Winter Winds

Just when I though winter was gone and we started to get nice, sunny, 70 degree weather last week, it decided to return this week seemingly colder than before. It snowed a couple times this week for the first time since I've been in Spain. Thus, I thought the song Winter Winds by Mumford and sons seemed fitting for my subject line this week.

This week has been solid. We've mostly been focusing on finding new people to teach. We also met with Pablo (the guy I mentioned in my update last week that found us on the street and said he wanted to meet) last Monday. He had so many questions that we barely even got through half of the first lesson. We haven't been able to meet with him since. He works as an elementary teacher, so he doesn't have a lot of time to meet. We seemed to have trouble setting up lessons this week and when we did get them set up, they fell through. That's just the way it goes sometimes. People have far less free time here, especially on weekdays. Students need to study a lot more because the school system is so competitive with the economical crisis going on, and people with jobs work long hours. We did meet this guy named Jesus yesterday. He's from Colombia and we ran into him again today. When I asked him if he liked soccer, he proceeded to show me pictures of Radamel Falcao and James Rodriguez of the Colombia national team holding his daughter when she was smaller. We've got a lesson set up with him soon. I've got a good feeling about him.

We also went up to León and went on intercambios (exchanges, which is basically when we switch companions for a day) with the leaders of our zone. I got to spend the day with Elder Kiser and he's a top class lad for sure. It was interesting to see what another area was like. In their branch, they only have about 20 active members compared to our 60 in Valladolid. We had a lesson with this guy who we thought was an investigator, but when we started teaching him, we found out that he had actually been a member for 30 years hahahaha. Anyway it was a good experience in general.

Sorry if my update seemed a little lame this week, haven't had a ton of time for writing today. I'll be back next week better than ever  I promise. I love you all and hope each and every one of you have a great week :)

-Elder Penner

Just one picture this week (I really need to get better with that)

1. A member here with a snapchat air dropped this to me (ft. Elder Jones)

Something Good Can Work

Greetings from Spain! We're out here working hard as always and we've had a decent amount of success this week along with some interesting experiences. I've realized that it's always best to view our investigators as what they can become and work on helping them progress to that potential. That's a word that can mean a lot or a little depending on how much work we put in: potential. As the song by Two Door Cinema Club says, it's important to always see that something good can work. We had transfers the other day, but everyone in my district is staying so that means for sure another great 6 weeks.

We managed to meet with Luisa, the woman I mentioned that didn't know where the chapel was last week. She's a super nice Dominican lady that lives with her daughter, Sasha. Her daughter isn't a member and told us she was really religious either, but every time she left the room  during our visit, Luisa whispered to us that we had to meet with her to teach her hahaha. Luisa told us she would cook us some Dominican food next time we visit which sounded amazing the way she described it. Real excited for that.

A few days ago, we were contacting on the street and something a bit strange, but definitely cool happened. We tried to talk to this one lady who gave us the usual "I'm in a hurry" excuse and kept walking. Right after however, some guy we had never seen before said to us "yo les escucho" (I'll listen to you) before we could even try to talk to him. He told us he had met some missionaries about a year ago and he wanted to learn more, but they never called him (smh). We have a visit set up with him tonight and I can't wait to see how it goes.

We also had a lesson with one of our investigators, Kenis, this week. She's basically golden, but has just one problem. She works a lot, so we can't, meet with her often, and she can't go to church on Sunday's. We taught her about temples showed her a Mormon Message about a family who saved for a long time to be able to go to the temple. When it finished, she said that she really liked the part where it said "no sacrifice is too much" and expressed to us her desire to go to the temple someday. Unfortunately, she's leaving to visit the Dominican Republic at the end of the month and will be gone almost all of April. We'll have time to meet with her 1 or 2 more times before she leaves, but she says she's going to try and go to church while she's there and will be able to come to the one here when she gets back! I've got high hopes for her for sure.

THE SMELLS OF SPAIN

After being in the country for nearly 3 months now, I believe I have picked out the four most distinct smells in Spain. Easily the most frequent smell is cigarette smoke - no contest. The second noteworthy stench is diesel fuel. Most cars run on it opposed to unleaded here - quick side note, almost all European made cars that you don't see in the US are super ugly. Third is a certain cologne that I swear at least 80% of Spanish men wear. Not sure why it's so common, but I seem to smell it everywhere. The fourth thing is quite the opposite. The other 20% of men here just smell like straight BO, so it's always an unpleasant surprise when we get a whiff while walking around. I hope you got a little bit of an idea of what the air in Spain smells like from reading this. The more you know 💡

I love you all and hope you all have a top class week. You'll hear from me this time next week. 

-Elder Penner

Only have one picture this week. Sorry I'm lame and I gotta take more.

1. We went over to my man Edward's house and he made us this drink that's literally just orange juice, sugar, and milk. Very good imo.

Morning in America

Hello to all of my adoring fans. It's time for your favorite part of the week again 🤘 It's been a pretty solid week here in Valladolid. The work is moving along quite nicely I've gotta say. We've got a pretty good teaching pool now and we're working hard to help them progress and to find even more people. The time difference from here to the States is something I forget about sometimes. Spain is eight hours ahead of Brentwood so when it's late afternoon here, it's morning in America there, hence the song title in the subject by Jon Bellion.

We started teaching a guy from Brazil this week named Dani. He's a pretty solid guy and goes to a 7th Day Adventist church. It's been interesting to see what he believes as we teach him. He told us that if we went to his church on Saturday, he would come to ours on Sunday. It was actually pretty neat to go to another church's service. It's something I don't think I'd ever done before. Dani seemed intrigued by the Book of Mormon, so we committed him to reading it, and he's been doing so. It's just a matter of whether he gains a testimony of it now.

We also received a referral for a woman who has been a member for a couple years now. Apparently she's been living in Valladolid for like a year now, but hasn't been to church because she doesn't know where the chapel is hahaha. We've been trying to meet with her all week, but whenever she tells us a time to come over, she ends up not being home. She's a little elderly, so maybe she's just forgetful.

The other elders had another investigator baptized yesterday! His name is Jose and he's really just a top quality guy. He comes to the sports activities we hold on Saturdays and plays soccer with us. We just recently found out that he knows how to speak English. He actually claims he learned by playing video games and watching soccer hahaha. 

Think that about wraps it up for this week. I'll talk to you all again next week!

-Elder Penner 

Pictures:

1. How to make missionaries happy

2. José and us on his day of getting dunked

Man in the Mirror

Wow it's been a spectacular week and I can't wait to tell you all about it! We were able to get everything done in time for Mikchael Yadckson, so he was baptized this last Saturday! In light of this, I had to choose a song by the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson, who our investigator Mikchael is named after. I chose Man in the Mirror because he really had to take a look at himself and make a change as the song says. He willingly made so many changes in his life in order to be baptized. It's amazing to see how the gospel changes people.

I'm so incredibly grateful that I was able to be a part of a baptism so early in my mission. It's has given me so much motivation for the rest of it. I honestly didn't think I would have this much desire to share what I know to be true so early in my mission, especially with the language barrier, but I just have a great amount of desire. It's hard here, but there are definitely people to be taught and to baptize. We're in an area that is on fire right now, as far as Spain goes anyways. The other elders here already have another baptism scheduled for next weekend. I never thought I'd be as into this as I am honestly. There are few things that compare to the joy that comes from an investigator progressing towards their baptismal date or setting up a baptismal interview. I've really been trying to focus on everything good that's been happening and I'm starting to really love every minute I'm here.

That's about all I got for this week, I love you all and hope you have spectacular weeks wherever you may be!

-Elder Penner