November 04, 2013
Dear Everyone,
So...my
handy dandy little daily planner that has the list of everything I
wanted to tell you guys is conveniently sitting on our study table in
the piso. Entonces, I get to go by memory today! Which is harder than it
seems. Because you think it´s not that hard to remember but as soon as
you´re staring at that white screen, you all of a sudden feel like
you´ve done absolutely nothing this week! But I´ll look at it when I get
back home and can always add stuff to next week.
But first thing´s first. After a super awesome week last
week...this week was a total dud in terms of numbers. All those
wonderful new investigators decided to never be home for their lessons.
Not a single one actually was home when they said we could come back and
they wouldn´t answer their phones either. Figures. One of them actually
did answer and he rescheduled and then was home for the rescheduled
cita, so he gets to be the person mentioned this week! His name is
Marcelo. He is an older man from Equitorial Guinea and has lived in
Spain for like 50 years and....is a Testigo. Testigo=Jehovah´s Witness.
Now...I don´t want to bash any religions, because we respect them all.
However, Testigos are just HARD to talk to! They think they already know
what we believe and they only let us talk about the Bible, if they let
us talk at all, and they just are quite ridiculous. But Marcelo isn´t
too bad...not the worst I´ve met anyway. Like, after he talks and talks
he does let us actually talk. He still won´t let us give him a Book of
Mormon but at least he enjoyed a couple verses that we did read from the
BoM. So...we´ll see about him. You might be wondering why we would
bother teaching them. The thing is, we didn´t know he was Testigo when
we first met him and by the time we had the first lesson, it´s not like
we could just say right then that we didn´t want to teach him. I think
he´s a lot better than the Testigos that accost us on the street. I am
more hopeful about him than Hna Thompson is anyway. I guess we´ll see
how it goes. I just want to teach him because he actually is home when
he says he will be! He felt bad about forgetting about the first lesson
so he´s proven to be reliable anyway.
What else...Halloween was this week! It was pretty awesome for
not being in the States. I don´t know if people do trick or treating or
anything, I think some do, but we saw a few people in costumes, even
though they were very uncreative, and the hermanas in Ward 1 put
together a Halloween party that all the missionaries went to and we
invited everyone from Wards 1 and 2. Unfortunately these hermanas didn´t
plan this very far in advance so not too many people came, but it was
better than I thought it would be. We just had some typical Halloween
games. And we didn´t wear costumes but the hermanas got some crowns and
the elders nerd glasses or clown noses. I should have time to send a pic
of it later. My idea was to switch nametags and go as each other, but
it was more a funny idea than something we would actually do, `plus a
couple of the elders did it first anyway.
Yesterday was stake conference in Granada! We got to take a
bus full of missionaries and ward members without cars and rode to the
stake center in Granada. It was awesome, it was the nicest Church
building I´ve seen in Spain! It was probably nicer than the stake center
back home in the States! But it was ridiculously fun because we got to
see a TON of missionaries and i got to see Hna Roan and Hna Lyons!! My
two old comps!!! It was great! I miss those girls! Plus Elder Whitworth
is there too and he was in my district last transfer. Ahhhhh it was
really fun. Like a big missionary reunion. And I got to see Hermano
Tyndale, my old MTC teacher!!! I saw him because his family lives in
Fuengirola, in the stake and he doesn´t teach at the MTC anymore because
he´s going to BYU in January. (Aaron and Kelly, he will be in the
school of music and plays violin, so if you ever meet a British Spanish
speaker named Jack Tyndale, talk to him! haha. But stake conference was
great, President Deere gave one of the talks! He´s literally the coolest
man alive. He needs to be an Apostle someday so he can talk in General
Conference and the entire world can realize how amazing he is.
We had exchanges this week too. Our Sister Training Leaders
are the hermanas in Ward 1 so I switched and spent the night over there
and worked with Hna Ramsay in their area and Hna Poulton worked with Hna
Thompson in our area. It was a nice change of pace! It´s cool to see
how other missionaries do things and learn different tips. Hna Ramsay is
crazy with street contacting, she´s SO brave and she made me contact a
lot which is the thing i´m bad at, so that was good. And it´s always
interesting to get to know other missionaries. Hna Ramsay is really
great, but she is super strict with rules. Like, I´m not saying that I
think we should disobey rules, I´m just saying that if we go to bed at
11:02 instead of 11 that it´s not the end of the world. But overall it
was a fun exchange.
Dang, I´m not sure what else I was going to mention...well,
one thing I wanted to mention was people getting offended. I can´t
remember if I already said anything about this, but we´ve had a couple
lessons with less active members who tell us why they go inactive, and
honestly, the reasons are just ridiculous. One family we know right now
has just stopped coming to church a couple weeks ago because they´re mad
at someone too. And here is the question (but this keyboard is weird
and not letting me make question marks, so just pretend it´s a
question): Are you really going to let someone else determine your
salvation. This is the true Church and God speaks to us today and we
have the chance to live with him again as long as we keep enduring to
the end!!! How incredible is that! And yet, some people will just throw
all that away because someone looked at them weird or something. It´s
absolutely ridiculous. I don´t care what someone did to you, Church
isn´t about other people! It´s about you worshipping God! I´m begging
you guys, do NOT stop going to Church because someone else isn´t
perfect. nobody´s perfect, that´s why we have the gospel and chruch in
the first place! Instead of me ranting about this more, just go listen
to Pres Uchtdorf´s talk from Saturday morning a couple weeks ago and
that should help solve the problem too. Please, there is NEVER a good
enough reason to leave the Church. It´s just not worth it!
Well, the only other really exciting news is that I ate a
Reese´s cup this week!!! It was literally a miracle, I was so excited.
Reese´s cups are something you can´t buy here and I was going to put it
on my Cmas list (and still am) but we were at a member´s house and they
just got a package from some misssionary who baptized them like 10 years
ago full of Reese´s cups and beef jerky. It was amazing. The taste of
America. I wanted to cry. hahaha be grateful for American candy!!!
I don´t believe I had anything else but since I don´t have my
list I´m not sure. Sorry this is short, but keep being awesome and
sending me mail and emailing me! I love you all! Be good and read
scriptures and go on missions!
Hna Andrew
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