I wonder....

Dear Everyone,

This week has been incredibly hot. Well the heat is in the mid 30s, so it's nothing exaggerated, but the humidity just makes you sweat all the time. When we're sleeping, when we're studying, even more when we're out on the street. The worst for me is the collar of my shirt. But we've been door knocking in spite of it all and this week we found a middle aged man named Juan who let us in while we were knocking doors and let us teach him. He accepted a Book of Mormon and when we went back he said that he'd been reading it and it was helping him in his life. This week was also the last week of President and Sister Pace in Spain. On the 30th, President and Sister Dayton will come to replace them. Yesterday and Saturday was our stake conference and it was really good. It was a little bit stressful trying to get rides organized for everyone to Valencia. It was great though. Even our recent convert brought her friend and she seemed to like it. There's a fair amount of recent converts who love to invite people to things and I wonder why the people who've been members their whole lives don't seem to do it as much. I love you all, hope you have a great week.

Love Élder Coleman 

 (Since Preston didn't tell me what this photo was, I'm going to make one up)  This beautiful pool and view is from the backyard of the Prince of Spain.  He's only the 4th child, so not very high in the line of inheritance.  So it's not a palace, but nice all the same.

Yo quiero Taco Bell!

Boredom becomes a blessing!

Dear Everyone,
This week we had a fairly good week. On Tuesday we took a recent
convert out with us to go knock doors. She enjoyed accompanying us but
got a little bit bored and decided to call up her friend to meet with
us right then. It was great. Her friend was actually super interested
and we're going to meet with her again this week because she finishes
school. This week we also said goodbye to a girl who is going on her
mission to Malaga and leaves tomorrow. It's interesting. I've been
here since January in Gandia and I've seen people make a lot of
changes in their lives. So far I've seen two of our YSA here start
their mission papers, get their calls and leave on their missions. It
keeps getting hotter and hotter here and the humidity just keeps
getting worse. How everyone here survives it is by going to the beach
frequently. I love Gandia though. The people here are the best. This
week we have stake conference in Valencia on Saturday and Sunday, and
I'm excited for it.

Adios to the current Mission Presidente!

Dear Everyone,

This week we're going to Valencia for preparation day. President and

Sister Pace are ending their missionary service and going home at the

end of this month. We're getting together as a zone in Valencia and

signing a flag as a gift for the Paces. This week in Gandia we've been

knocking doors. We found a Romanian lady who didn't speak any Spanish

and she was about to shut the door on us when my companion pulled out

a pass along card with a picture of Jesus on it and our number on the

back. She saw the picture and got super excited. She started going off

in Romanian and somehow I understood a fair amount of what she was

saying. We're going to go back later this week, after she has a knee

surgery, with a member who is Romanian and has her mission call. The

other day we also had a very Catholic woman sing to us in a door. She

was probably one of the nicest people I've met in a long time. It's

getting pretty warm here but the thing that kills is the high

humidity. We're having a lot of fun though.

IPads, bloody hands, and a party in the parking lot!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been interesting. We got our iPads this week. They really can't do much right now though. Apparently in the future they will roll out Facebook but as of right now, it's just for teaching and studying. It's useful because we can just go to the church to email instead of a cyber cafe. Also we can share Mormon Messages with people in lessons and our bags weigh a lot less without our whole set of scriptures. I still prefer studying with the paper scriptures though. The other day we had one of the most interesting days of my mission. We started out the day doing planning all morning while people from our apartment's insurance switched out our bathtub which had been leaking. When we could leave, we visited a less active who I had never met. He answered the door in his stained underwear and had slicked over, very greasy, hair. He also had very very large swollen legs that were proportionally impossible and very scabbed over.  We sat down and asked a few things about how he joined the church and then we started to read the Book of Mormon with him. As we were reading, he began to pick at his legs and blood just trickles down his leg. When we got up to leave, I didn't want to shake his blood stained hands but was kind of forced to. We both ran straight to the church and washed ourselves thoroughly. Afterwards there was a young woman in the ward who was setting up a party for a friend who was leaving to her country. We had a lesson with a recent convert and when we came out, there were tons of adolescent kids dancing in the parking lot with a DJ and a laser show and everything. Also just outside the parking lot there were a whole bunch of kids just smoking. We called the bishop and he told us to give the key to the 15 year old young woman, who was the only member there, and that she'd lock up and give us the key the next day. It was a weird day.

Well I'll talk to you all next week. Love you

Elder Coleman

New companion, helpful members, and the case of the missing gumball machine.

Dear Everyone,

I got a new companion. His name is Elder Stratton, he is from Orem Utah and he is really really tall. He is 2 metres tall. He´s really good at golf and has a huge family. So far we haven´t met with a lot of people from the ward yet, so he´s still a little lost. We´re working on knocking doors in our area to find new people to teach. So this week, a member of the ward who had been serving in the Spain Málaga mission just finished his mission and came home this week. He is super keen on helping us all the time. Also speaking of members helping us, we were in a lesson and I got 2 missed calls from Gloria, the wife of recently-baptized Antonio who live out in Ontinyent. Seeing as she doesn´t have a lot of minutes with which to call, I figured it was an emergency and called her right back after the lesson finished. Turns out it wasn´t an emergency, she was just super excited because she had given a Book of Mormon to a friend. When we met with them this Saturday, she said she has always just kind of slid by whenever people talk about missionary work. She said she had always gone to church, to activities, on temple trips, and had done everything she was "supposed to do" in the Church, but she had never felt so happy as when she began to share the Gospel with first her husband and now her friends. Next thing we know, we´re going to have a branch out there. Well, maybe a while down the road. I´m really excited to be here in Gandía with Elder Stratton. Oh, something amusing. We were talking with people in the streets the other day and we see 2 homelss-looking guys come down the street with a gumball machine, you know, the kind that is common in the front of stores. Next thing we know, an undercover police officer comes running around the corner and begins to detain them, even though they were putting up a fuss. It´s not something you see all the time. Well, I love you all.

Élder Coleman