Happiness is....seeing other people achieve their happiness!

Dear Everyone,

On Saturday we had a baptism! Antonio was baptized and it was a challenge to make it happen, but we did it. He and his wife live 40 minutes away in car and to get someone to drive us is a hassel. We ended up calling the entire ward the day before because the bishop told us he´d figure everything out and didn´t end up finding anyone. We finally got a British couple who had just moved into the ward to lend us a hand and pick Antonio and Gloria up for their baptism. Antonio has an impediment where one leg is shorter than the other and he doesn´t have much control of the shorter leg, so both me and my companion had to be in the font to help him. Gloria was so happy for her husband and now they have the goal to go the temple and be sealed in as soon as they can. This week as I kind of mentioned before, a British couple moved into the ward with plans to retire here. We spent a few hours helping them move their things and got invited over to eat with them on Wednesday. It´s completely different teaching and associating with people who speak English. They seem super excited to help us out even though they don´t know the language.

Elder Coleman

Another baptism coming up!

Dear Everyone,

We went out to visit Antonio and Gloria this week and Antonio is going to be baptized this week! He was a little confused at first when we invited him a while ago, but it´s because he thought he had to wait a year to be baptized. When he found out it was just the beginning, he got super excited and now he´s going to be baptized this Saturday. Both of them are very excited. Also, we´ve been helping a British couple that moved into the ward to unload all their stuff and then get it organized in their house. I didn´t know how many people in our ward speak English until they came and started talking to everyone. So far, we´re still doing the same thing every day. We just go and knock doors all day trying to find more people to teach. It isn´t the most interesting thing in the world, but I enjoy talking to the people. But basically, this week has been pretty uninteresting, besides the fact that it´s roasting hot. Next week I´ll write a lot more and send pictures of our baptism.

Élder Coleman

Um, time warp! Forgot to post this!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been interesting. Elder Stolk, one of my best friends on the mission just ended his mission yesterday. I´m still here in Gandía and I feel like I´m going to be for a while. Yesterday I went on the longest hike of my life with a member because we thought we could meet a few of his friends that are in this hiking club. We had some good discussions, but the hike lasted 5 hours and was mostly vertical. Also we went out to Ontinyent again to teach Antonio and Gloria. We had a less active take us out there. He is probably the craziest man I´ve ever met. Also he kept falling asleep at the wheel so I had to try to get him to talk everytime he´d nod off. As a ward activity we tried to do something I´d done before. We invited everyone to come watch the Work and the Glory in the church on Sunday afternoon and it was a hit. They all got into it and so we´re going to watch the next one next week. Well I don´t have a lot of time. I would love to write more but it´ll have to be next week. Love you all.

Élder Coleman

Practice makes pancakes!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been all about parties. There have been processions around the whole town for Semana Santa which means "Holy Week". They celebrate the whole week leading up to Christ´s death and resurrection. To be honest some of the processions are kind of dark and a little scary. I´m pretty sure they all do it because of tradition because everyone we stop says they don´t believe in God. Well, a fair amount. Diego, our Uruguayan friend didn´t come to General Conference so he´s not getting baptized on the 11th, but he´s super great and he still wants to make the step. We had interviews this week with President Pace and they were the best interviews I´d had ever. Other than that, it´s been kind of a weird week. Our area is a little bit dead so we´ve been knocking all the doors in the whole area. We made a plan to knock all the streets, every single door. I loved General Conference because I got an answer to the questions I had, specifically what we were going to do with our area. I know we will see miracles. Also a side note for this week. I made pancakes for a member and an investigator and they came out not too bad. There was definitely room for improvement though. I´m attaching pictures of the baptisms that happened on the 28th.