Last Thursday for preparation day I finally got my haircut. One of my teacher´s Hermano Cerro demanded I get it cut immediately so I finally gave in. Luckily President Sullivan is basically a master barber and he did a great job and didn´t cut it very short at all. The guys in my district all went to Domino´s pizza for lunch which was a metro stop over from the MTC. They have an all you can eat deal for 6 euros each so we just had them keep bringing pizza to us. We didn´t want any other customers to come in and slow down the process/ we wanted to share the message of the gospel so we put a Book of Mormon in the window so those that passed the store would see it...the Domino´s was really old school and looked like it hadn´t been renovated since the late 80´s. They had a thin crust pizza that had a layer of philadelphia cream cheese between another thin crust. I wanted to puke. But it felt good to have relatively normal american food again.
I wanted to go out to Sol which is the city center after but all the guys in my district wanted to just go back and take a nap so that´s what we did. Then we watched the last session of Conference which was really good. Elder Holland´s talk was amazing we all really enjoyed it. I liked the part about how we probably have a stronger testimony than we give ourselves credit for. And we should focus on those parts more.
Saturday we went to the park to preach. I was with Elder Buckway who´s from Utah. He´s really cool and really good at Basketball and Soccer. It was really hot out in our suits but the first person we talked to was a 25ish year old girl just sitting on a bench. We spoke to her about the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy and we got her phone number but I was dumb and didn´t ask for her name for the referral sheet. She immediately started reading it as we left which was really cool to see. Then we talked to a German guy who spoke english. He was a lutheran but we had a really good talk about religion. We told him about how our Gospel focuses on progress and changing behavior, which he said he really admired and wished his religion focused on that more. Then we talked to an older Spanish woman. At first she wouldnt even look at us as we were talking. And then I asked if she knew of the Mormon Temple in Madrid and gave her a picture of it and I said ¨en el Templo los familias pueden ser juntos para siempre¨ which means in the temple families are able to be together forever. and right when i said that she immediately changed her attitude and became much more open and engaging with us. SHe said her family is catholic but religion is not a part of their lives. She wasn´t interested in our message but we had a nice talk in spanish and she couldnt believe we had only been studying spanish for three weeks. it was really cool. and then the last guy we talked to was from egypt and he knew spanish, french, and arabic. he said he was a muslim turned catholic, but then said he was now part of a religion that he didnt know the name of, but just showed us a picture of mother Mary. We told him about the Book of Mormon and he was really interested and said he loved learning about other religions. I told him I knew a little arabic but he didnt seem to care that much so that was a bummer...but we got all his contact info and even showed us his license to verify it for us (not sure why) but i´m really excited about him. his name was omar bellafel or something i think.
I cant think of much else that happened. we´ve been playing a lot of soccer which is really fun...I found out that when i say prayers out loud ive been saying ¨bendice nos centarse¨ instead of ¨centrarse¨. centarse means to sit down and centrarse means to focus...some italians are now in the mtc! 4 elders and 1 sister will be here for a couple weeks before they go back to milan and rome for their missions. its pretty cool having them here, they all speak decent english. but one is 25 so i´m no longer the oldest missionary here :(( O on monday i told myself i was gonna work as hard as i could in my studies and just absolutely tear this week up. it was tough for the first few days but i worked hard. and then yesterday me and elder anderson had two lessons with our fake investigators and we nailed both lessons perfectly. i recited the first vision in spanish by heart to both of them which was really cool, and then both me and elder anderson gave a lesson to our district about 2 nephi 29, which is about the Book of Mormon coming forth and how people will deny it and say that we already have a Bible. Very important chapter for missionaries!
I wish I could say more but time is up! I might be able to come on and send some pictures later. tell everyone sorry I couldn´t email them back!
Calvin
The passage below was a letter sent to his Dad…
Spanish is going pretty well. I'm a pro at talking about the Savior´s Earthly Ministry in spanish. We just got back from the city though and it reminds me that I can´t say anything in spanish unless it's about the Gospel. I´m trying to learn other vocabulary in my spare time though. I could probably buy some stamps now. But some of my friends from school sent me a bunch of stamps so I haven´t had to buy any yet. The food has been better this week. The mission President's wife had a talk with the kitchen crew and they've stepped up their game. We just went into the city center to go shopping and I ate a really good caesar salad and a mango orange kiwi smoothie which was the best thing I've ever dranken in my life. I will day dream about that smoothie for the rest of my life. I went with my companion and two other guys and two girls in my district
We were were looking for ties but they were all really really expensive so we didn´t get any. I'm looking for slimmer short sleeve white shirts. I might just find a tailor in Malaga and have the sleeves brought up an inch or so. The weather has been great lately. About 70-75 I think. It feels like its 90 though.
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