My first REAL missionary experience!!

So this last week at the park was absolutely incredible!  My past three weeks at the park have been pretty hard because I hadn't met anyone that wanted to listen to me.  This last week, I was praying to find someone that would at least listen to us, and on Saturday, we found that person. 

The first three people we tried talking to were rather rude, and straight up told us to leave.  That was a little discouraging, and I got to thinking that I was going to have another bad day.  The fourth lady we tried talking to was really nice and let us sit down next to her.  We were talking for quite a while about Spain, and the different places we might see in our missions.  Gradually the conversation started moving toward religion.  We found out that she believed in God and Jesus Christ, and wanted to know more about the Mormon Church.  So we gave her a Book of Mormon, and had her read Moroni´s promise.  While she was reading that to herself, the spirit was so strong.  After she had finished reading those verses, she looked up at my companion and I and said that she wanted to read it.  She got really interested when we told her about the part when Christ visits the Nephites. 

The conversation about our church continued, and she asked us a lot of questions.  For each question she had, we had an entire pamphlet to answer it.  We ended up leaving her with a BOM, restoration, plan of salvation, and a gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet.  On top of that, she wanted to learn more, so we got here information down on a reference card, and told here where she could contact the missionaries.  At one point, she pulled out her journal and showed us questions about life she had just written down and was pondering. She told us that we brought her the answers to all of her questions.  She was so happy, and so prepared to accept the gospel.  By the end, my companion and I had been talking with this woman for almost an hour and a half.  We were so speechless on the way back to the MTC.  We both agreed that we had never had an experience that cool ever before, and both agreed that we could tell she would accept the gospel sometime in this life or in the next.  Oh and this whole thing was in Spanish by the way.  Totally experienced the gift of tongues. 

Things in the MTC are going good.  My companion and I have had some really good, spiritually guided lessons with our mock investigators.  We have both realized such big improvement on our knowledge of Spanish and the lessons.  I feel like we are both pretty ready for the field now.  When I look back on how unprepared I was setting foot on that plane almost a month ago, it’s hard to believe that I've come so far so fast.  Time really does fly by here.  I know I say that a lot, but it’s so true.  I feel like it was P-day two days ago.  I´m excited for the real mission field and looking forward to the fun times and good experiences it will give me.

Love you all, and think about you every day!  Can´t wait to see you again in 23 months.

oh I almost forgot to include the museum in my weekly letter.  The prado was really cool!  Lots of famous paintings.  To be honest, none of the so called masterpieces impressed me all that much.  Not really my kind of style of art.  I did find one Diego Valazquez painting that I really liked, and I got a magnet of it.  It’s called Visitas del jardin de la Villa Medicis, or something like that.  Not quite sure why I like it, but I do.  I couldn't take pictures in the museum, but I took a few cool ones of cool buildings I saw on the way to The Prado.

Love you and miss you a lot. 

Halfway through the MTC

So my companion and I got new investigators this week, and we are teaching so much better now.  We don´t have to worry about planning out exactly what we are going to say, because we know the lessons pretty well now, and we have noticed we are much better at following where the spirit wants the lesson to go.  Our last lesson, we planned on teaching the beginning of the restoration, but after talking with the investigator a little more during the lesson, we taught about faith instead.  The entire lesson was led by the spirit.  When our investigator shared a story about her childhood in Spanish, quite fast Spanish I might add, I was amazed to notice that I was understanding every word she was saying.  When I turned to explain the story to my companion in English, he just looked at me an nodded.  That was the gift of interpretation of languages right there!  That was a really cool experience.

Down town last week was way cool!  I took lots of pictures, and hope I can get them all to you.  The first place we were at was kind of like the time square of Madrid! It was really open with buildings all around.  We walked around a lot and saw a lot of cool little cobblestone streets everywhere.  The architecture in all of the buildings was way cool.  We went to a chocolateria place for churros con chocolate.  They were so good!  The chocolate was way dark, but I loved it!  Some of the sisters weren’t so fond of it, but that just meant I got to eat moreJ.  We saw a cool looking sword shop, so of course all of the elders wanted to go check it out.  When we got in there and glanced around for a few seconds, we noticed that the only other people in the store besides us 5 elders were 5 nuns.  Still haven’t been able to figure out what they were doing in there.  Its not every day you see nuns shopping for swords and daggers. 

Speaking of funny shop experiences, my companion had an interesting one yesterday.  We walked into a really small candy shop type place, and Elder Reading saw some sort of wrapped doughnut thing right by the door.  When he went to pick it up, the store attendant just started yelling at him in Spanish.  With his limited vocabulary he put it back and kept saying “lo siento, lo siento”.  The little Asian lady wanted nothing to do with that and kept yelling at him telling him to leave and never come back.  That was another really interesting experience. 

Super excited for P-day today!  We get to go to the Prado!  For those of you that don´t know, I have been told that the Prado is one of the largest art museums in the world.  Third largest I think, but I could be wrong.  I am so excited for that! Its going to be an awesome story for next week.

Proselyting in the park last Saturday was pretty cool.  The first people we talked to were from Israel and spoke English.  We had a good conversation and got them a pass along card.  The girl took a picture of me and my companion, so that was cool.  Other than that, not much happened in the park.  A lot of simple holas and como estas, but nobody wanted to hear about religion.  I´m hoping this week I can finally find someone who is ready to hear our message.

Those were the main highlights of this week.  Other than that, its mostly been studying and practicing the language.  My whole district decided we are going to do a secret santa thing before we leave in December, so that will be interesting.  This week I have noticed a huge increase in my ability to speak the language.  Much more than usual.  The lessons go so much smoother when I don’t have to trip over my words all the time.  My testimony is getting much stronger as well.  I've been noticing how fast time flies by while you are busy.  I now realize what people meant when they say that 2 years will be gone faster than you know it. 

I miss you all, and love you tons. 

Happy P-day!!!

Thursday is my new favorite day!  I'm excited today to go down town and see the city.  We were told there will be churros con chocolate where we are going, so super pumped for that!  To answer a few questions; we get to do the street contacting in the park every Saturday, and it is a whole new experience every time.  I don´t really know how to describe the food here because there is a wide variety, but I do enjoy it a lot. 

So I´d like to talk a little bit about all of my friends in my room.  There are two elders coming to Barcelona with me.  Their names are Elder Kimbal and Elder Keen.  Elder Keen is from London, and yes, he has the coolest accent.  He says stuff like trousers, corridor, and zebra crossing.  It makes me happy.  Elder Kimbal is possibly the funniest person ever!  He is so good and making the whole room laugh harder than we ever have before.  The others are Elder Bean, Elder Smurthwaite, and my companion, Elder Reading.  We are all such good friends now and have a great time every night. 

I just started noticing that I am no longer jet lagged.  The days seem to be getting much shorter now, and that makes it a lot easier.  We work all the time though.  We are in a class room for about 8 hours every day learning grammar, doctrine, how to teach, and other language stuff.  We teach fake investigators Monday through Wednesday, and its all in Spanish.  Pretty hard.  It´s hard to believe I have already been out for almost 3 weeks, and we are pretty much considered veterans in the CCM now. 

My language skills have improved so much since I arrived.  I can now pray and testify in Spanish, and I am getting to the point where it is getting easier to teach lessons in Spanish.  I can understand most, if not all of what people are saying, and most of the time I can respond and communicate what I am trying to communicate in Spanish.  Funny story, Elder Smurthwaite was teaching a lesson on how Christ suffered for our sins.  The word for sins is pecados, which is really close to the word for fish which is pescados.  So needless to say, he ended up telling his investigator that Christ suffered and died for our fishes. 

We get to go to the temple every Thursday morning, and that is the coolest thing.  I look forward to our temple trips because they are always such spiritual experiences for me! 

So me and my companion had two investigators, and turns out we got both of them to commit to baptism in 2 weeks.  Pretty proud of that even though they aren't real investigators.  Although having to teach every day is really hard, it is really helpful in teaching me both Spanish and doctrine.  There is something about teaching that teaches the teacher more than the student. 

My last experience at the park was interesting.  The elder I was paired with and I hardly ran into anyone.  It was funny because we would be walking down a pathway, and we would see others walking toward us.  When they saw us they would almost always turn down another pathway or try to avoid us some how.  One lady we tried talking to was sitting on a bench asked us a question that i thought i understood, so a answered with a yes.  I later came to realize that she may have asked us if we were Jehovah's Witnesses.  Oooops.  But my companion and I planted a BOM in a public read and return book shelf with our testimonies written in it.  Hopefully that will touch someones life.  aside from that however, we didn't have much success.  Several attempts, but we were shut down every time.  Next time though, I´m going to try to be more persistent. 

That's all I really have time for today, so I hope it was enough.  I only get 30 to read and write each Thursday, so I am doing my best.  I love you guys and love to hear from you.  I am still so happy, and can´t believe I am already on a mission.  I look forward to hearing about how things are going next week.

Love you tons!!

Greetings from Spain

So my bag turned up about 3 days after I got here.  Just in time too, cause I had run out of clothes to wear.  I am so glad I came to the Madrid MTC and not Provo.  Things are so much cooler here.  Every Saturday we get to go to a huge park, kind of like central park but bigger, in the middle of Madrid.  We get to go out and proselyte to the natives.  We give out libros de Mormon and other pamphlets and things.  It was by far the coolest experience I have had.  One of the people we talked to was named Jason.  He spoke Spanish and English, but we asked him if we could practice our Spanish with him, so he only spoke Spanish to us.  We asked him what he knew about the church, and he said that his wife was a member, but he was not.  We asked if he wanted a book of Mormon, but he said he has one at his house that he is reading.  It was such a cool experience to have a legit conversation in Spanish with someone in Spain.  

My companion's name is Elder Reading, and he is from Arizona.  He has only been active for a year, and his conversion story is really cool.  maybe if I have more time another day I will write about it.  But he is really cool, and his testimony is so strong.  In the MTC we get fake investigators that we teach every day.  Its super hard, because we have to teach them in Spanish, but they are teachers here, so if we struggle too much, they help us out a little.  Me and my companion got one of them to commit to baptism on the third lesson.  The spirit was so strong after we shared the story of the first vision.  Also, we actually get to go out and see Madrid on P-days.  There are a ton of really cool things we can do.  Today is our first one, and we get to go to a huge mall, I'm super excited for that. 

So we have small districts in the CCM, and all 8 of the ones in my district are practically family now.  We do everything together, and we bond more and more every day.  We have been told that we are the most advanced Spanish speakers in the CCM, but I feel like I know nothing.  I've notice I understand a lot more than I though I could, but I can't speak the language very well.  It has really helped that I am surrounded by the language.  We are strongly encouraged to speak in only Spanish, and for that reason I have already notice a steady decline in my ability to spell and speak English. 

The food here is so different than it is back home.  Lunch is massive, but dinner is really small.  The people of Spain really take almurzo seriously.  The cooks for the CCM are locals, so they don't speak English, and they make Spanish food.  Oh and the orange Fanta here is about 1000 times better than it is at home.  People fight over it every day.  SOOOOO GOOOOD! 

The Madrid temple is beautiful!  I took a couple pictures and I will try to attach them.  Let me know if it doesn't work.

Every day we get to do an hour of physical activity.  Me and my companion always choose to play futbol.  It is so cool, because we get to walk a couple blocks and we play on a cement field that's caged off.  It is so unlike anything we have in the US.  Its awesome!  I'll have to try to remember to get a picture of it some time.  Oh and one of the rules in the MTC is that we can't take pictures in the building.  That's why I don't have very many pictures. 

I am so excited and happy I am here, and I'm not just saying that.  It is so cool to finally be on a mission.  I miss you all and love you tons!

The picture of the temple is from our bedroom window, and the other is a picture of me and my companion, Elder Reading, in front of La Casa Del Señor.  (house of the lord)

The MTC here is beautiful!

After almost 12 hours of grueling travel, we finally made it to the MTC.  Turns out there were 12 missionaries on our flight.  6 elders and 6 sisters.  I was unsuccessful in my attempts to sleep on the flight to Paris, but I'm somehow still functioning.  Back when the Spanish consul told us what to do if our luggage got lost, somehow I knew it would happen to me.  Yes, lost one of my bags, and yes it is the one with all my clothes in it.  Not to worry though, we got it all figured out and it should be here soon. 

The MTC here in Madrid is literally about 50 feet from the temple, and the temple is breathtaking.  I can't wait to see the inside of it!  Our whole group decided to buy some macaroons in the Paris airport, and they were delicious!  I took a few pictures.  Also, just terminal F in that airport must be twice the size of Salt Lake City airport.  It was so massive!  Unfortunately it was really cloudy and foggy in Paris, so we were unable to see the Eiffel tower.  Oh well, I'll get another chance sometime in the future. 

I don't think the realization that my mission is finally here really hit me until I reached the MTC, but I couldn't be happier!  I know that this is where I am supposed to be.  I feel like my Spanish is already getting better just by talking to the guy that picked us up from the airport, and I can't wait till I can speak it good enough to share the joy of the gospel with someone.  I love you guys so much and look forward to the next time I get to write you.  Sorry it’s short today, I didn't have much time.