Week 4 of transfer 2 in Leon Spain

Alright, this is the theme for the week, and also the movie quote. This should be easier than a corn harvest in Rhode island on the last day in February. So, pretty easy. "You gotta keep on keepin on. Life's a garden, dig it, make it work for you."

Anyone, Anyone?

Okay well, this week has been excellent! We had some great successes, and countless failures, but that's life right? We learned a lot, and put in practice a lot of the things that we learned from last week. SO many of you know that I have a phobia of talking to people on the phone. I despise it. Also I can't really swallow pills. When I get sick, I get the children's medicine so I don't have to take a pill. The lord has helped me overcome these things as I have been on my mission. As a missionary, one of the most important tools that we have is our phone, but it doesn't do any good if you don't use it. This is the same principle with pills. Often times when you are sick or have a headache, you can take a pill and all is well, but again it is no good to you is you do not utilize it. This is my sermon this week, Use the things that the lord gives you to make life easier. Just as the quote says, life truly is a garden, and what do you use to till, and tend your garden (LIFE)? We use the tools of the lord: the scriptures, prayer, fasting, attending church meetings, general conference, a living prophet. All of these are things that we can use to help fill our gardens with life, and nourishment.  Use the things the lord gives you, and do not take them for granted.

P.S. Sorry for going Missionary mode on you there, I'm reading in the New Testament right now and I am just loving the parables. Money.

LUNES:

Okay so after we carved pumpkins, and emailed, we left and started to proselyte. As we were walking, and contacting we were able to contact this really cool, really catholic lady, and a family. I love contacting families because you not sure who to talk to, or look at but The gospel blesses families, and helps parents be better parents, and kids be better kids. We were able to get not only the ladies number, but also the number of the dad from the family! Way cool. After that, we passed by an old investigator from like a 2 years ago. Her name is thalia. So let's start at the beginning. Well teresa is the mom of eduardo. Eduardo is the husband of thalia. They are all from Mexico. So teresa, and eduardo became members in Mexico and then moved here. Thalia was investigating the church for years and years since she was 17, and then married eduardo who was already a member. The whole family was going to church every Sunday. They came to every activity, but then they all of the sudden stopped. So when I first got here, we passed by eduardo a few times, and talked to him, but we didn't try to go in because the previous missionaries had tried talking thalia, and she said that she didn't want anything, and was kind of rude to them. Those missionaries told my companion not to contact her, but then she did and got a cold response. A few days ago, we were going through the phone calling people and i saw her number and called her, and i didn't have any clue about this whole story. She answered and was super nice and we set up an appointment, and then we passed by and she wasn't there. SO this day, we just thought to pass by and she was home and let us in, and we were able to teach her and her kids! IT was crazy... Miracles. We invited her to the Halloween party were having on Friday.

MARTES:

SO today we visited our good friend hortenisa and she is doing really good. Her son mosiah, our friend submitted his papers to serve a mission, and we are awaiting his call, or his assignment on where he will serve. Were pretty stoked to see where he will go. After that, we were walking right outside of hortensia's house when we ran into Nalda! We have visited her a few times in the last few weeks to teach her and her daughters English. Her family are the 7th day Adventists. They are way cool. So we got there, and then she insisted on making us food. She made a bunch of food, and then made us eat all of it. It was crazy. So they are vegans, and don't eat meat, or use animal products so it was like a flash to the past from when my mom did that. It was cool, and her food was super tasty. Then after that, we waddled to Sandra's store, and ran into rocio while we were there. It was cool to see her again. She is the cousin of Sandra's boyfriend nd we met her a few weeks back. SO after that, we ran to the capilla, and had a really great English class with 3 new people that found the flyers we made. I guess people really do look at those. Then after that, instead of having "Noche de jas", we helped our mission leader, Pedro buy and decorate for the upcoming Halloween party, with his kids and Lucy and mosiah. We wen to a chino, and also we bought our costumes for the party. Oh, so today the schedule changed. So normally we wake up at 7:30 and then go to bed at 11:30, but for the winter it is shifted earlier because it's cold, and dark, and no one is outside. So now we wake up at 7:00 and then go to bed at 11:00. SO we had to eave early from decorating. 

MIERCOLES:

Okey dokey.. Well this morning we got a text from mosiah, and then called him and he told us that he got his mission call in the mail. When we had talked to him on Martes he said that it would probably be like 1 or 2 more weeks till he got it. So we were pretty shocked when he called us. So we made plans to go over to his house after district meeting to watch him open it. So we had  great district meeting, and then ate a sandwich, and us and the elders ran to his house and watched him open his call. SO mosiah thought he was going to Malaga, Spain. I said Buenas Aires, Aregentina; or Houston, Texas. SO he opened his call and He is going to Fortaleza, Brazil!!!! HE was shocked. IT was awesome, and then he was reading it about when he was supposed to report and he said july.. And everyone was like, July? Jeez, thats like a really long time to wait. But then he showed us, and his whole call was in spainsh obvouisly except for the date which said January. SO he it leaving in January. SO he made us erase the video and do it again so he could read the date right. I didn't erase it.. SO for the next video we all faked it. IT was awesome. After that, we went and finished mostly decorating the capilla for the party. Then we had a great lesson with this guy named carlos. He was investigating the church for years, and had read the book of Mormon twice. So just for reference we met him contacting like 3 weeks ago, and found this out when we met with him. He was going to church every Sunday, but then his mom got sick, and he lost his dad, and stopped coming and ended up losing contact with the missionaries for 3 years, and we just happened to find him. He is like the most golden amigo ever. It's amazing. Then we met with Maria Dolores, and she it still doing good. Still sick and old, but reading every night from the Book of Mormon, and wants to learn more. Oh man, sh gave us this sugar bred thing. It was soooooo good. 

JUEVES:

SO Today we made the chili for the Halloween party. It was pretty awesome. The elders said that they are bringing Funeral potatoes, so I am pretty stoked for that. After that, we went by and visited Cordula. She is the mom of Jose Antonio, who is one of our members. She is like 88, but is a hoot! She was making the best jokes, and they had those butter cookies in the tin. So they put those out for us and forced us to eat them. I ate like 20, no joke. Then after that we were contacting in the street and met this girl from Georgia, and we chatting her up in English, which was weird. She was super cool, and is teaching English here I guess, but she doesn't speak Spanish. IT was cool. 

VIERNES:

SO the first person that we visited today was Sandra. She it the lady with the stores. SO we passed by and out of nowhere invited us to have lunch with her in her apartment. We have been praying and fasting to meet with her outside her store. She is super sweet and really wants to believe that things that we tell her about to Gospel are true, bu it is kind of hard to have a lesson when people walk into her store all the time. SO we finally were able to meet with her. It was awesome. Then we had an appointment with our member friend Nina, from Brazil. She lives in San Andreas, which is outside of LEon, so by the time we left Sandras we had missed to first bus to San Andreas. SO we ran to the ATM to pull out cash for the us because you can't use a card, and the ATM wouldn't work with our cards, so then me missed the other bus, so then we ended up walking to her house, which takes about an hour and a half, power walking. SO we basically ran there, and then after our lesson, Pedro our ML had to drive and pick us up for the Halloween party. The party was awesome! We had about 65 people there, and like 20 of them were not members. Thalia and her kids came, and maribel and her family came too! It was really a success. So there was also a competition of food, like the dish of your country, and i made chili. We won with the chili! I couldn't believe it. Then we taught a dance,and had a costume comp, and played some games, and ate some candy. I was a dead person for Halloween. Like always. 

SABADO:

SO today we went and cleaned to capilla from the party last night. It was destroyed. So this weekend is the District conference, which is like Stake conference only smaller. So president pack came down, and we had interviews with him. Then we walked around and called a bunch of people, and set up lots of appointments for next week. Afterwards we had English class. SO there is this super cute lady who comes to English class every Martes, and this time she brought us cream puffs that she made. They were seriously amazing. After that we contacted and received 5 numbers. A new record for one night!!! 

DOMINGO:

Well We had district conference at the hotel san marcos. IT was awesome. Look it up, it is really pretty, and old. So we had the opportunity of hearing from Elder pilz, of the 70. IT was awesome, because he is from Germany and has a great accent, but he only speaks German and English, so he spoke in English, and had a translator to translate it into spanish. Then we heard president pack speak as well. We had  good lesson with Maria Dolores, and she made us some little fried cheese croquet's. The were a touch unhealthy but, no biggy. Then we shared with the family Rivera about how we came make our homes like the temple. They really liked it. Well it has been a great week. 

Thank for all of the awesome emails, and have a great week. Love you.

These are the San Marcos Hotel where we had the conference. Also Mosiah getting his mission call with Elders Reese and Gearing.