Simple Life

"Be it rain, or sun, or shine, or snow, it's the simple life I lived."

That's the attitude here on La Palma. Young Rising Sons seemed to describe it best. It's incredible to see how tranquilo the life of the people that live here is. It's not quite the same with us as missionaries though. We've still got work to do.

So a little about my new area: It's definitely a lot different than my last two areas. So we live in the city of Los Llanos on the west side of the island. There are roughly 20-25 members that attend church. My companion, Elder Jones, is the group leader here and I'm his counselor. I definitely didn't think I'd be conducting a sacrament meeting on my mission, but I did for the first time yesterday. The congregation used to be a branch, but there have been problems with the members in the past. A lot of our work here is focused on strengthening the members and running things. We're in charge of the young men and young women programs too since there isn't anyone else in the group that can do it at the moment.

The island itself is absolutely beautiful. It was formed by volcanoes, so there are a lot of black sand beaches. The climate is perfect. 70s every day. A nice change from the 100 degree heat in Toledo. Elder Jones and I are the only missionaries on the island, so we have to travel around to visit members quite a bit. We only see other missionaries like once every 6 weeks or so for zone conference. It's a good thing we've been getting along this first week. We still have some investigators that we're working with. A few that we're pretty excited about. It's been a fantastic first week here. I'll talk to you guys next week!

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner

Pictures:

1. El Puerto de Tazacorte - black sand beaches

2. East side of the island near Santa Cruz

3. David the legend

Outskirts of Paradise

I'm feeling a lot like the song by Bad Suns at the moment. Today is transfer day! I wasn't expecting to leave Toledo yet, but here I am. I'm currently waiting to get on a plane to go to my new area in the Canary Islands. I'll be serving in La Palma and my companion and I will be the only missionaries on the island. The area was opened fairly recently, so there's only a small group of members there. The Elders there act as the group leaders and run the meetings on Sunday, so that'll be different. I'm unbelievably excited to serve there. It's gonna be legendary.

There's great news about Toledo too. Our biggest problem the last few months that I've been there was getting to pueblos. It was near impossible to visit a lot of the people that wanted to meet because the bus schedules were so bad. The good news is that the hermanas that are going to be replacing us are going to have a car. It'll make things so much easier and I can really see the work taking off. I'm sad to leave, but I know things will only continue to improve.

I don't have a lot else to say today. I get to the islands late tonight. I'll be sure to write a big ol' update next week explaining all the good stuff about La Palma.

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner

Just one, whoops:

1. My good friend Elder Jones (not to be confused with his new companion, Elder Jones)

Golden Age

Hey everyone! Don't have a ton of time today, but there are some super cool things going on here. There have been some changes announced in the way that we'll be doing missionary work in the mission. With all of the changes it feels like we're headed into a golden age. For that, I picked the song by Zayde Wolf. We went to the temple this morning and then spent the day playing ball in Madrid, so that's why I'm emailing today instead of Monday. I'm bad at remembering to announce it the week before.

Ok so the huge news is that we found out that this last week, we were added to only 6 other missions in the world to be approved to use smartphones for proselyting. In addition to that, we'll also begin working online through Facebook and Instagram. We'll also be able to use WhatsApp which is a big game-changer since so many people use it instead of actual texting here. I'm really excited for all the different and new opportunities we'll have to teach and find using these new resources. THE HYPE IS REAL.

As far as the work goes here, it was a slower week. We didn't have too many lessons, but we did start teaching a couple from Cameroon. We got a call from them a few days ago and they asked us if we could pass by and tell them about the church. We quickly accepted. One of them, Andrew speaks English pretty well but his wife, Jemen only speaks a little English and mostly French. It was pretty weird teaching the first lesson in English I'm not gonna lie. I've grown so used to doing it in Spanish over the last 8 months (I hit 8 months a few days ago btw). Anyways, they're both pretty great and are gonna come to English class tomorrow and church on Sunday. 

We've had a bit of cooler weather lately so we've been enjoying that. We've been trying to ride a steady curve upward lately, which to be honest, is nearly impossible in missionary work, but we're doing our best. Hope you all enjoy this next week as much as I'm going to. You'll hear from me on Monday which is transfer day.

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner 🇪🇸

PICTURES:

1. BART or the Madrid Metro?

2 & 3. Views

4. Un león in all its glory

Moving Forward

Here we go again. Colony House's song, "Moving Forward" describes the week we've had pretty well. After getting next to nothing done last week due to Elder Ward being sick, we went into overdrive to get things going here this week. We're starting to see some fruits from our labors. We started working with two new people who are both great.

Mauro is doing stupendous as we found this week. He told us about experiences that he's had with the Book of Mormon. He believes it's true. The only thing he needs is to come to church more regularly which is hard with his work. We'll be hoping and praying that he manages to get Sunday mornings off. We started teaching the niece of the bishop who is visiting from Argentina. We're not entirely sure when she returns home, but we'll see what happens. One of the only downsides this week was that we were expecting to have 4 investigators at church on Sunday and only one actually showed up.

Over the time I've spent here in Spain, my companions and I have been mistaken for so many different people. This last week, someone walked up and asked us if we were real estate agents which inspired me to make a list of everything that people thought when they saw us:

- Real estate agents

- Employees at Zara (clothing store)

- Tour guides

- Tourists

- Jehovah's Witnesses (A LOT)

- Police officers

- Lawyers

- And many more

Spain is such a funny place. There are so many different cultures to experience here I love it. That's about it for now, guys. Vale, me voy. Buena semana a todos!

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner

PICTURES (it's about time, I know):

1. MTC squad at zone conference this week

2. I found a member from my old area at the temple ft. random other missionaries

3. Roman helmet swag in one of the sword shops here

Cough Syrup

Don't have a lot to report this week, guys. My companion got sick on Tuesday and didn't feel well enough to go out and work until Sunday morning. Due to that, I chose Cough Syrup by Young the Giant for my subject line. We needed some of that this last week. It's also a pump up song for me for this upcoming week. We sat down on Sunday night and planned the week out to try and make it as productive as possible since we've lost some time now. 

The good news is, we had two members bring friends to church yesterday, so we've got got lessons set up with them this next week. We definitely need some new people to teach since almost all of the people we're currently teaching don't have time to meet or are on vacation. I'm exciting for this next week. I'm sorry this update was kind of lame. I'll return in a week with a bunch of glory and exciting things I promise. Love you all!

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner 🇪🇸

Balconies

Hey everyone! I don't have a ton of time this week. We had some missionaries come down from Madrid so we spent the day running around the old part of the city with them going to museums and such. We checked out an old catapult and torture museum which was super cool. I'll try to keep this fairly brief.

I chose one of my favorite songs to listen to before I left for my subject this week. It's by Paper Route, and says in the chorus, "And for every wound, there's a hill to climb. Can we reach that height? Reach that height?" Sometimes the work can feel like a series of hills to climb, both physically and mentally/emotionally. Especially these last few weeks. We have had a lot of lessons fail us recently with potential investigators. The question at the end of those few lines of the song always comes to my mind through the harder times though. Can we reach that height? The work is almost always a matter of overcoming the personal struggles we have, brushing the dust off our shoulders, and moving on with hope. Although this last month or so we've had trouble getting the work going here, we'll just keep trying new things until we find something that works for us. 

We found out this past week that Fabricio moved to Arenjuez, which is actually my cousin's area, so we won't be teaching him anymore. It's nice to know that he'll be in good hands. We finally met with Mauro and got him on a baptismal date for the end of the month. It may be hard preparing him for it since he doesn't have much time with work, but we'll be pushing ourselves to make sure he can be ready. Other than that, we've just be in full on finding mode. Our plan for the next couple weeks is to try and visit some more pueblos. We'll see how it goes.

Well, that ended up being a little longer than I thought it would, so you're welcome for that hahaha. Despite the struggles we have, there's still no other place in the world I would rather be than in Spain. I love you all and I'll talk to you guys next week!

Hasta Luego,

Elder Penner 🇪🇸

Pictures:

1. Giant Roman battering ram from the catapult museum. (I named him Phil)

2. Torture chair🤙

The rest are on my camera which is dead. I am bad sorry.

Maybe IDK

Another week come and gone, and another weekly update to write. I went for a song by Jon Bellion this week. Something that has always been a little hard for me is just to accept that there are some things that I just don't know. I don't always know the Lord's will or what he has planned for me, but one thing I've learned on the mission, is that often times it doesn't really matter. Bellion says, "Maybe I don't know, maybe I don't know, but maybe that's ok." Often times we just need to be able to trust that what comes next is exactly what we need, whether it be a trial or a lifeline. I've learned to be confident in that in the time that I've spent here.

Work wise, we've had a lot of signs of beginnings. Our increased efforts of working with the members here are in the process of starting to pay off. We've received a few references the last couple weeks. Although none of them have led to anything more than just one lesson, the intent from the members is there and that's what really matters. Another thing that we realized is that there are a ton of people that are contacts in our phone who we have no idea who they are. We started calling a them all up and have got a few visits set up for this coming week. We've still been doing a lot of finding on our own. Knocking doors, talking to the few people that are actually outside during the day, just grinding overall. We had a few visits with less active members this week, but haven't been able to meet with our investigators that have a lot of potential. People here work so much, so it can be difficult. It is what it is though, we press on.

Fun Toledo info: So our building that we live in is located at the very top of a hill here. Elder Ward and I have pretty appropriately named the hill "At the end of a long day." We're planning on starting to run up and down it for exercises in the morning and I already regret the decision hahaha. Another fun side note, I made a list of countries from which I have met people here, and I'll be adding to it for the rest of my mission. I'm up to 47 already which is even more than I thought it would be. 

That's all I've got for this week. Love you all. Sorry I don't have pictures again this week. I'll do my best to remember to take a few this week. ¡Que tengáis una buena semana!

Hasta luego,

Elder Penner 🇪🇸