Letter #63

Hola! que hay? 

I loved the pictures!!! I was missing the ocean myself but today we got to see it. I will mention that in a second. I am really jealous that you guys went down to San Diego! I still haven't been there yet. That will be a fun place to go to. Everyone is looking great! 

This week went well. We have started to knock more doors. I have always like knocking doors because it gets me to talk to more people. It has always been harder for me(siempre me habia costado) to contact in the street. We have met some pretty cool people and some with some potencial. It also allows us to go to different parts of town where we usually don't go because there aren't people on the street. We are usually in the downtown part of town by all the shopping and stuff, but this week we were able to be in the more old town area with the cool old buildings. It is really refreshing to see new views and switch things up. We met a guy named Casimiro, cool name, it meens, Almost look haha. We followed up on him after recieving his number a couple days later. We knocked his door but he wasnt there but then he ended up showing up and then letting us in and we taught him the Restauracion! He is Gallegan encima! Really cool little miracle for me to see. Hopefully we can teach him this week. 

Santi is no longer in Santiago.. He moved down to Segovia to buscarle la vida, find a job and home and such. I was able to pass the reference down to Elder Weixler, it was good to talk to him for a bit. 

Today I had the coolest pday in the mission! We went with our Branch mission leader to Finisterra! We drove along the coast in his little read Audi for about 2 hours and then reached the End of the World! Back in the days of Colombus it was considered that because it is the farthest west point in Europa! It was beautiful driving there and back! If it be possible I would want to take you, Mom and Dad there. It is kind of out of the way but it would be fun to take a bus out there or drive there or something. Reminded me a little bit of California, it is the west coast, just of Spain :) Pictures will be coming probably next week, I don have much time today. 

The Branch is doing well. Presidente Bolter is doing a good job of trying to get the brach excited to work with us. It has been tough to have set lessons to have members to come to but we will figure it out. 

I love you all and hope that you all have a great week! I am really glad that you could all take a breather down in that Californian ocean air :) 

Elder Jayden

Letter #62

Cathedral  under renovation

 This week went really well. Although, it was kind of a tough one on the streets.  We did not find as many people that were willing to listen to us this week but that is okay. I have been learning to trust in the Lord´s timing in all things.

Conference was great! I was able to watch it with members and an investigator for one of the sessions. I love how straight forward they all were in telling us the things that we need to do! There was not much gray space. It is either right or wrong these days. I watched it all in spanish which was good. I missed hearing their real voices but it was great to hear it in spanish. 

District Elders

Cool Experience... So last year when I was in A Coruña I was with Elder Barragán and one night we found a man that was drunk out of his mind. He could hardly walk so we helped him back to where he told us he lived. We got his name out of him, which was Santi, like Santiago. We left him with a card with our number on it and that was the end of that. This week a man called our attention and told us that he had been meeting with the missionaries down in the south of Spain and wanted to have more charlas from the missionaries here in Santiago! He was going to get baptized there but he moved. We met with him that night and we invited him to follow Christ and be baptized. He expressed to us that he really wanted to make changes in his life and stop drinking and be a better person. That guy was Santi from a year ago! I read back in my journal and was able to confirm it. It is so amazing to me to see how the Lord works! Miracles happen!

I am doing well. I am having fun, working hard, and learning to trust more and more in the Lord. Love you all and hope that you all have a great week! 

Elder Jayden Miles

Letter #61

Q: Favorite Area:

A: My favorite area has probably been this one. It is beautiful and it is fun being getting to know that cultures of so many people and also traveling around our area.  

Q:  My favorite companion:

A: So far, probably Elder Harrop even though we were only comps for a transfer but we shared the same bathroom for 6 months haha. We always had fun just talking and singing and stuff, good guy. 

Q: What bothers you about Spain: 

A: I feel like there is no authority here and you can pretty much get away with anything, I don´t know what cops really do here other than pick up illigal immigrants hahah. Q: Most spiritual moment:

A: I can´t think of a specific one, but I love seeing the changes that people make in order to follow Christ. 

Q:The hardest part of my mission:

A: Has been realizing how much I have needed to change and then actually doing it. I have been humbled many times and have learned many times from my mistakes. But I guess that is probably what is going to help me the most. 

Q: What bothers you about the mission:

A: I hate when people tell us that they are going to meet us and then totally flake on us.. Super annoying!!

This week we saw some miracles. Small miracles more than anything but they were definitely blessings. First of all we were able to set two baptismal fechas for the 25th of October. It is going to take some serious faith and prayer for the investigators to be prepared for that date but I think they will be ready if they do their part. We are trying to do better with exact obedience. I think the fact that we are the older ones out in the mission got to our head and that we figured out what rules were of less importance, like getting to breakfast exactly at 8:30. But we are doing a lot better this week and we have been seeing little tender mercies such as running into investigators that we have not been able to get a hold of or meeting really cool people that have potential. Nothing too big but it has made a difference in the work for sure. 

We getting really tight with Pam's brother´s Restaurant and their employees there. We have not taught any of them but we walk by there every day probably 10 times a day and wave "hi" to them. So you know, you could say that we are pretty tight. We can walk in and chat with them anytime if we want. 

Church went well. We did not have any investigators there but hopefully we will next week for General Conference! I am really excited for conference next week! I have been getting by studying the Ensigns and and now it is time for a bunch of talks to learn from and study! Elder Eskelson just reminded me that this will also be the last conference that I will have out here in the field... weird. 

I splurged a bit and bought peanut butter for a nice price of 4€.. It is so good. That is probably one thing that I have really missed that is out here that I never buy becuase it is pricy. 

I am doing well health wise, no problems. Now on to week 3 of the transfer. Love you all and hope that you have a great week! 

Elder Jayden Miles

Letter #60

This week. Monday through Wednesday went farely well. We found a new guy named Carlos who met with the missionaries in Madrid 3 years ago and now we are teaching him. We met him outside of a clinic where he works and we were able to walk down to a bar where a member works to teach the lesson. He could have lots of potential if he has time for us. He has a pretty wack schedule with working from 9pm to 9am and he lives in another pueblo not too far. He is a guy from Bolivia, nice guy. 

Wednesday we had a district meeting. There are two newby's in our district. It is fun to see them. It was really weird when they asked me how much time I had out. "umm about a year and a half.." What the heck? I mean 5 months! I was able to tell one of the new Elders that he was going to enjoy A Coruña because I started there!  For District meeting I was incharge of doing a practice. I had everybody think of a personal need to progress in the Gospel.  Then I had them apply that time of meditation to thinking about how each of our investigators each have their own individual needs as well.  We need to remember that everyone is different and each persons needs are too.  

Afterwards, I went up to el Ferrol for an intercambio. I like going up there. We ate with a family that I met a year ago there and they recognized me and I could communicate with them :) They are Cubans and really hard to understand but I did pretty well with talking with them..

I came back to Santiago with a rain storm and being sick. I haven't had a voice for the past 3 or 4 days. Elder Eskelson was sick the day I came back as well so we rested for a while on Thursday. It has been tough trying to re-cooperate and try to at least get some lessons in at the same time. Elder Eskelson has to do the talking and I tell us where to go to contact haha. I have been making a lot of hot chocolate and herbal tea and stuff. I hope I am better by tonight for a hard working week this week!!! 

For Pday today we just relaxed and cleaned up the piso. It needed some care badly! Our sink is no longer clogged and I don´t have to wear sandles in the shower anymore ;) haha 

Pam is doing well. I didn´t get to see her this week because I was in Ferrol but it sounds like she recognizes the spirit when we are there. He family is awesome. I really want to see them in church soon! 

Josh and I are doing well keeping in touch with each other. Sounds like you had two sick boys this last week, hopefully not another. 

Have a great week this week! I know the Lord is always mindful of us and knows the best for us. Sometimes it is hard to trust in His will because we do not understand everything, but He does. 

Love,

Elder Jayden Miles

#59 Santiago, Espana

Well to start off, Elder Eskelson are together again for this transfer. We were both prepared for him to be taking off but now we are excited to be working together again. We work well together and have a lot to do this transfer and are excited to get work done here! I feel like this past transfer kind of molded me and now it is time for me to mold the area a little bit. 

I am glad to hear that the family is doing well! Dad I hope that you have an awesome day tomorrow! Happy Birthday!! 

School and stuff has all started up here and it is pretty much a university city so we meet a lot of kids our age and not too much older. 

This week we did a lot of contacting but we got a lot more ´No´s than usual. We pressed on and kept trying to work as hard as we could. We had our patience tried a little bit after so many dumb comments and rejections. 

Pero es lo que hay! 

I had a fun week though. We helped a family move. They didn't live far from their new house but we sure moved a lot of furniture and if we were not there to help it would have taken a lot longer. They are one of my favorite family´s that I have met in the mission. They are from here, from Galicia. They are the main family from the branch. We eat lunch with them every Sunday up at their parents house with the wife's brother. It is always really good food.  Even though they did let us try some pig testicle without letting us know what it was before we tried it haha... tasted like bacon so no worries... 

We were able to meet with our investigator, the girl from Brasil. We had a really good lesson with her and brought a member girl that is from England that speaks Portuguese. We watched the restoration movie and invited her to be baptized. She said she would once she found out the truth for herself. I had a nice experience, it was the first time in my life I received the prompting to give blessing. Normally someone asks me to do so but she was going through a really hard time with depression. While she was explaining to the member in Portuguese what was going on, I turned to Elder Eskelson and told him that I thought we should give her a blessing and he confirmed to me that the spirit was talking because he had the same idea. It was a cool experience. I didn´t give the blessing but the spirit was strong and she said that she felt a difference. 

Yesterday was awesome. Our investigator's brother owns a Japanese restaurante and he invited us over to try some sushi! I have never tried sushi before but we were down to try it out. We expected to get maybe a couple pieces or so but he hooked us up with a whole meal.  There were probably 12 pieces for each of us with egg rolls and pot stickers and everything. All of it was super delicious and it was free so even cooler. We have been making them cookies and brownies to make up for it haha. They are a super cool family. Never thought I would say that I would have eaten at a Japanese restaurante in Spain owned by a Brasilian. haha

Today I dragged my comp to a guitar store and a CD shop to just kind of look around for p-day. It was fun to be back in my grove looking at guitars and checking out cds. The guy at the guitar store game me a free guitar pick. 

Well, I hope you all have an awesome week and have fun. I am excited Dad and Mom to see if you guys will able to come pick me up here! Grandpa Miles tells me that Mom is counting the days down! Don´t worry about distracting me or anything. I am in the game right now. 

Love you all lots! 

#58 Santiago, Spain

 Thanks for all of your support and love, it really helps a ton out here. I went to the post office and picked up your package today! As soon as I got back to the piso I tried on the new shirt and made some strawberry lemonade! The shirt fits perfect and the lemonade and sour patch kids hit the spot! Everything from the states has so much flavor. I could hardly handle how sour & sweet the sour patch kids were! Thank you!

Elder Eskelson & Elder Miles

This week I found myself thinking a lot about of how I am so grateful to have the Gospel. There are so many people in this world who, I think, do not take the time to contemplate the concept of God.  AND they do not clearly know what or who to believe in. Even though I am here in Santiago with it being the 2nd most Catholic place in the world, I have still met probably more Atheists than Catholics. It is sad to see. People these days, at least here, just don´t see the reason why it is so important to believe in God. I know exactly who I believe in, I know that God has a body of flesh and bones. I know that Jesus Christ is my redeemer and that if I live the Gospel and simply try my best in this life then I will receive eternal life. Some do not want anything to do with God or with religion. If only they knew the importance of finding out another perspective, that of learning what Christ's church has to offer. I am so grateful for even the small moments to be able to talk to someone on the street that has more than 15 seconds to hear what we have to say. I am grateful for open minded people that are willing to learn from others. 

Well those were kind of my thoughts for this week. 

We did a lot of contacting this week. Managed to teach 10 lessons. We met with Pamela, which was awesome! She is really cool and has a cool brother and sister in law that we want to get to teach as well. It has been fun talking with her because she mixes Portuguese and Spanish together and it reminds me of when Elder Ávila spoke Spanish. I can usually follow her when she speaks. 

We had a good fast Sunday. The branch here likes to all eat together after the meetings.  So, everyone brings a little pot luck and we all eat together. It was fun and pretty tasty. 

We met a member girl from England that is here studying Spanish. She is going to help us with a lesson with Pamela hopefully. We spoke a lot of English with her while she was there at the church. I kind of felt bad to exclude the branch a little bit but it was fun to hear her British accent. It is fun to meet people from all over the world! I told her that I have been to London and have enjoyed a good plate of fish and chips and some mushy peas, haha. She is from London by the way. 

Where is Jonny & his fishing pole!

Well this is week 6 of 6 in this transfer. We will see what happens to my comp. He has been up here for 3 transfers already so we will see if he goes back down. I have been loving this area. Even though it has been really tough and exhausting, it has been very gratifying to see the little progression that we have been able to be apart of. 

LOVE, Elder Jayden  

#57

Well this week was not too eventful. We did a lot of contacting on the street. We usually have a really good day planned but then this past week every one of our plans fell through and we are left to find more on the street. It is some pretty tiring stuff. 
Every once in a while we find a couple of people that will listen to what we have to say.  Unfortunately, we have not found any new investigators this week. From my point of view I don´t think a lot of people actually take time to ponder and figure out what they believe. A lot of people have very passive beliefs and don´t really have a curiosity to find out if there really is a God or if there is more after this life. And a lot of people don´t believe that the answer is found in a church or a book. Even being in Santiago, a very religious city, the Catholics don´t even know what they believe in. 

The past 2 weeks we have been trying to pin point one of our investigators, who is from Brasil. She has not answered our phone calls or we can't catch her at home. But, thankfully we ran into her brother and he invited us over whenever we wanted. We knew exactly who he was and they all thought it was a pretty big coincidence that we met her brother.   So we went over to her brother's house which is where she lives too.  He said that since we found her first we had to talk to her first, ahah.  It was pretty awkward at first because it wasn´t a very pleasent surprise for her to see us sitting on her couch. We actually ended up having a really good lesson with her. She has been having problems with depression. It makes me really sad and I really just want to help her and that is such a hard thing to overcome. But we had a good lesson on how the Gospel really does bring happiness into our lives. We shared Mosiah 2:41 and watched "Thanks to Him".  We got back on track with her which was awesome!

Today we went to A Coruña for Pday and met up with the district and went bowling. We ate at an all you can eat Italian food place which was super good. Pizza and Pasta, it was delicious. 

It has been fun being able to pick up on some Portuguese and Gallego, which is similar. Our Brasilian investigator, speaks a lot of brasilian. It is cool to be able to tell her that I have an aunt that is from brasil. 

Moito grazas por tudo.

I hope that you all have a great week. We will see if my knees will take another week of all this walking, haha. I get back to the piso absolutely destruido but I always am pushed by all of your prayers. Graciños.

Love you all,

Elder Miles