Life of a Missionary

So it's fine to spend my money? We are suppose to use our own money to travel, I think, so that would be a help since you also want me to see cool places. And yeah, I can check my balance here, in euros, but I can.

Answers to Questions
Service is kind of difficult here. We don't have a room to do classes of English, and Spain just isn't very serviceable anyway, but we are working with the Red Cross doing a variety of things. Pass out food, move stuff, actually that's it so far, but I will keep you posted.
The ward that I am in now is one of the biggest in Madrid. I think it is the 2nd or 3rd largest, so we have like 150-180 people. I spoke the first week here, which was a little funny because I spoke the week before just in a different ward. Usually the Elders don't speak.
My companion lived in the Canary Islands before coming here, so when they got passed to our mission, he had to change missions. I don't know if it will be at the end of this transfer, or the one that comes. And I have no idea if Junior companions get transferred more. I would probably bet we are the oldest mission in the world right now. I think 9 out of like 46 Elders have at least 13 months. There are only 5 Elders with less time in the mission than me. Also it's funny that I am with the youngest Elder in the mission. Apparently president trusts me or something, but why I don't know.

Anyway, last week was a little rough. I love it, because when everything just falls through, I get really "laughy" and then it's all good. For example, 6 lessons on Saturday fell through, so then we spent the day passing by other people, and either no one was home or was eating. The best part of the day, well one of them, is we went to pass by some members, as was already planned at 5, and they live right next it an investigator who told us he was in another pueblo. The members ended up not being able to meet and as we turn around we see our investigator walking to his piso with like 10 huge bottles of cervesa, aka beer. He didn't see us so we elected to not talk to him and call him later to make sure everything was alright. When we called he assured us that his niece's birthday party in the far away pueblo was really good but he couldn't talk because they were really busy. So yeah, the life of a missionary.

Other cool note is that since the President of the area of Europe came, we have been trying to use everything he taught us. One of those things is walking with our investigators by the hand to their baptism. So, I of course, love holding hands so I was down. Not...but really it's great. We made a reading, praying calender thing with our 16 year old Spanish investigator and now we send her daily texts reminding her to read. We also send a text to the 4 Romanians that live near, with a reading assignment, and the 4 always have different assignments. We always send a text with a scripture that we like within the assignment. It has made a noticeable difference. And it helps us to care more about them as people. But we are still learning and trying new ideas with this theme.

Anyway, Sunday... Went to the Pentecostal Church. Oh yeah. So good. More of a concert or performance, but it was cool. It was all in Romanian, so someone had to translate for us. But it was great, the Pastor said, "And we are going to pray now, together." And all of a sudden 600 Romanians start yelling at the same time. For like 6 minutes. And this happens like 4 times every service. It was quite interesting. Mostly performances and praying until the last 30 minutes, of 2 hours, and then some guy got up and preached. He actually gave a pretty good message from what I could hear through the constant "Amening" and him practically yelling. He talked about how we spend 2 to 3 hours in front of the TV every day and 4 to 5 hours on Facebook, but if we are asked to pray for 30 minutes, it is impossible. It's true. I don't think I had ever prayed for 30 minutes before coming on the mission. And it did seem impossible even though I am sure I spent a 5th of my day on the internet or TV or something like that. Anyway, going to send photos. No idea what order, but the baptism of Walter, the baptismal font, Pammy aka the cure for loneliness, the sign that got me, the family that now mostly has the gospel, and I think a cathedral or something.
Stay pretty.
(The photos wouldn't open so I don't have those to post.) : (