Friday, January 31, 2014

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!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

"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!

Christmas Skype (December 25, 2013)

We loved Skyping with Calvin on Christmas.  We got to talk for a little over an hour. He’s lost weight but looked good to us.   This month:
Calvin's side of the Skype. (Don't worry, Suzie and Domineau only looked disinterested part of the time)
  • The mission had a week of “Finding" with a goal to find 800 investigators (teach each at least once). Each companionship needed to find 8. The first two days were a bust. They thought they were doomed but, Calvin and his Comp finished with 17 new investigators, teaching each 2x’s plus several baptism dates! He called it a week of miracles-we agree!
  • He continues double-booking dinner appts (why weight loss??)
  • He’s looking forward to Spain’s version of Christmas- 3-Kings Day (Jan 6th)!
  • He used the wrong Spanish word, similar to “Branches”, asking an Evangelist Minister if his church had different “harlots”!
  • Still loves mom even though got presents 2 days AFTER Christmas (Customs!) Grandma and Grandpa Wiley saved the day. Our box arrived 2 days later with a 25 Euro customs bill due!



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

"...guy... got hit by a motorcycle going full speed" (December 9, 2013)


This week was pretty decent. Tuesday we were knocking doors and a young polish girl answered. She was probably in her late 20´s. She spoke Spanish. We were talking about the Book of Mormon and about how Christ came to visit the Americas, and she said "EN SERIO?? NO SABÍA!!" Which means "REALLY?? I DIDN´T KNOW!!" It was pretty funny just because she thought it was like common knowledge that no one had told her before. But we explained that you have to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. We gave her a copy and she said she´d read it. Then on Friday we were doing exchanges and I was in San Fernando. Elder Buckway called this polish girl to see if she could meet. She said she was on vacation until Tuesday but was almost done with the book!! Less than a week!! So we´re excited to go meet with her tomorrow. Then We met with A.... this brasilian girl. She was in a fight with her boyfriend so I´m grateful for the contention between them and am hoping that they break up.
 
Mornings are usually terrible here. Everyone´s "busy" so basically you just wonder around for 3 hours. But we were so close to having a perfect morning with three investigator lessons. We went by this one guy who we had been trying to meet with for a long time. We had a really good lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon. He said he´d read it and seemed excited. But then he told us he´s going out of town until February-ish...so that was rough. Then we met with another investigator, then went to another investigator to cap off the perfect morning, but he wasn´t there. So we just had a lesson with his inactive girlfriend. So it was still good. Later that night we went by the house of an active member, but her grandson (who is the son of the girlfriend of an investigator) lives with her and he´s 14 so we wanted to meet him. We had a quick lesson and got to know the kid. He´s a good kid. We would like to baptize him. Then the m

ember had been complaining about her hand hurting and her not being able to do any work around the house, so we offered to give her a blessing. I gave her the blessing which is really hard because you have to use tu form and subjunctive so I doubt it made much sense. But then we saw her a couple days later and she said 5 minutes after we left her hand felt perfectly fine and didn´t have to worry about it anymore. Then we went to visit a family of members that just moved here from Argentina. The wife served in Salt Lake Temple Square, and the dad served in Argentina. The dad was a bodyguard for Apostles in Argentina. The Church recently made some cuts so he lost the job and they moved here. But he has pictures with a bunch of Prophets and Apostles and has a bunch of cool stories. Really strong member. And his wife teaches english in an academy so she speaks english perfectly.

Friday we had a zone meeting in Cádiz which was good. We have another week to find new investigators coming soon. We have a goal to find 800 as a mission. It´ll be really hard, but we´re excited. Then I went to San Fernando for the night. Me and Zone Leader Berrett taught one of their new investigators. This guy was walking on a crosswalk and got hit by a motorcycle going full speed. An active member was in a car right next to him, so the member got out, gave him a blessing, and drove him to the hospital. I guess he was really hurt. To thank the member, the guy agreed to listen to the missionaries 5 times. The guys name is E......, and really doesn´t seem like anyone you´d ever talk to about the church. He has piercings and a mohawk. But he´s really nice. We taught the Restoration and it went well. He said he´d pray and read the Book of Mormon (but they all say that). 
 
Sunday right after Sacrament one of our investigators named M..... popped her head in to the Sacrament room. We didnt know she was there, but she came just for the last 20 minutes. We have sacrament last, so church was over. We always try and meet with her during the week and she always fails us. She couldn´t meet that night, so she wanted to meet with us right after church instead. It was really the first real lesson we´d had with her, even though we see each other all the time and is really friendly with us. We taught the restoration and then gave her a baptismal fecha for december 20th. Its a friday which is weird, but her son is leaving the 21st for Madrid so she wanted him to be there too. I think she´ll get baptized for sure. And her son too after a little more time. We were really excited about that. Then last night we had an activity with the Young Single Adults (JAS) and we all went out to visit the inactive JAS. We went by two that weren´t home, and then we went by this inactive JAS named V....., who is dating one of our investigators. We went by her house and our investigator was there, and so was her really inactive brother. We caught them all by surprise, but chatted a bit. V.... said she is ready to return to church, her brother is 32, so not a JAS, but he´s really nice and said perhaps he´ll come to church one sunday soon. It was fun to go out with the younger members for a bit.


That´s all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you all are enjoying the Christmas SEASONNNNNNNNNNNNNN

"There are some pics of some mold....I guess it's pretty dangerous but...." (December 2, 2013)

No we had nothing of a Thanksgiving meal. It´s ok though. It´s not a huge holiday. The mom of the American Family died so they had to go to the U.S. for the funeral over Thanksgiving. The start of the transfer was terrile. Worst week of my whole mission...not a great start. O well...yeah there is a mini transfer but not many people will get moved around. I don´t think it will effect me at all. It´s not something to worry about.

Elders Wiley and Buckway: Ground-Breaking for a new Chapel.
Visiting dignitaries or invited to help clean up after?
I don´t have the DVD Legacy. But I´ll take it. Is it TRON: Legacy? or just Legacy? ha

Yeah they have decorated stuff for Christmas already. They have big lights up above the street. I guess January 6th is the big holiday. It´s called The Kings. And it seems more like Christmas than Christmas here. I´m sure they just decided to think of another day that they could all skip work.

Hm I don´t remember a Dan Herda. But that´s cool he knows Heather.

Anyways, back to how much this past week sucked...

For P-day Monday we went to San Fernando to say goodbye to the people that were leaving the Zone that week. We ate some food and watched 17 miracles. Which was like the 8th time I´ve seen that movie on the mission. 

Then Tuesday we had District Meeting. We set some goals as a district for the next transfer. And we made a calendar of scriptures passages about Christ and we´re all going to read one a day until Christmas. It should be fun. 

District Activity (Calvin and Hermana Daly)
Then Tuesday afternoon and night we got failed by EVERYONE. Which means we just walked around, toqued doors, contacted, for almost 6 hours. Even the crazy people that are always in their house and who we go by when we´re desperate for something to do weren´t there...it was really depressing. We didn´t have a single lesson on Tuesday. The first day that has happened in my whole mission.

Wednesday morning we went to the other Elders area to help them out because they don´t have many people to teach. We contacted and knocked a couple streets. We worked the whole morning in their area and gave them like 8 potential investigators. A few of them could be promising. Then  at 4 we had to go to San Fernando because the Stake was having a big ground breaking celebration for the new chapel/stake center that they are building. The Elders in San Fernando couldnt go because they were doing transfers so we went for them. It was pretty cool. I put some pictures of the event and of me and Elder Buckway burying a time capsule that they made.

Thursday we had a few lessons, taught English class, and then went by a inactive family I had never met before. They were the first members in Chiclana, and have been inactive for at least 20 years. I asked them if they still had a testimony and they said of course, and that they´d die with their testimonies of the church. I´ve heard this from tons of inactives, and it really strengthens my testimony that you could be so far away from the church, and so inactive, and still have such a strong testimony that the church is true. But then I asked them if they still read the Book of Mormon and they said NO WAY. They said it´s an incredible and inspired book but it´s too confusing to understand. So that´s why they don´t read it. I was thinking about that later and I think that it´s so hard for them to understand because they no longer have the spirit with them to help them to understand the doctrine and meaning of the scriptures. Which I think is a characteristic of an inspired book. To need the guidance of the same spirit that helped write the book, to testify of its truthfulness.

Friday was really fun! We had 5 set lessons planned! Lessons that we had called before, and they said they´d be there ready for us. Perfect! But, they all decided not to be there! So all 5 of those lessons failed us. So once again we spent all day, and most of the night walking around. Doing nothing of importance really. We found a few potential investigators but not very promising. Luckily we had to run over to San Fernando for a baptismal interview for the Sisters there. The guy that I did a baptismal interview for like two months ago, Jose. I had to fail him because he didn´t believe in Joseph Smith, he was ready this time and we did the interview again. He said he believes a little bit that Jospeh Smith was a Prophet. I shared a story in Mark chapter 9 about believing. I asked him all the questions, and all of them he passed. I was still questioning whether his answer that he believes ´a little bit´ in Joseph Smith was sufficient. But then at the end of the interview I asked him if he wanted to get baptized and become a member of the Church, and he said yes. And then I asked him if he felt ready for baptism, and he said yes. And I just got such a good feeling when he answered those questions and I knew he was ready. I wanted to go back for the baptism the next day, but we had a lesson set with an investigator at the same time, and of course we were very certain and excited that that investigator would not fail us.

O BUT WAIT!!! SHE DID FAIL US!!!! Just like everyone else in the world. So we spent most of the day just wondering around again. Before saturday, I wasn´t quite sure if it was the worst week of my mission. But saturday definitely confirmed it. 

But one thing funny happened Saturday. We went by our 16 year old invesigator Angy. She told us she didn´t want to quit smoking, so she´s not getting baptized anytime soon. But she told us she prayed and repented a little and felt really good afterwards. So that made me really happy. We decided to stop teaching her about the terrible decisions shes making in her life, and go a little easier on her. We have a cool lesson where you empty out a bag of tea, and you prop the empty teabag up like a cylinder and stand it up in the palm of your hand. Then you light the top of the bag on fire, and it burns down to your hand, but right before it gets to burn your hand, the teabag flies up in the air. It´s about standing strong in trials. but we did it to angy´s hand, and after it floated up she said ´¡¿QUÉ SIGNIFICA??!. Which means ´what does it mean??´ We wanted to tell her that it means she´s a chosen daughter of God and needs to be baptized immediately, but we just explained about faith.

Then Sunday morning at 8:30, President Deere called us, saying he was an hour away and needed to talk to us. So we met him in the capilla. We were freaking out and had no idea why he would drive all that way. We thought we were getting a new companion or one of us was leaving. Then President came in and said to Elder Buckway that he needed to talk to him alone. It was then that I realized something bad must have happened to one of our families. He was talking to Elder Buckway for  long time so I realized it must be something with his family. After about 15 minutes President took me in and told me that Elder Buckway´s mom was just diagnosed with breast cancer. But I guess it´s really treatable and common. Buckways dad works at a hospital, and their best family friend is the head doctor in charge of the cancer clinic where she´ll be going. Elder Buckway is doing really well though, and doesn´t seem to be affecting him too much. His mom is doing well with it too. 

Then right before Church one of our investigators (C.......) and his girlfriend who is 23 and has been an inactive member for at least 10 years showed up. We were totalyl surpised. No one recognized Vicky at first it was a little awkward, but she hadn´t been in the chapel since she was a little girl. But soon everyone realized who she was. many tears. But she and C..... stayed for all of church and Carlos was contributing a ton during the lessons. He wants to get baptized and is a really spiritual person, but he´s also 19 and wants to have fun. It´s hard to teach him a lot, but he and his parents I think are ready. We just need to get them focused on learning about the gospel. Then in the middle of the sacrament S....., the recent convert inactive that we baptized a couple months ago showed up. It was a total surprise. She said she is a part of another church now. But when I saw her I almost started crying I was so happy. I wanted to go up and hug her but it was in the middle of the sacrament and I´m a missionary, so I didn´t. But I was really happy.

That´s it for everything this week. I wrote a lot sorry. There are some pics of some mold that we have in our apartment. I guess it´s really dangerous but we cleaned it pretty well. Also some pics of the ground breaking.

Love ya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Calvin