I AM SPARTACUS!

Dear Everyone,

This week we had a baptism, but I didn´t bring my camera to send pictures. The name of the woman we baptized is Helen and she was a former investigator who had dropped the missionaries a while ago and then on Sunday she called us and said she wanted to be baptized. So we invite her to church and meet with her there. She had already been to church 3 times. We went over all the baptismal interview questions found in Preach My Gospel, and since she was ready we baptized her this Saturday. She is from Nigeria and has 4 kids, one is still in Nigeria. We are now working on getting her 11 year old daughter ready for baptism. We also have some other really great investigators here. So far we have been super busy and super productive, which I like. As for Tarragona, I wish it had some more stuff, because it´s kind of boring on preparation days, but I love the ward and the people here so far. Oh, another interesting fact. The ward has a video of a bunch of members bearing their testimonies on a DVD to share with friends. They found out I speak french and asked me to record a segment on it. They´re also going to put the video on facebook and youtube, so I thought that was cool. 

And just for fun, here's the gladiator from the show he went to last week!  I knew you wanted to see a sunburned gladiator picture.  Check that off your bucket list!  :)  I'm assuming that's Preston's companion on the other side of Spartacus.

The trains in Spain are mainly a big pain! (Ok, maybe not, but it rhymed!) And throw in a little Gladiators just for fun.

Alright, today has been a really long day. I so far have not been able to work in my area very much because we´ve had to go to Barcelona many times in the past week. To get there, we have to take a train and then 2 or 3 metro lines to get to our destination. And then the same thing to get back. It takes a long time (like 2 hours each way) and it is very expensive. Good thing the mission reimburses us for transportation expenses so that we can have the money we need to eat. But still, until the reimbursals come in, I am pretty poor. Our ward is super great here. Yes, it´s a ward. It´s pretty different because Palma is such a big city and there are 2 branches and here Tarragona is a tiny little place and they have a huge ward. It´s part of the Hospitalet stake and our ward leaders are super great. So far we don´t have anything super exciting that´s happened. Well, we took half of our preparation day on Saturday because we had specialized training today in Barcelona. (That´s why I´m emailing so late). We went to a Gladiator fight here in Tarragona. Tarragona is an ancient Roman city and has an actual Roman amphitheater here, kind of like a mini Colosseum. So we went and watched some Gladiator fights they did here, but don´t worry, nobody died. The most that happened was a few scratches. I´ll be sure to include some pictures of that.  

TRANSFERS!! Adios, Majorca! Hola, Tarragona!

This week has been crazy. First off, there were transfers. I am no longer in Palma de Mallorca, after being there for 6 months. Yep, I´ve left the beautiful island paradise. I am now in a place called Tarragona in the part of Spain called Catalunya. There is a lot more Catalán here. In Palma, there was some but a lot less. My new companion is Elder Frederich from Kentucky and he seems to be really great. I don´t really know him yet, but I am excited to get to work here. That´s about it. I´ll send pictures later. Tarragona looks like it´s almost as beautiful as Mallorca.


(Tarragona looks amazing!  Other than his worn out shoes, this looks like a vacation!)

Happy early Mother's Day!!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been crazy. Last Monday we went to the huge iconic Cathedral here in Palma and we actually went inside this time. It was kind of weird, but cool at the same time. I took a bunch of pictures, but because of the lighting, they didn´t turn out the best. Also, on Thursday we had the best activity I´ve ever had as a missionary. It was a branch BBQ with us missionaries in charge of the games. It was so much fun. We played basketball, dodgeball, jumprope, and had a water balloon fight. I have pictures of that too, so there´ll be a lot of pictures this week. Also at the activity, we met quite a few people who weren´t members, that the members had brought with them. Also, a lady came in off the street and started eating some food too. Also, another highlight of the week, I got to talk to my family! May 4th is Mother´s Day here in Spain and since my mom is going to be gone next week for regular Mother´s Day, I decided to Skype my family with my companion on Saturday. It was really good to see them. Well, that´s all the time I have for this week.