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

Symtoms

Hey guys it´s you're favorite missionary coming at you again from Spain! It´s been a really strange week honestly. We had the mission tour with Elder Soares as I said in last weeks update and it was great. On the way back to Valladolid, however, I started to get sick and then was bed-ridden for the day after. I thought the song Symptoms by Atlas Genius makes sense for this week. As a result, I feel like we didn't do much this week. Today marks two months since I left Corntown and flew to Madrid. Can´t stress enough how fast the time has gone by.

We had a few good lessons and had a lot of people show up to play basketball and futbol on Saturday which was great. We have some new investigators as a result. Can´t say too much more happened this week up until then.

That changed on Sunday though. Our investigator, Mikchael, has been having trouble accepting a baptismal date since he has some doubts about how strong he´ll be after he is baptized. Two of the other Elders´ investigators passed their baptismal interviews this last week and so their baptismal services were announced in sacrament meeting yesterday. This must´ve made Mikchael realize something. He nudged me and asked if I had something to write on. I opened my memos on my tablet, gave it to him and watched him type out "I want to bautizarme (to be baptized). is very coollll." He´s been trying to learn English, so that was pretty good for him. My companion and I tried to contain our elation since it was in the middle of church, but we were thrilled. We later discovered that he wants to be baptized THIS WEEKEND. Apparently its important to him to be baptized on the same day as the other Elders´ investigators. So we´ve got to get the zone leaders to come and interview him and teach him the rest of the stuff he needs to know by Saturday. It'll be a little crazy, but I think we can make it happen. We´ve got a lot going on this next week, and I´m ready to get to work and make things happen. 

I feel like my Spanish is becoming a little bit more natural, and I´m understanding a little better. The elders in my district keep telling me that my Spanish is the best they´ve heard for someone who's been out as long as I have. I´m reminded of a quote from The Office, when Michael Scott says, "Sometimes I start a sentence and I´m not really sure where it´s going, and I just hope it finds its way as I go along." Glad that I feel I´m finally improving :)

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT SPAIN AND SPANISH PEOPLE

Ok so I´ve realized a few things about Spain. People really like Burger King here. I´m not entirely sure what it is, but everyone is obsessed with it. Literally everyone and their dog has a dog too. And people always walk with their dogs through the city. I´m not complaining at all though. I love dogs and it makes for a great conversation starter when we contact. Everyone smokes here, which seems to be the case with all of Europe. Everywhere I go, I smell cigarette smoke and I´m really getting sick of it. Only 22 more months of it hahahaha. If I come back with lung cancer, you now know why. I´m starting to think that carpet doesn't exist in Spain. Everywhere you go has wood or tile floors of some sort. The last thing is I really can´t seem to find bagels anywhere. Its something I grew to love in the states and just figured that they'd have here. I never thought I´d miss them so much.

Anyways I really miss you all (more than I miss bagels) and hope you all have a brilliant week :)

Pictures, although I don´t have any new ones from this week (hopefully they actually send when I attach them this time):

1. Elders take the Santiago Bernabéu

2. Elder Penner with the 11 (!) European Championship trophies

Up & Up

Another week has flown by! I chose the song Up & Up off of Coldplay's newest album because that's the direction this week has gone in, and I can only see it getting better. I realized last week I may have made it sound like I was having a rougher time than I was. There were definitely some fantastic experiences to go along with the lows. This week was definitely better now that I've adjusted a bit.

We met with Mikchael a few times this week and he's expressed to us some doubts that he's having. He's afraid of failing after he is baptized. We're doing our best to assure him that it's nearly impossible with the way he's progressing. He's such a great person in every way. He just needs to realize that the only thing he's short on as far as becoming a member is baptism. We weren't able to set up many other lessons than the ones with him, so we're focusing on trying to find more people and setting up times with other investigators. Elder Kamimoto has taught me a lot, one of the most useful things being the best cereal here. He also cooks and says that I'll be lucky if I ever get another comp that likes to cook hahaha.

The reason I'm emailing today instead of Monday like normal is because we have what's called a mission tour this week. Elder Soares of the quorum of the 70 is speaking to us tomorrow so they had us come down a day early and spend our P day in Madrid.

We went to Real Madrid's stadium, the Santiago Bernabeu and went on the tour this morning. That was tremendous although I'm not the biggest fan of the club. Following that, we went to Sol which is the tourist center of Madrid and got Five Guys for lunch. Pretty sure it's the only one in Spain. It felt like home with the classic rock playing while we ate hahaha. It's been a pretty fantastic day and it's warmer here which is nice. We're finishing off the day with a temple session, which the elders in the north of Spain don't normally get to do. I realized this week that I've already been out for almost two months which is insane. I'm definitely gonna do my best to make the most of the time I'm here in Spain since it's obvious that it's not gonna last. Hope you all have a top tier week. Love you all <3

-Elder Penner

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