Strong British Names

Thanks for the letter family. Sorry this one will be short, but we can talk in basically a week. I have been on a bus since 830 this morning and it is now 1800. My new comp comes in from the MTC tomorrow so the trainers came in today (pday) to the mission home. So i have been on the bus all day.

I was in Torrevieja with my MTC buddy Elder Kirkham all week and that was a blast.

We picked olives for a service project and it was a lot of fun. A member invited his neighbor to come to the service project and turns out, he was already friends with a bunch of the youth. They invited him to church and he loved it. (the branch there is half english half spanish there are a TON of old british people that live there. I got to translate) But anyway, after church he went to the branch choir practice and he just couldn´t get enough.
We talked to him and all we talked about was Christ and baptism and he was all for it. It was a good lesson and he has been very prepared. It was a really cool experience.

At Church I was standing next to elder kirkham and a nice old british sister looks at our name tags and says "Hunt, Kirkham. That is what I like to see, strong British names." It was pretty funny. I love British people. They are so funny. It was also magical to listen to an English member give a talk about Christmas. Something about English accents and Christmas made it feel like Christmas was really coming!

Well anyway, I´ve got to get going. I have no idea what is going to happen for Christmas, timetable wise. But I will hopefully let you know next week!

I love you! Sorry This is short!

Last Transfer Training

Just like Ashley I am going to have a kid! (again)

President Deere called me and told me that I will be training my last transfer in the mission. However, my companion doesn't get into the mission until the 18th. My old comp left yesterday to go home for the surgery and so I have been hanging out with the elders from "Torrevieja". Elder Kirkham is serving here so it has been a blast (He is one of my chumps from the MTC) But tomorrow all my traveling starts.

Tuesday I go back to Fuengirola to the mission home to do a trainer training. I come back here on Wednesday. I will be around here in this area until next Sunday and then Monday I take off to Fuen again to pick up my new companion. We will be in Fuen for awhile then we are off to our area. However, the 19th we have zone conference in Murcia (I am going to say these cities as if you know what I´m talking about) So instead of going to Crevillente(my area) and then to Murcia and then back again, we will stay in Murcia his first day in the mission and then head "home" after the conference.  This will be my last zone conference so that means I will give my good bye testimony. I´m not going to tell my new comp that I´m going home until after I give my good-bye testimony, so his first day in the mission field he’ll find out that his trainer is leaving him! In total, we will be together for a little less than 7 weeks. So that will be interesting.

We had our baptism for our deaf and mute investigator. It was really nice, quiet, but nice.

Well family, I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week (8 more for me!)

Os quiero,
Jason

9 Weeks Left

So 9 weeks left. You know, saying 12 and 11 and 10 weeks left was fun because it didn't seem real, but now that I am in the single digits, I feel like I got a punch in the stomach when i realized that I am at 9 weeks left. 9 weeks is nothing! Speaking of 9 weeks, apparently my companion who has been out for 7 months and I are racing to get home. Looks like he is going to win.

ok, I shouldn't be so dramatic. But turns out my comp´s wisdom teeth are coming in and he has to go home to get them taken out. So this Sunday He leaves to go back to Madrid, he will have his surgery next Monday and then recover. Funny thing about Spain is that when you get your wisdom teeth out, they take one pair out, make you recover a week, then take the second pair out. So he will be out for at least 2 weeks. So that means that I will go to another area in the zone and wait for my comp to get back. But it is weird because he’ll get back right at the transfer change and he is probably leaving. He has already been here for 2 and a half transfers. So I am curious and anxious to know what is going to happen!

Anyway, lots of fun stuff happening. It is looking like we will have a baptism this Saturday! We are excited. His name is Jose Domingo and he is deaf and mute. Lessons are very interesting. This past week we taught him the commandments. I never have been a charades fan but I am probably pretty good at it now. Try teaching "keep the Sabbath day holy" to a deaf and mute Spaniard  by acting it out. now imagine the law of chastity.

But he is great and a Elder Aviles has picked up a lot of Spanish sign language so that has been a big help. There are also two members who can do it really well so they have also been a big help.

I am not sure where I will be next week when I write, they might even close this area for a few weeks while they figure out what to do with me and my comp while we wait for him to get back. We will see!

Well family, i love you so much. I can´t believe it is the holiday season again! How exciting!

I love you all so much and I look forward to "speaking" with you again!

Os quiero,
Elder Jason Hunt

New Area

What a week! I don´t even know where to start. First of all I guess, my time in the office FLEW by, it was like a blink of an eye. It was also a blast. I had a lot of fun and made some really good friends there.

I am here in Crevillente. It is, well, interesting. Thankfully though, we are keeping busy so I don´t have too much time to think about only having 11 more weeks left in the mission (But who´s counting?! ;p ) haha

Well anyway, I had a long bus ride but it was good, I slept basically the whole time. That was nice, a good long uncomfortable nap.

The people in the surrounding areas of Crevillente say "Crevillente: Tierra Mala, Gente Peor" (Crevillente: Bad land, worse people) They are definitely interesting people here. The branch is really great and they are excited to have a new missionary. They, being a branch, are really mission minded and help out the missionaries a lot.

We are teaching a lady named Imna and she is actually getting baptized this saturday! woohoo! She got married last week (had to get married first, she was living with her "husband") and now she will get baptized. She has been what we would call a "dry member" but she is finally getting baptized and the whole branch is very excited.

An interesting experience happened this week, there is a member of the branch who is both deaf and mute and we visited him. My comp "speaks" spanish sign language so I just sat there and watched, The member had a sign language dictionary so I was skimming threw that trying to think of something to "say" to support the conversation. Nothing came to me. In the end, I just smiled and gave a thumbs up.

My comp is elder Aviles and he is a champ. He is still way young in the mission so he is still trying to figure some things out. He´s an interesting character. I am kinda bummed to be back to only speaking spanish. I love the spanish language, but nothing compares to english!

I am having a good time. I am happy and working hard. Sometimes I have to reminded myself to stop thinking too much, because after all, I do have 11 weeks left in the mission. ;p

Well family, I sent my address to my new apartment last week so I hope that if any one wants too, they can send me some holiday love! I love you all!

Os quiero,

Elder Hunt

NEW ADDRESS

(This has been his address for the last two weeks, so sorry I’m late…but even if you sent something to the Mission home, it will still get to him…it will just take a little longer…)

Wow what a week.

Elder Jason Hunt
Avda. Madrid Nº27B, 3ºA,
03330 Crevillente, (Alicante)
España

I am headed to Crevillente for the rest of my mission! woohoo! It is a tiny little spanish town and I think the 2nd smallest area in the mission. They have a little branch there. I am very excited to go. I'll only be there for 12 weeks though, boy does the time fly. I have loved my time in the office but I am ready to get out and be a regular ol missionary. My comp there is from Ecuador, so I'll get to go back to 100% Spanish all the time right before I come home! I am sending a link from google maps so you can see the travel I will do this week
https://maps.google.es/maps?q=crevillente&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF-8&ei=NISeULvQCZDEswafyIDYBw&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAg

It is all on bus.

My address is above so whoever wants to send some holiday love, feel free! =] I could go for some "Land O Lakes" Hot Chocolate if anyone was wondering.

The week was really busy, we found a man from Norway that was baptised 20 years ago and he let us start teaching him again. We will see what happens.

Oh man. What a week, I love my mission so much. I am sorry I am not more detailed, but the lord has blessed me so much. I have seen his hand in my mission and I have seen him bless me and the lives of so many others. I love the lord and I love his gospel.

Talk to you all next week!

OH YEA! IMPORTANT! MY PDAY WILL BE BACK TO MONDAY. So next monday I´ll write you!
Oh yea, went to an Ecudorian family´s house for dinner this week and they gave us all a whole fried fish. It wasn´t bad, I actually really liked it, but those Ecuadorians eat the wierdest stuff. I´m not sure how I feel about an Ecuadorian comp. I´ll have to American-ize him.

We played Mini Golf for Pday today, it was a blast, I ended up getting forth out of 5th place, but me 3rd and 2nd place were all within one point difference. So I kept up.

“No” in over 3 languages!

My week went really fast.

Every week seems to go by really fast.

I love my mission. It´s the best.

We talked to a Jewish man this past week and he actually lived in the US for a long time and spoke pretty good English. We asked his name and he said David. I thought to myself, "well that´s appropriate."

Get it?

Anyway, We have had a lot more time in our area this transfer so it has been nice to go out and not have to worry about going back into the office for most of this transfer. We had some quality searching time this week. We knocked on lots of doors and talked to lots of people in the street. I love knocking doors. I know a lot of people criticize it as being the least effective way of finding people to teach, but that is where you meet the really interesting people. In one building alone we met a chileno, a russian, a fin(someone from Finland?) 2 brits and a Spaniard. We heard "no" in over 3 languages! hah.

Anyways, I am doing well. I am happy and I love serving the Lord. I can´t believe that we are in the last week of this transfer and then my last 2 start. I just can´t seem to come into grasps with it. it is so weird. I don´t know if you have realized it yet, but I am under 100 days until I get home, I think it is 95 or 96. I can´t remember.

For Pday, we went on this incredible hike with the Deeres (Mission president´s family) Actually, we only went with the kids because President and Hermana Deere had to go to Madrid for a conference. I am working on sending pictures. It was a pretty intense hike, but it was way fun! I´ll send pics soon.

I love you all so much. Thank you for you prayers and support!

Os Quiero,
Elder Hunt

These are pictures from the big hike we went on
They are going to be really small, sorry about that.

Short Story and Birthday Thank You’s!

This week was pretty quick,

short story, Honestly this is the only thing that sticks out from the week.
we were out knocking on doors and we came across a really grumpy old Spanish man. He told us that he was a true Christian and that weren´t because we worshiped Joseph Smith and believed in the book of mormon which talks about nothing but Joseph Smith and he continued telling us lots and lots of rude things. It got to the point where we were talking and he was yelling. I spoke over him and said "HEY (in English, then in Spanish I said,) We came here from a far away country trying to share a message from God to a fellow Christian, if you don´t want it, fine, we´ll leave". Then I proceeded to testify about Christ and that the Book of Mormon is a testament of Him. He didnt have much to say after that so he closed his door and we moved on to the next. 

But, that is the Spanish for ya.

The Mission is great. I wouldn´t trade it for anything in the world.
It is official, I am out of the office on November 14, but I still don´t know where I am headed. I will keep you updated

I love you all and thanks for the birthday love!

As far as the birthday shoutouts, I made a little list, but I forgot it at home...so....I will do my best to write it for memory.
You all (mom, dad, cameron, Jennifer, Ashley, John)
Skankeys
Grandma Jensen
Grandma Hunt (with a package a candy! =] )
The Moffats
Brownings
Chris Loomis,
Blakes,
Shirleys
I feel like there are a few more...I will have to look at my list and let you know next week...my bad. But thank you EVERYONE who sent me some birthday love! I LOVED getting the birthday cards!

Os Quiero
Elder Hunt

3 Golden Questions...and a Strange Analogy

Again, another fast week.
Where are the days going!?!

I look back and think, wait, what did I even do this week?!

In the mission we have been focusing a lot on "el rescate" The rescue, as phrased by President Monson, by working with less actives to re activate them and then find new investigators through them. President Deere, awhile ago, gave us three questions that we have come to call "President Deere´s 3 Golden Questions" and we have been working with the members active and less active using these questions. As we visit members we share something nice, or ask them to share their conversion story (we are still in the first generation of members in Spain, everyone that is a member is a convert from missionary efforts) just something to bring in the Spirit. Then we ask them 1) Who do they know that is less active, by this point, we have been talking sharing and they are a bit more open, (we did this last week and the member gave us about 30 names!) 2) who do you know that is a part member family? and then 3) who do you know that has listened to the missionaries in the past or has been to church before. This last question is supposed to be where to be where the gold is at. The Area Presidency said last year that Spanish are like the froth of beer (why they used beer as the example I don´t know). If you want to reach the heart of a Spaniard, it takes them 7 contacts with the gospel. If you have a glass of we´ll say root beer and you want a drop of water to get inside to the liquid, it would take 7 drops from a water dropper to penetrate the froth and make its way into the beverage. (that was their example) So as we ask people "who has heard the missionaries before?" we are looking for the people who have already had a few "droplets" into their "froth".

We have been using these questions in a lot of our lessons and we are finding quite a bit of success.
This is such an inspired work.
I love it.

Oh! One quick miracle story.
My companion and I were walking to a lesson in the town Mijas Pueblo in a part of the town that we had never been to before, we roughly knew where the family lived, but we took one left turn too early and starting walking down the street that was parallel to the street we wanted. As we walked, a little confused, because none of the numbers were matching up on the buildings, we hear a yell "Elders!" and we turn around and see a man waving to us. We walk over and start talking to him. His name was Edwardo and he told us that he hadn´t seen missionaries around there for 3 or so years. He was a baptized in his country (Ecuador) but hadn´t been to church in years. He gave us his phone number and address and told us to stop by sometime this upcoming week. It was incredible. I feel that I don´t even need to elaborate, but, everything is in the hands of the Lord. It wasn´t coincidence at all that Edwardo saw us when we took a wrong turn. Stuff like that doesn´t happen. It is all designed by the Master. Again, I love it. I am so grateful to be a missionary serving and looking after the Lord´s sheep. I love the Lord, I love his Gospel.

This week was good and I look forward to another one!
Os quiero,
Jason

The picture is...well... we had some spare time in the office one day. Those are all 4 of the office elders´ faces. Elder Hall actually just went home 2 weeks ago, so we got a new one now, his name is Elder Peterson.

Big News in the Family!

Hi Everyone,

This is Ashley, Elder Hunt’s older sister – the one who has been posting his letters ;) Anyway, we had some big news in our family this past week when I announced that my husband and I are expecting! Because of this announcement, Elder Hunt didn’t really write anything regarding his week last week, but we wanted to post his reaction to the news here :)

I wrote him separately (from the rest of the family) to tell him and here is what he wrote back to me:
¡ENHORABUENA!
(CONGRATULATIONS)

Oh man...
I think I said "oh my gosh" or "oh man" about 50 times before it finally sunk in about what you were saying.
oh man. I can´t even believe it! I don´t know what to say, but I do have a big smile on my face!

Wow. What an exciting announcement! I am so happy for you!

This is so exciting!

I think Mom is going off into Grandma mode or something because she told me she thinks I´ll get married before next summer (2014) comes. I don´t see that happening. The mission has helped, but I don´t think I´m nearly mature enough! haha.

Well Ashley and John, I wish you health and happiness in these next couple of months. Oh my gosh, the first time I see you after I get home that thing will have probably grown a ton. oh jeeze.

Anyways, I feel I am just rambling, but congratulations, I am so happy for you!
Love you,
Jason
PS: Yes, you may name your creation after me. ;p

(To the rest of the Family)
AHHHHHHHHHH! ASHLEY IS EMBERAZADA! AHHHH!

Oh man.
Wow.

I don´t even know what to say!
I sent Ashley my reaction so i guess you can just talk to her about it.

Does todo el mundo know about this already? or is it kind of a secret still? Or am I the last to know? anyways, I am so happy for them and that is so exciting!

oh man, mom and dad will be grandma and grandpa! AHHH!
What crazy news!

Honestly I don´t have anything to say that could possibly compare to such incredible and exciting news. So I guess I´ll just talk to you next week!

You can see our announcement (should you be interested :) HERE

Madre Mía!

This week FLEW by!

MONDAY-Sick in Bed, tried to go out in the afternoon and work, bad idea.
TUESDAY-Sick in the morning, then went and worked the afternoon
WEDNESDAY- Regular work day
THURSDAY- left for San Fernando to do a split with missionaries
FRIDAY- Snacks for the road (5€), getting our car towed (100€), going on splits and just being a missionary (Priceless)
SATURDAY- We have cleaned so far and we are emailing right now.

Wow, what a quick week!

I have been so tired lately, just beat, we have been moving non-stop but in these moments of exhaustion  I think of the words of Elder Holland when he said, in a moment of exhaustion "I will do this every single day until I take my last breath!" I am no Elder Holland, but those are some words that hit me hard and I strive to live by.

Os quiero mucho sabe!?
Elder Hunt 

Zone Conference and Vineyards

As for my week...

We had our Zone conference with Elder Kent F. Richards from the Europe Area Presidency and the Second Quorum of the 70. It was really good. we started at 0900 and it ended at 1400. It was just him talking, but he was so good that the time flew, the fastest zone conference I have ever been! I did have to translate for a big section of it though, Elder Nally and I switched off. My brain always feels like mush after it. I got pretty tired toward the end and I kept yawning. One of the Spanish sisters turns around, looks at me and says (in spanish)" Stop yawning! I can´t understand you when you speak and yawn!" I just shrugged my shoulders. But the conference went over really well and lunch was tasty afterwards. When I thought afterwards about what he taught, it wasn´t that he taught us new things or different doctrine, he taught us the stuff that we already knew, he went over basic stuff, but he taught with such a spirit, and with so much power that it just captivated me. It was so good and I felt so edified afterwards. Before the conference we had a leadership training and he talked to us about D&C 121. I´ve read that section tons of times but he expounded those scriptures to us and he just opened my eyes. Again, it was just incredible. The whole leadership training was basically a call to repentance and humility but he did it in such loving way. He is an incredible teacher. Or I should say, he has learned to teach by the spirit so well that all that hear can feel it.

Other than that, the week has just flown! We are about to start week 6 of the transfer and once it is over I will be in my LAST transfer in the office! hurray! Not that I don´t love it, but being a normal missionary is so much more rewarding.

I am sitting here in the office, drinking a pepsi, (it is cheaper than coke) and eating some Jamón (the pig leg) flavored potato chips. P day is the best.

I attached a picture of a little Spanish village that we visited a few weeks ago. When you see the size of the olive viñas, Jacob 5 and all the references to the Viña del Señor, (vineyard of the lord I guess that would be). This picture doesn´t do it justice, but let me tell, they have some HUGE olive vineyards around here. I am so grateful to the Lord for this opportunity that has been given me to work in his vineyard, especially in this section that might be a little drier than others. I love the Savior and I love my mission.

Well, I love you all! I hope you have great weeks!
Os quiero muxo!
-Elder Hunt

In the News

I am so grateful for your prayers. You have probably heard on the News about the riots in N. Africa, we pulled the Missionaries there out. There are now here in Málaga. President Deere calls me at 2330 and tells me that he needs them out of there and over here as soon as possible. So me and Elder Hall got out of bed and walked over to the office and got them some tickets for the morning. President told us to look up what was going on online so we got to check the news, it was weird. The news. But they are out and it isn´t looking like they are going to go back any time soon.

This week we are having a General Authority tour. Elder Richards from the 2nd quorum of the 70 is coming over here to do zone conferences and what not. So that has been pretty exciting.

It hit me this last week that my birthday is in a month! I´ll be 21! Dad, weren´t you 21 when you got married?! I still feel like I´m a kid!

I´m just trucking along I guess. Everything is going along pretty normal. I just don´t want to think about what is going on right now with our investigator benny. Really, this weekend has been a roller coaster of emotions. From highest highs to the lowest lows, but ya know what, it is all in the Lord´s hands so no matter what happens, it will all be well.

love you!
Jason

I went on splits down in Aaaafrica, and guess what it rained while I was in aaaaaAaaaafrica, I bless the raiiiinnn down in aaaafricaaa...

And the song continues....

But really, I had the coolest experience this past week. I actually got back this morning. My comp and I went on splits in Melilla (look it up on Google Maps) in Northern Africa. It was so much fun and such a good experience. It was so nice to get out of the office and have a great split.

I was on a boat and the landmass in the background was Morocco! AFRICA!

This one was out when we were contacting and taking the Book of Mormon out a foreign land!

There were so many Muslims. Holy cow. They were everywhere. We saw them all gathered together for the evening prayer in the community center. It is a such an interesting culture. We were knocking on doors looking for any one who wasn´t Muslim and in one building nobody answered the certain door we knocked so we go to the next one and a guy from Morocco answers, says he is Muslim so we ask him if he knew any Christians or Spaniards how lived around. He asked "You guys are American right?" We say "yeah" and he points to the door we just finished knocking and says "watch out for this guy then, he is from the Taliban", we give him a pass along card and he closes the door. Almost as if it was cued, the Taliban Guy´s door opens and this big and tall Arabic man opens it and he has this long dark nasty beard and basically yells asking what we want. We said we were introducing ourselves to all the building because we offer service to everyone, offered to hand a pass a long card, he didn´t take it, so we took off. Apparently we were in the Taliban building because of what happened and also we saw the ladies that cover them selves up 99.9% (they are in all black and have the slits for only their eyes to be seen.) It is was pretty intense. We we never scared, but it was one of those "that could have been bad" situations. The Lord protects his servants and that is the truth.

The rest of the split was incredible. Two of our best elders are over there so it was just a great opportunity to go out and work with them.  As far as we knew, we were the only 4 missionaries in all of Northern Africa. The work is going forward!

I had a blast on the split and it makes me soooo excited to get out of the office. I seriously can´t wait to have a regular area. But I love what I am doing because I am constantly serving.

We took a really long ferry ride from Málaga to Melilla from 1300-2030 on Thursday, worked with them Thursday night and then all day Friday. We left yesterday(Friday) at 2330 and we got into Málaga today at 0800. Needless to say, we are a little tired. But it is a good tired because it is after a long day of hard work.

We got a room for the boat ride back. I called it the "bo-tel" (Boat Hotel) because the place looked just like a hotel. I am holding the "duty-free" store magazine. It was a small room, and my comp snores, but I still got some rest.

Nothing else can really match with that experience from this past week. I mean, I filed some paperwork on Wednesday.

Tonight we have the baptismal interview for our investigator Benny. I hope everything goes well. I am not worried about it, but ya know, anything could happen, I mean shoot, I just went to Africa! (I hope my shots are up to date!)

Well family, friends, I love you all so much. Thanks for your letters, love and support. I love my mission so much. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Talk to you next week!

Os Quiero,
Jason

Spanish Buzz and Besitos

The week was such a blur. We have been so busy this transfer, I can´t believe we are at the end of week 2, I feel like it just started!

We had zone conference this past week and ever since coming to the office I haven´t liked zone conference as much because 1, I know what is going to be taught and 2, I have to translate. My companion and I switch every speaker. But after a 3 hour meeting of translating, my brain feels like mush.

The church and missions world wide have been doing "el rescate" (the rescue) of working on bringing less actives back to church, so as a teaching point for ZC president and sister Deere showed the clip of Buzz Lightyear from toy story 3 when Buzz goes Spaniard and says "Buzz Lightyear, al rescate". I did not realize how funny that clip is. They did a spot on job of a Spaniard, everyone was cracking up.

Two weeks ago, an old Spanish lady stopped us in the street and asked us what we were doing here, we explained and gave your typical explanation and we asked if we could come over another day and share our message with her, she agreed and we wrote down her address. I gave her a pass along card of the savior before we took off, she took the card, and give it a big wet "besito" (little kiss), the Catholic Custom in Spain is to kiss the "Imagines" of Christ. I love it, I think it is hilarious, it might be bad, but I like to see how many people I can get to kiss the picture in a day. You have to entertain yourself somehow right?! So yesterday we passed by her house and she didn´t want to let us in at first, but I saw lots of pictures in her house so I asked if she wouldn´t mind showing us her pictures. She agreed, showed us her family, and all the "imagines" of Christ that she has around the house and then we asked if we could share a message. She was kinda crazy and said she was a Catholic Jehovah´s Witness. I really wanted to tell her she was a Mormon Catholic Jehovah´s Witness, but I held my tongue. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy, she said she would read it and even gave the book cover a kiss when we handed it to her. We will see if anything comes out of it.

Our Investigator, Benny, has been doing really well. He is down to 1 cigarette a day and we hope that he can give it up completely this upcoming week. He was smoking a pack a day when we started teaching him and now he is down to 1. It has been such a blessing being able to help and support him as he quits smoking so he can keep the commandments and then be baptized.

As I was doing some work in the office this past week I found out that the visa process for Americans coming into Spain has been stopped, we have been getting fewer and fewer Americans with visas and we didn´t know why. Turns out, the intern at the US consulate that processes our visas quit back in May and the church hasn´t put anyone new in yet. So we have attempted to raise awareness about the issue to the Mission Department and the Area Presidency. I have been able to talk with General Authorities. It is kinda scary. Elder Kent Richards (who is coming to do a mission tour) called the other day, I was kinda nervous, not sure why, I just was. heh.

And here’s a picture, it was a long day in the office so we decided to treat ourselves before going on. I bought the good milk (remember, the rest comes in boxes) (for a hefty price too,) and some Oreos, and that made the rest of the day in the office much better.

Well, it has been a good week. A fast week but a good one none the less.

Os quiero,
Jason

Time is Flying By!

Week 1 of this transfer just flew by! Every single day we had something mission related going on.

We got one new sister missionary this week and four missionaries finished their missions this past transfer, so on Thursday we shipped them off. I don´t like taking people to the airport, it makes me think way to much of when it will be my turn! One more elder went home but not because he finished his mission, I guess you could say that he finished his mission, but he apparently just wasn´t into it and decided to go home. So we took him to the airport on Wednesday and sent him off to his home town in Chile. This is the 4th missionary that was gone home early since I have been here in the office. It is unbelievable! I hate it! It makes me feel awful because I can see how much these people are missing out on! and I haven´t even finished my mission! But that was a big bummer for the week. Yesterday on Friday we had a Zone Meeting in Málaga and it was really nice. My companion and I taught a section of the meeting on obedience. I was a little hesitant with this topic because every time a missionary gives a presentation or talk on obedience they open up to preach my gospel chapter 6 and read the paragraph and the 6 scriptures that accompany it. So everyone has heard that talk before, so we took a different approach. We read the story of Balak and Balaam (the talking donkey and the angel from the old testament) and we made missionary connections to the story and how we can learn about obedience from the story. It was a lot of fun because one it is a fun story and two it was a change up of things. We got a good reception and missionaries commented afterwards that they liked it. So that was nice.

We had very little time to go out and work in our area this week but we had one lesson. It was super weird though, I get a call from Benny (one of our investigators)´s mom and she is freaking out and crying to me on the phone telling me that Benny is tripping out and having a huge temper. She said he was being aggressive and yelling at her. I felt terrible and at a complete loss of what to say. I asked her, what do you want us to do? She tried giving the phone to him but he wouldn't´t talk to me. I asked her if we could come over and she said please do. We try to go over there, but the mom says, he has just gone to sleep so come back tomorrow.
We go back the next day and we try to talk about the call I got but they were acting as if nothing had happened. It was super weird. Benny had a baptismal date for the 31st of August but we all decided it would be best to push it into September. It was just a weird situation. We are going over again tonight with a member so hopefully they can help.

I sent some pictures. One is of me in the office.

One is of our new and nice living area, we painted last week.

and the other is of the study desks.

Well family, this week was a quick one and I look forward to another one!
Os quiero,
Jason

Busy Week!

This week was a blur, transfer weeks always seem to go so fast.

We were looking at our upcoming week and we have something large every single day, not including the daily duties that are required of us.

Monday- Office meeting
Tuesday - New missionaries come in
Wednesday - Old Missionaries come into the mission home
Thursday - Old Missionaries go home
Friday - Zone Meeting
Saturday - P-Day
Sunday- Church

It will be a busy week to say the least.

It hit me today, today being the last day of this transfer, that I have 4 transfers left. 4 Transfers is nothing, that goes by so quick! Time sure is flying, but I won´t complain :p

Nothing too crazy happened this week, we finally got around to painting our burnt apartment and we made an IKEA run to get new stuff. I love Ikea. We got some good stuff, I will send pictures when I get a chance.
The mission has been focusing on "El Rescate" (the rescue) by bringing less actives back to church and gospel activity. We had 3 less actives in church today so we were very happy with that. The ward did a great job at making them feel welcomed. It was great to see the ward embrace these less active members and make them feel invited to participate in everything.

Well, I have to run, I love you all and I am so grateful for all of your prayers and support.

Os quiero,
Jason

What a week!

I feel like the weeks are turning into just one long day. This past week just flew by. This week was supposed to be one of our more calm weeks, but of course, it took a change for the crazier side.  I don´t remember which day (again, the week felt like one long day) but President Deere sends Elder Hall and Manning down to a place called Sanlucar to go pick up some missionaries, nobody knew why but they picked them up and brought them to the mission office and President met with them. Turns out, one of them was having some issues and wasn´t making good decisions (Girl related) and had to be sent home. So that took the calmness out of the week. That is the WORST part about being in the office. We know where the problems are, who isn´t getting along with who, who isn´t being obedient, but I just like to think that all the other missionaries are perfect, and then stuff like this happens. Elder Nally and I realized that he is the THIRD missionary that has been sent home since we have been in the office. Last year, only one missionary got sent home (he chose to) for the whole year and that was a big deal, this year, in just 2ish months, 3 have gone home, (2 had to and 1 chose)! It seriously is a bummer.

But on a happier note, we had some great lessons. We get very little time in our area, but once we are there we try to make it count.

The same night the elder got sent home, we were in the office most the afternoon, and we had thirty minutes left before it was time to go in for the night. At this point it would seem to just go in, we could get very little done, but I just didn´t feel good with going in early, so Elder Nally and I decided to go pass by the house of an investigator and see if we could set up another time to teach her. As we walk up to her house a big group of drunk guys yell to us and tell us to come over there and preach to them, I yelled back "Tenemo´ pri-tha!" (we are in a hurry with an andaluz accent) and we entered into the investigator´s building. She wasn´t home so we exited the building and decide to go back using a different street (one that we never use) to go home so we could avoid the drunk crowd. As we were walking, an African lady pops out of a door and says "hey! where is the church?" (she was from Nigeria so she speaks English) and we began talking to her and explaining where the church is located. She is a member and has been living in various places around Europe and has never found the church since she left Nigeria. This kind of stuff doesn´t happen. We had 30 minutes left and we went on a road that we never go on and Chi Chi (her name) found us. It was a blessing for obedience and a testimony that the Lord is at the helm of this work. As Elder Nally and I talked about what happened as we walked home I couldn´t help but feel so grateful for being a missionary. I love it. I love serving the Lord and preaching the gospel.
Today for Pday we went up on these Cable Cars and saw a falcon/Bird show at the top. It was super cool. I had a falcon land on my head. It was kinda freaky. It didn´t hurt until it took off, its talons dug into my head a bit so that hurt a little. But it was way fun and a good Pday activity. We actually took President Deere´s kids with us because he and Sister Deere are in Germany for a mission president seminar. The kids are always bored so we got permission from president to take them to hang out with us for Pday. It was a lot of fun and I think the kids enjoyed it as well.

I will be sure to send some Falcon/Eagle/Hawk/Owl pictures once we get that organized.
Os quiero mucho!
Jason

Oops…

So this week was "one of those weeks".

It all started with Monday. Every Monday morning we have an office staff meeting and we proceeded as normal, but during the meeting, from outside we heard police/fire truck/ambulance sirens. Of course, we didn´t pay any attention to them and we continued discussing the things of the mission. The meeting finished and we still had an hour until our work in the office is over. We worked for that hour, put things away and got ready to go home for lunch. Sounds like a pretty typical Monday, this is where it flips upside down. We open the door to our piso (Spanish for apartment). The smell hits us like a brick wall. There was a FIRE in our piso!
Turns out, my companion forgot to unplug the iron that morning, the ironing board caught fire and it went up in flames.

Luckily, the ironing board fell into the middle of the room and nothing else caught on fire, our balcony door was open because we were letting the room dry because we mopped that morning. So the alarms we heard in the meeting were the firefighters rushing to our house, they went in through our open balcony door and dumped the bucked of mop water onto the iron fire. We are very happy that nothing else got burned, what a blessing.
Ash was EVERYWHERE. It got all over our clothes and beds even though they were in other rooms of the piso.

We spent all day Monday cleaning up the piso, oh yea, here we are with the remains of the iron and ironing board.

But the ash was so bad that we ended up staying the night in the mission home. That part was a lot of fun. It was just like being with the family again. They made us cookies and we talked until bed time, we even had "family" scripture study. Monday night was probably the best part of the week. Elder Hall and I woke up earlier and we went on a run with President Deere. It was way fun.

Tuesday was calm.
Wednesday was calm as well.

Thursday we witnessed an attempted robbery and helped translate because the Spanish police didn´t speak a lick of English. The guy that almost got robbed was Irish.

Friday we found out that the keys to one of the mission cars accidentally got left on the ferry that President Deere took when he and elders Manning and Hall visited the elders in Melilla. So we raced down to Málaga from Fuengirola to catch the Ferry before it took off again. We were pretty lucky that they even found the key.
But on the good side, on friday we found a new investigator that is SUPER prepared. He was a reference from Mormon.org and so I called him and he told me on the phone that he wants to get baptized. I got off the phone and my mouth was hanging open, I couldn´t believe what I was hearing. We met with him and his mom last night and they are two of the most prepared people I have ever met. The interesting thing about it all is that his reference from Mormon.org is old. Somehow or something it got repeated to us. He was asking for a book of mormon and when I called him he told me that the church sent him one a really long time ago. When we met with him he told me that he had actually been praying for the chance to hear the gospel and then that same week we gave him a call. His only issue is that he is a pretty heavy smoker. He has the baptismal date for the 31 of this month and we are actually fasting today with him and his mom so that he can quit smoking by that date. It was a great experience!

Well. 6 months left.

I got my "trunky papers" this week so I guess I am "allowed" to be trunky and think of my plans for the future. ("trunky papers" is a letter you get from the mission when you have 6 months left and it basically just asks you what airport you want to fly home to.)

I am excited for this upcoming week, my pants got a big rip in them this past week (just added to the fun-ness of this week) so I bought a new pair today and I am excited to break those bad boys in! Next week I will send a picture of the damage I have done to my pants and especially my shoes. My shoes are bad. I mean way bad. I might even buy a new pair today.

Well I love you all so much and I hope that you all continue to have lots of fun in Arizona. Be sure to email me (or send) lots of pictures from all your summer fun!
Os quiero,
Jason

Miracles

Again, this week has just been CRAZY!

I like it and I don´t. It makes the week go by quick, but hey, everything is just so CRAZY!

Well anyway, like last time, Monday started things off to a wild start.

I had a huge miracle with the residency for the Deere family. I will use vocabulary that might not make sense to you, but here it goes, so Salt Lake sent the "transmites" to Madrid instead of Málaga, so what this means is that they could only apply for residency in Madrid. However, we didn´t have time to send him and his family up to Madrid. There is also a deadline, you have 30 days to do it once entering the country. At the start, it wasn´t looking like it would work out, but thanks to a small miracle (i mean, really it was a HUGE miracle to me) everything worked out. I don´t think I can express the drama that was going on all this. If they weren´t able to do the residency in Malaga, they could have been kicked out of the country. I had nightmares about it! It stressed me out SOOO much, but, with A LOT of prayers and moments to stop and breathe, I got it taken care of. I felt like I was in a boxing match with the people at the residency place trying to get them to allow the Deere´s to apply for residency in Málaga they were only accepted in Madrid. Seriously, my hands were shaking I was so nervous.

On Monday we also got 6 new elders! It was so exciting! They are all super solid and will make great missionaries!

It didn´t hit me until these new guys were talking with me that I realized I am pretty old in the mission. they were like "you only have a fourth of your mission left!" I still feel like I just got here.

Tuesday: We finished the "Trainer Training" and I had a nice time given to me to teach and it was great, we talked about expectations of the next few transfers with the new elders. The trainers were so exciting and expected nothing but the best from themselves and their new companions.

This past week we had something very special happen in the mission. In April, we did an experiment to leave a day only for contacting people in the street. We got 1400 future investigators is what they are called (people that give us their information to contact them later) as a mission. We did this with the means of baptizing 50 people for the month of May. We BARELY got the goal in may and 50 baptisms is the most baptisms in one month that the Spain Málaga mission has ever had. We were all pretty excited.  We obviously wanted to do it again, but this time it wasn´t so much of an experiment because we knew better of what we were doing.

We set the goals as this: July 13, get 3000 futures, 200 baptismal dates for the month of August and SEVENTY baptisms for the month of August.

We went out to work yesterday with the faith to get as many futures as we could.

My comp and I got 40 in the first three hours. It was incredible. People were everywhere and so I went up the right side of the street and my comp elder Nally went up the left side of the street so we could cover more ground.

Our afternoon took a dramatic change and we only got 9 more for the day. But 9 is still way good for an afternoon. We ended the day with 49 and that is definitely a new high for me. 49 futures in ONE day. It was such a miracle.

As a mission we got 2627 futures. WOW! 2627 people in the south of Spain gave us their information to contact them later. We are so excited to get teaching these people and get 70 baptisms in august!

Things are going great!
Os quiero!
Jason

Monkeys!

Wow what a week!
SUNDAY:
So I guess this week really started with Spain winning the Eurocup. It...was...INSANE! Oh my gosh, it was like the world was ending and everyone was going into the streets to party and get their last bit of sinning in! My camera battery was actually dead so I didn´t get any pictures. But my companions did so I will have to snag some pictures from them. There is a big round-a-bout with a giant fountain in the middle and the ENTIRE city of Fuengirola walked out to this rotunda and piled into the fountain. They were shooting off fireworks, screaming, taking their clothes off. Again, insane. We watched this all from our balcony, part of me really wanted to be down there in all the festivities, but it was just INSANE! I can´t even begin to explain how crazy it was! So it was better that we were safe in our apartment. 

MONDAY:
We had zone "concilio" (council) where all the zone leaders come to the mission home and we talk about the mission and the goals for the next month. It is always a nice experience and very spiritual.
President Deere is amazing. He is so cool and such a humble guy. At the zone concilio he opened up the discussion for questions and someone asked if he could see this (being a mission president) coming. He said "you don´t receive a premonition that you´re going to the moon if you´re not an astronaut." He talked about how it was such a huge shock being called as a mission president. I love that he is not your typical "Utah Mormon", his family converted to the gospel when he was 10 and his wife´s family was inactive in Ohio for most of her upbringing. Their testimonies are so strong and I love that they just seem so much more normal. Pres.Clegg was bishop, stake president and all the typical stuff leading up to mission president, but Pres. Deere went primary teacher, young mens / scouts, then bishop for 5 years, back to primary, then mission president. I love them both, but pres.Deere has a sense of "realate-able-ness".
He brought his 16 year old daughter and 12 year old son. But they are such a great family and it is just crazy because I am so used to president Clegg who was more grandpa age and I had to use Pres. Deere´s passport and he was born a year before dad. They are still a way young family. But he is incredible and I just love the guy.

TUESDAY:
We finished the concilio and then elder Nally and I had to go to the office for the rest of the afternoon to catch up on the office work.

WEDNESDAY:
FOURTH OF JULY!
We were still catching up with stuff in the office but in the afternoon we had a really good lesson with a reference from a member. It was nice to finally get out and do some regular missionary work. We walked into the house and it was the reference and her friend, and she told us to wait a second because her husband and the husband of her friend were on their way. The husbands got there and they brought another couple with them! It was such a miracle. We had a good lesson and they were all very interested. The only bummer is that there were a tons of couples, but none of them were married. So at least we know where our work is.
After the really good miracle lesson we went home and we had a BBQ. It was great! we have a little grill on our patio and so we made burgers. I was on the grill with the spatula in one hand and a tall glass of cold coke in the other hand while we blasted MOTAB singing the nation anthem. It felt so right.

THURSDAY:
We had zone conference and it was really nice. Elder Nally and I got there late because the Deere´s are having some small residency issues and so I had to go take care of those in the morning. All is well now. After the ZC I went on splits with Elder Triana (actually one of my old companions) in Málaga and it was really weird to be back there. It has been over a year! But we visited my converts the Martinez family and it was really good that we did. Elder Triana is serving in Málaga and didn´t even know where they lived. They are going through a rough patch on their spiritual progression so it was good that we could make a connection again.

FRIDAY:
Transfer plans!
Transfers are this next week so President Deere finalized the transfers and I have been working on the travel plans for all these missionaries since. This is the first time I have had to do so and it is a pain. The Spain Málaga Mission covers 40% of the land of Spain so when people travel, they take cross country trips. Last night we found out the at the CCM (the Spain MTC) forgot to tell us that another elder was entering the mission, so we didn´t have any plans for him. So we were up till 2330 trying to figure some things out. We left the office at 2330 and then went over to a bar (Bars are different in Spain, they are outdoor restaurants) and got dinner because none of us had eaten anything all day and then we went to bed at midnight-ish.

SATURDAY:
We woke up normal time at 0730 and then we had a special Pday planned with the Deere family. We drove down to Gibraltar and I finally got to see the monkeys! Yay! It was a HUGE hike but I really enjoyed it and I think it was nice for the Deere family to get away from a bunch of meetings. It was also really fun to talk to the Deere family about non-missionary things. It was a good time to get to know them.

Today was a really clear day so the 2nd picture I attached is of a landmass off in the distance. That is Africa.

We hiked all the way down the mtn. and drove home. I was zonked on the way back. We ate some food, showered, changed, and here I am writing you now.

It has been a full week. Really, every week since getting here to the office has been typically crazy, but I finally have a chance to fill you in a little bit on the craziness of mission-office life.

Well, I hope you all have a great week! I love hearing about all your fun activities!

Jason
(PS. I realized this morning when I looked at my agenda that today is 7 months left, or 6 months and 30 days, however you want to look at it. Man time is flying!)

Futbol!!!!!!!!!!

I can´t believe that June is over. I don´t even remember when it started. I remember the end of may and now tomorrow starts July. Where is all the time going.

Oh yea, we got the new mission president yesterday! It was way cool! Things in the office have been crazy. We have 2 lessons so far this week (starting on Monday) because all our time has been dedicated to getting things ready for the big switch. We´ve had to change contracts for apartments (all these things had Pres. Clegg´s name on them) we are going through some residency issues that need to be cleaned up, and missionaries, well, they´re just being missionaries and getting themselves into all kinds of silly problems.  Oh, this past week, I think it was Wednesday, President Clegg calls me at 2230 and tells me to go back to the office, we were on our way home, and figure out some way of sending a missionary home the next day. (she had been sick for a long time and finally decided to go home, probably for the best) so I was in there working on it until I think 2330 trying to figure out how to get her home, how to get the other missionary another companion the next day as well. It was a mess. But since it was already so late and well past bed time, my companions and I decided to go get some food at an outdoor bar and watch the soccer match. It was incredible.

Am I  aware that Spain and Italy were going to the Eurocup? Is the Pope Catholic!?

Man it has been CRAZY here. Every apartment window has a Spanish flag hanging out of it!

Ok, so here is the story.
Well...a little bit of reader discretion. I do not condone being disobedient to the mission rules and what they say about being in on time.

But anyways, it was a BLAST and I will probably always remember it. We are planning on doing the same thing for the actually final. Haha. Ahem...

Ok so it was really late, and this night it was the office elders (me and elder nally) and the Ap´s(elder Manning and elder Hall) in the office trying to figure out all these changes that we had to make for this sister missionary going home. So we are all just beat and hungry and tired. Portugal and Spain had been playing and this is a pretty heated rivalry, I mean, same landmass, this match is blood. Our apartment is right above two outdoor bars and in order to get into the front door, we basically had to walk in front of the outdoor big screen TV. so EVERYBODY sees us go inside. The four of us sit down in our chairs and we are just quiet and elder manning says, "what the heck are we doing up here?!" We had all been thinking the same thing, so without any more words, we all jump up, run into our rooms, change into our Spain jerseys and Spain gear and head down and join the crowd.

Just 2 minutes earlier, the huge crowd saw us all go into the apartment in our missionary get up and then we run out the door decked out in Spain gear. People pointed at us and were like "hey! its those American guys!" and the front row applauded us and so we gave the front row high fives. It was at the 85 minute mark when we got down there and so we were cheering and singing spanish fight songs and it was just a blast. After the penalties the whole city just went crazy! I have videos. They are too big to send, but someday I´ll show you! After the match these old ladies wanted to buy us drinks, so we figured that was our cue to go inside and get to bed.

It was a blast, and I probably shouldn´t tell you, but we are going to do the same thing for the final. I mean, this is as big as the world cup for these people, there is NOBODY that isn´t watching the game.

I sent a picture with me and elder manning in front of one of the bars we were watching the game at. i had to borrow a barcalona jearsy, I don´t have a spain one, YET, all i have is Real Madrid, and Chritiano Ronaldo plays for them, so I couldn´t be seen supporting a portugal player.


I can´t remember what the other pictures I attached are, but I hope you enjoy them!


I sure do love you all!

Os quiero,
Jason

It’s JUNE!

I am still a little in shock that I am here in the office, it has been pretty crazy. The old secretary is training me for the next week and a half on how to do the stuff. My biggest responsibility is residency. It is a pretty big deal because it´s my job now to keep everyone inside the country legally! Lots of Spanish. Lots of government and headaches. But so far I have enjoyed myself with this new challenge. I am learning lots and I have to become a Microsoft excel pro so that will be a nice little skill to have around! We only have proselyting  time for about 3-4 hours each night but my comp and I set the goal to catch up all the office work so we can get the full 5 hours of proselyting time every night.

My first call in the office went like this (Random elder) "hey elder hunt, I left the training booklet back in the mission home" then I responded "Well what do you want me to do about it?"  then I proceeded to figure out how he could get the booklet back to him in a timely fashion. I asked the last office elder if he got calls like that a lot and he nodded his head and said "all the time" So basically my job is just solving everyone´s problems. But we´ll see how things go! For Pday we went out to a little Spanish city and had a picnic with President and Sister Clegg. Being in the office definitely has its benefits! It was a lot of fun.  I´ve had two Pdays in one week so I feel like this upcoming week will be a little long. But there is lots to do as we prepare the mission for a new president and we just got about 6 new missionaries so I have to figure out how to do their residency stuff.

But anyways, I can´t believe it is already June. I mean seriously. I remember the day I hit a year and all of the sudden it´s June now. These past 4 months have just FLOWN by. It is crazy, in just 4 days I´ll have 8 months left, that is the last 1/3 of the mission! Crazy!

Oh, one more fun thing I´ll get to do is teach Sunday school in the British branch here in Fuengirola. The missionaries are the teachers for basically all the classes in the little branches here. I am excited for all these new responsibilities because I know they will be great experiences.
I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!

Os quiero
Jason

WE´RE IN AFRICA!

Well, I´m not. But the Mission president got Quorum of the 12 permission to send missionaries into the Spanish cities in Morocco. The end is coming man, we´ve got missionaries in Muslim Africa. This is really huge news! They sent to pretty strong guys down there, they should be able to fend for their own.

Ok, more news. I am getting transferred to Fuengirola, Málaga! Wait a second, isn´t that where the mission home is? Yes, yes it is. I got a call from President Clegg this past Thursday and he told me "Elder Hunt, I have a really big task for you" At this moment, I thought he was going to say, you´re going to be a zone leader  or training and opening an area again, but he said, Elder Hunt, you´re coming to Fuengirola as an office AP. I didn´t expect it at all. I´m not an AP that travels around with the president to zone conferences, but I am an assistant to the president in the office (we play the 4 AP system)

I am very excited for this opportunity and really really bummed at the same time. My mission is basically going on Pause, in terms of proselyting. I think I´ll have like 3 hours of tracting time every day. But the big task president clegg referred to is that in 3 weeks, the cleggs go home and the new mission president deere comes in. So he said that the mission will be on our (the AP´s) shoulders. It is going to be a pretty intense next couple of weeks.

But my Pday is now on Saturdays. and you can send me mail strait to the mission office!

Well, I am doing great and having a great time. We are seeing miracles here in alicante. I am a little sad to say good bye to elder Bird, but there is time for everything and he needs to spread his "own wings and fly" (get it?!) well, I´ll talk to you again on Saturday I guess!

Os quiero mucho!

Jason

Very Short Letter…

This one is going to have to be quick. This is the last week in the transfer and i think I am going to get the call this week, so next monday I will for sure let you know where I am going if I go or if I will just hang out around here some more.

This past week really just flew by. It was kind of a low week, in regards to our  number of lessons, but we keep going. I feel like everything we had from what we´ve been working for just slipped out of our hands out of nowhere. We had so much going for us, then this week came, and I am just asking myself, what on earth just happened. We lost like everything and everyone we were teaching in just a few days. But it happens, we have up weeks and down weeks. So i just hope this week we can recuperate from what we lost.

Well my family, I love you all so very much and I loved the pictures from the warrior dash, we have got to do that again next year!

Os quiero,

Jason

Wow this week has been intense!

Well first of all, miracles are being dumped onto us.  Well even before that, we live in the streets. I don´t think I have ever been out this much in the streets (as opposed to in houses of people teaching them) but we are seeing so many miracles for it. Just this past week 86 people gave us their information to contact them later.  Preach my Gospel and all the missionary stuff out there says to always invite them to be to be baptized in the first lesson but this past week we decided that, since we haven´t had many lessons for the first time with people, we just ask them on the street. It surprised me the first time I did it because the guy said yes and as we talked we talked about a date. His name is Edil and he is planned for the 8 of June. This happened SEVEN more times times this week. This whole experience has made me about 10 times more bold and almost every contact we make with someone on the street we tell them that they have to be baptized by us. It has produced miracles and lately it has seemed that there isn´t enough time in the day to get all the things we need to get done finished! I love my mission so much. Today I saw on my agenda that I will be home in 9 months. My heart dropped a little bit. This whole thing has gone by so fast but I am so happy to be a part of it. I love the savior, I love my mission, and I love all of you!

Os quiero,
Jason

Oh yea, the pictures, 
We(me really) made fajitas for cinco de mayo (they don´t celebrate it here so we had our own celebration). They were AMAZING!
 
There is a British store in a pueblo around here that sells D.P. So I bought 6 liters......Yea, I don´t think I´ll be doing that again any time soon.... 

Things are starting to pick up for us

We are finally starting to see some fruits pop up from our hard work. We are still basically living in the streets looking for new investigators, but small miracles are rapidly making our area grow. We met an African man named "Ese" a few weeks ago and we finally got in with him and had a nice lesson. It was less than 10 minutes and he agreed to be baptized on the 26th of may. It was quite the miracle. We got in there, invited him to be baptized and then left. It was short, but powerful at the same time. The only sad part of this story is that he lives in the boundaries of the other ward so we had to pass him off to the other elders. It was a bummer, but, we will find someone else!

On saturday, we stopped by the house of some people we have been teaching. A gypsy family from Cadiz Spain and when we get to their door, they let us in and there was a ton of smoke in the house and the STRONGEST scent of weed. The door was open so we had to go in to talk to them, my companion refused to go in, eh, he´s still new, but I went in there and reminded them about church on sunday. They all had the biggest smiles on their faces and promised that they would all come. Sunday came around, and they ended up not showing up. It wasn´t too big of a surprise.

The week really went by so fast I can´t even remember where I left off from last week. We were in the street contacting, talking to people that are walking around, and we invited a lady and her mom to a family history activity the ward was having. I figured that it was a learn how to start your family tree type deal going on, like starting up a 4 generations chart. So they surprisingly come but they come a little bit late. We meet them outside the church building and walk in, and the teacher of the class says, "and thats why you need to search for your ancestors with the spirit of Elijah." She then explained deeper doctrine about salvation for us through the salvation of our ancestors and it was a bit of a headache. Again, i wasn´t too impressed by the ward members. But the people we invited ended up liking the activity and we are going over to visit them on Thursday. So we will see how things will go!

I am doing great out here. It is so weird that it is basically May! This year is really moving!

I love you all!

Jason

We See Miracles Everyday

Man this week went by fast, I feel like I just wrote home yesterday!

Things are picking up for us. We have been working like crazy and so we are beginning to see some fruits. I am very happy with how things have been going for us. Some days it feels like its been very slow, but since we first got here to alicante, things have drastically picked up. We got here with absolutely nothing. The Zone Leaders gave us a new area book and it has been our job to fill it up with investigators! Since getting here, we have about 5 investigators and 3 of them came to church this past sunday. this past sunday was rough though, the first two talks by the youth were really good, and then an older member of the congregation gets up to give his talk and he says, "brothers and sisters, today my talk comes from a book that we don´t really use to often for talks, but I feel that I must use it." In my head I was just thinking, please don´t say Mormon Doctrine or something out there. He continued, " my talk come from the book Doctrine of Salvation Vol. 2" I literally, on hearing those words, smacked my forehead with my palm. I was not happy. He was attempting to expound deep doctrine and this was the FIRST time two of our best investigators (Jose and Monica) came to church. the whole time she was asking me questions.

Some words were shared about what is allowed to be said from the pulpit. He wasn´t even sharing doctrine, it was basically his ideas for 20 minutes. I wasn´t too impressed. But anyway, things are going great, we see miracles everyday, I wish I had time to write them all out for you. We met with a poor gypsy family last night and they were literally bug eyed listening to us. They just ate up everything we said.

We had a specialized training this past week with the mission president and it went over really well. this was our last one with him before we get a new president in June. It was nice, while we had the interviews with him, his wife was talking to my comp. elder Bird and she told him, "one day you will appreciate so much what your companion is doing." It made me feel really good. This has not been easy. Starting a new area with nothing and on top of that training a newbie has been a real challenge but it has also been such a great experience. I am so grateful for this chance to serve.

I love this work so much. It is the work of God and I feel so grateful to be part of it.

Sorry I don´t have any pictures for this week, but hopefully I´ll get some for next week!

Os quiero muxo!

Jason

The Big Cured Pig Leg

I don´t have too much to say I guess. The week went by really fast but the work was pretty slow. this past week was their Spring break so lots of people were out and a ton of tourists were in. However, I did get to see some fun stuff. They had huge "proseciones" processions where they have the KKK guys out and the big floats with the virgin mother and all the other virgins and saints. It was very interesting to see. I bought a little Nazareño candy figure from a semana santa stand. Oh yes, the KKK guys are called Nazarenes. Cool huh?

Another easter tradition in spain is "La Mona" It is a pastry bread thing with a hard boiled egg sitting on top of it. You have to play a prank on a buddy or sibling or whoever really, by smashing your hardboiled egg on their forehead. then you can eat the egg and the sweet bread. It´s kind of silly.

So I finally did it! I have wanted to do this for SOOO long. The 4 of us, there are 2 companionships in the apartment, we bought "una pata de jamón"! Oh man it is so good! It is the big cured pig leg. They are super expensive so the 4 of us split the price and we just share the leg. We also took fun pictures with it, more to come next week. But you put it on a stand and there is a special knife that you use to cut the meat off. Picture beef jerky but about 2x better. It is gooooooood stuff!

Well, the work is going good, I´m having a great time and the time is just flying!

con mucho cariño,
Jason

Another General Conference

I really can´t believe that we´ve passed another General Conference. I also can´t believe its already April! The time is flying! I loved Conference and it was such a good chance to recharge the spiritual batteries.

Last week we contacted an African lady and we met with her this past week. We were talking and she interrupted us and said that normally, when people talk to her about religion on the street or really when any one talks to her on the street, she says she isn´t interested and continues on. However, the day that we contacted her, she said that very morning, she had prayed to God asking her from some spiritual help. So because of her prayer that morning, she gave us her information that afternoon.

This is a work of miracles. Stuff like that doesn´t happen normally. This new challenge here in Alicante has really been such an amazing experience.

Alicante is HUGE, there are 8 missionaries here. But the part of the city I am in, is an area that they TOOK missionaries out of. My question has been, why did they take them out to begin with!? What happened!? But whatever the reason is, we just keep doing our thing.

I remember when the President called me and said I would be getting a new companion and a new area that I was terrified. It might not sound like that biggest challenge and people and missionaries have had worse, but to me, it freaked me out.

I prayed that night asking for the courage and a quote from Pres. Packer came to my mind. "Fear is the opposite of Faith." That has kind of been my motto since coming here. If there is faith, there will be no room for fear.

This past week we ate with some members and for desert we had something just, so Spanish. It was called "Brazo de Gytano" (Gypsy´s Arm) and it was this sweet bread roll with raw egg yoke inside. I wouldn´t trade my mission experiences for anything in the world! =] But they make this giant roll of it and they wouldn´t let us leave till it was all gone. I think I ate half because elder bird said he couldn´t handle it. Needless to say, I wasn´t feeling too good afterwards.

But this week was great and I look forward to another one! write me lots of letters to my new address! =]

Con mucho cariño, 
Jason 

New Address and Pictures

**Jason’s new address is on the right** – Ashley

This week was pretty crazy!

Monday to Wednesday we just met with my converts in Elche because on Thursday, we moved up here to Alicante! We are white washing (neither my companion nor I have ever served in this area) and we are starting with absolutely nothing! It has been quite the experience!

We have been in the streets everyday contacting people walking by, or knocking on doors. From Thursday to Sunday night, we had filled up a page and a half of the missionary planner section for "potential investigators" (People that give us their name, address and number)

So all this time in the street has earned us a few miracles, so I will share one.

We got the information for a guy named Jose on Thursday and on Saturday he said we could stop by. We went on Saturday and he wasn't´t home, so we were pretty bummed. Sunday night comes around and we really wanted to have a lesson because we had only had one since getting to Alicante. I look at our list of futures and see Jose and think it would be best to visit him. well really, I didn't´t think of it, the spirit for sure told me! So we go to his building and ring the bell for where he told us he lived. Nothing. Since we had been knocking doors all day, I rang the top bell (it is an intercom system here) with the plan to ring and talk to all the people in the building. The top bell answers, and it was Jose! he ended up giving us the wrong number to his building (he has only lived there for a little while) and he let us in!

We talked with him and his wife and they are just awesome! The wife has been church hopping, going from one church to another looking for the truth. And he is Colombian and just ready as ever to get baptized! We had a nice lesson with them and we have another appointment with them tonight. We are so excited!

The week was quick and I am excited to start up another one!

I hope you can all write me letters soon to my new address! =]

Os quiero muxo

Jason

Mityu´s baptism, it was excellent! His dad, another one of my converts, baptized him. It was really special!
me and my waffle creation. It was delicious. Strawberries and cream!
That´s me looking over the huge city of Alicante!