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