NEW ADDRESS

I have a new address!

I did not get transferred, but the sisters that worked in Elche our getting transferred so my companion and I are moving into the sister´s old apartment so we don´t have to have 4 elders living in an itty bitty living space. so here is my new address! We are very excited to get a new apartment. The one we have now with the 4 elders is way tiny!

Elder Jason Hunt
Calle Felipe Moya 52, 5 izq
03204 Elche, Alicante 
España

We set a baptismal date with an investigatory named Basilio from Bulgaria yesterday. It was a cool experience. So someone that we were going to visit failed on us so our backup plan was to see this guy Basilio. He had been to church once, was friends with a guy in our ward, and his mom is a member. He hadn´t shown too much interest in Church, he mostly came for curiosity we believe, but we had a great lesson with him yesterday.

We talked about how he was doing, about life, all the small talk and we began to share a message about faith and hope. We watched the "Good things to Come" Mormon Message and talked about having hope in Christ.  I said some nice things, then "passed the baton" to my companion and as i sat there, a prompting so plain and clear came to my head. This was the first time we had met with him in his house and as I sat there, I would say that it was more of a voice than it was a feeling, and it said "baptize him!" When I got the baton back from my companion, I expressed our gratitude to him for having us in his house and explained that the role of missionaries is to point people on the right direction to God and by doing so being baptized. He said that it sounded great and said he would be baptized on the 23 of December. He is out of work so we said we would pass by every day and teach him.

I don´t have too much else to report. I love the mission, love Spain, and I love going to Spanish bakeries in the morning to eat chocolate covered croissants for breakfast.

Os Quiero
Elder Jason Hunt

Palm Trees at Christmas Time

Very quickly, this week was a good one!

We have another investigator with a baptismal date! Her name is patricia. We´ll see how it goes because she is pretty weird. haha

Yesterday at church two of the teachers didn´t show up, how many elders were there? two! perfect! So I taught a class and my companion taught another one. That is always really annoying. yea, I love to serve, buuuut, stuff like this can easily be avoided!

I can´t think of anything else that really sticks out. I bought some nutella this week.

I haven´t bought some since May and I probably shouldn´t bought it. I´m already just about out.

So here are some pictures we took to get in the spirit of christmas!

Elder Estrada found a santa suit for 3 Euros and couldn´t say no. I was too busy enjoying my pizza to really know what was going on.

Gotta love palm trees at Christmas time!


Hurray for Christmas!

we, of course, had to take some GQ shots, so here is mine

¡Os quiero!

Elder Jason Hunt

ask us ANY question…

We baptized our 300 pound investigator this week! yay! My companion and I were a little worried that the member, who was going to do the baptizing, wouldn't´t be able to lift him out of the water. It was a little rough, but he got him under the water and then out of the water, so i guess that's all that matters. It was a nice service though.

So Paco is baptized but we are still teaching quite a few other people.

We had a pretty cool lesson experience this past week that I would like to share.

We were teaching an investigator of ours and we were teaching him about the restoration. He ended up having a lot of questions in regards to the soul. He started asking us questions  and the cool thing about it, was that we knew the answers to every single question. I ended up saying to him, ask us ANY question, and we will have the answer. So he did. And we had the answers. It was quite the experience that is hard to put to words because I truly felt directed by the spirit. I also felt and realized the promise of God that we would not be confounded before men. Most of his questions were answered by the plan of salvation. What a blessing it is to know where we came from, why we are here, and what´s next!

I am a little short on time, so I will close up, but I did attach some pictures!

We took a "preach my gospel" shot pretty close to our chapel.
 

Paco was just shining on the night of his baptism!

For thanksgiving we got Doner Kebabs for dinner. Doner kebabs are from...TURKEY! yea, it was my idea.

Elder Estrada and I made a cake with Pillsbury doughboy frosting that got sent to us and the family we were teaching absolutely LOVED it.

Well thats all I guess for this week!

I can´t believe its about to be december! That just blows my mind!

Os Quiero!

Jason

Baptisms!

We are going to have a baptism this Saturday and I am so excited for it! Paco is progressing strongly and he is pretty excited to get baptized. We´re pretty excited too! I´ll send a picture next week!
Speaking of baptisms, this past week 4 of our investigators accepted the invitation to be baptized but we have yet to set a date with them. It was a very cool experience with two of them.
We taught the sister and nephew of one of our members here. We taught them that the Church of Jesus Christ was lost after the death of the Apostles. We explained that the gospel of Christ is like a plate held up in the air. The "plate" was dropped with the death of the apostles and shattered into thousands if not millions of pieces and because of that there are thousands if not millions of churches on the face of the earth. It was cool to see Manuel (the nephew) at this point. His eyes lit up and it was as if everything just clicked to him. He even told us that just the other day, when we first made contact with them, that he wondered how we could be any different because there are so many churches. Then he began to wonder WHY there were so many churches. We taught them the restoration and bore testimony that because of a loving father in heaven, we have the fulness of the gospel through a restoration through a prophet. We talked about authority to baptize and when we invited the mom, Sandra, to be baptized by someone who held the priesthood of God, before she could answer Manuel budded in and exclaimed "Claro!" And I can´t really explain the look I saw in his eyes. I don´t think I have ever seen anyone say "Yes of course" with so much conviction and sincerity. There really are people looking for the truth but don´t know where to find it. I am so grateful, in this season of thanksgiving, to be shedding some light in such a dark place. The Church of Christ is on the earth! And that is something to be truely excited about and really thankful about!
I am doing great and I love the people of Spain. I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving!
Os Quiero
Jason

Do as the Europeans do, right?

This week really flew by. It started with being a little sick though. I´ve been really congested and had a bad cough. I think it has been because of the frequent change of the weather. It gets really cold with rain and wind, then the next day its sunny, free of all clouds. I am now just about over it but I still need to carry around a little bag of Kleenexes.

But in other and more important news, we have found and are teaching a man named Paco and he is going to be baptized on the 26 of November. He really popped out of no where as a friend of a less active and now we are teaching him, he accepts everything and he is ready to go! We tried to change the date to this Saturday, because he is just so ready, but he said that was moving a little too quick for him. But he is completely fine with the 26. We are pretty excited about it! 

Paco is hard on hearing so we are yelling for basically the entire lesson and it is almost impossible to ask him questions. He can´t hear them, but when he does, it is hard to make a question sound like a question when you are yelling in spanish. So we do a lot of reading with him because he can read just fine. We also visit with him everyday because he has nothing to do, so that has been really nice for us. He is actually a pretty funny guy for being in his 60s and weighing about 300 pounds. He calls me a yankee.

When in Europe, do as the Europeans right? They are really into the skinny suit and skinny tie look here and I found a great deal at a mall and now I am the proud owner of my first pair of skinny dress pants and I am also rocking the skinny tie! I got the pants, a new belt and 2 skinny ties for 23 Euros!

But its ok! Missionaries in Europe are allowed to wear stuff like that! haha!

I´ll have to send a picture sometime.

Well not to much else is going on. Working hard. This week we got the most lessons I had ever gotten before in my entire mission and this week we want more. We also got 6 new investigators this past week and we are really trying to get this place going. This pday really just snuck up on me because we have been (thankfully!) so busy! Busy is good!

I love you all lots and I am so grateful for your love and support!

Os Quiero,

Jason

New area, new companio, new address, and practically a new language!

This is the new one!

C\. Capitan Alfonso Vives
Nº80   6º IZQ
Elche, Alicante 03204
España

But anyways! New comp. Turns out, I´m training!
Who would have thought, you would think the president would have told me when I was being transferred!

There is a new "training program" that the church is doing for new missionaries and it consists of 12 weeks of training. It's actually really nice for me because we get another hour of personal study in the middle of the day. I like it A LOT.

My companion is named Elder Estrada and he is from Salt Lake City, sorta, he is Guatemalan and lived in Guatemala and Salt lake throughout his life, so he already speaks Spanish perfectly as well as English. That has been nice. He is a great elder and we are getting some good work done!

My new address is above and now I´m living in a small apartment with another companionship. I don´t really like having 4 elders in one apartment. It  makes it harder to stay on task and really get things done. It is crazy because I am actually the oldest missionary in this group in terms of time on the mission! We are a very "young" group of missionaries.

Speaking of young -  yesterday at church, I was told by I think over 3 people that I look like I´m only 16. To tell the truth I was a little offended! I´m 20 years old! Practically a full grown man! eh, whatever, I guess its better to look young than old right!

The weather has been soooooo cold! At least to me. I´ve been in Sevilla this whole time where the coldest it gets is in the 70s, and now I´m here and I wouldn´t doubt if it started snowing! My blood has definitely thinned out over the summer. I sleep with socks, slippers,  and a jacket with the hood up at night along with the heater blowing hot air in my face and I still wake up freezing! I´m not at all used to the cold anymore!

Nothing too exciting has been going on. We contact in the street a lot and don´t have too many investigators. But that´s missionary work for ya! I´m doing good, I´m happy at least, and I am learning lots.

Here in Elche they use the dialect called "Valenciano" and it comes from Valencia. However, it is so mixed up with French that it could be its own language. With all the official documents and government buildings they have both Spanish and Valenciano showing. Its been a little rough getting used to this new way of speaking.

But that's all, I don´t have any pictures to send yet but I will try to take some nice ones this week!

Os Quiero,
Jason

Transfers, P.S., P.S.S, and Lots of Pictures!

I was very surprised this past Friday morning when our cell phone went off and it had "Pte. Clegg" on the caller ID. I answered it and he said "Elder Hunt, Are you ready to go?" I thought he was talking about up and ready to go for the day and so I said, "yea I´m up and ready" and he said "Alright, your outta there and your headed to Elche" I was totally shocked and said "That kind of ready to go?!" he laughed and told me a little bit more about Elche. I was totally shocked! I did not see a change coming to me this transfer!

But yes, ¡me voy! I have a good 8 hour bus ride waiting for me this week because Elche is on the eastern coast of Spain and now I am on the western part of Spain. My companion has only been out a month but he is what we call a "nativo" (they are either Spanish or South American and already speak sSpanish as their language) so I´m saying "adios" to English for the next couple of months!

Nothing too crazy happened this week except for the transfer call. It was really hard telling Pepe that I was also headed out. I also got pretty close to the Bishop and his family and it was hard saying good bye to them as well. Turns out, the bishops daughter has had a crush on me this whole time. She can wait for me, but I don´t think I can wait for her. She´s 5. haha. She drew me a good bye picture though. It was precious.

This week I also got to "fight apostasy" as we say in the mission. We had some weird prayer groups that we had to put down. But that's a story for another email!

Oh yes...Since I´m being transferred...DON¨T SEND ANYTHING TO THE OLD ADDRESS. I´ll send my new one next week!

I´ll try to explain the pictures. Elder Hall and Elder Card got me pink fuzzy slippers for my Birthday. The odd thing though is that this wasn´t the first time I´ve gotten pink fuzzy slippers for my birthday...weird. But they have bunnies on the top and say "Happy"

Another one is at sunset on a big Hill here in Alcalá de Gaudaíra.

Ok...I don´t remember the rest....

I think I sent one from the Halloween party. Elder Berrett and I dressed up as Cowboys. They loved it.

Well I guess that´s all for me!

Os quiero!
Jason

oh yes...PS

The ward halloween party was NUTS!

Our chapel is in a pretty sketchy part of town and basically in the center of the ghetto. I´m not sure who made those plans...

But we walked over with Pepe and he was bringing his nieces and nephews and they invited some friends. So 7 kids were following us to the chapel. As we walked, all the kids from the ghetto popped their heads out and were like "where are those kids going?" and they started to follow us. There were about 40-50 kids in our small chapel. It was wild. Then the people, the adults, from teh ghetto saw all their kids going into the chapel and they all came in as well. It was very interesting. The entrance smelled like booze. But a TON of people were there. It was insane! A good activity, but insane nonetheless!

ok...one more story!

This past Thursday, an old man approached us and said that he had a dream the other night and because we were "religious men" maybe we could shed some light on what his dream meant. I was just thinking to myself," oh great, crazy old man with crazy dreams" He started telling us his dream and it was actually pretty cool. The whole time though I was praying to know something to say.

He dreamed that he was a priest in a catholic church that was on his street. He was in the front with a group of other priests and they were giving the sermon and preparing their communion or sacrament. He said that as he was preparing the bread wafer things, the statue of Jesus spoke to him and he said that he had to leave the priests and stop going to this church. The priests were false priest and he couldn´t find God in this church.

This man said he has had the dream 3 times since then. After the third time, he has stopped going to that catholic church. Now he goes to the catholic church two streets down...

he asked me what it meant and i said, its pretty clear. You´ve gotta leave the catholic church, not just the church on your street and you need to search for the true church of Jesus Christ. Then we testified of the restoration, gave him our number, he wouldn´t give us his, and then he went on his way. He said he would come to church, but we´ll see.

ok...that should be it!

love you lots!

Jason

The Turning Point

General Authorities often relate experience that acted as "the turning point" or "the day I figured it out", in their talks. Many of us know the story from President Hinckley where he was frankly tired of failure in the mission field and wrote his father saying that he was wasting his time and money. His Father wrote back with only a simple phrase and said "forget yourself and get to work." President Hinckley says that was his "turning point" and that all good and blessings have been a result of him "losing himself in the work."

A few years ago in conference, or it could have been just an article in the ensign, Elder Jay Jensen said that about a year into his mission he had yet to test Moroni´s promise about the Book of Mormon. He had never placed his trust in the lord in that aspect regarding the truthfulness of the Book. He decided to pray about it and he received a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true. He also says that this moment was crucial to his mission and to his future, and claims that ever since then, he has been able to Trust God and the blessings have flown.

In a Halloween/Birthday Package, Miss Tish sent me a talk from Brent L. Top entitled "Strengthened by His Hand". Brother Top´s experience he told opened my eyes to a new view of a certain scripture passage. This different way of seeing has helped me, perhaps, have a "turning point" of my own. It might not be the first, nor the last, but I feel that it was indeed a turning point, and that blessings have flown.

Matthew Chapter 14 tells the story of Peter walking on water. It is a very popular story from the New Testament so I will skip the details but discuss what was important to me.

It was nighttime, middle of the night-ish, and the disciples were out fishing. It was a windy night with lots of waves and in the darkness, they saw Christ, but did not recognize it as him. They thought it was a spirit, or as it says in spanish, a phantom, and they were afraid. Christ called out to them and said it was him, so peter answered and said "lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water."

"And he (Christ) said, Come." Peter got out of the boat and "he walked on water." Now this is the part that hit me hardest. It says that Peter became afraid because of the "boisterous winds". What was Peter, a fisherman, doing being scared of the wind? Why would the wind and the waves scare someone when he was probably so familiar with them?

I don´t want to contradict the scriptures, but I feel that it wasn´t the wind that scared him. I think he realized at that point, that he was walking on water.

I can picture in my head and almost feel that I can relate with the moment that Peter realized what was happening. He saw himself walking on water and with that, might have thought "wait, I can´t walk on water." And that is when he began to sink and then he cried out and said "Lord, Save me."

It might show my weakness and lack of ability, but I was called to be a senior companion and I didn´t feel ready at all for the task. I felt incredibly inadiquate to carry out that calling.

My last companion, Elder Barney, and I had a great relationship. We worked well together and we had a lot of fun as well. If things werer going slow or we had a hard day, it was all good because we had eachother to lift ourselves up. It might sound extreme, but I still had my trust in the "arm of flesh" as the scriptures say. Like I said, if things were going rough, I would turn to my friend elder barney and everything would be ok.

But the Lord, in his infinant wisdom has provided me a chance to place my trust in him.

I have previously commented that I have had a hard time with my new companion. With his criticisms on my every move, corrections to my every fault and his expressions of lacking confidence in my ability to lead the companionship bore heavy burden upon me. And on top of that, he didn´t speak any nor understand the language. So it was really me pulling us along, with him dragging his heels.

This was about 2-3 weeks ago and I had never felt so overwhelmed, lonely, or tired in my entire life. I felt completely and utterly solo. However, the task was still before me and I still had to do it.

This is where I would like to make the connection from Peter´s experience to my own. Figuratively speaking, I saw myself walking on water, doing something I knew I couldn´t do and I began to fear. I began to sink; sink into feelings of despair or discouragement. And as I sank, all I could do is cry out and say "lord, save me."

As the scriptures say with Peter "and immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him", I feel the savior has done the same for me.

In my state of loneliness, I had the only option to trust in the lord. My prayers became more fervent, my mind was filled with hymns, and my scripture study was an effort to put myself closer to God.

This wasn´t a one moment and it happened event, but rather over the space of time, about a week actually. But I feel that this might have been one of those moments where I can look back, and realize how everything became better because I put my trust, all my trust, in the Lord. I really do feel like it was a turning point in my life and I don´t think I´ve ever learned so much nor grown so much spiritually as much as I have these past few weeks.

Post Happy Birthday!!!

I´m 20! or in Spanish, I have 20 years.

My birthday really didn´t feel like anything different, it was weird, it just felt like another day.

We have an American Family in our ward so for my birthday, we scheduled to eat with them for dinner because they had American food from the base. We had Burgers. They were amazing. They didn´t know it was my birthday until later, but just by happen stance, the mom had made a cake earlier that week and so she threw some candles on there and they sang happy birthday to me!

Things have gone down in the work, but thankfully up in the companionship.

We had a pretty intense boxing match-I mean, "companionship inventory"

I had had it. It was ALL coming out. Everything that was an issue, we talked about it!

It was really frustrating because he plays the victim very well so he made me seem the bad guy.

But after this intense battle of words, things have gotten better. Much better actually. So thankfully, things are looking up in that aspect.

As far as missionary work goes, its been way slow. Our two investigators were really solid at the beginning, but now they say they can only meet maybe once every two weeks, so that has been a problem.

But my birthday week was great, I got lots of Love and thank you to all that sent me some birthday "love", I appreciate it so much!

On Sunday, yesterday, we had a "Ward Conference" and the stake leaders came and basically just yelled at the ward for not being very good members. It was very interesting. They got at the ward for not doing what they are supposed to be doing, so since then, I have started reading the Blue Handbook so I can hopefully give a helping hand.

I really don´t have too much else to report. The week went by surprisingly fast. Yesterday was 8 months as a missionary and that just blows my mind. In the example of a 5K race, the first mile is done!

Os Quiero mucho!
Jason

Hispañola day

We have 2 investigators now and both of them have baptismal dates! One, Nora for the 5th of November and the other, Sicilia for the 12th of November.

We are working hard with them and helping them prepare to be baptized!

There really isn´t anything to huge that stands out for the week but this past wednesday was Hispañola day or something like that where they celebrate spanish culture. The Stake had a big activity for it and it was just a huge "Festival of nations" is what they called it. They had tables with the flag and name of every country that made up our stake. The EE.UU (USA) even got a table, so we missionaries brought stuff to represent our country. We had a red white and blue basketball, someone made Chowder, another elder brought Dr.Pepper they got through the mail, we had a texas flag and a picture of Joseph Smith. The funny thing is that the mexico table was right next to ours and they brought a ton of stuff, so the mexico table was slowly taking over the USA table. We(the American Missionaries) all found that a little ironic that mexico was creeping into the USA section where we had placed the Texas flag.

Other than that, nothing too crazy is going on. This past thursday my companion and I had to have a chat because things have been lacking a little on the "unity" section. But it was a good chat and things have gotten a little better.

I guess that is all for today! Until next time!

I´m expecting birthday mail soon! ;p

Os quiero,

Jason

We are starting to find some success

 

This past week we finally got to meet with a lady from Nicaragua named Nora and we have started to teach her and she has a baptismal date for the 5th of November. We also got in contact with a lady from Ecuador who is a friends with a member. We will hopefully set a baptismal date for her tomorrow. She also has 2 daughters, one is 9 and the other is 15. The first meeting was just with her, her name is sicilia and this next appointment tomorrow will be her and her 2 daughters, so we are very excited for this opportunity!

I really don´t have too much to comment about because this past week was mostly filled with looking for more people to teach. But I will share two experiences that stick out to me from this past week.

Our first appointment with Nora was actually in a park because she lives with an old woman that she takes care off and the old lady didn´t want us, the missionaries, in her house. So we met her and taught her in a very busy park outside the old lady´s building. It was kinda weird because this was the first time I had ever taught a lesson outside with people walking by and watching. But the whole time, I was worried with the question as to how we would pray. I didn´t want to draw attention to us by praying, so we started the chat without an opening prayer. As the lesson was coming to a close, we testified again and explained that we have our testimonies, but she can know for herself through prayer. But at this moment I thought, how can she know the importance of prayer, if we, the missionaries, didn´t even start the chat with a prayer! So i was just praying that we would know what to do! We talked some more and challenged her to be baptized, we asked that if she continued to meet with us, and came to discover that our message was true, that she would be baptized. She agreed and we discussed again, that she can only come to know the truth if she did the commitments we left her and prayed. Again, I was concerned with what we would do about praying in the middle of a public park. But as we finally finished talking, we got another appointment set up and were closing up, everyone that was in the park was gone. It was just the 3 of us and we could have a nice calm opportunity to pray. It was quite the miracle. It was so busy during the lesson, and then when it was time to pray, everything just worked out.

We are always trying to find something cool to do for Pday. I´ve been in Sevilla for about 15 weeks now and I´ve seen pretty much everything Sevilla has to offer in the tourist matter of things. But this morning as I was looking through a tourist magazine with fun places to visit, I saw an article for an art museo.  It had samples of some of the artwork displayed there and one of them jumped out to me. It was more modern art I guess.( I don´t really know what to call it...) But it depicted the bad things in this world. There was sadness, and hunger, wars and natural disasters. It was a very bleak outlook on the world and life itself. And it really made me feel bad, I didn´t feel good looking at this piece of art! But in my hand, as I skimmed through the pages of this tourist book, I had a German Milka Chocolate Bar. I love German Chocolate. So as I looked at the bleckness of this depiction of life, I had no reason to feel bad, because I had something that made me feel good. You can probably see where this is going now...haha. It is a bit of a stretch, but I couldn´t help but think of this past conference while looking back to this experience. We can see the world going to the dumps with all the sadness and terrible things happening, with its sinking morals, but we have something that makes it all better. We have the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and that gives us the hope for a better today and tomorrow.

This week was good and I am looking foreward to another good one!

Os Quiero,

Jason

"It is better to look up"

This week was excellent, or rather, the weekend was excellent! We still don´t have any investigators and so it was just a whole lot of contacting. I don´t have a problem with contacting at all, I mean, that's what missionaries do. They contact people. But for 8 hours every day has started to weigh down on me. However, this opportunity has made me a bit more bold in getting our message out there because I´m not wasting my time, do they want to be taught or not! So its been a little dry, but we are trying to keep our heads up and press forward.

On that note, One of the talks that hit me really hard was the one by Elder Cook from the 70. His message was "It is better to look up". I have been feeling very weighed down and overwhelmed lately because we are having very little success and I really I have to do everything because of my companion´s lacking language skills.(I have decided after this experience that I would never want to train). But his talk was what raised me up. He stated that it IS much better to look up. We can hang our heads low and be crushed by our burdens OR we can hold our heads up high and press forward in faith. I needed to hear that talk, and it has really given me the courage to push on. I also loved President Monson and Uchtdorf´s commentary on how we are never really alone even when it feels as if we have been left completely to ourselves.

Nothing too crazy has happened lately, I am trying to think of anything quick that would be fun to share. Oh here we go, For conference, our whole sunday was spent in Sevilla because that is the stake center and all the missionaries in our zone came to watch so we could listen in English. (We slept the night with the Elders in Sevilla) So on saturday, as we were packing, I was making my sandwiches for my sunday lunch and I figured to myself, someone's gonna forget to bring food for lunch. So I threw my whole loaf of bread in the bag and my whole pack of sandwich meat and cheese. I had also bought a big bag of cookies so I threw those in there as well. Turns out, out of the 10 of us. The only people that remembered to bring a lunch for sunday was me and the two sister missionaries. So it was really good that I brought all that stuff because I ended up feeding everyone! Although I am now short a loaf of bread and sandwich material, I feel great about it because just as they declared in conference, service really does make you feel good.

Things are just pushing along and my head is lifted high, even though things are going really tough right now, I am grateful for these experiences and I know that I am learning so much from them.

Well I guess until next week!

Os Quiero,

Jason

Transfers

This week started a little rough, to say the least, I feel as if I lost my best friend. We had transfers and Elder Barney was shipped off to another location and I got myself a new companion. Elder Barney and I got along so well and I have never had so much fun on the mission then when I was with Elder Barney. He will be missed.

This week has been a week of lots of prayer. I am a senior companion now in an area that has taking a spin for the worst. We had to drop all of our investigators because they were not progressing and my new companion, who is 2 months younger in the mission than me, doesn´t speak a lick of spanish. So I have felt a little overwhelmed.  We have just been doing contacts on the street and I´ve already had to sit my new companion down twice and tell him what is up. He is a good missionary, but he believes himself to be a miracle worker because he had so much success in his last area. But I have felt very overwhelmed this past week. All I have is hope that everything will get better.

Nothing too crazy has happened lately, just talking with lots of people,

Oh, just thought of a story to tell.

We looked through the area book and found a lady we wanted to visit. We get to her house, and surprisingly, she lets us in to chat. We start talking and she says that she is Atheist and doesn´t believe in anything. But We were friendly(well actually, this is all I, because as previously stated, my new comp doesn´t understand or speak any spanish) and I asked her some questions to get to know her better and to figure out her doubts.

She said that If I could answer this ONE doubt she had, then she would be baptized and be a faithful member of the church, I asked what her question was and prayed for the words to answer this lady´s question. I figured it would be super deep or about something she had heard about the church but I was excited to hear the question. She said "Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden and then they had their sons Cain and Abel. Cain killed his brother and was then cast out to another land. The bible says that Cain met his wife while he was in  the other land. So how is it possible for Cain to have met a wife in another land if Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve´s first sons?!"

Seriously....But anyways, I asked her the question "Do you know how many years Adam lived for? she said "About a 1000 or so" and then I asked, "How many children do you think he could have had in 1000 years?" She laughed and said "A whole house full I suppose"

So then I said, "out of that "whole house full" don´t you think that Cain would have gotten his wife out of the hundreds of children Adam probably had during his 1000 years on earth?" She didn´t answer and said, that’s the exact same thing the last missionaries started saying! But I just can´t believe it!"

She shared all her doubts and we tried to explain but she just wouldn´t hear it. So We (I) invited her to pray about her doubt with Cain and Abel with an open heart and that she could know the truth.

It was an interesting meeting to say the least.

Well that’s about it for now.

¡Os quiero mucho!

Jason

I had no idea what to say!

This week was a little uneventful, but it was the last week of the transfer, and my companion elder barney is headed out to another area while I will be staying here.

I believe I mentioned last week that we are fresh out of investigators and we are searching and searching for more people to start teaching. This past week, I did more contacting (speaking with people on the street) than I have for my entire mission! It was tough, and hardly anyone gave us the time of day, but we did receive 8 phone numbers of people who could potentially be interested. So we are excited about that but we will see!

Oh, At the specialized training, we got DVD players! Sweet huh! It is cool to see that missionary work, and the church even, is using technology to adapt its teachings to what is going on in the world. Because of this, I think I´ve watched the Restoration video about once a day and just about have it memorized!

I believe it was this past Friday that we were walking past our chapel on our way home for the night. We saw the door open and some of the lights on and we freaked out a bit because we were the last ones in there and nobody had meetings there. Also for a fun fact, our chapel is in the roughest part of town, so that added to our freaking out. Come to find out, the bishopric and their wives were all having a little dinner meeting there. They invited us to come over and they gave us some nasty seafood pizza. Fish. I just don´t get it. But of course, we ate it. Upon our arrival we found out that they had been arguing about a marital topic. They all turned to us and said, lets see what the missionaries have to say about this. My companion, who is apparently much quicker on his feet, got up and said he was REALLY thirsty and went to the kitchen to get some water. So there I was, with six good members asking me about how I felt on this topic about marriage. Shoot, I had no idea what to say! But the topic was a little sketchy and it came from one of the members who we have some suspicions about anyways. But this quote came almost immediately to my mind. I had read it before my mission and I hadn´t really thought about it sense. But I told them "If you don´t want temptation to follow you, don´t act like you are interested." I acted as if I thought of it on the spot and they were taken a little aback and appeared to think "wow, this guy is deep." But they seemed to like the advise and their conversation continued.

But really, I think it is so interesting how the members, even those who have served missions, think that the missionaries have all the answers.

On that note, Saturday night, we got a call and they asked me to speak in Sacrament. I think that was talk number 3 since I´ve been here. But I really do like giving talks. They have a whole new appeal to me now.

I feel that I´m just kind of ranting now, so I guess I will close.

I´m doing great in my little pueblo of Alcalá de Guadaíra and I look forward to another exciting week!

Os quiro,

Jason

in front of a large pile of empty beer cans and a pamphlet for the word of wisdom

at the "El Campo de Real Betis" the local profession soccer team


My companion, Elder Barney and I with Gracia and Copi. She is by far my favorite member in our ward. She cracks me up. She is hilarious.

A Story

I always feel that it is a little presumptuous for a missionary to send home a sermon, but this story hit me pretty hard and I would like to share it. Yesterday, we had stake conference and the Temple president from Madrid came and he gave this talk. I was actually zoned out by this point because the meeting had already been an hour and a half(And it was all in Spanish! I have a hard enough time paying attention in English!) so when my companion asked me what I thought about it afterwards, I had no idea what he was talking about. haha, so he told me the jist of the story and I re wrote it in my own words last night into my journal. So here is the story and commentary in my own words taken out of my journal.

"There was once a supply depot that was located very far away from the stores of which it supplied. An order came in from one of the stores and they requested an order of 2 items: Sponges and logs of firewood. The owner of the warehouse loaded up two horses, one with the light weight of the sponges and the other carried the full weight of the wooden logs. The long journey began and as time passed, the horse carrying the logs began to show its decrease in strength and symptoms of fatigue. However the other horse, was the complete contrary, he had hardly been effected by the weight of his cargo. The horse with the wieght of the logs was forced to walk in a strait path while the other walked, trotted, galloped and ran around as freely as he willed. After much time had passed and a lot of distance covered, the caravan was stopped at the bank of a river. At this point, the horse with the logs was shaking and sweating because of the burden he carried while the horse with the sponges walked unaffected. The travelers had to cross the river so the horses entered the water began to swim across. As the horse with the sponges crossed, he quickly realized that the weight of his cargo was dramatically increasing. The sponges absorbed the water and the weight became unbearable. The once free roaming horse with this light load could not keep above the water due to the extreme weight of his now soaked through sponges, and then, he drowned. As for the other horse, the one who had carried the heavier load now found that his load of wooden logs was helping him stay afloat and carried him to the opposite bank of the river.
Often times, we view obedience to the Gospel as a burden weighing us down. We see keeping the commandments as a means of limiting our freedom. We witness our friends and even loved ones participating and choosing to do whatsoever they please, while we are pushed down by the weight of obedience. But this is not so. It is our obedience to the gospel, holding to the rod, that will keep us afloat when adversity comes. The wonderful thing about all this is that, unlike the horses, we can choose which "burden" we want to carry. We can take a burden of light sponges through our journey of life and do as we please, but when we have to cross the river, when that last day comes, we will not be able to support the weight, and we will drown. OR we can choose the path less traveled and walk in obedience.. We will still have our opportunities to lean, grow and progress, but at the river, it will be our obedience to the commandments of God that will carry us safely across the dangerous waters and help us finish the task we initially started out to do. Remember, the horse with the sponges did not fulfill his purpose of delivering his cargo.

So the choice seems very clear, we can walk, trot, gallop or run in a path of our own design, but drown at the end, or we can put ourselves on a strait and narrow path that was designed before the world was and be carried to safety."

ok that took me way to long too write so I´ll briefly explain what we did for the week.

We dropped everyone. All of our investigators are not progressing, all 6 of them, so we met with them and asked where we were going. They all had baptismal dates but they said they no longer have interest in continuing with the lessons. So it is back to the grind for us. We don´t have any investigators but we are actively looking for more! We found out recently that we have 263 registered members here in Alcalá but only 60 of them are active. So we are out on the search for these less actives!

Last Pday, we went to the Oldest Bull fighting stadium in Spain and took a tour. It was way cool! I really want to see a bull fight now!

Today we are going to have a relaxing Pday and stay in Alcalá. But we will probably go bowling. Love bowling.

But that is about it for me!

Os quiro!

Jason

The Formula for Work

Here's my week:

The formula for Work, as far as I remember, is Work = Force x Distance. I figured out this week that this formula for the physical nature of things, does not necessarily apply to the spiritual nature of things. This past week, the amount of work we put in did not equal the force we applied on our commitments to investigators, nor the distance we walked. What a bummer. But we continue to work, regardless of faulty equations and we are hoping to see some results relatively soon.

This past Sunday, we got to participate in the circle in ordaining Pepe to the office of a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. This guys is such a stud. He just eats up the gospel. But afterwards, he was all smiles and gave big hugs to each of us. It was great to see.

This past week we had a list of Less active families to go and visit. We went from address to address trying to get in with them but most of them said no. However, one elderly man said, "sure come on back tomorrow and we can talk". So we returned the next day and were prepared to get this guy re-activitated. He was very elderly and as he showed us his house, we asked him who were in the pictures on the wall. He said he had no idea. But the pictures were clearly of him and family or friends. So right there we knew something wasn´t all there in terms of memory. We asked him when he was baptized and he said, I don´t remember, I think when I was a baby. But we proceeded to have the lesson targeted for a less active member. He said he wasn´t a member of the Church and didn´t have an idea what the Book of Mormon was, but we kept talking to him about it trying to refresh his memory. We were convinced that he was this less active man and that he had just forgotten. We finished our lesson and this whole time, we had been calling him Rafael, the name we had with this address, but as we were leaving he told us, why were you calling me Rafael? My name is Paco. Turns out Paco was telling us the truth, he wasn´t a member nor a less active member. And apparently the less active member who lived there had moved quite some time ago. However he told us that we were very nice and that we could stop by anytime if we had a moment. It was a funny experience.

I don´t have too much else to discuss for this past week. Our 3 baptismal dates got dropped by all 3 of our investigators and so it is back to the grind. We are fasting and praying to find more people to teach and invite to come unto Christ.

Os Quiro,

Jason

I’ll let the pictures do the talking

I´ll have to let the pictures say most of what happened this week because I am a little lost for words as to what to say. This week has just been filled with missionary work!

These past two weeks we have been searching hard for new people to teach. We baptized our only progressing investigator so we´ve been on the hunt for some more! This past week we got three new investigators and set a baptismal date with all 3 of them. We also have lots of potential investigators so the goal this week is to set 5 more baptismal dates. We think we can do it! It is gonna be good!

I am having a great time here in Alcalá de Guadaíra with my Companion Elder Barney, I love the guy, we are having a great time.

This past week, the ward had a dinner and we stopped by for a little bit to check it out. They made us sit down and as I browsed what was on the table, my eyes were caught by a strange tupperware dish. The owner of the dish saw me eyeing it and said "Elder, try one!" I said I wasn´t hungry but of course, she insisted. So I grabbed one, smelled it, and looked at it again. At this point, everyone around us at the table was watching me to see if I would eat it. I said out loud, "I dunno, I´m kinda scared to eat it" the owner then said "What did you say?" (she couldn´t hear me) and I said "mm, it smells great!" The object in my hand was a kind of paste inside of a mussel shell. I put it in my mouth and scooped out the mussel shell. It was interesting to say the least. It was a cheesy and fishy paste and then it also had little chunks inside of it. The texture made me gag but over all it wasn´t too bad!

As far as the pictures go,

This past week was 6 months for me, so as tradition goes for missionaries, it was time to burn a tie.

We had been working really hard  and decided to take a snack time break. Nothings much better than a cold coke and a milka

In Plaza de España, they are filming a new movie with the guy that did the voice of King Julian from Madagascar. So we took pictures with the set.

The last picture is in the Bishop´s office with our area book. We used that phone because we didn´t want to use all our minutes on the cell. But we were calling less actives and Former investigators! We had some pretty good success with it!

But I had a great week and am looking forward to another!

Os quiro,

Jason

"Besitos"

This past week was pretty slow as we try to find someone new to teach. I actually had to go back to Malagá to pick up some residency papers so that was a lot of fun. I got to eat lunch with the Martinez family (the family I baptized back in Malagá) and it was great to see them! They have really progressed in the gospel and are doing really well. It was such a blessing to see them again!

I ate something pretty weird this week, but thankfully, it wasn´t NEARLY as bad as last time. A member made us Duck and Fish soup. Who thinks of this stuff? For some reason, people tend to think that Europe has good food. They are gravely mistaken. But as mentioned sometime before, I can do fish filets and fish stuff, but fish soup is the bane of my existence. However, tests and trials are placed in our lives to help us become stronger! What doesn´t kill you makes you stronger right?! As I looked at my duck and fish soup I literally had this thought "I´ve basically eaten the end of the digestive system of a pig, I can eat anything!" and I took a spoon full of my soup and finished strong. Food has stopped scaring me. I can eat anything. Onions (ashley and mom) don´t even phase me anymore.

We were leaving a less active´s house this week and the grandma was there as we left. In spain, they do their salutations through the little kisses on the cheeks. They are called "Besitos" But as we were leaving the older lady, said to me, "come here young man and let me kiss you" I said "as missionaries, it is better that we just shake hands" She didn´t like that answer and said "nonsense, I want to kiss you" Thankfully, by then, the less active member intervened and explained that missionaries can´t go around kissing people! Looking back it is a pretty funny experience!

This past week we saw some divine intervention. It was pretty incredible. Elder Barney and I have been thinking of how we can help our ward. It is a pretty sad ward. There are a TON of less actives and no body is doing their callings. It´s bad. This past sunday, my companion and I had to teach priesthood lesson, give talks, and do the sacrament because the people who were supposed to do have the lesson and talks either didn´t come, or came un prepared and refused to get up. But I actually really enjoyed it. We just taught the importance of home teaching for the lesson and the talks. A HUGE problem we have is that no one is visiting each other. We truely believe that if we could just get these people to do their home and visiting teachings, things would improve x10.

But to back track a bit, Elder Barney and I were at a members house and we wanted to show a video. this video was brand new, didn´t have any problems and should have worked, but for some reason, it didn´t. We though, hm, that´s weird, alright we´ll watch the other video on this disc. The second video was just what we needed. It was the new "Only a stonecutter" video and it hit the member pretty hard. Afterwards, we asked, "whats your calling?" She said she was a visiting teacher and she felt so bad that she hadn´t been doing it after watching this video. We´ve been showing it to lots of members ever since and it has all had the same effect, it be-littles them and they feel dumb for making excuses for not doing their callings. But it was so cool to see that the direction we needed to go, came from the brand new video not working. We tried out the video later on in the DVD player in the church, and it worked just fine! It was incredible! But we have been praying and studying so hard as to what we can do to help out this ward and the answer came. It was pretty cool.

Well that´s just about it for this week! I hope you are all doing well!

os quiro

Jason

The “Special Plate”

I have two major stories to share this week. Before my own mission, the two main things I liked to know about missions from RMs was 1) about the funky food they ate and 2) about any cool baptism stories.

Story number 1

Javier Blanco is the ward mission leader. He is full gytano(gypsy) and his wife is half. They live out in the middle of nowhere on his farm.  Every other friday, we take an hour bus up to Sevilla, then catch another hour bus out to the closet town where he lives and he waits for us there, where we ride in his car with him another 20 minutes to get to his house.  This past friday, we took the long journey out and after getting to his house and settling down, his wife had finished preparing the meal.  She handed us all our bowls and began scooping the soup into our individual plates. After she scooped mine she said "oh, you get the special one." I didn´t pay to much mind to it and we said the prayer and began to eat.  The soup had garbonzo beans and some kind of meat it wasn´t too bad, just a little rubbery.  I had a large chunk of meat in my bowl and I just hadn´t worked my way to eating yet. When I was about half way finished, I heard the phrase that I hate more than anything in this life.

"Do you know what you´re eating?"

NOOOO! That phrase is worse than finger nails running down a chalk board.

I said no and before he could respond I ate faster so I could get as much down before he told me what I had been putting into my mouth.

"Pig intestines" He said.

I had a big spoonful in my mouth and it was so hard to finally gulp it down. At this point I realized why I had the "Special Plate."

My companion looked at my plate at the larger chunk of meat and laughed out loud and said "You´ve got the sphincter!"

Yes. On my plate, I had the sphincter.(if you don´t know what the is, check it out in your nearest anatamy book)

All I had in my bowl at this point was this chuck of meat. I´m not going to describe it too much, but at the top of it, it had a circular top. I took my spoon and put it in the middle of the hole and cut it in half. Everyone at this point was watching me to see if I was going to eat it.

I took a deep breath, grabbed a piece of bread, put one half of the sphincter on my bread and ate it. I remember just praying that this aweful body part from the pig wouldn´t kill me or at least I wouldn´t be able to taste it. (But now that I think about it, I should´ve just prayed for deliverance! haha) But I slowly chewed it then did the same process with the other half.

I ate pig intestine soup and on top of that a sphincter from a pig. I love the mission.

Ok, now for story number 2!

This past month and a half we have been working with a man named Pepe (José) and this past saturday was his baptism. I can´t even describe the enormous change that we witnessed in this man. In our first meeting, we asked him to say the closing prayer and in it, he basically cursed God for his aweful circumstances and blamed him for forgetting about him. A little bit about Pepe, he has been looking for work since February and at the first meeting(first week of July) he told us that if he didn´t pay his rent by the first of August, then the owner would kick him out.  We met with Pepe 3 times every week to teach him and talk him through his struggles.  When we told the bishop about his situation, he gave us specific direction not to mention that the church gives economic help to its struggling members, he wanted to make sure he was investigating for the right reasons.  We heeded his council and continued to teach him. Pepe has had a very sad past, he was arrested about 20 years ago and served several months in prison because the police mixed him up with someone with the same name (Everyone in Spain is named José) and every since then, things have just fallen out of sorts. His family wants nothing to do with him and he literally has nothing.

We worked so hard with Pepe. This past Saturday was his baptism and it was an AMAZING experience. My companion baptized him and on sunday I confirmed him (I had never given a blessing before and on top of that it was in spanish!).

On sunday, after the confirmation and the Sacrament, Pepe bore his testimony and it was so powerful. He told us a story from this past week, about how the Lord answered his prayers.  Like I said before, if he wasn´t able to pay by the first of August, he would be kicked out. He got kicked out. He has been living in an abandand house these past 2 weeks and literally has nothing. But he told us that after our lesson on thursday, he was thinking about how nice all the members at church look with their white shirts and ties and he would love to look like that. Once he was a member, he wanted to look is best. He told us that he prayed to the lord that if it was his will, that he could somehow find a white shirt and a black tie (he said black ties were his favorite) to wear for the sunday after his baptism.  My companion and I live in a missionary house where missionaries have lived there forever and things get left behind, like shoes, shirts, ties and whatnot. So as a little gift, on Friday my companion and I put in a little bag two white button up shirts that we thought would fit him and gave it to him after our meeting. He was so grateful and we could tell that he was getting really excited.

He then told us how on his walk home, he was praying and thanking the Lord in his heart,  about how he just got the two white shirts, and now all he could use is a black tie. Less that 5 minutes after thinking this, he saw a little black tie on the curb of the street. He was telling this story in sacrament and testified that he knew for a surity that God lives and blesses us because he loves us. It was amazing to see this man, who a month ago cursed God for his poor economic standing, was now praising the lord and rejoicing even though he had much less(in material matters) than he had before. And Pepe is so right. God knows us. He loves us and only wants the best for us. People can change as they use the atonement of Christ and I feel so blessed to have had the chance to witness it personally. Pepe continued to say how he had nothing, and now, the hermanos(us) had given him everything.

After the church meetings the bishop met with him and explained how the church was going to help him with his ecomomic situation. We were waiting so we could walk home with him, and when he came out of the bishop´s office, his face was stained with tears, he ran to us and shouting, "they´re going to help me pay for my house!" then immediatly he said "Which room can I pray in!?" we were a little taken aback because it happened so fast and said "uh, any of them I guess."

Working with Pepe has been such an incredible experience.

People can change with the power of the atonement and they DO! I am so grateful for the Lord Jesus Christ and this opportunity I have to help people come unto Christ.

Os quiro,

Jason

Me at "Barrio Santa Cruz" and it is an incredible old town in Sevilla and we could reach out and touch the ways of the narrow passage ways!

Me in the middle of the busiest street we have here in Alcala during mediodia (the time everyone takes their nap) As you can see. There is NOTHING going on during nap time

The 3 of us at the Baptism: Elder Barney, Pepe, and Me.

Dollar Store Ties, A Breakup, A Baptism, and Corndogs

My week:

The week was pretty good. First of all, last p-day we found a nice dollar store and loaded up on cool ties. I bought three of them. One is baby blue pink and white. It reminds me of a 50s diner joint, its my favorite, the other two were just plain solid colored. Nothing else too exciting there. But I wrote down some events throughout the week so I could let you all know how things are going.

- We broke up with Cesar. We have a less active family that we have been teaching and their little family is just about broken. It is the saddest thing. But this last meeting we had with them, Cesar, the dad, told us that it would be best if we didn´t come back any time soon. Elder Barney and I´s hearts just dropped. He gave us all his reasons and said, don´t come back any time soon. We tried to talk him out of it and have a FHE the following week, but they wouldn´t have it. Afterwards, Elder Barney and I were talking and how we both felt like we just went through a break up with a girlfriend. He broke up with us, but we tried to continue to do stuff together. hah.

-They have wild cactus( I guess all cactus are wild) here that have a really sweet fruit. A member gave one too us and it was very sweet. Very tasty.

- BAPTISM! This Saturday! 7:00! we are very excited. On Friday, he, Pepe, told us that if god didn´t show him a miracle in the next week, he wouldn´t be baptized. We told him, it doesn´t work that way, and the next day in church, he finally stayed for the whole 3 hours(before, he would stay an hour and a half and then leave), but he told us that he felt happy and he hadn´t felt like this ever. We said, "well there is your miracle" and so he is satisfied with it. haha, But we are very excited for all of it. We have been teaching him for the last month and it is just going to be great! Baptisms are the best!

-Corndogs. There is an American family that goes to our ward and every so often they will bring us American food from the base. So yesterday my companion and I broke our fasts to Corndogs and Rootbeer. God Bless America.

BIKES!- Today was probably the most fun Pdays I have ever had! A member took us out Mtn. Biking today and it was a BLAST! So fun. We got to see the history of Alcalá de Guadaira and I had no idea how rich it is with history. We saw ruins of a Roman Acropolis, some tombs and a way cool castle. It was a mtn bike ride and a tour of the history all at the same time. The Computer I am using is way slow and so I am unable to send pictures, but next week I will make sure to update you all with the pictures I have taking!

Thank you so much for you love and support!

Os quiro!

Jason

Olive Trees

My week was pretty good.

We do so much in a week that it is hard to remember everything that we did!

This week was filled with lots of work and lots of being in the sun! I would have to say that I am rocking quite the farmer´s tan right now, it is very attractive to say the least.  I´m a little lost for words this week so I would like to share a few things I have learned or at least come to realize more fully.  Everything points to Christ. Everything can bare witness to the truth (just like how I shared in that one talk with the Krispy Kremes being like the gospel and whatnot..haha).  This week I learned something pretty cool about Olive trees.  Olive Trees are filled with symbolism to Christ but I have learned of some more!  Olive trees are very important to spain and olive oil is called the "Gold of Spain" (it sounds better in Spanish) But I learned, first of all, that olive trees can live for hundreds of years.  But as they die, green shoots begin to sprout out the ground where the dying tree is and if they are properly cultivated, within 15 years the sprouts will be full grown, fruit producing trees.  This points to Christ. This phenomenon points to Christ in that he died, but was resurrected and lives on today!

Another thing I learned is the importance of Home Teaching.  Not gonna lie, I always hated home teaching. But now I see how important it is!  Right now we are working with a less active family who are having a lot of problems, marital problems, going to church problems, just lots of problems.  We have been talking to the members about them for the entire month and we, the missionaries, are the only ones who have visited them.  They´ve completely stopped coming to church and their little family is falling apart. It is just heart breaking to see this family break when all they need is a little help.  We can only do so much. Missionaries come and go. But the ward members will always be there.  The mom told us that the reason she goes to a different church is because she actually has friends there. It is just so sad. It is so important that we reach out to the less active members and befriend them!

Well not too much else is going on for us. We have an investigator with a baptismal date for the 13 of August. We are working hard with him. His name is Pepe and he is a great guy.  I´ll have to comment on him later because I´m running short on time.

But I love and miss you all and I am so grateful for all of your support!

Os Quiro,

Jason

Buenas Cosas Vendrán

This past week was pretty rough.  We didn´t get many lessons, our investigator only came to one hour of church, none of the less actives came, and the District leaders and Zone Leaders are giving us a bunch of flak because we haven´t had any new investigators in four weeks.  On top of that.  It is hot and the soles in my shoes have melted.  We walked a ton this week and my feet have taken the beating and are just destroyed with blisters. In the Mornings, for our 30 minutes of exercise, I jog in place and do plyometrics and whatnot (it sounds a little goofy, but hey, you gotta work with what you´ve got) But lately I haven´t been able to. I can´t stand on the palms of my feet because of how blistered they are. When I get up to stand, I wince just about every time. I´m not telling you this as result of complaining or discouragement, only to build the context of an experience that really helped me personally.  Like I said, things aren´t going in our favor right now.

In one of our lessons this week, we shared a Mormon Message with a less active family. It was called "Buenas Cosas Vendrán" (Good things will come) and it is taking from a talk from Elder Holland.  In the video, towards the end, he says, with watery eyes "Don´t you quit, you keep walking, you keep trying, trust in God and in Good things to come." That statement just hit me like a ton of bricks and went strait to my heart. "You keep walking." It gave me the courage to keep going on the blistered feet and melted soles. How grateful I am for the Lord and the abundance of blessings he has given me! Good things can come, and they will! Maybe not now, maybe not in a long time, but with putting all your trust in the Lord, everything will work out. No, things aren´t working out for us right now, we are getting rejected left and right, the members get offended especially easy and go inactive, and we spend hour after hour in the 100+ Sevillian sun. But I know with all my heart that with trust in the lord, things will work out.  The truth is restored on the Earth, how much reason we have to rejoice!

I have the amazing chance to see daily miracles and see myself learn and grow. I am so grateful to be here in Alcalá. If missionary work didn´t push you to your limits, then I don´t believe it would feel rewarding at all. We all have our own personal challenges that will push us to our limits and truly test us, but I can testify without doubt that buenas cosas vendrán.

Os Quiro,
Jason

Nothing Too Crazy This Week…

Elder Barney and I are doing great. We have a good relationship and we are getting a lot of work done.  Like I´ve mentioned, we teach a ton of less actives and not gonna lie, it gets to be very frustrating.  We have taught them all many many times and they still just don´t go to church! I see clearly now how important it is that we do the small things that matter most.  As we talk with these less actives and figure out the moment they stopped going to church, it always seems to be the same moment they stopped praying, reading and going to church meetings.  I firmly believe that if you do those 3 small things, you will always live worthily before God because with reading, praying, and going to church, you will find the desire to serve and be faithful!

I can´t say that anything too crazy has happened this week.  We´ve come in contact with tons of drunks, beggars, punk youth in the street that all just have it in for us for some reason.

This past week, we went to go teach a recent convert and she lives out in the country and its about a 35 minute drive.  We got there and taught the lesson and it was fine but the thing about Spain, Spain has about 4 hours where nothing happens, from 2-6pm it is just dead here.  We finished our lesson at 1:30 and went to catch the bus, but the buses weren´t running! AH! the last one left at 1 and the next one came at 6! So there we were, out in the desert, (see previous sent pictures to view the desert that we walked through) without a bus. So we walked. It took us about an hour and a forty-five minutes to walk back.  It was so hot and dusty, but we finally made it back!  We got home, drank some water and just died on our sofas.

But all in all, it was a good week and I am so grateful to be here in Alcalá and working with the people here.

Lots of Love,
Os Quiro,
Elder Jason Hunt

"Elder Hunt and the Allegory of the Olive Tree"

Some Things Never Change

For my week,

Alcalá is a pretty fun little town. It is very interesting.

The lord has blest me so abundantly on my mission.  Right when I got here, an old investigator showed up out of now where and wanted to take the lessons again.  We even set a baptismal date for him! the 13th of August!

Nothing too crazy happened for the week, I´m running short on time because we got back from visiting sevilla so late.  But what a cool city! We went to a cathedral and to the "Plaza de españa" where they filmed the naboo palace scene from star wars episode 1! way cool!

We work mostly with less actives here in alcalá because there are just a ton of them. We stay pretty busy with them. It is pretty frustrating because they just...I don´t even know, they are just inactive to be inactive. I just don´t get what their deal is.

here are some more pictures from alcalá
we had a reference for a pastor, a sheep guy, out in the middle of no where. It ended up being un-profitable. But it was cool to see the nothingness of sevilla.

I had a few things on my mind that I had to confess to the priest, ;p

The other day, some Jehovah´s witnesses knocked on our door, your should have seen their eyes when they saw us. It was great. They immediately tried to condemn us to hell and they just keep talking about how evil we were and that the scriptures say this and this and whatnot, and after they finished their little spiel, elder barney and I asked some questions, totally stumped them and they tried to give us a book on "how to understand the teachings of the bible" but they ended up taking a restoration pamphlet from us in the end.  I have truly come to realize the power of asking good questions.  We taught a lessons where we used almost only questions to teach and it was such a powerful lesson. Good questions are just great!

I have seen my self grow in so many ways since starting my mission. I can look back and see how much I have matured in responsibility and the way I present myself.  I have learned so much about the man I want to be.  But some things, well, some things will just never change ;p (when you see the picture you´ll get it..haha)

Well I love and miss you all and am so grateful for the letters!

Lots of Love and besitos,
Os quiro,
Jason