There's art in museums... and then there's art that's just hanging around (December 16, 2013)

E's Wiley and Buckway: Helping setup for
the Ward Christmas party.

I feel like I shouldn´t email much because then we´ll have nothing to talk about next week. [Christmas Skype] No Spain is not too decked out in holiday style. There are lights and stuff on the streets more or less but nothing too crazy. Maybe in Madrid or Barcelona they have big festivals and parades, but this is like living in some town in Texas. ... There´s really nothing exotic or euopean about it. Maybe a Church here will be lit up, I´m not sure. But I don´t think anyone here knows where a Church is. Overall there just isn´t much culture in Spain.

Yeah I got the package with the sweatshirt. Thanks! The problem is that the mailman comes at 11:15 every day and we leave the apartment at 11 and don´t come back til night, so it´s hard for him to deliver packages. Like he was carrying around the package with the sweatshirt for two days, and then he saw us walking on the street and stopped us and gave it to us. That´s why in general it´s better to send packages to the mission office, because they are always there to pick them up. But it´s ok. I´m sure I´ll get the packages.

And no I can´t use american money here. Maybe I´ll try and change it at a bank.

We´re emailing at a members house at like 7-8 at night our time.

For new years eve we´re having a party as a zone in cádiz or san fernando. Then at night we have a dinner at a members house. Then Christmas we´re eating lunch at a members house at like 2ish. Then at like 7 we´ll email and probably end up eating at the members house where we email. But we´re not sure and don´t really want to invite ourselves.

So last Sunday we set a baptismal date on a woman, and she was really excited and told us she was going to madrid for a few days but would be back soon. The next day we saw her, but she didn´t see us. We called her son and he told us that she was in Madrid. So she lied to us, but we didn´t know why. We tried calling her and going by her house but no one answered. Then Saturday night we went by her house, and another woman was at the door waiting. We asked her if M.... was there and she said she wasn´t sure. Then we heard the voice of our investigator from inside, the door opened, the other woman jumped inside said ´one moment´to us, closed the door. 15 seconds later she comes back out and says ´M.... isnt here, i´m here visiting a friend of hers´, and then closed the door. so it was obvious that she was totally lying to us. But we have no idea why. We gave her a baptismal date, she was excited, then immediately started avoiding us. We texted her asking her if we did something to her, but she hasn´t responded.

Missionary skit for the Party

Tuesday we had a zone meeting with President Deere. President Morales the Stake President was there and he spoke to us. That guy is so awesome. Every time I´ve seen him speak the spirit is so strong. He shared with us the story of when 4 guys carried one of their friends who was crippled in bed through a crowd, up to a roof, and down the hole in the roof so that they could get the crippled friend near enough to Christ so that he could be healed. He said that the 4 friends are never mentioned again. But that we are all those four guys. Helping bring people to be healed by Christ. And that members and missionaries need to work together.

There's art in museums... and then there's art that's
just hanging around... all out in the open

Friday we had to eat at two members houses for lunch. at 1:30 and then at 3. It was tough. Elder Buckway and I made a pact that we wouldnt tell anyone that we had doublebooked, but at the second families house, the dad just kept pushing Elder Buckway to eat more, even though he was really really full, so finally Buckway caved and told him we ate before. They didn´t seem annoyed though. They thought it was funny. 

We have an investigator who´s totally ready for baptism, the problem is that he needs to get married to his girlfriend. She´s a member but we´re letting them break the law of chastity because they are trying to fix it. We were hoping they could get everything figured out at the city hall by the end of the year, but they just informed us that it will be at least 2 months. They could go to Gibraltar and get married immediately but they have to pay $300, and they´re really poor. If you really loved me you would send me $300 as a birthday present...[ yeah, that's going to happen]

Probably as close as the Missionaries get to the beach. Nice though.

The next day we went to this inactive families house. I had no idea who they were, they were just in our records and I had been calling them for months but no one ever answered. Finally the mom answered and we set a time to go by. We found out that the dad is excommunicated, but they had a 9 year old kid who wasn´t baptized so we were excited to go. The family is like the nicest family in the world!!! The guy served a mission in New Mexico, but then he said that he had a lot of questions and the answers didnt satisfy him. and he realized that the Church wasn´t fulfilling his needs, and so he didn´t want his family to be apart of it. But he didn´t mention that he was excomunicated, and neither did we. But his daughter is 16 and she has a bunch of friends that are members and goes to another ward on Sundays I think. His mom and brother are strong members in our ward, but they don´t talk to each other AT ALL. And he said it will never be repaired. So something big must have happened. We heard a little bit about how he cheated on his wife or something. They are still together though. I think she would come back to the church, but her husband isn´t willing. SUPER NICE though. Seriously. They said we could come by whenever, they just live really far away. We had to take a bus. 

Then last night we went by C...., a 19 year old we´re teaching. He´s dating an inactive girl that we´re helping get back to church. We read a bit from the Book of Mormon and then put a baptismal date for January 4th. That´ll be my last weekend here so I hope we can do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That´s it for this week.

Love ya love ya see ya soon