Can I just
say that the Google hang out thing was like the coolest thing ever! Completely
chaotic, but so cool. I can´t even tell
you how great it was to have EVERYONE together on the hangout! Especially Zach!
That was an awesome surprise. All us
Seastrand´s together again being weird and so loud.
A really awesome story is our
new investigator David. He is from Nigeria, and he is the VERY FIRST person I
ever contacted in Spain. Remember how we went to the park in the CCM on
Saturday’s? He was the very first person
I talked to the very first Saturday in the park, he spoke English, and I got
his reference. From that time until now, his reference kept getting passed
around because he kept moving. He moved into my area where he has stayed and
his name ended up with us, and of course I remembered him, because I always had
felt like he was special. Now we are teaching him, and he is really determined
to change his life! Awesome huh?!! He does have one little problem.....he´s a
drug dealer.....but hey even the drug dealers need to have the gospel too
right? And he does really want to change his life, so we think he has a lot of
promise. I just think it´s awesome cause who would´ve guessed that I´d end up
teaching the very first person that I would contact in Spain EVER!
One story that´s not so awesome
is that two of our baptism dates I think are going to fall through...we´ve been
teaching with the Elders this family that is a grandma and her 5 grandchildren.
Four of them had baptismal dates, but then we started to lay down the law about
the word of wisdom and law of chastity....That was a pretty heavy lesson....let´s
just say that the teenagers were not too excited about those commandments, and
no one came to church except the grandma. It´s pretty sad when you think people are
golden and then you find out they aren’t excited about the complete life change
that comes with living the gospel. But if we have faith, a miracle could
happen.
I´m sure Zach can relate when I
say that I have had a lot of embarrassing but mostly funny Spanish errors.....the
best one from this week. Our investigator
Julio (who is getting baptized on the 8th!) has this bad habit of leaving if we
are a few minutes late to the appointment, he´s done it a couple times now and
it´s really annoying cause when he is late we wait for like 45 minutes... So, we were going to be a little late to his
lesson cause of the train, so I called him to tell him that and I told him to
wait for us because we were coming. We
finally made it to the church and we see him leaving and we´re like what the
heck?? So, we chase after him and get him to come back. We´re both saying
“Julio why were you leaving?” and he says, “I thought you weren´t coming.” So,
I start saying (pretty boldly I might add) “Julio! Yo le amo!” and he and my
comp just burst out laughing....I meant to say “Julio, Yo le llamo” (which
means I called you or something) but I actually said “Yo le amo” which is I
love you. So basically I was just saying strongly, Julio I love you! It was
pretty funny. He makes fun of me for it now always.
One of the weirdest things of my
life was on Saturday. We were in the Church teaching a lesson and after we
walked out of the room, I suddenly see my old roommate Kaysea from last fall
semester at BYU walking down the hall. I was thinking, “What the heck is
happening?” It was sooo weird, two
worlds colliding. She is on a study abroad right now and they came to see the
temple....It was way weird and it kind of threw me off for the rest of the
night...it was just weird. But yeah, I´m
good now. Just had to fast and teach
some lessons to get refocused.
Well, things over here in Madrid
are just fantastic! And life is good. I feel so blessed to be here. The mission
really is a gift. I know this church is true with all my heart, and I´m so glad
I can share it with all these incredible people that I am meeting. I love you
all so much and thanks for all the support and emails. I love hearing what is
going on.
