Extreme Heat!

Like I said before, I´m in the pueblo(town) of Alcalá de Gaudaíra and here is my mail address again so you can send me stuff!

Calle Avena 7
41500 Alcalá de Guadaira (Sevilla)
España

But anyways,

On transfer day I got here and it was 113ºF. Whew.  But its only gotten hotter! Today it has been 118º and the people say that the heat is just getting started.  But on a happy note, our house is a real house! It is HUGE! we have a main level, a garage, a "backyard" an upper level, two bathrooms, and a roof that we can hang out on. But my favorite part is...AIR CONDITIONING! WOOHOO! oh its nice.  I don´t understand how anyone can live here. It is unnaturally hot.  They say last summer broke the all time heat record at 140ºF.  Isn´t that the lowest setting on an oven?

My new companion is Elder Barney from Boise, Idaho. He´s been out 7 months so we´re a pretty young companionship.

But enough of the heat! I got to meet the ward this past sunday and it is going to take a lot of work with them.  They´re a little interesting.  Also, they go through bishops like crazy because they all get offended by him or have some small issue. We have a binder with papers for about 50 less active members all because they had a disagreement with another member.  So most of the "Alcalá work" is bringing less actives back.  Today for Pday, since we have a huge house, a bunch of elders from our zone came and we had a 4th of July BBQ.  It was very fun. We also went bowling. I got a 145! I think my best game of bowling ever.

I am still getting used to the extreme heat here, I went from about 90F to 113F in one day.  But the other night I was a totally dehydrated and was completely trippin out.  When we were sleeping that night, I woke up felt my legs and noticed that I was wearing shorts.  I tripped out thinking we were at a members house for some reason.  It was pitch black (they have the reladins here) so I get up and start shouting for my companion. He was in the bed next to me and was like "what the heck is going on!?" and I shout " Where are we?!" (thinking we were in a members house) and he says "Spain!" and then I finally said "But were in our house in bed right?!" he reassured me that we were in our house and that it was bedtime.  I went back to sleep but in the morning I woke up again completely dazed and had now idea where the heck I was. It was pretty scary.  So I am drinking much more water now.

On this wonderful day of independence I reflect on what it means to be free and how grateful I am that I am American.  They aren´t free here like they are in the United States.  Sure they have laws for freedom of speech, religion, press and what not.  But Spain is enslaved by tobacco and pornogrophy.  There is a tobacco shop about every 50 feet with cigarette vending machines and just about every adveritsement for whatever type of product has a completely naked person on it.  Yes we do have our issues in the US, but not nearly as bad as it is here.  I am proud to be an American and I am so grateful for the Freedoms that we have because without them, the gospel of Jesus Christ couldn´t have been restaured back in the early 1800s.

Well not too much else is going on for me. It´s hot. We were working hard. The church is true.

I love you all and thank you so much for your love and support!

Os quiro
Jason