She went to Madrid for the One Direction concert which I was pretty jealous about. (July 14 & 24, 2014)

(7/24/2014) We are teaching a kid named Kxxxx who´s pretty cool. He´s 17 and from Ecuador. He´s getting baptized on Saturday. His mom and sister are both members but are more or less inactive. Kxxxx is a super nice kid. He really likes going to church and helping others. He´s really receptive to the spirit. 

Friday night I did a baptismal interview for an investigator of Hermana Flake. We did it a week early, I´m not really sure why. But the girl getting baptized is amazing. It was like she had been a member her whole life. It was a really long interview just because she kept bearing her testimony after every question. She said she reads the Book of Mormon and just starts crying and doesn´t know why. Her Book of Mormon is more marked up than mine with highlights, notes, and post-its. Her baptism is Saturday night. Saturday there is a big ward activity all day. It´s a chapel open house and it goes from 9 in the morning to 9 at night, with people coming and going as they please. SO we thought it would be cool if we had Kxxxx get baptized in the morning at 11, and Dxxxxxx, this other girl, at 8 at night so that people would have an opportunity to see two baptisms during the activity. It should be pretty great.

O yeah, Axxxx is going to EFY [Especially For Youth]. It started today. She left at 1 in the morning. She´s really excited. I feel a little bad because we kind of pushed her to do it, but she was really excited about going and we asked her what she wanted to get out of EFY and she said "I want to strengthen my testimony" which was an amazing answer from a girl who hasn´t been a member for even a month. And she showed us a text conversation she had with her cousin that lives in Madrid. Her cousin is 12 and knows that Axxxxx was baptized and everything. The cousin asked Axxxxx if she would need to be baptized again. And Axxxxx started explaining to her the entire first missionary lesson. And Axxxxx was asking her cousin questions like we try and do like missionaries. SHe talked about how Joseph Smith prayed to know which church was true and how he was given the authority and how we have the true church on earth. Her cousin said "that all makes sense". And then Axxxxx said "will you pray tonight and ask God if what I just told you is true?" and the couisn said "yes I will. I´m crying right now and I don´t know why". And Axxxxx said "That´s the Holy Ghost telling you that what I told you was true". Elder Sharp and I were freaking out while we were reading it. Her cousin and her family are interested and are going to try and go to church in Madrid soon. They live in a small town 30 minutes away though so it´s a little tough.

 

The family in Belgium STILL have not heard anything from the missionaries. We have sent the reference twice already. We´re going to call President Deere today to have him get in contact with the Bishop there in Brussels. 

There is a sister missionary who is 34 so she is the oldest. I´m probably one of the oldest guys. There was a 26 year old missionary but he went home a little bit ago.

Things I´ll miss about my mission...probably having a purpose. I also like organizing and learning the cities where I´m serving. I love taking a new ward directory and figuring out who is inactive and who has family that aren't members. And then going and finding them and baptizing everyone. 

We don´t have to travel this week so hopefully it will be better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I´m going to make a concerted effort to write in my journal!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE YA,  Calvin

  

(7/14/2014)  

But one cool thing did happen. There is a family in the other ward in Elche and the mom and dad got baptized in October and they have two daughters. One of them had been studying in Barcelona that whole time so didn´t know anything about the Church. The mom and dad are really strong members and always invite us over to eat. Hermana Flake and her companion are teaching the daughter, Dxxxxxx, and she´s 18 and really nice and interested. She told all the missionaries last week that she wanted to get baptized on the 26th of July but we had to keep it a secret because yesterday was her dad´s birthday and we all ate at their house and she surprised him by telling him that she was going to be baptized on the 26th. The parents knew she was learning about the church but weren´t expecting baptism yet so they were really shocked and of course super excited. All of us missionaries are trying to convince the girl to go to BYU and she really wants to. She is studying communications. 

Nothing else really exciting happened. Axxxxx went to Madrid for the One Direction concert which I was pretty jealous about. No one from Belgium has contacted our recent converts there which is pretty annoying. We sent the reference to the mission and have been trying to get in touch with the Bishop there. The one who didn´t get baptized told us on the phone the other day that she recieved her answer and will get baptized when she comes back to Elche to visit. 

Sorry that´s it. A pretty boring week. I need to be more exciting!!!!!

Love ya, Calvin

I love kebab! (June 9 & 23, 2014)

Someone from Elche went down to Malaga today so I should get the package from them in a couple of days. We did just talk a few days ago so there aren´t a lot of new things. We went by one girl who has a baptismal date on Saturday and we introduced the Book of Mormon. We had given her a copy of the Restoration video and The Testaments. She had watched both. She said her favorite part of the Restoration video was when Joseph Smith´s dad got baptized. That was weird because it´s not an important or cool part at all. That just means she wants to get baptized. She also cried during The Testaments. We gave her a Book of Mormon and talked about it a bit. We asked her again that if she came to know that the Book of Mormon was true if she would be baptized on the 28th, and she said she already knew it was true. She came to church wearing a "Parental Advisory, explicit content" shirt, but she didn´t know what it meant. She brought a friend and they both loved it and are coming next week again and will be baptized this month.

Also, two other investigators came to church with us and loved it. It is a mother and her 12 year old son. We asked if he prayed to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and he said he did and he felt a "burning in his chest" and then said that when he felt that he knew he was going to be baptized.

That was really it. We had a really good week. We´re excited for next week. Today we are going to play paddle which is like a lazy spanish version of tennis.

Yeah we are no introducing the Book of Mormon at the second lesson. It´s working really well.

We usually cook ourselves. I love kebab but I try not to eat it too much. I make rice a lot and cook some chicken too. We eat with members a couple of times a week usually. Yes I´ve had paella a lot...I like it very much.  YEAHHHHHHHH

LOVE YA

Calvin

HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! I hope you had a good one. This week started off pretty rough but ended well. Monday we went and played paddle which was really fun. Elder Sharp and I are going to start a paddle tennis court in provo when we get home. 

 

Our investigators are doing well. One of our investigators, Andrea is now getting baptized on the 22nd so this next sunday. She´s awesome. She has a friend that is an atheist and is telling her we are only being nice to her because we want to baptize her. But we talked to her last night and she is still getting ready for the 22nd. Her mother came to church yesterday too and liked it a lot. The Bishop got up to speak last and I was excited because I figured he would say something spiritual and be entertaining. But he got up and pretty much yelled at everyone for being late to meetings and not fulfilling their callings. It was pretty awkward and we apologized to our investigators for it. But I think Axxxxx’s mom is going to be baptized soon. She made a lot of friends at church and kept reciting the 5 steps to the Gospel of Jesus Christ to me. (Faith, Repentance,  Baptism, Holy Ghost, and Endure to the end) which was weird but I guess it´s good that she´s excited about that stuff. 

Yeah Friday we went to English class to give the Hermanas a blessing and all the youth from the stake were there watching the soccer game. We were there for the first half but Mxxxx and Dxxxx from Crevillente were there and I was talking to them the whole time and didn´t see any of the game. I saw that Spain was up 1-0 and then Sharp and I left and went to bed. I figured Spain would have won, but the next morning we found out they had gotten smoked 5-1. The other Elders in Elche have both lived in Holland so they were rooting for them and were really excited. It seems like a lot of people are blaming the goalie but I don´t really know anything about the game. I didn´t realize how dead the place would be during the world cup. Pretty much everyone sits at bars and cafes and watches the games. The streets are pretty dead. A lot of Colombians here in Elche so are all excited right now.

We are hoping to have 3 baptisms in the next couple of weeks. 2 are pretty much for sure, and we have 2 others that could be baptized. 

Yeah I got the package. Thanks a lot! Spanish deodorant is horrible. And the madeleines are delish. I gave them to the Hermanas.

Love ya,

Calvin

Deodorant Can't Give you Cancer!!! (June 5, 2014)

Sorry for emailing so late. It´s been a crazy week. I had to go to Málaga Sunday morning to renew my residency card early Monday. I had to leave church early on Sunday and take an 9 hour bus ride to Málaga without Elder Sharp. I was with a couple other missionaries. The bad part was that it was Sunday so we couldn´t buy any snacks along the way. We were starving. We stayed at the mission home Sunday night and then Monday morning we went to do our residency. After, we were able to have the day off, but Elder Sharp was then traveling to Malaga so I didn´t want to email without him. So we walked around Malaga for a while. I went and saw Inma who was working that day in Malaga. She seemed happy to see me and I gave her a letter that I had written and also some letters for the family. 

After that we had a meeting in the mission home for the night. We heard some good talks about how to be better missionaries and stuff like that. Then the next afternoon we headed back to Elche in a car. We did intercambios with some missionaries in Malaga, so Elder Sharp stayed in Malaga and I went with an Elder Olsen back to Elche. I was a little nervous because I still don´t know the area very well and I had to figure it out. But we stayed busy that night and set three baptismal dates with new investigators. One is with a really cool mexican kid named Cxxxx. His mom had spoken with missionaries before, and her ex-husband back in Mexico was Mormon and so she has close relations to the church. The date is for the 28th of June. Then after, we went by two other investigators and had our first real lesson with them. They are an ecuadorian mother and her 16 year old daughter. We invited them to be baptized and the daughter said yes right away. The mom is a little less convinced but more or less agreed to a baptismal date for the 28th as well. The daughter for sure is getting baptized. It might take a little more time with the mom. 

Then the next day Elder Sharp came back and we went to visit a reference that a member gave us. It was a family of 4. Two grandparents, a woman and her 12 year old child. We taught them about the restoration and then committed them to be baptized on the 28th if they recieved an answer that the church was true. Just the mother and her child. The grandparents are a little tougher. We´ll get them though. Then after, we went and visited another investigator. She had had a few lessons before but this was the first time I had met her. We taught her the restoration as well, and then invited her to be baptized on the 5th of July and she accepted. So in 24 hours our area changed a ton. We still have other investigators we want to invite to be baptized, so we´re hoping to make June a great month. 

 

O yeah, our Romanian family that we found and were making good progress with: We went and were planning on giving them a baptismal date, but they informed us that they were getting kicked out of their house in 3 days and were going to have to live on the street because they would be unable to find a new apartment in time. We calmed them down and told them they would find one. We decided not to talk about baptism because they had other problems at the time. A couple days later they found a new apartment, but it is right on the other side of the border with the other ward here in Elche. So they don´t even belong to our ward anymore. We arenñt sure what we are going to do with them. We of course will have the other missionaries teach them. But they won´t really understand why it has to be that way. O well. We´ll figure it out.

But yeah. That was the week.

Elder Sharp is 20. So I guess that´s average? We came here at the same time, yes. The other companionships in the zone are doing well. May was a rough month for the whole zone but June will definitely be better. we have a goal of three baptisms as a companionship, and 6 as a zone. 

I guess we´ll be talking in a few days now.

One thing we´ve started doing in lessons is teaching very simply about the restoration on the very first visit. i don´t know why this started writing in italics. But we just say that in the history of the world, when there was a prophet, there was also the true church of God. When there wasn’t a prophet, there wasn’t the true church of God. We beat this into their heads a million times. Then we talk about Jesus and how he gave his apostles authority and established the true church again. But then he died and the authority was lost. because there was no longer a prophet, there was no longer the true church of God. Many people looked for the true church but because there was no prophet, there couldn’t be one. Joseph smith asked, and was called to be a prophet. Because there was a prophet, there was also the true church of God. Then we tell them to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet. Then we invite them to be baptized. And that’s it. We don´t talk about the Book of Mormon or anything. And it´s working like crazy. So good. Tell all your friends.

Love ya, bye

Calvin

Not Cinco De Mayo - in Spain! (May 5, 2014)

Yes I´m pretty sure I will be transferred. A bunch of people have told me. I don´t know where though. Saturday we will find out.

No you don´t need to do anything to help with the week of consecration because it´s already over. maybe the longest week of my whole mission.

The castle was pretty cool I guess. There´s really only one castle and one old church. the rest is pretty [run down]. 

On Monday as we were going to the castle. we were wearing normal clothes, and we were walking onto the train and some lady just walks by us saying "church, the church" (in english) so we look over and she just walks by as she pulls down her shirt and flashes us. it was the weirdest thing. I don´t know how she could have identified us as missionaries.

But the rest of the week was really hard. It seemed like everyone hated us and no one wanted to talk to us. But tuesday we met with a girl we talked to in an elevator. She´s an evangelist and is the craziest person I´ve ever met. We couldn´t go in to her apartment because we didn´t have another male present, so we ast outside of her door on chairs. But she told us that she gets taken up to the heavens often and talks with prophets and casts out demons on her banjo. then she said she wasn´t surprised that we wouldn´t go into her apartment because her apartment is holy and unholy things physically cannot pass without being burnt. that made me mad, because we were just trying to follow a rule. so i had to assure her that we could have gone in if we really wanted to. but then after i prayed she said there was an angel right next to me confirming my words so that was pretty cool.

later that night after we got stood up at a lesson, we decided to go by the soccer court where a bunch of members play on tuesday nights. we were looking for an investigator but he wasnt there. we were about to leave when we saw one of our members, who´s an old man, had collapsed against the wall of the court and had passed out. everyone ran over, and luckily we were there and had oil. he regained his consciousness and we gave him a blessing. the ambulance came after about 20 minutes. luckily a young girl who was studying nursing saw him fall from her window and ran down and helped us a lot. It turned out to be a loss of blood pressure or something like that. but he´s the strongest member i´ve met on my whole mission so i´m glad he didn't die! 

The rest of the week was really boring. Full of people being rude to us. At one point I contacted 8 people in a row without a single one of them stopping to talk. they just waved their hands and kept walking. It was laughable. I LOVE SPANIARDS!!! O yeah, speaking of that, we ate with the bishop the other day and he asked why all the people being baptized in spain are south americans and nigerians. It´s frustrating because the ward council gets mad at us because we don´t baptize "normal spanish families", but if they want certain... people, they need to introduce them to the gospel and us. A "normal spanish family" [may not] let two random young americans into their home  -- without a referral. 

That was pretty much it. Nothing more exciting happened. 

Love ya

Calvin

"We just stared at each other.... in horror" (April 30, 2014)

This week was fairly eventful. We had a lesson with a guy who has known the missioanries for years. He´s from Philadelphia and has lived in Torremolinos for a really long time. He really has no direction in his life. But he´s a good friend of the missionaries. He always calls the Book of Mormon the Joseph Smith Bible. Not in like a mean way. He´s just a very simple guy who doesn't understand much about the church. He has a lot of problems but he likes us and will make us fried chicken sometime.

We found a new investigator this week named M...... He´s a 20 year old Romanian kid who speaks perfect Spanish and English. We teach him in english. When we found him he told us he had been praying every night for help, because his life has been so hard. We think he´s pretty golden. We tried to see if he could get to church this weekend on his own, but he didn´t come. So next week we´ll try and get a member to take him. We´re really excited about him. We found some other really good people that we´re excited to go by. The problem is they all live in a really far part of town that we have to take a train to. But we´ll figure it out. 

Thursday we went to I... and the fam. They are doing good. L..... got the aaronic priesthood Sunday and I ordained him. They told me right before the ordination that I was going to do it and I didn't know how to do it so they had to whisper it in my ear. It´s funny, Lorenzo really loves church but his only desire is to sit and listen. The bishopric told us to get him excited to bless the sacrament.

Yesterday I gave a talk at church. The sacrament meeting was about missionary work, so the primary sang, and some returned missionaries talked, and then I talked about what it means to be a missionary. It went well, I think.

O yeah one funny think happened this week. We had to go to Malaga for a meeting on Tuesday morning, and we were running late to catch the train from torremolinos to malaga, and so we were running and I jumped on the train just as the doors were closing, but Elder Marchant was a little farther behind me than I thought, and he didn't make it on the train, and the train started leaving immediately. So we just stared at each other through the window in horror as the train left. The train goes by every 20 minutes, so he just waited until the next one. And then I got off at the first train stop I could, and waited there until the next train came by with Elder Marchant on it. So we were only apart for about 20 minutes. I called some other missionaries to let them know we were separated, and then talked to a nice Austrian couple while I waited. All is well.

For Pday we are going to the castle in malaga. I´ll try and take some pics. Things are going well with Elder Marchant. He works hard and we get along. Not much of an age difference except a year ago he was in high school. I heard you emailed his mom you stalker...

Well that's it for the week!

Love ya all

Calvin

"Just kidding" (April 14 & 21, 2014)

[At a time when he know Suzie was on-line and, after initially telling Suzie that the Baptism they'd been planning/working on for weeks had fallen through, he followed up with this:]

Add caption

just kidding. the baptism went really well. we met with "I..." every day during the week and she came to the baptism really excited. i included a pic. also right after the baptism the city was having a Ku Klux Klan rally/adoration of Jesus party. Very spiritual. I put some pics in the dropbox. I was able to baptize "I..." and "L...." so that was really cool. We had a really good program, a lot of the members and family that spoke talked about the temple which was awkward because we hadn´t taught them about the temple. The aunt and sister-in-law of those being baptized bore her testimony and said that she had had a dream the night before that the whole family was in the temple in switzerland, so that was really cool. We had a really bad week lessons wise, but it ended in two baptisms and confirmations. That was really it. We spent all week preparing for the baptism. Elder Marchant sang I need thee every hour. "I..." took my towel on accident when she left the water so that left me without one.

--

now that its getting hotter there are a lot more people here. we spent a lot of time outside of our area last week, but this week we should be working here more. we need to find people still. it says the package is there. we went to fuengirola to play softball as a zone so i probably could have gotten it today, but i will be able to get it on friday.

the new comp is good. a lot of people think i´ll leave after this transfer but i´d be ok staying i think. i do feel like ive done everything i needed to here. thats what is tough. i joked around with elder marchant that after these baptisms i was done here. but i think we can still get one more baptism before the end of the transfer which is mothers day.

o yeah there is a sister missionary here named hermana bangerter that is family friends with the calderwoods.

April 21st

Yeah it was a pretty slow week because every night people were out watching the holy week celebrations. i got the package on friday so i´ve been eating the candy, thanks! the new comp is good. the transfer has been going by really fast. i went to nerja this week and he was able to figure out the area by himself. it was fun holding a lacrosse stick. it was weird seeing it. i thought for a second about the significance of the moment. i wanted to take a pic but i forgot my camera. for easter dinner we didnt have anything. after church yesterday the missionaries in the building all had a lunch, so hermana flake was there too. we ate some ham we bought at the grocery store, and some other people made sweet potatoes and rolls. it was fun. have you seen the video, "Because of Him", that the church made? its really really awesome. we´ve been showing it to members this week. its super cool. 

nothing too exciting happened this week. a lot of catholic processions. we went and taught "I..." and "L...." and the family about temples, and they were really excited. i dont really know how to explain eternal families very well but they were really excited. maybe in a year i´ll come back and can go to the sealing...

sorry thats it...boring semana santa week

"...Con muchas ganas de bautizarme" (April 7, 2014)

New comp is good. He speaks spanish really well and is a good missionary. The members and stuff seem to like him a lot. My spanish is fine. I can usually understand everything or at least pretend like I do. It´s not something I have to worry about too much anymore.

 

celebrating the warmer weather - inside (?)

 So Monday our mission president texted us saying he wanted to have a lesson with us and "I..." on Thursday. 'I..." had to work but we scheduled one with Lorenzo who also had a baptismal date for the same day. The lesson went well, but "I...´s" mom and dad told us that we were going to have to move the baptism back 'because "I..." had smoked a few times and drank coffee'. We said ok, we were going to have a lesson with "I..." the next morning so we´d talk then. But the lesson with president went well. Very spiritual. We talked about the importance of the priesthood and the holy ghost.

with Elder Marchant and 2 new members

   Then the next morning we had the lesson with "I...", and she told us right when we got there that she wanted to move the baptism back a few more weeks. We were a little bummed but said OK and moved into the lesson. We talked about being free from bonds and stuff like that. Then we read Alma 36 together and we didn´t notice at first but she started crying like crazy. We talked more about the importance of baptism and stuff. She just kept crying and crying because she said she had never felt any of this before. We decided not to have her cry anymore so we started to end the lesson. I asked her and her father when they thought they´d be ready for baptism. I started naming dates, April 19, April 26, May 3...and "I..." just says "the 12th". And I said, "what?" because the 12th of May is like a thursday. And she says "the 12th. Next week. I´ll be ready." So we were really pumped about that. We told her we were going to make sure we see her everyday, and the next day we went to see her at work and she said she felt really really good "con muchas ganas de bautizarme" which means like a lot of excitement to get baptized. She said the lesson we had with her was a beautiful experience. She didn´t come to conference which was annoying but she watched a bit of the relief society online and said she was crying. I made a mistake of saying we could meet with her anytime today and she asked to meet in the middle of P-day so we´re gonna have a weird P-day today...

Missionary March Madness?

Yesterday morning we had the priesthood session, but then all the 30 missionaries in Malaga just stayed in our capilla and all day they were showing the sessions of conference. so we watched 4 sessions of conference yesterday which was a ton. we got permission to stay and watch the sunday night session at 10 pm. but the last train to torremolinos leaves at 11:30 so we only saw the first half of sunday afternoon. But it was a pretty fun day in the capilla. we all had brought food and had a missionary party. 

the rest of the week was pretty normal. elder marchant and i are getting along well. he´s a good missionary. we had 3 terrible weeks before, and our area seemed so dead, but now it seems to be picking up. 

Send it to the mission home. I´ll get it eventually. but i cant think of anything i really need. the little picture book domineau sent me is breaking. maybe one day you guys can make another. but with more photos of all the fam, and cato...

love ya

Calvin

"New Comp this week..." (March 31, 2014)

Electric Scooters on P-Day

I wish I could accurately explain how big of a miracle we've seen here in Torremolinos! The daughter of a non-member father and inactive mother has stopped smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee since the day we taught her the Word of Wisdom will be getting baptized in couple of weeks. Her father (who [didn't really like] Mormons before we came) has a baptismal date for the same day, her mother and grandmother are reactivating themselves, and a long-time friend of the family who has been inactive for decades came to church yesterday because she couldn't believe that this was all happening. And to top it all off the extended family have strengthened themselves an unbelievable amount. 

 

I wrote that to someone else but copied it to you. "I..." is going super well. She´s not smoking or drinking coffee, and although it´s a struggle she knows it´s for the best. 

Elder England is leaving for Torrevieja

Other than that it was a really slow week. All of the blessings of missionary work are going towards "I...", and so everything else has been terrible. All of our other investigators have been flaking out on us, and we´ve had a hard time finding new ones. It´s ok, new companion this week and we´ll start fresh. His name is Elder Marchant or something like that. He has 4-6 months in the field. He´s been in Sevilla. I´ve heard he´s nice. I saw him once at a meeting and he sings REALLY good. He made an impression on me with his voice. Elder England is going to Torrevieja which is in the East. I went there once to visit someone in the hospital when I was in Crevillente. Also this woman I taught twice a week for my whole time in Crevillente ("C.....", dominican) finally quit smoking and got baptized last week. That was super cool to here. 

with Elder Vosters (on his way home)

Thursday we had a meeting with President and three zones were there. Elder Vosters was there so it was fun to see him before he goes home in a couple days.

That was really it. At church Yesterday a [less-active] sister came to see the family that are investigating and she hadn't been in a church for years, but i talked to her for a bit and she said that they sang her favorite hymn in sacrament and she started crying a ton. She said she was actually [formally out of the church] but I don´t know why. She said she has no problems with the church. Now she just has probs with herself because when you have a lot of knowledge God expects a lot from you, and she has a lot of knowledge but didn't live up to the expectations. But she asked for a blessing of health and asked me to do the anointing and the stake president to do the blessing. It was cool because the stake prez had absolutely no idea who she was, or that she was a member that [been out of the church], nothing. yet, in the blessing he basically told her everything that I would have said, knowing her past and her problems. It was really cool. Then after we got to set apart the new Elders Quorum President, who´s a really cool 24 year old guy who just got married and has a baby. He served his mission in Italy.

Then last night we went and watched The Prophet of the Restoration with "I..." and the kids. The kids were wild but it still went well. "I..." really liked the movie. O yeah and at the lesson on Thursday "I..." prayed out loud in front of us, finally. It was a really good prayer too. I was very happy.

That´s it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As far as favorite scriptures, I share Alma 7:11-12 a ridiculous amount. Also Mosiah 2:41.

Mountains to Climb (March 17, 2013)

Birthday cake with friends and Elder England

That´s nuts about the airplane [MH370]. 

Transfers are in 2 weeks but I´ll be here for at least another 2 months. Elder England is leaving. 

Yeah, I´ve seen “mountains to climb”. I watched it last week actually. really good!

Last P-day we went and stuck our feet in big bowls of water and fish ate the dead skin off our feet for a half hour. It was pretty fun but we chose the wrong bowls and the fish weren´t as hungry as in other bowls.

We had a lesson with a woman and gave her a baptismal date. She is sincerely reading and asks good questions, the problem is that she just got this dog that is about 4 months old and is just the worst dog in the world. It literally doesn’t stop biting, jumping, peeing, barking the whole time we´re in the lesson. I won´t describe all the ways I want to deal with that dog. So it´s really hard to get anywhere in the lesson because the dog is always messing with stuff and we have to stop. But she has a baptismal date for the 30th. I think it might be hard getting her to church the first time. But she doesn´t really have any other problems.

A message for the Missionaries who like to climb this peak just above Malaga

I had a good experience that God answers prayers. We were having a terrible week as far as amount of lessons because we were so busy preparing for the ward activity Saturday, and Thursday night we only had 2 hours to work because we had to go to Málaga for a baptismal interview and then had to stay and eat at a members house. We were really stressed but before we left the house I said a private prayer that we would work hard for those 2 hours and have success, and it was incredible. We ended up having some really good conversations with the first people we began talking to, and then two times while we were walking someone came up and asked us who we were and we talked with them for about 20 minutes and had lessons with them and got their info. It was really cool. 

The view from the climb.

Saturday we had the activity that we as missionaries planned. It was a bunch of “minute to win it” games set up around the church. We all worked hard getting it set up but only about 35 people showed up...and they were pretty much all primary kids. We did everything we could to get the whole ward there, so it was pretty disappointing. But the people who came had a really good time. The ward needs a lot of help to get more involved. So now we´re back to the drawing board.

That´s the week pretty much

Love ya

Calvin

Happy 23rd Birthday, Calvin!! (March 3, 2014)

Posing during a Pre-Dawn Birthday Run

Yeah I got all the packages last week dont worry. And yes I waited and opened the birthday package this morning! This morning we went running to the beach and waited for the sunrise and took some pics. Thats what the 30 pictures of the sun are from...I think we might go to Malaga after we email to go ride bikes or meet up with some other missionaries. Im not sure. Then tonight a family is making a birthday dinner so that should be fun.

The Package

 This week went by really slow. We thought it was a terrible week but it didnt turn out too bad. I think it was just that our investigators didnt progress as much as we would have liked. We went and talked with the mother of the two kids we baptized. She´s been coming to church and likes it a lot. We asked how she was liking church and her grandpa blurted out "she loves it. She´ll be baptized any day now!" And she got kind of embarrassed but didn't deny it. She said she had some doubts about religion in general and of course wanted to learn more about the church, because we've never been able to really teach her. Cl... (the 8 year old) was practicing the talk she had to give in primary and she ended by saying (in spanish) I say these things in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen". It was so funny/cute.

Tuesday we went to the apartment where these 3 argentine people live. They´re all in their early 20´s but really like us. We got there and they were saying how stressed out they were because of work and their families. And then we read 2 nephi 4, and then Enos and talked about and shared all of our favorite parts. It was a really good discussion and even they mentioned how much better they felt after reading those scriptures. They´re super nice kids, they just arent very [educated]. That´s the problem. We´ll try and get them to progress a bit more though.

Sunrise on the Mediterranean (3/3/14)

Yesterday in Church L.... (grandpa of the kids) came and was crying in gospel principles talking about baptism. I talked to him after and we talked about him getting baptized on the 22nd with his daughter. He said we have to talk with her but he knows its important. So this family of the grandpa and the daughter and her two kids have family that are super active in the ward. and every time we talk to this active family they tell us how its a literal miracle that the grandpa and his daughter are accepting the gospel like this. It doesnt really feel like a miracle, but it´s cool to hear them say that I guess...

That´s it!!!!!!!!

love ya, thanks for the birthday stuff!!

Calvin

"...so we walked over to a tea parlor/hookah bar." (February 24, 2014)

Well, one of the baptisms happened. But I´ll get to that. Thursday we were knocking doors and found a Cuban woman who was a Jeohovah's Witness. But she is like a super strong one. She offered to give us a copy of their book and I said sure, and we went in and talked to her and her son. She just talked and talked and talked for 30 minutes straight. And I feel bad because I think she thinks I´m actually interested in knowing if their church is true or not...but o well. We´ll see if she lets us teach her anything.

Elder Calvin Wiley and Elder Englund with a new Member and friend

After, we went to go teach our German investigator, named R.... He´s really nice/interesting guy. Loves to hike and just kind of does whatever he wants with his life. He told us he wanted to go to a restaurant, so we walked over to a tea parlor/hookah bar. We took our shoes off and sat down on the ground, right next to us were three pakistanis smoking a huge hookah. We ordered some weird fruit infusions (without tea) and chatted. R... is a weird guy but I love him. He told us he´d finally come to church, and he did! But we found out he´s not married to the woman he´s lived with for 12 years, and he says he´s not sure that he loves her...so that´s sad. 

Friday was annoying because we had to get both of our investigators to their baptismal interviews in Malaga, and neither of them have any money. Luckily there was a meeting we had to go to with the ward council so we were able to get one a ride with the elders quorum president, but the other one had no way to get there, so I had to give him 4 euros to get to Malaga. They both got interviewed that night and it all went well. 

Then we had to figure out how to get M... to his own baptism. He lives in a pueblo and none of the members from that pueblo were going to the baptism, so saturday morning we had to take a bus to that pueblo, give our investigator 10 euros so he could go to his own baptism, then take a bus back to torremolinos, eat, and then take a train to malaga for the baptism. It was really annoying and I´m out of money but he got to his baptism so its ok.

So then at like 6:45 we´re getting everything ready for the baptism and our investigator C..... comes, and says he´s not going to get baptized. He said he´s still not sure if he can live all the commandments right now, and he doesn´t want to be baptized and then break the commandments right after. We were a little disappointed but happy that he was taking it that seriously. But M... still got baptized. He´s the guy in the picture on dropbox. we didnt have time to take a picture before the baptism. 

We called C..... yesterday though to see when we could meet him again, and he told us he was leaving to go live in Colombia forever on Friday. So we won´t be able to baptize him. He says he wants to be baptized over there, and I think he will. It´s a little sad but we´ll keep in touch. I´m happy he finally found a way to get back home. He had been going crazy here stuck in Spain.

Church yesterday was really good. The mom of the two little kids came again and really enjoyed it. We talked about repentance in gospel principles and she was crying like crazy. She has all week off of work so we´re gonna go over tonight and hopefully give her a baptismal date.Her kids and loving church. Cl.... has to give a talk in primary next week so we´re going to help her a bit.

O yeah, it was really weird. So I confirmed M.... during sacrament meeting yesterday, and then right after they announced that he´d be receiving the priesthood right after church. Usually you wait a few weeks...we hadn't even taught him about the priesthood yet!!!! so he´s a priest but has no idea what that means...we´ll go over it with him this week though...

Youth programs are more or less the same. no scouts. they have EFY once a year for all of spain. 

and we need to find people to teach, we've been busy with the investigators we had but now we´re all out.

O and Elder Buckway baptized a guy named M.... last week in Chiclana. He and I found M like 3 days before I left, so it was pretty cool to hear he got baptized!

Love ya!

adios

Calvin

Fake Christopher Columbus Castle (February 17, 2014)

Sorry I don´t have my journal or agenda with me so I don´t have much to write today. For P-day today we went to some fake Christopher Columbus castle in Benalmádena which was pretty lame but whatev. Yesterday at Church Elder England and I did the confirmations for the kids. We thought the Bishopric was going to do it but when we got up there they asked which of us would do it. I confirmed Claudia, and Elder England confirmed Lorenzo. The mother of the kids was there as well as the grandpa and their super inactive grandma. They all stayed for all three hours and I asked the mom after if she enjoyed it and she said "the truth is that I liked it a lot. I feel really good". So hopefully that means she wants to get baptized. 

So I bought a mate cup to make the Argentinian drink called mate. It cost me like $15, and then yesterday after church we stayed in Málaga because we had a stake meeting at 5 and we didnt want to go back to Torremolinos. So we brought food with us (and my mate cup) to eat at the Málaga Elder´s piso, but during church someone stole it from the refrigerator!!!11 I was really upset. All our food (and mate) was gone. But o well. I´ll just have to buy another.

Elder England and I are staying together for another transfer. We had interviews with President Thursday and he told us we were staying together. We´re super excited about this transfer. We have a goal to have 5 baptisms. 

I really can´t think of anything else exciting happening.

O yeah our baptism this weekend didn´t happen because our investigator had to go to Holland for a week and didn´t get back until Saturday afternoon. But now it´s planned for this saturday, along with another investigator was have named Christian. Answered prayers.

I think that´s about it. You should let dad know that I´m turning 23, not 22 [OK, really? it was a quick slip while texting at, like 5am]. 

Hope everything is going well!

Bye

"He got really flustered. It was funny" (February 10, 2014)

Yeah the baptism went well. The uncle of the kids did the baptisms. The confirmation will be Sunday, and I´m assuming it will be the uncle as well, but maybe we´ll do them. The baptism on the 15th is still a go. The investigator went out of town without telling us so that was annoying, but he comes back tomorrow. 

I had my first real lesson with a jehovahs witness this week. She was a reference from another guy we were talking to. She told us she has been studying with the JW´s for 8 months, has seen her life change, goes to church with them every week and has activities with them and her kids. She´s pretty far in. But we had a good lesson at first. Then we brought out the Book of Mormon. She was interested, and then the first thing she says is "it doesn´t say Jehovah in here very much". We really didn´t want to get into the Jehovah=Christ thing, but she pushed us so we had to explain it. The spirit was definitely gone, but there wasn´t much we can do. We showed her some more verses from the bible showing that Jehovah is Christ, but she kept saying they were out of context and stuff like that. I wanted to tell her it really didn´t matter. The important thing was to read the book and pray. But she only said she´d "study" it. We have another lesson with her tomorrow. We´ll see if she lets us in, or if she brings 5 other JW´s with her. 

Wednesday we did the baptismal interview for the kids. It went well. Later we were knocking doors and we found a short little colombian woman who was really nice and spunky. She was really closed at first and told us she believes in absolutely nothing, but we ended up talking with her for 40 minutes and she said she wanted to learn english and teach us a little spanish, and talk with her 20 year old son about God. We´re excited to go back. She was really fun to be around.

Friday we did exchanges with the Elders in our district that serve in Nerja. Nerja is a small town 90 minutes away from Málaga. It´s a huge vacation destination and so the mission work is really hard there. But it´s a super beautiful city and I heard the caves there are really famous. We didn´t have time to do much there. We went to the hospital to meet with a member that was sick. We went to give her a blessing, but we ended up opening the divider curtain and sharing a message with the stranger in the bed next to her. We talked to the stranger after for a while and she was super nice and gave us her address and told us to come by when she gets out of the hospital. It was really cool because I could tell she was the type of woman who if you talked to her on the street she´d just tell you she was catholic and walk away rudely. But she really enjoyed our company. 

Saturday (back in Torremolinos) we went by the house of a guy we had talked to a few days before and he let us in. I had a feeling he was gay when we first met him, but our visit saturday confirmed it. He lived with his boyfriend, but is super nice and wants to learn all about our church. He´s catholic and believes in all the catholic stuff except for after the death of all the Apostles (we were salivating when we heard that). In the middle of the lesson he stopped us and told us one of his neighbors might be interested so he called her and she came over. We talked about the Book of Mormon and gave them all copies. The woman said normally she doesn't read any religious material but she wanted to read this. And then she said "who knows, this could be what I´ve been looking for for the past several years". Then the guy asked us what our church thinks of gays. I tried a few times to express the idea but couldn´t think of a good way to say it. Then he asked "like do you accept them?" and I just said "Yeah! We except them." I kind of feel like I deceived him a bit but I also feel like that is what the spirit wanted me to say to him in that moment. 

Then yesterday we had the baptisms. I was really nervous but it all went well. The mom who isn´t a member was crying a ton, and the Primary President and a lot of other woman in the ward made a super good impression and were super friendly with her. I think she came from it with a really good impression of the church and that she´ll get dunked soon (I hope). And the grandpa, who before didn´t want ANYTHING from the church (his wife was a member but when they got married he told her she couldnt go to church anymore) is super friendly with us now and is in every lesson with his grandkids. I asked him how he liked the baptism and his daughter (mother of the kids) said "he´s gonna get baptized next" and he got really flustered. It was funny. I think we´ll get him too!!

Anyway that´s the week. Transfers are next weeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!

Love ya

"My birthday is in one month exaaaactly" (February 3, 2014)

Wow I can´t believe it was like that. [Superbowl] All the missionaries thought the broncos would win, but of course no one really had any knowledge. I never got the package. But I´ll try and take a picture with the flag when I get it. 

Yeah the DVD´s are all really good. We have a german investigator who wants to know the story about the helmuth huebner guy. If you could find some type of history of the church book. I have our heritage or something like that. But I´d like something a little meatier. 

For P-days we havent done a ton yet. Last week we walked through central Malaga but its mostly just stores and stuff. We were going to go caving/spelunking with our german investigator but he got the flu and cancelled on us. He said in a few weeks. I only see like half of malaga. close to wear our chapel is. I want to go see the other half sometime though. 

O yeah, so there is this sister missionary here named Hermana Wilcox, and she goes home in a couple weeks, but I just found out that she is the daughter of Brad Wilcox! Maybe he´ll come and pick her up and I´ll see him. I have a talk by him on my pin drive called his grace is sufficient. It´s good. 

I read a talk by Ivan J. Barrett called Joseph Smith: The Chosen of God and the Friend of Man. And it is super good. I read it like 3 times. Has a lot of good/funny stories about Joseph Smith and his personality. So all week I kept thinking about what Joseph Smith would do in certain situations in the mission field. Then I started feeling like a terrible missionary and person so I stopped. 

We have a new investigator named C..... from Colombia. We were really pumped about him at first, but we had another lesson and realized he´s almost crazy. He´s been trying to get back to Colombia for years but has no money or work. He ´s getting tempted to rob or sell drugs to make the money quick. He told us about his anger problems. Super nice but he´s literally right on the edge of just going entirely crazy...later that night we knocked the door of two Pakistan guys. They were muslim but let us in and we started talking to them. It was weird. They asked us very contentiously why we came to this door, and if we knew they lived there. We said no, we were just knocking the whole building. Then one of them told us that he had been getting the discussions in Barcelona a few months before, and had gone to church as well. They were nice, we talked about the Book of Mormon, and they asked for the address of our chapel and said maybe they´d go some time. It was weird.

C.... and L....´s mom was there at the lesson with them and L wasn´t behaving himself so she said "maybe you aren´t ready to be baptized and I´ll just have to get baptized instead of you". She was mostly joking but then L told her she was too old and she said it was never too late to get baptized. We haven´t really been able to really ask her anything more because the lessons with her kids are so crazy, but she works in the train station in Málaga and we go there like 4 times a week so we´ll stop by and try and teach her. It´d be amazing if she got baptized too. We offered her her own Book of Momon last night and she accepted it, and seemed grateful. I think that´s a good sign. We´ll see.

Overrall we had a good week. We´re really excited for this next week. Things are going well. I´m content.

My birthday is in one month exaaaactly.

love you!!!

Calvin

Well..., i was never a BK fan either, until i got to Spain. (January 20, 2014)

Torremolinos Beach in Winter (File Pic)

The time in the mission home was good. We had a couple meetings and hung out with everyone. Elder Vosters isn´t a district leader anymore so I didn´t get to see him. His area belongs to the same stake as mine so he might be at our stake conference in a couple weeks, but I´m not sure. But I saw Elder Buckway and he told me that this guy that we found and taught right before I left had a dream that he was in heaven and talked with Joseph Smith a few days after we taught him, so that was pretty cool to hear. 

This week was pretty tiring, but we ended it with our hopes high. We spent a lot of time out on the street. We´d go down a main street knocking all the doors and talking to anyone that passed us walking. We got a bunch of people that told us we could come back another time, but we went by them again and they didn´t want anything from us. So basically it was all in vain. Then late one night after walking all day we went to try an inactive member that we didn´t know. She let us in and her grand-daughter was there. Her grand-daughter just turned 8 and has been to church quite a bit with her active cousins. She told us she wanted to get baptized, so we just said ok, February 8th. Her mom is young and told us she didn´t care if her daughter wanted to get baptized, but we´re gonna try and focus on the mom and get her interested.

Torremolinos in Summer (File Pics of sites C would never photograph!)

Then the other night we had nothing to do so we went by this philipino we talked to on the street. They let us in and it turned out she was having a big party with food and other philipinos. they insisted that we sit down and eat with them. it was pretty awkward for a while, but then randomly this inactive member (whos also philipino) came in and we started talking to him a lot. He and his wife left the church like 20 years ago, but he told us he wants to come back, and he has two kids that are 11 and 17 that he wants us to start teaching. He also is the President of the Philipino association of Torremolinos, and he said there are like 120 members, so we´re hoping that we can baptize all of them and start a philipino stake here in Torremolinos.

O yeah, Elder England wants some of Jake and Riley´s socks if you have another pair.

Hmm, what else. Last night we went and ate at a members house. They have a daughter serving in Santa Rosa, California, which I guess is the first mission in the world to get all the tech updates. EVERY missionary has an iPad mini. EVERY companionship has an iPhone. They can use facebook to find and teach investigators. They ALL have cars...I´m so jealous.

Town Center in Torremolinos (File Pic)

I don´t really know much touristy things. A lot of them have to do with water so we can´t do them. Today a bunch of missionaries are going to a castle in malaga but we are out of money right now so we´re just gonna stay in torremolinos. we might go look at some clothing stores around here. Ronda is only about an hour away in car, so I might ask the Elders serving in Fuengirola (they have a car) to take us one day when the weather gets better. A lot of missionaries have said that its the best part of the mission, and its in my zone right now.

We´re starting a weekly noche de hogar with all the families in torremolinos this week. and then we´re gonna have a weekly noche de hogar in another pueblo where all the strong members of our ward live (Churriana) another night of the week. Hopefully we can get some new people to teach that way. 

That´s it for this week I think. We´re excited for this coming week. 

Love ya all

Calvin

[Snippet from a separate note to Dad] Well dad, i was never a BK fan either, until i got to spain. its waaay more expensive, but waaaaaay better. like the best fast food i´ve ever had. way better and more popular than mcdonalds here. Mcdonalds is better here too though. And there are actually at least 5 burger kings in torremolinos.

Lots of "Good-Bye" visits in Chiclana (January 13, 2014)

It seems like every [strange] guy we pass we stop because my comp has taught him before. There´s a ton of work to do.

Elder England is good. He seems like a good guy and is nice. He´s from centerville, utah. 

 

O yeah my address is: calle Tiepolo 2, 2F Torremolinos 29630, Málaga, Espana

The piso is nice I guess. bigger than my last one. The ward is big. We had 3 investigators at Church so I kind of had to [hang with] them and I couldn't meet many [members]. One of the investigators is an older ...british man who [may be] the grumpiest person in the world. 

Your Flake [Laura] friend´s daughter [Haley Flake] is in my zone. She is in Malaga 1st ward so we meet at the same time in the same building. She is a SHE [Sister Training Leader]. The district as a whole is really struggling. Every area needs to do a lot of finding. We talked to the Bishop who lives in Torremolinos and asked him where he would go to find good members if he were a missionary and he gave us some good suggestions. Because really the only place the missionaries before me worked was in the center which is where our piso is and where all the foreigners and really poor people live. So we need to branch out and find families and real residences.

 

This place [right where we live] is kind of like those really trashy parts of las vegas.

But, honestly, I´m excited to be here. There are people we can find. And the ward is more or less strong. Tomorrow I get to go to the mission home for some training and I will get to see Elder Buckway and Elder Vosters before he finishes his mission!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I´m going to Torremolinos" [by Malaga] (January 6, 2014)

This week was really fun for the most part. We had to go to Sevilla at 8:30 on New Years day, and there werent any buses that left from Chiclana to San Fernando (to take train to Sevilla) that early, so we went to San Fernando to sleep for the night. The Elders there had been invited to a members house for a party that night, but me and elder buckway were content just to sit in the piso and play rummikub and settlers of catan all night. But the family invited us as well, so we all went. I was worried at first because I didnt want to hang out with a bunch of spaniards i didnt know, but it turned out that the family´s daughter is married to a member of my favorite family in our ward in chiclana (where we skyped for new years) and so that whole family was there. it was really fun. For new years in spain they count down from 12 seconds, and they eat one grape for every second. so you have to eat 12 grapes. It was pretty fun. We weren´t used to staying out so late so we were all really tired. But right after it hit midnight we ran back to the piso and went to bed. I have some pics of us elders eating the grapes. 

We had to wake up really early to leave for Sevilla, so we were exhausted. 6 missionaries had to shower and get ready. Sevilla was fun, but the meeting was ridiculously long. We had a talent show. We did the same banana thing we did at the ward christmas party. Where one person is eating a banana and then everyone else has a contest to see who can eat a banana the fastest. It´s pretty dumb but everyone loved it.. I almost puked from the bananas though. I had to eat 4. Then I showed my cupstacking talent, but I was pretty rusty so it didn´t go too well.

We missed our train back from Sevilla so we had to catch a train at 8 at night. So we got pack to our piso at 10:30.

Thursday a girl finished her cigarette and wasn´t paying attention and threw it at me. It hit my pants but luckily didn´t burn anything. That was it.

Friday we got our transfer calls. I´m going to Torremolinos as I said. Elder Buckway and Hermana Blake both predicted it like 5 days before. I heard it´s a really beautiful place. It´s close to a bunch of malls and shopping centers in Málaga and rebajas start tomorrow so sorry I´ll prob spend a ton of money. (I can buy ticket to ride in Málaga!!) We´re the only missionaries in torremolinos but there are 8 missionaries serving in the ward of Malaga 2. The district is in Malaga so we´ll go there every week for district meeting. The zone is the malaga zone. I don´t know anyone in the district except for hermana hoffman who is in my zone here in chiclana too. And Elder Nuñez, my last companion is in the district too. He might have gotten transferred though. Friday night we went and did a baptismal interview for a girl named M..... She was kind of a troubled person before but she´s excited to restart her life. She was baptized Saturday night.

 

I´ve gone by a few people to say goodbye. One picture I put up is of two girls (thre three of us standing up). One is A...., who we were teaching. She wanted to get baptized at first, but then realized she wanted to break every commandment revealed to man. It´s depressing I´ve just kind of seen her life go more and more down the toilet. She´s the one on the left.

Sunday at church was really good. When I first got to Chiclana I met a girl named M..... She is 16 and her family is active but she isn´t. My whole time here I´ve been trying to get her to come to church with her family, and she finally did! All three hours! I was so happy! And S.... came too, which made me really happy. S.... slowly is coming back to church. It´ll be tough because her Evangelist friends are trying to get her to cut off all ties with our church. (She named her baby Nefi, and they are trying to convince her to have the name changed to Rafael! But she refused and is keeping the name Nefi).

O then last night we were crossing the crosswalk, and this motorcycle was going ridiculously fast and we stopped in the middle of the crosswalk and froze because we didnt know what to do. we thought he was going to crash right into us, but he slammed on his brakes, lost control of the bike, and there was a car about to turn into the rode, and the bike was going right towards the car, and the driver of the bike through the bike down on the ground and it slammed into the side of the car. it was a huge accident. The two guys on the moto were perfectly fine, but the driver of the car and the bike were furious. we thought he was going to start freaking out at us, but it was like we were invisible. he didn´t say anything to us. we just kind of stood there for like 10 seconds while he was yelling at the driver of the car and then we just walked down the street and that was it. It was crazy.

 

O YEAH! best part of the week was last night. so it´s my dream on the mission to baptize a girl that looks like the girl with the dragon tattoo. We went to say goodbye to this member who was inactive but we helped bring her back to activity (she is like the strongest member in the ward now!) and she has a 19 year old daughter who is like the girl with the dragon tattoo. Whenever we go to their house the daughter is in her room which reeks of cigarettes and marijuana and alcohol. her hair is half shaved and she has a bunch of piercings. The mom said her daughter wants nothing with the church and she does her own thing. A few nights ago we went past their apartment to talk to the mom and the daughter answered the timbre (speaker from below) and said her mom wasn´t home but we could come up. we thought it was kind of weird because there was no one for us to go and talk to...we said we´d try the next day, but I kept thinking about how weird it was that she told us we could come up. and then last night we went by and she answered the door and i could tell right away that something was different. she still had her piercings in and stuff but i knew she had changed somehow. the mom invited us to sit down and A.... came and sat down too. the mom was really surprised (and i could tell pretty emotional, too) but we made small talk and A... was very involved. Because it was my last day I shared a couple scriptures. I was jsut going to share the last few verses from the Book of Mormon, but then I thought about sharing Matthew 11 28-30 as well. I bore my testimony of Christ and his importance in our life. After we said the prayer I saw A... was looking at a brand new copy of the Book of Mormon that I had been carrying and laid on the table. I offered it to her as a gift and she was so grateful!! I said goodbye to her and she shook by hand with both of hers and said many things in spanish very quickly but they all sounded very positive. And she said she was going to go to church the next week. I really have no idea what happened to her, but it made me really sad to leave. 

It was a really good week!

Love you all!  

"Luckily, Elder Buckway got sick Friday morning...."(December 30, 2013)

Yeah I had to pay 25 euros to get my package because it got stopped at customs. But thanks for everything! Luckily Elder Buckway got sick Friday morning [lol], so we were home when the mailman came. Otherwise I still might not have it! I´m uploading a bunch of pictures in the dropbox. We went to Novo sancti petri last monday with an inactive member and took some pictures of the beach and a giant statue of hercules. Then today we went to Cadiz and took some pictures.

 

The week was pretty boring after Christmas. A lot of people were busy so we couldn´t meet with many. We went by S.... who is our recent convert/inactive member that is going to an evangelist church, and her evangelist pastor was there. We talked with him for a while. ... He really has no knowledge of our church which makes me mad because he was the one telling her a bunch of lies about us....but I asked him if there were a bunch of branches to the evangelist church (like churches that differ a little) and the word for branch in spanish is "ramma", but i accidentally said "ramera" which means "harlot". I realized it right away. He corrected me and laughed. He´s a nice guy. I just wish he´d stay away from our recent convert. 

Yesterday after Church we went to this family we found last week. They are so amazing. We couldn´t even have a real lesson with them because they kept asking questions randomly but the questions were really good and they loved the answers. And Jose said, you know, the more I talk to you guys the more I want to be a part of your church. They are catholic, but don´t practice ...They said they really want to come to church with us next week. We haven´t been able to get to talk about baptism, but i feel like when we do bring it up they´ll be very willing and ready. They asked for our facebooks and email address and everything. They are awesome. 3 kids. One is 8 (yes!) and the two others are 4 and 5. 

Today we went to Cadiz and San Lucar and had a BBQ with some members and missionaries in the zone. it was pretty fun, except we spent almost half the p-day traveling to San Lucar. O well.

Tomorrow is new years eve, so we work until 7, then I think we are going to San Fernando to spend the night with the elder´s there, because we have to catch a train to sevilla EARLY wednesday morning for a zone conference. I´m super pumped!

Love you all and it was really great talking to you. I´m sure the next 5 months will fly by and we´´ll see each other soon!

happy new years!