(note
from his mother – It killed me but I chose NOT to correct his spelling or
punctuation – the Spanish keyboard wins!!)
only
28 minutes so no punctuation here. this might be the only email i get to write
this week. my companion is elder anderson hes from boise. i flew with him from
jfk to madrid. hes the biggest nerd ive ever met! i was thinking before we
became companions that he was the last person i wanted to be comanions with but
we get along and i know hes good for me. hes super obediant and good at spanish
so he keeps me in line.
im
district leader and there are 8 of us in the district. i really like being
district leader even though i dont think im very qualified. we only get 8 hours
of sleep but its not bad i usually wake up on my own about a half hour before
we´re supposed to get up so i usually read the scriptures or something.
we are
so busy here its ridiculous. they give us so much stuff to do its pretty
overwhelming. spanish can be really difficult but i think i know more spanish
already than i ever knew of french or arabic. we have two fake investigators
that are just our teachers and we have a few lessons a week with them but we
act like they are actually investigators and they dont know english so we are
forced to teach them in spanish. on tuesday during one of our lessons i was so
close to having a mental breakdown i was trying to explain to the investigator
why Christ had to die for her and i tried and ive never felt so useless and
hopeless in my life. i was so close to just walking out of the room and i just
turned to my companion and said ï cant do this and then he took over. but i feel
much better now. my companion and i only spoke spanish all day yesterday and it
helps so much. its really hard but you realize you can say way more than you
think.
we
have 6 to a room with bunkbeds. but we are getting 20 more missionaries soon so
we´ll have to cram even more in. all the guys in my district are cool.
we are
constantly busy it kind of sucks. but im so happy here its crazy. whenever i
think about me being here i find myself grinning like an idiot. everything is
so fun and (mostly) everyone is having a good time. we love nerding out about
gospel principles and being righteous and stuff.
there
are about 70 missionaries here now so the place is really small. its cool
though we see the mtc president daily and have good relationships with
everyone. the food here is terrible though.
today
is pday so we just got back from the temple which is literally 20 yards from
our room. in a couple hours we´re going on an adventure. each week we go
somewhere else. either real madrid stadium, a bull ring, the city center, or
this art museum which is the second biggest in Europe.
one
zone went to the park on saturday and we went to the city. it was really hard
trying to preach the gospel but exciting. on the metro on the way i
started talking to a nice looking woman and asked puedo practicar mi espanol
con usted¿ which means can i practice my spanish¿ she smiled and i told her we
were missionaries and gave her a passalong card of the madrid temple. then i
couldnt say anything else and we awkwardly just stood there until she left. but
in the city we found a big group of teenage girls waiting for a concert and we
talked to them in English for a long time and gave out a couple book of
mormons. i think they mostly just thought it was fun to talk to three american
boys and take pictures of them but one of them seemed really interested in the
book. i had explained to her about joseph smith and she was looking at his
picture and said ´¨so this is elder wiley´¨ and i had to say no, i´m elder
wiley, thats joseph smith.
a few
funny things that have happened so far:
ive
started pronouncing english things weird. i was trying to say 50 cents and
because in spain all soft c´s are prounounced as ´th´i said ´50 thents´but i
guess that shows im learning the language.
a guy
in my district and i went to the store a couple days ago instead of to work out
and we were trying to find stamps, but we didnt look up how to say stamps in
spanish so we just wondered around asking people and no one knew what we were
trying to say so we came home empty handed.
a few
nights ago a set of companions in my district were trying to practice a lesson
about the restoration to me in spanish and they were reading from a restoration
pamphlet. i couldnt understand what they were saying and our teacher who is
fluent was looking as if she thought they were terrible at speaking spanish,
and then we realized that they were reading from a portugeuse pamphlet. we all
had a great laugh!!!!
this
was the longest week of my life but it was so fun! i´m feeling very spiritual!
i had a dream a few nights ago that i was looking at my facebook feed and i had
a friend request but i didnt look at it. when i woke up i felt really good and
i thought, my new friend is the spirit!
adios
elder
wiley
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