Welcome To Your Life

Wow it actually seems like it's been forever since I last had a P-Day. They actually give me an adequate amount of time to email now that I'm out in the field so I don't have to rush anymore. This past week and a half has been crazy honestly. The song "Welcome to your Life" by Grouplove seemed to fit pretty well. 

Alright I'll start with my last few days in the MTC. For my last p-day there, we went to downtown Madrid which was super cool. We got to check out the stores and the city square. The following Saturday we went to the park to talk to people as usual, but this time I got to go with my MTC companion, Elder Ward, rather than being assigned someone else in the MTC like each Saturday before. It was definitely the best time I've had in the park. We had good conversations with 5 or 6 people lasting roughly 15 min each. Some in English, some in broken Spanish. On Sunday, I finally got to meet and be interviewed by my mission president, President Pack. He seems like a top quality guy. Monday was in-field training day so we just had a bunch of classes about what the mission field was gonna be like.

On Tuesday, we went our seperate ways according to which mission we were going to. Pres and Sister Pack brought all the new missionaries to a hill that overlooks the city of Madrid and we had a little devotional there. It was super cool. After that we went back to the Stake Center at the temple grounds and met our new companions. My companion is Elder Kamimoto. He's a pretty cool guy and knows quite a bit about music, so we talk about that quite a bit. He's from Las Vegas and has been out for a year and a half now. I've already learned a ton from him. Hermana Penner (my cousin serving here) actually knows him fairly well and told him that he was gonna train me. Turns out she was right hahaha. After I met him, we jumped on a train and went to our assigned area: Valladolid.

Valladolid is a really cool city with some really awesome looking architecture. It apparently used to be the capital of Spain, so that explains a little why there's so many cool buildings and such. We're serving in the Valladolid branch with one other companionship. Elder Peroni, my good friend in the MTC is in the same area as me, so I get to see him a lot. 

We've already taught a few lessons to investigators in the area. We're teaching a guy from Colombia whose name is Mikhael Yadkson (Pronounced Michael Jackson). He's a really cool guy and we've got a baptismal date set for him at the end of this month. We're also teaching a man named Carlos, who isn't quite as firm, but he's been really trying to find out if the Book of Mormon is true. 

The mission field is really different than what I thought it would be to be quite honest. It's been really humbling for me, to say the least. I feel like I've already experienced so much just in this first week. I can already cross off several things that I've experienced. I've been spit at, laughed at, had some great meal appointments and some not so great. We teach English classes every Wednesday and Friday and I enjoy them quite a bit. I'm getting to know the people there pretty well. On Sunday, the branch president had me go up and bear my testimony in broken Spanish, but everyone said I did a good job. Not entirely sure if I believe them.

I think that covers most of what I wanted to say. My P-day won't be until Tuesday next week since we're going to Madrid for a zone conference, but after that, it'll be on Monday every week. I love you all hasta luego <3

-Elder Penner

Elder Penner Has Arrived!

Dear Penner Family,

We had the great pleasure of welcoming your son to the Spain Madrid Mission.  We spent the day together at the mission home where he received training and orientation on his missionary assignment.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time together and felt a wonderful spirit present.  We appreciate all that you have done to prepare your son to serve the Lord and for the sacrifice you are making in giving him to the Lord for a time. 

Elder Penner has been assigned to labor in Valladolid with Elder Kamimoto.

We thought you might enjoy these pictures that we took in the backyard during our lunch break.  May the Lord bless you and your family in all of your endeavors.

With love,

President and Hermana Pack

Move

The song Move by Saint Motel seems to sum up my week pretty well. It´s been pretty frantic yet again. As crazy as it´s been here, I love it more and more as the weeks go by.

Last Thursday we went to Alcala de Henares which is a cool city on the outskirts of Madrid. The architecture there was super cool. We got to see the author of Don Quijote, Cervantes´, house so that was pretty neat. We also checked out one of the universities in the area too. I´ve decided that probably 95% of the really cool looking buildings here in Madrid are either churches or universities. We got some churros afterwards and they were superb. Not much like the ones in the states, but they´re certainly delicious.

I feel like my Spanish is improving but we´re learning weird verb tenses that we use without realize the difference in English like imperfect and subjunctive so it´s gonna take me a while to figure what they´re all about. I talked to a Spaniard at the park for quite a while last Saturday and I thought I understood at least half of what he was saying. I´m still a long ways off being fluent, but I feel like I´m finally progressing a little more than I have been.

I´ve only got 4 more days here so I´m really trying to make the most of them. I´ll talk to you all next week!

-Elder Penner

Pictures:

1. Got a pic with my man Don Quijote

2. Street in Alcalá

Sure and Certain

HELLO FRIENDS. I was right last week. It feels like I just sent out the last weekly update like 2 days ago. Tomorrow marks a month since the day I left Brentwood. That´s crazy to think. We´re watching a broadcast that changes some stuff about the daily schedule later that everyone else has already seen so I´m pumped for that. 

It´s been more of the same here this last week with not a whole lot of exciting things happening. I chose the song by Jimmy Eat World because I can always count on the schedule looking almost the exact same every day. To be honest it´s getting a little old and I really can´t wait to get out in the mission field. Before I left my twitter bio read "Underprepared and overconfident" and I don´t think that´s ever applied more in my life than it does now. I´m gonna go out and talk to people in terrible Spanish and just hope they understand me. It´s gonna be great hahaha.

One of my favorite teachers here came back this week, Hemano Grilo. He´s the sickest guy ever. He was invited to play for Benfica (professional soccer team in Portugal) a few years back, but he turned it down so he could serve a mission. He hasn´t played soccer on a team for like 3 years now, but he´s still insanely good. Like one of the best I´ve ever played with. I can´t imagine what he was like 3 years ago.

We went to the mall last week for P-Day and it mostly consisted of my companion and I running around trying to find things that we had little or no hope of finding. We did manage to find a Taco Bell though. I was pretty disappointed with the quality of my quesarito. Taco Bell in the states is definitely a hundred times better.

I don´t have any pictures this week, but I got to see my cousin that´s serving in the field in Madrid yesterday during sports time. She´ll probably have a picture to send in her next update so stay tuned for that. Well, that´s all I got for this week. I´ll talk to you all in another 7 days!

-Elder Penner

P.S. I apologize if there are typos in my updates, but I really don´t have time to go back and proofread so sorry :)

Roller Coaster

Wow I can barely believe it´s already been another week. Much like the song by Bleachers, it´s been a real rollercoaster. The longer I´m here in the CCM, the faster time seems to move. I keep hearing that the mission field is even better so I´m glad that time is moving so fast now.

It was another week full of Spanish classes and such. It´s a little insane how much they expect us to try and learn on our own, but I´ve been keeping up fairly well so far. Learning foreign languages is hard folks, but don´t get me wrong, I know it´s gonna be worth it. A ton of people here speak like 3 or 4 different languages. I really don´t know how they do it. I think I´m just gonna be content with Spanish once I actually get the hang of it.

The art museum we went to last week was pretty cool, but if you know me, I get bored really fast in those kinds of things. I´m the guy who took a nap inside the Louvre instead of looking at all the art when I went to France a year and a half ago. To be fair, I was jetlagged pretty bad though. It was great to finally get out and see more of the City though since the CCM is in the suburbs. I seriously love Europe so much I can´t tell you how glad I am to be here.

I think something changed with the church´s policy on tablets in Salt Lake so we can use them in the CCM now! It honestly doesn´t change a whole lot though since we still can´t use them for anything besides like mormon messages for lessons. Still can´t take pictures here except for outside on P-Day. I´ll try to get a picture of where we play soccer sometime this week.

The Portuguese Elders and sister went off to Portugal at the beginning of this week so that means we got a whole bunch of new missionaries on Tuesday. They´re all foreigners that don´t speak much English. Mostly Spanish speakers so I hope that will help all of the Americans here with learning the language.

I think that´s about all I´ve got for this week. If time keeps moving at this rate, then I´ll be here again emailing in what feels like two days and I´ll be home in a few months. Hasta Luego!

-Elder Penner

Pictures: 

1. With the Portuguese-speaking Elders and Sister

2. Some cool street in Madrid (Have no idea what it actaully is tbh

Hurry, Hurry

It´s been a pretty frantic week. I chose the song Hurry, Hurry by Air Traffic Controller this week becuase it kinda describes what life in the CCM (MTC) is like. Running around trying to get everything done is hard when you´re one of the most forgetful people on the planet. If there was a Spanish version of the song then it would be perfect. This hour of emailing they give me each week might just be the most stressful part of being here.

This week wasn´t super eventful to be honest. It was mostly just Spanish classes and workshops along with trying to teach a teacher acting as an investigator the lessons in broken Spanish. Lucky for me, my companion and I seem to be a bit better off as far as the language goes compared to other missionaries.

My birthday was this last Sunday and I honestly didn´t even realize it until like 3 hours after I had woken up because I´m so focused on all the stuff we have going on here. I gave a talk in our little sacrament meeting and a couple teachers gave me candy bars and such. We had a small party in the dorm with my roommates with the party supplies my parents sent (shoutout to them for that hahaha). At lunch, one of the sisters saw a few members from the cast of Studio C (A show with Mormon SNL skits like Scott Sterling for all you non-Mormon recipients) taking pictures in front of the temple. A bunch of other elders and I ran down and chatted with them for a bit and got a picture with them.

Yesterday Elder Farmer thought it was a good idea to give other missionaries haircuts. He started with Elder Ricks and it turned out pretty well to be fair, But Elder Malone was a different story. The battery powered clippers started to die in the middle of his haircut. By the time they completely died, his hair looked atrocious. He still managed to clean it up fairly nicely for what it was before. Needless to say, I think I´m just gonna have one of the teachers cut my hair when it´s time.

It´s the Portuguese-speaking Elders last week here at the CCM so they came in and we exchanged ties yesterday. I got a few pretty good ones. I´m really gonna miss those guys. They´re all hilarious even if I can´t tell what they´re saying most of the time, and playing soccer with them is the most fun I´ve had playing the game in a long time.

´We´re going to an art museum later today so it´ll be our first time going into the actual city of Madrid since the CCM is in the suburbs. Can´t wait for that.

Hope all is well back in the States! Until next week,

-Elder Penner

I took some pictures this week so here are a few:

1. View of the Madrid temple from the stairwell of the CCM

2. With part of the cast from Studio C

3. The Elders in my district

4. My companion, Elder Ward and I

Kids Aren't Safe In the Metro

Hello everyone! It´s been a crazy week and I´m super pumped to tell you guys everything about it.

I decided to adopt my older brother´s tradition of making song titles the subject of my weekly updates because it´s brilliant and I can´t actually listen to the songs here so it´s the next best thing. This week I chose the song by Satellite Stories because of the events that transpired on the metro that I´ll get to later in this email.

This week has been the slowest week but also the fastest week of my life. The few hours between meals studying Spanish and other things here in the MTC feel like entire days. It´s exhausting but looking back, I feel like it´s crazy that it´s already been a week. I hope that makes sense hahaha. We´ve been learning basics and stuff in Spanish this week and my companion Elder Ward and I have already taught several practice lessons in Spanish. It´s a little frustrating knowing what I want to say during lessons, but not being able to put it into Spanish. But that´s the reason I´m here so I can´t complain too much. After all, I´ve only been here a week.

The first couple of days here were a bit rough since my luggage got delayed in Paris. The MTC president had to lend me some clothes that had been left here by previous missionaries so it wasn´t too bad. Once my bags finally got here a day and a half after, I didn´t really get the chance to unpack so I´ve just been unpacking a little bit at a time whenever I get some freetime which is rare.

My favorite part of the day is probably sports time. I´ve played soccer every time because, well, what else would I possibly want to do with my time? Whenever my district gets paired up with the Portuguese speaking district I know it´ll be a great time. Some of the Elders from Brazil are so increadibly good. Elder Burt (one of the elders in my district) and I are the only Americans that actually play soccer here, but almost all the elders and some of the sisters play every day. There are two court-like fields here close to the MTC that they have nicknames for: The Pit, and The Cage. To me, they sound more like torture chambers than places where you go to play soccer. Playing soccer in Europe is unlike anything in America. Sometimes there will be Spaniards there that we play with as well.

Each Saturday, all the missionaries go to the park and try to find people to teach or make contacts. We all got bundled up this Saturday and got right to it. May I just say: Missionary work is hard. It´s even harder when you barely speak the native language. I know it was my first real experience and all but it made me realize just how discouraging it can be. My temporary park companion (we get a different one each week) and I managed to talk to a few people using mostly English. On the way back to the MTC on the metro, we were proselyting on the train. When we got off at the stop for the MTC, we looked back and as the doors were closing saw two elders that were still on the train (told you I´d explain the subject). They ended up getting back to the MTC okay so no harm done, but we´ve been poking fun at them for the last couples days for it.

Well I love you all and I hope your guys´ weeks have been even half as good as mine has!

- Elder Penner

Each Sunday the missionaries at the Madrid CCM sing on the temple steps, I was able to get a video of this.  Cameron is in the middle row, in the middle.  There is a picture below that is clearer.