to go (which was annoying because we missed two buses waiting for her to get ready), and she was like super pretty before she was pregnant. and she told us that all her life shes been the hottest girl around, and shes depressed about it now. but she got all made up and looked really good. it was a fun night. my comp took some pics ( i forgot my camera) i´ll try and get them. 

saturday and sunday was stake conference. we had a stake priesthood meeting which was really good. the stake president is such a beast. so spiritual. he talked about setting goals and stuff, and then also, (it seemed kind of random) he basically begged everyone who was having problems with pornography to stop and repent. it was a little out of place at first but you could tell that it was so guided by the spirit, and it was so powerful. they also talked about finding the less active members in our stake and working with them. a lot about missionary work too. i hope youre ready, because i guarantee at conference in a couple weeks the GA´s are going to beat you all to death about helping the missionaries more...

the ward and city are good. i took a few pics of the city. most of that area is the other elders though. we have a lot of ugly roads and farms.

thats about it. i think things will be more effective now that we´re only going to have the two of us.

love you and hope things are going well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Biggest Cockroach I've Ever Seen (September 16, 2013)

Calvin is now in the beautiful city of Chiclana! (new address posted on the right column)

i guess we can go anywhere in the mission on pday. but pday starts at 11 and ends at 6;30 so we dont have much time. We´ve just been hanging around here the past couple weeks. cadiz is 40 minutes away. san fernando which is a big city is like 20-25 minutes away. but we have 5 elders here so its fine to just hang around. the area is split so there are two other elders on the other side of town. one is elder hall. im not sure if he has a blog, but hes from my group and is from salt lake. he´s really cool. he looks a lot like tyler balkman. there are 2 sisters in my district,both natives.

no we won't move to a bigger place. the mission doesnt want to buy any more pisos right now. in a few months i'm sure this area will move back to only two elders. im hoping after this transfer but we´ll see.

[...] but my other comp...I LOVE HIM. we get along really well and he's really funny. i really dont understand why he had such a bad rep. i wish he trusted me more to talk in lessons but he's realizing that i can contribute more than our other companion.

the ward is really awesome. theres an american family that's in the ward. the guy works for the u.s.  military here in cadiz so they moved the whole family here. I´m not sure where hes from but his wife is from eugene. They are a totally normal young american couple with a couple young kids. i think they are about 35ish. his name is robert guttenburg. we´re going to eat at their house tomorrow at 6. a normal, american time to eat a meal!!

ok so we have an investigator who wants to get baptized, but she lives with her boyfriend, and shes going to have a baby any day now. shes like 40 and hes like 26 (bad decision on her part). so they arent going to get married or anything, and she knows that he has another girlfriend on the side. hes not interested in the gospel or anything, but shes really nice and is always making us dinner. we went over to her house a few days ago, and she told us that the night before, she asked her boyfriend to set up the crib for the baby. he was doing it wrong, and she was telling him that, and they started getting in a fight, and he broke the crib (punched it so the wood shattered). she got super mad and called his other girlfriend, saying that SHE was his girlfriend and was pregnant. so the other girl came over the apartment and they all had a fight, and the guy took all his stuff and moved out. so she was almost crying when she told us this, so we bought some glue and fixed the crib, and got a member woman to come over and hang out with her. She´s having a baby any day and the guy just left. what a shame. but now she can get baptized!!!! but the guy owns the apartment, and im sure he´ll want to see his child, so it´s a sticky situation. we´ll see how it goes.

ok so we have another investigator. she´s a bit crazy but is soooo spiritual. we took her to the chapel and gave her a tour. there were a bunch of youth and pèople there for an activity so it was perfect for her to meet them. we waited until the end to show her the baptismal font, but when we were talking about it, we looked inside and in the corner of the font was THE BIGGEST COACKROACH I´VE EVER SEEN. just hanging out in the corner. she didnt say anything about it but we were freaking out and just said ¨o yeah and we´re gonna clean the font really well before the baptism¨. it was really funny. she has a date to get baptized for the 28th of september, but we found out that shes not married. she said she was, but in spain you can become a legal couple, but thats different from being legally married. and she isnt legally married. but we told her that and she said ok monday i´m gonna try and see how to get legally married. shes awesome. she talks a lot and seems a little crazy at times but shes really nice. she has a 19 year old daughter whos pregnant and she was there when we were talking about the law of chastity and the mom kept looking at her saying ¨ISN'T THIS WHAT I WAS TELLING YOU LAST NIGHT¨ HOW COULD THEY HAVE KNOWN WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THIS?? THEY ARE INSPIRED OF GOD. it was pretty awkward. but she asked for a blessing of comfort for her and her daughter. so i gave her daughter a blessing which was pretty cool. 

i think thats about it. we had ward council which was really good. everyone wants to help. there are a ton of inactive people. 134 woman on the relief society role but only 30 are attending...

love ya love ya adios

Heading South - Off to Cadiz (September 9, 2013)

I bet we will go to gibraltar at some point. it´s not too far away. i really like it here. the ward is amazing. they usually have about 130 people at church every week!!! there are tons of young married couples and kids of all ages. it really seems like a normal american ward. one of the teachers from the mtc in spain lives in this ward so it was cool to see him again. he´s young and just got back from his mission like a year ago so he wants to come out and help us. 

our piso is sooooo small. i have some pics but this computer is really slow so i dont know if theyll have time to upload. but its wayyyy smaller than my last piso. only one bathroom for three people, one table to study for three people. but we´re making it work. i think we´ll be a trio at least through this transfer. there are a lot of trios right now because there arent enough areas open to put missionaries. in a few months the trios will fall away. the water is like 15 minutes away. but there are like little parts where the water has seeped into the countryside. theres a lot of fields here. its different from crevillente but also the city part is bigger and cooler than crevillente. there are 5 elders in the city. 2 have the city part of chiclana, and us 3 have more of the field countryside area. which means a ton of walking. the foods the same i guess. i havent noticed much of a difference.

so the companion that everyone said is pretty horrible is good right now. the members and investigators love him. he can be a little irreverent at times, but he does pretty much all the work because...the other companion is like the shyest kid ive ever met. and pretty weird to be honest.hes really obedient though which is nice. but he takes cold showers because he thinks it will help him get a 6 pack. he does want to be like a super good missionary and studies a ton but hes just super super shy. the two of them are complete opposites and i think thats why i am here.

one thing ive noticed is that in this part of spain buildings seem a lot more authentic. in the east its just a bunch of tall pisos that are all the same. but here the pisos and buildings are shorter, but they are much more authentic spanish style. i like it.

i met an investigator named susel. she has a lot of friends in the ward and wants to get baptized. the problem is that she is about to have a baby, and she´s living with her boyfriend so she cant get baptized. shes really nice though. we went to eat at her house for an early dinner at 6, but things kept going wrong with the food so we didnt start eating until 10!!!!!!!! super late and a pretty big waste of time. but the food was really good. the family situations here are so ridiculous. people will date and live together for like 6 years, have a kid, maybe 2. and then separate and move far away from each other. its really sad for the children. like this investigator said that she and her boyfriend arent going to get married, and shes prob gonna move away to barcelona soon after she has her kid. sad...

last night we were in the chapel because elder nunez had to call people for their weekly numbers (hes district leader) and so i was reading the teachings of the prophets book for President Mckay and i read something i liked a lot. it said "the true  purpose of this life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God´s inspiration". i think that´s so true. this world can be a terrible place, and the best way to change it is individually. we can´t change other people but we can be an example to them through bettering ourselves. there´s my spiritual thought for ya.

 

love ya!!!

Just Two More Weeks In Crevillente (August 19, 2013)

this week felt really long...the longest of my mission. but its ok. only two more weeks left in crevillente!!!!

so theres this woman in our ward, and i only ever saw her during sacrament, and she'd leave right after so i assumed she was less active or something. we had never talked. and so tuesday we went by her apartment, and she let us in. it turns out she's in the stake primary presidency and so shes always visiting other wards. shes the mother of another active member. and she speaks english and french and works as a translator for church videos. it made me realize how lost i can be with the relationships and people of this branch. hopefully my next area will be better. 

wednesday we went to go see a member, he wasnt there but his daughter who is excommunicated was there. we'd talked with her a little before and she had said she didnt believe the church was true. but we had a lesson with her and it was super spiritual and she said at the end that she knew the church was true. she cant get baptized again anytime soon but hopefully we can continue to help her.

we had special training with the president in alicante thursday. and thursday was a big holiday so the bus schedules were weird and we had to wake up at 5 in the morning to take the bus from elche to alicante. as all of us missionaries were walking towards the bus station we saw a ton of youth walking the opposite way, and at first we thought that they had all gotten up early to travel somewhere for the holiday, but it turns out that there was a huuuuuuge concert party thing in some big plaza, and it was still going on. at five in the morning... it was crazy. there were tons of youth there, and they all looked like zombies and staring at us. 

that was really it...this week we're trying to find 555 new investigators as a mission, and to have 100 baptisms in september. itll be hard but i think we can find 7 here.

p-day im gonna go buy a man purse i think. september 1 we have to lose our backpacks. so we're gonna go to elche where they have a store kind of like nordstrom.

im feeling good. my back has been hurting, which hurts my knee and ankle. ive been thinking of going to a chirpopractor, but i dunno.

no i havent had to use my inhaler. my sinus' are better but still not perfect.

yeah time is flying, cant believe 5 months already...

love yya tons 

We Set A New Record! (September 2, 2013)

Calvin enjoying "Main St Soda's" big competitor - "Freeway Cola"...and Ketchup

(Mom here - This was the week I forgot to write - he was not happy!! Can't say I blame him!)

I don´t have a ton to share. This week was really long. My comp is getting lazier and lazier every day. i read a scripture that made me think of him. moroni 9 verse 4   [Behold, I am laboring with them continually; and when I speak the word of God with ^asharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they ^bharden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath eased ^cstriving with them.] 

We made our goal and found 8 new investigators this week. 

I had to give an impromptu talk in sacrament meeting yesterday. it turned out good though. i used a scripture i had memorized. i think its alma 13´26. about how angels are preparing the hearts of men to hear the gospel. sorry i dont really have any guidance for what to write about...nissa went to the temple this past weekend which was good, but then she lied to us and said her mom didnt have gasoline to take her to church yesterday. o well. blehhhhhhhh one more week. maddie still hasnt heard from provo yet_ i dont have an exclamation mark on this computer

 

love ya wish i had more to say this week but youre busy with dom so youll survive!!

We found 558 as a mission which is super good. we found 8 as a companionship, and the goal was 7, so we beat it. a few of them are really good and im excited about. 2 of them tried to sell us amway, a pyramid scheme business...we said no no we cant do that we´re missionaries, and they kept trying so hard to convince us that its ok if we just bought a little, and sold some to our other missionary friends...

i have a few more pics but we´re in elche right now and i forgot my camera cord. we dont do much for pday, because none of us have money to travel, and elder leon is super lazy and wants to either play soccer or do nothing. 

im pretty sure im leaving because president said something to me about when i train, and also when i said goodbye to his wife she said ´see you soon´which im assuming meant see you in malaga in a couple of weeks when you come pick up your new missionary. but yeah i guess i could stay.

this was probably the worst week elder _____ has had. super lazy. it was hard this week because we had no lessons set bcause we were just trying to find new people. so we were just walking around all day and he would just complain the whole time and then not want to go back out and stuff. it was a week the whole mission set aside to be extremely obedient, and he was just the exact opposite. im making sure this week we have a lot of things to do though so it should be better.

"Fake Christian and Muslim Wars" in Elche

The beginning of this week was pretty boring. But Thursday I was in Elche for exchanges. It was fun and nice to have a break from my companion. We played soccer with some youth in the ward there which was really fun. I had a goal which is pretty tough to do because all the other guys are really really good. Then Friday we went to Alicante for Zone Conference. As a mission we're going to try and find 555 new investigators in one week. It'll be really hard, but I'm excited. Then after Zone Conference I went back to Elche and did exchanges with someone else. They're having a huge holiday all this week and last week to celebrate the Christian and the Muslims in the City. (http://www.visitelche.com/en/world-heritage/moros-y-cristianos/) They have huge fake wars and blow cannons all night. Tomorrow night is a huge free for all, and everyone in the street just shoots fireworks at eachother point blank. It's super dangerous and last year a little kid died and the year before a woman died too. The police just leave for the night and don't want to worry about it. It's super messed up. I think the missionaries there are going to stay inside. Because literally if you're walking in the street you'll get shot at.

Saturday we went back to Alicante to help their ward find less'active youth ( they have a lot). I got to go out with Elder Dansie, we were friends from the MTC so it was really fun to work with him for a couple hours. 

Sunday night we had our baptism. I got to baptize Miguel which was really cool. It was a nice baptism, the whole branch came pretty much.

That's pretty much it for this week

Spain will find any reason to not work. So they have holidays all the time for different Saints and festivals. Pretty much once a month in Crevillente, and in the bigger cities like Elche and Alicante every couple of weeks they shut everything down. It's dumb.

I picked up the gatorade in Alicante on Friday. Everyone was super jealous!!

Cow intestines and "The Haircut" (August 5, 2013)

Yeah Elder Leon is fine. We had some good talks this week about what we want to change. Things are a bit better. 

Calvin and Elder Leon (The Comp that wanted to play barber)

Miguel is good. He's still reading like crazy. He read all of Mosiah in 2 days. 

We had a lesson with a guy who's probably about 40, and he has a family. He was investigating a while ago and we've been trying to have a real lesson with him again. We were able to on Tuesday and it was really good. He's been reading the Book of Mormon and said if he learns the truth of it he'll get baptized. He's super smart and has a really nice house. He'd be a great member I think. He's catholic though and his family doesn't really know that he's investigating, which is always a problem. Even if he receives an answer he'd still have to go through his family. We'll see though.

Some investigators fed us cow intestines. It wasn't too bad. But I didn't ask for seconds. 

Thursday was a crazy day. We had 7 lessons which is a lot. We were finally able to meet with one of the two teenage girls we had been teaching for a while, Nicole. She had a baptismal date for July 28th, but missed it and seemed super cold. If she didn't seem excited or anything to meet with us this day, we were going to stop meeting with her. But without us even talking about it, she said she was sorry for missing her baptismal date, and wants another one. So we gave her a date for 3 weeks. She said she's going to prepare and do everything she needs to. She's the same age as Nissa, so we are going to have Nissa come to a lesson and hopefully they will become best friends and serve missions and get married on the same day and be friends for life. That's what we're fasting for. 

O yeah and on our way to this pueblo, some lady called us saying she lived in that pueblo and had a bunch of church books she needed us to pick up. We guessed she was some less active woman we had never met. So we went over there, and she told us that she had been excommunicated years ago. We had to talk to some other members to get the full story, but she and this other member ( a guy) had been living together (outside of marriage) for a couple years. both super strong in the church. So they got married, and were gonna wait a year until they could come back to the church. 6 months after they got married, the guy was working on something and fell down a well (A WELL!!) (FOR WATER!!) and died. Now she has a new family and doesnt want to come back to the church. She was super nice though. She has friends who are still members, and she let us share a scripture and have a prayer. And she said we could come by any time. She also gave us a bunch of her dead husbands ties which we've been wearing.

saturday morning we played some basketball which was fun, except the people in spain are terrible at basketball. 

yeah me haircut. elder leon cut it. wayyy shorter than i wanted. he told me had cut hair tons of times but really it was his first time...i was pretty mad but now it seems ok. i'm not gonna let him do it again. 

"Re-inactivating"? (July 29, 2013)

Elche District (oh, Calvin swears his Comp won't be cutting his hair again)

[Exchanges with Scott then Suzie] 

estoy aqui. i want to apologize about that email above [last week]. i was whining so much and for no reason. i feel bad about it. by emails shouldnt be about that. i wanted to come back and say this the next day but, i couldnt. really things arent bad at all. i wish we worked a little differently, but we had 25 lessons last week and our district average was 19. we had 8 new investigators as a district and we had 5 of them. things arent bad. i'm just a whiner.

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Scott Wiley <wiley.r.scott@gmail.com> wrote:

I understand but also don't feel like you need to sanitize your letters to me. I understand what you're going through. There's no shame in pushing to do the best you can. 

I'm in Idaho taking M to visit Rexburg. Heather and Nate and kids are here for a family reunion so were having breakfast with them right now.

[Calvin] nice tell them all i say hello. i think i just get angry because i want to be the senior companion. i feel like i dont stretch myself enough because there's someone more experienced than me. a lot of my friends from my group are training now and i was a little upset and confused that i wasnt training. but its ok i need to be here.

[Calvin to Suzie] the beginning of this week was reaaaally long. and i kept thinking "this is only week one of the transfer..." but it got better. I think I'm just getting bored of the area. Every week is exactly the same. We go to this pueblo on this day and we teach these people. It's fine though I guess...

Wednesday we met with Miguel, an investigator. He is still reading the Book of Mormon like crazy, and finished 2 Nephi in two days. We were going to talk to him about 2 Nephi 31 (Gospel of Christ/Baptism), and when he opened up to it, he had underlined and marked ALL THE VERSES ABOUT BAPTISM. There's a verb in spanish 'escrudiñar' which means to read with attention and to examine and understand. He was totally escrudiñaring. We weren't going to set a baptismal date with him because we didn't want to to push him too much, but after we saw how much he had read we decided to. I asked if he would follow the example of Christ and be baptized and he replied by saying 'Claro' which is like, yes/duh. It was really cool. We decided for the 18th of August. But then, we saw him later that night, and he said he wanted to be baptized a week earlier, because the Stake is having a temple trip on the 24th, and he wants to make sure that he can go to the temple with his family for that. Of course we said that was ok. And then he said he'd only do it if I baptized him. So that was really cool. So a year ago in this family, only the father was a member. Then last november the mother was baptized. Then we baptized one of their sons, David, a few weeks ago. And now their other son is going to be baptized in a couple weeks. It's really cool to be able to bring the family closer together in the Gospel. 

We've been trying to show some of the videos the church has put out about members being part of the missionary work. I don't know if you all have seen the video "I'll go where you want me to go" with the family in it. It's realllllly cool. You should all watch it, everyone. Saturday we went to our investigators house and used his weight set for a little while. It was nice to be able to bench press for the first time in a while...I'm still pretty sore.

Sunday Elder León and I had to speak in Church about the new vision of the missionary work. It would have been really helpful except we only had 30 people at church...I talked about how the members need to treat our investigators as members, inviting them to activities and stuff. The investigators shouldn't have to be dragged around by the missionaries everywhere. O yeah and I was trying to say that we need to reactive the less active members, but I accidentally said we need to reinactivate them....to be reinactivated to have to be reactived though, so it kind of makes sense...

Today for p-day we went to Elche. We got two new hermanas opening a new area there so now we have 10 people in our district. hermans Kunz is one of them. She's  from my group in the MTC and she's really cool and a good missionary. She's already training her second missionary, and she's the senior companion opening a new area. So she's a stud.

The BYU-Utah rivalry - translated into spanish.

that's crazy about the ward. how are they going to fit 4 wards in the same building? 

i'm so homesick because of cato, it's getting to be hard for me to talk about him with others because i lose all focus on everything else... 

our mission president said that we will talk about the dress standards next zone conference which will prob be in a few weeks. i haven't bought any khakis yet but i want to.

i handled my money pretty well this month. I'm all out right now but we should get paid today or tomorrow.

Gatorade is probably here but I won't get it until zone meeting so in a week or two.

yeah you can send a package here. try and put a bunch of stickers/pictures of crosses and Christ and mary so that it doesnt get searched through customs.

yeah we heard about the missionary on the train. the members are going crazy over it. posting stuff on facebook and calling us about it. we watched an interview he had with fox or someone. pretty cool. great way to start the mission!

love you much and miss you!!

"Not Transferred" (July 22, 2013)

(Calvin was thinking he would be transferred as he’s been in the area for awhile. This blog post contains two letters written to first Mom, then Dad)

Jesus "supervising" Fusbol with Elder Leon?

I stayed. I was pretty down for a couple hours because I had heard that I was leaving for sure, so I already kind of had my head out the door.

This week was pretty uneventful. One of our investigators (the older brother of David, who we baptized a little while ago) is progressing really well. He read the first book of Nephi in 2 days, and marked up the pages with scriptures he liked and questions he had. He understands a lot and asks really good questions. He's 25 and studying to be a lawyer so he's really sharp and willing to follow through on commitments. I like him a lot, he's fun to teach.

Oh we had English class Wednesday and some people actually showed up. We had three non-members that just saw the fliers. Two of the women and super nice and the kind of people I would love to teach and would be great members. They're very put together and smart. But those are also the hardest people to change. The other is a kind of crazy lady who is studying to be a lawyer and she already knows a little english. She lives alone and has nothing to do all day during summer so she wants us to come teach her at her house.

No we get the Liahona's in english so I have those to read. Thanks though. I'll let you know if I need anything.

love and miss you lots - Calvin

-----------------------

Yeah we've been in crevillente a bit more. We're finding new people to teach but they aren't very good. a couple of old investigators that we found in the area book. one is a crazy evangelist but it’s pretty entertaining to talk to him.

I didnt get transferred. elder leon told me i was, and that he had talked to another zone leader and knew for sure that i was going to leave. so i waited patiently all day and then by the end of the day he told me that he was joking. i was super depressed for a couple of hours. i really cant imagine what this next transfer will be i dont know what to do. i know this happens often, and in 6 weeks i'll be gone, but i feel like its gonna be a really long transfer.

yeah i know this was a depressing email but i needed to vent to someone. we get along fine in the apartment at night, but we just have totally different ideas and goals about the mission. 

thats cool elder webb talked about our baptism. i like elder webb, he's pretty old for a missionary too. i think he's 21 and has only been out a few months longer than me. 

yeah we talk a lot about remembering Christ and our covenants a lot with recent converts. a lot of them don't understand that being a member of the church is really a whole life change. its frustrating when they don't understand things like keeping the sabbath day holy.

things are good though. i'm not super discouraged or anything. i just want to help people and its hard to do that when i cant understand people, and i have a companion who isn't all that motivated.

love ya and thanks for everything -  Calvin

"Poco A Poco" (July 15, 2013)

Unexpected Houseguest?

This week was pretty mehh...i don't really know how to describe it. it was good though. We're trying to stop by all the less-actives in Crevillente (there are a lot). Monday we stopped by one that I had never heard of, and she let us in. She said she went to Church like 4. She works a lot and says she doesn't have much time, but we're gonna visit every Monday night from now on so that should be good. That was the first less-active I've been able to really talk with so that was a cool experience. We're moving to a new capilla which is a little bigger, and we're going to be a ward in the future so we're trying to bring as many people back to the church as possible.

Oh on Tuesday we went out to lunch with a guy in our ward who's in the stake presidency. We went to a Wok which is a chinese/mongolian buffet thing that people are obsessed with here. It's a free buffet but the food is disgusting. Everyone just loves it because people like free stuff here. The food made me sick. But this member owns a bunch of Chino's, which are just like dollar stores. And he took us to a giant Chino warehouse, where Chino owners buy stuff to put in Chino's. It's like going to the oriental trading headquarters only cooler and cheaper. he let us pick out whatever we wanted, but mostly everything is super cheap and lame but it was still cool to see it all. 

a man and wife who were going to get baptized for next sunday can't anymore because they have problems with the word of wisdom. he drinks like 3 beers a week, and she drinks coffee some mornings. they said they know they need to stop, but "poco a poco" which means little by little. And it's so dumb because they could easily stop right now, they just don't want to. Whatever. They just need to know why it's important to stop. I like the quote from Bruce R. McConkie that says "true doctrine, understood, changes behaviors better than an understanding of behavior changes behavior" or something like that. I think that's true...

Oh a pretty cool thing took place this week. Our branch president called us and asked us to come over one night. He got an email from someone in the U.S., and it said that they were members of the church, and had relatives from England who lived in our area of spain, and they heard that one of them was in the hospital. both are very old and alone, and they wanted us to try and get a hold of them because they were concerned. we had no other info, but we found out where the hospital was and went and visited her. She was happy that we came. Her husband is very old too and is being put in a home, but she doesn't know why or where. It's a tough situation. But it was cool because the woman only spoke english so i got to do all the talking. she's not a member so we didn't share anything, but we had a prayer and we said we'd try and find out where her husband was, and try and visit again soon. and I've been emailing the guy from the states. I think his name is allen reagan, and he lives in Idaho. It sounds like Cour D'Alene, but I'm not positive.

we've been eating a lot of kebap, which is good but i feel terrible after. i haven't had a churro yet. a little churro shop just opened up for the summer here so i'll go try that soon.

that's cool about the stake. i miss a big ward like that. and people who know how to be reverent...

(Scott told him about the upcoming changes to our church boundaries)

yeah 555 is the mission goal. we're doing really bad with it right now. i think we're only a little over 200. we're a really young mission though. if you have more than a year in the mission you're considered one of the oldest.

i want to do this idea i had, which is to go around door to door in normal non proselyting clothes, and collect clothes or old toys for charity. just to show the people here that we are nice people. because the people here hate us. i want to implement that.

That’s allllllllllllllllllllllllll!