Letter #41 Ten Months

 Had a great week this week. Elder Cordova and I are getting along great and working hard. We call each other the white boy and the brown kid.  We are going to have another baptism this week! I am so excited :) He is a guy from Colombia, which is where Jace served.  He has been taught since last April. We have been trying so hard to get this guy to come to church to help him progress and finally he came.   We actually got him to give us ride there :) Usually it takes about an hour to get to church by Metro but in his car it took literally 10 minutes. He is a quick driver, haha. His baptism will be this Friday and he might be the first person that I baptize, if he wants me to! 

My companion and I are great friends with some great families in the ward. They are inviting us over now without us asking them :) There has been some people that have been adding me on facebook here so make sure to add them.

This week went pretty well. It was the first week of the transfer and it was nice to get another fresh start. We do not have very many investigators and now since our main one is getting baptized we are going to be on a serious search for some new people to teach. 

It is so cool to hear that Jace is back from his mission and to hear that he enjoyed his mission. I am learning so much here and I can´t wait to see how much knowledge I can take home with me when it is my time. 

The weather here is awesome.  It has been spring since the new year. I told my companion that this city is a metropolis that controls their weather. As soon as they put out some planter plots with palm trees the weather turns to spring! It has been fun to see the seasons change while I've lived here. 

My debit card is now activated and I withdrew 50€ last week. My package is now in the mission office and now I am just waiting from the office elders to bring it down to my chapel! It has been a good wait and I am excited to get it! 

Well on to another week of work! I have been trying hard to improve on my Spanish. I feel like a lot of people can't understand me lately so I am studying harder on pronunciation and listening closer to people.  Also, I have been studing a lot in Preach My Gospel and it has been really good. I am on page 6 so far in ´My Purpose.´

Love you all so much!   

Love Elder Miles

Letter #40

It was so good to see you on Christmas with skype! I am  still on that high. I am so glad that you were all able to have such a good time together in California with the Truemans. It reminded me of the good old times and I can´t wait to head back over to those neck of the woods sometime. It is really cool that everything seemed to just work out when you decided to take off for a weekend. It just goes to show that Heavenly Father is mindful of your desires, He provided. 

Here goes my week.

Monday: I went to Toledo and had an awesome time there just seeing the sights and stealing away a little bit away from my area. Later when I got home Elder Cordova and I had two really good lessons right in a row. We had a member with us for both of them which was super good.

Tuesday: Someone called us the night before and told us that someone gave us a package and it was waiting in the church. It wasn´t our packages from home and no I have not gotten it yet, but we went and grabbed it Tuesday morning and it was full of Spanish sweets :) Somebody, we don´t know who, really spoiled us with chocolates and chorizo, and other Spanish dulces :) We felt like kings! Later that day we somehow had 3 meals to go to with member! The first meal was with a Spanish Family, the first counselor, the second was with a less active member from Peru, and the last meal was with our Argentinian family. I was filled to the brim with food. After having a rough and trying December we were blessed so much that we could literally not receive anymore. We had to take the last meal home with us so we could eat it later :) 

Wednesday: My last district meeting as district leader... It went well and afterwards we all went out to eat together as a district :) 

Thursday: I did another Baptismal interview for Hermana Palomino and Gauna. His name is Jorge and is from Peru and he was very prepared. It was so cool to interview him because every question I asked him he basically answered with his testimony. I love giving interviews because it shows the end result of somebody that is ready to get baptized. 

Friday: We had a busy morning planned and we had a member with us to go to a bunch of lessons but all of our plans fell through... It was kind of disappointing but it went by quick. That evening Jorge was baptized. It went really well and he was so excited! 

Saturday: We left the piso that morning without our umbrellas, first mistake. We ran over to see a less active member and then we went over to the other side of town to knock some doors because it was getting cold and we wanted to get out of the ugly weather. Pretty soon it starting raining really hard. We decided to call an investigator. (A guy who invited us to his church but we ended up not being able to go) Luckily he let us come over! We ran over as quick as we could in the now pouring rain and by the time we got over there we were soaked! It was fun though and I had a smile on my face. The lesson we had was intense because we were using a lot of scriptures to help him understand the Book of Mormon but he was very close minded.  We decided that he is not ready to take the lessons. It seems bad to do but he will be ready in a later time in his life with different missionaries. 

That night was also transfer calls!!! I am staying here in Arganda with Elder Cordova but now I am not District Leader... I am happy that I am staying the same this trasfer :) I am kind of sad that I am no longer DL though. It was fun but at the same time I have a bit weight taken off my shoulders.

Sunday: Church went really well. Jorge was confirmed. I feel so comfortable in the 8th ward here. I am friends with members and it is fun to say hi to familiar faces. Later that night we had a family home evening with our awesome Peruvian member family. We taught a lesson and had dessert and played pictionary. 

All in all it was a fun week. Happy new year! Love you so much mom and I hope that you have great week. 

Love, elder Miles

Letter #39 Merry Christmas!

The Christmas season in the mission field has been good. It has been different but I have enjoyed it. It definitly doesn´t feel like the christmas that I am used to at home but I have had fun. 

MONDAY: All the missionaries in Madrid sang a big Christmas concert for everyone here. There was about 150 missionaries and there was a nice program and refreshments and everything. It took place at the church and it was filled all the way to the back of the overflow! It was a great experience. We learned some fun songs in Spanish, such as Los Peces en el Río.

TUESDAY: My whole district came out to Arganda del Rey (my area) and we contacted todo el mundo! We were all there for a good hour and a half and it went really well. It was cool to have so many missionaries in one little area. Afterwards we all went to eat pizza at a little pizza place. 

WEDNESDAY: I got to go to the Temple in the morning which went great. I love being able to go there on my mission. I feel so close to our Hevenly Father there. I also had a zone meeting and then later I went to Cuenca to do intercambios (exchanges) I was with an Elder that is from a small town outside of Rome Italy! It was so cool to be able to get know him and his culture a little bit. It is amazing how we can both speak Spanish together even though I speak English and he speaks Italian. 

THURSDAY: We had a miracle baptism! A girl named Ana that has been going to church for the past 3 years with her boyfriend and their family decided to get baptized this past week. We did all we could to teach her all the lessons so she coud get baptized. Right after I came back from Cuenca I went to the church and filled up the font and she was baptized Thursday night. It was so amazing :)

FRIDAY: One of our member families that we visit gave birth this week and we went over to see how she was doing. We went over and she had dinner prepared for us! Just 3 days after having a baby and she was up and adam cooking us food! They are an awesome family. 

SATURDAY: I did an intercambio with an elder from Finland. We get along very well, his name is Elder Helske! 

SUNDAY: Ana was confirmed and I was able to stand in the confirmation circle! That was an awesome experience as well. Ana is from Romania and super nice. She is only 19.

MONDAY: I did a district meeting and it went really well. I gave a blessing to an Hermana that needed comfort. It was the most spiritual blessing that I have ever given. It felt so inspired and by the end of it, all of us were in tears... my companion, her who I gave the blessing, her companion and me. Right after that I did a baptismal interview of a man that is going to be baptized this evening! He is a Spaniard named Jose and he is an invetigator of the other elders in my district. 

TUESDAY: All the missionaries had a dinner at a families house. We all ate a delicious Peruvian meal. Later that night we had a devotional for missionaries only. President spoke to us and everyone got their packages. I'm sure I'll get mine soon. 

Wednesday: Merry Christmas! 

That was a very busy week full of fun, stress, excitement, the spirit. I hope everyone else had a great Christmas. 

Love you all.

Elder Miles