Elder Penner Spain Madrid Mission: We're Only Getting Closer

"I pray the best is yet to come," as part of the song by Everyone Moves Away goes. And it surely is. We've been working really hard trying to get the work moving quicker here in B1 and it's starting to pay off. We're only getting closer to seeing a lot of success throughout our district. This week has been really exciting with zone conference, intercambios, and more progress made with investigators.

Yocasta is still progressing exceptionally well. We really think she'll be ready for her baptismal date next month. She sometimes has some kind of odd questions that don't matter too much. It's kind of funny actually. She mentioned a week ago that brownies were her favorite American dessert so I attempted to make some. They turned out pretty ok for not having anything to measure with lol. We also met with Jose again and taught him the Plan of Salvation. It went really well and I think he understands the things he needs to do to progress better now. He still hasn't come to church, so we'll keep working on that.

On Thursday, I went on intercambios (exchanges) with Elder Knapp. He's from Kansas and is a super funny guy. He was also my trainer, Elder Kamimoto's last companion before he went home. It was a blast and we taught two lessons that were really cool. The first was with an Egyptian guy who Elder Parkinson and I found that they're now teaching. His name is Ayman and he prefers English over Spanish, so we taught in English. I think it was the first time I've taught in English in the mission field. Let me just say, it was weird as heck. He's also Muslim and doesn't have a Christian background which made teaching him even more interesting. The lesson ended up going really well despite my uncomfort with teaching in English hahaha.

The lesson made me realize that I feel like another person when I speak in Spanish. My personality is a bit different and I feel like I'm more spiritual than when I speak in English. We had a lesson later that night with an older man, who is a Catholic priest. It was a really cool eperience and he has super pure intentions. We shared the Restoration, and at the end, he offered a super sincere prayer asking to know if it was true.

Honestly, in these last few months I feel like I've been changing more than ever before here in the best kind of way. One thing that the mission has helped me with is perspective. Seeing all these differences in peoples' lives and where they come from has helped me learn a lot. We're on a bus headed to Segovia to see a castle and some old Roman aqueducts amongst other cool old things (Spain seems to specialize in that). I'll see if I can attach some pictures later on today, but that's all I've got for now. Hope you all have a great week! Love you guys!

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner

Fotos:

1. Elder Knapp :)