A baptism, a beautiful view, and better with the language

Dear Everyone,

This week has been amazing. On Saturday, I performed the baptism of Blanca, our amazing investigator. She is about 60 years old, Spaniard, and very very sweet. When we first met with her, she only met with us because she was being nice. She had her own beliefs and told us they would not change any time soon. She didn´t believe in Jesus Christ, or the Bible. She believed in God, but as more of an energy that moves everything and not a physical being. But as she read the Book of Mormon and prayed every night, and continued to meet with us, the Spirit testified of the truth of our message and changed her heart. She was so grateful to me for baptizing her, and she bore a testimony right after her baptism that made another investigator that we had brought to watch the baptism cry. I will attach pictures of the baptism. This last week, we went to one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen in my entire life. It´s called Cap de Formentor. It´s the very northernmost tip of the island and there is a lighthouse there that is beautiful. The views up there rival any I´ve ever seen. I´ve also gotten a lot better at the language just this week. I´ve felt a shift in my ability and I feel a lot more comfortable speaking it. It´s just been a really really good week.

Old buildings, new Saints, cold weather, blue sea!

Dear Everyone,

This week we have been busy meeting with our investigators, helping prepare them for baptism. Blanca, a Spanish lady of about 60 or so years, is our most prepared investigator. We are still working with the family of Maria, Veronica, and Ariana towards baptism. They don´t feel ready quite yet though. Blanca has a baptismal date for the 8th, and we are praying she will feel ready when the day comes. I have really grown to love Mallorca, and I am for sure coming back. It is so beautiful. We are going today with a member out to a lighthouse which is pretty famous around here. It´s on the completely other side of the island, which is about an hour drive. It´s such a small island isn´t it? When we ask if someone can give someone who doesn´t have a car a ride to church, and they have to drive 10 minutes out of their way to get them, they act as if we´ve asked them to drive from BC to California. The other thing that´s different here is when it gets even a little cold, everyone bundles up and asks you "aren´t you cold?". I always say no, I´m from Canada and I´m used to there being snow right about now. It´s actually really hot in the morning here. I´m sure it´s boiling in the summer. I love the history here, and the old buildings. I also love the bull fighting stadium we walk by every so often. It´s huge, and it´s be quite an experience to watch a bull fight there. They don´t happen very often though. I hope you enjoy the pictures of the cathedral we visited last week and the view from the steps. You can see out over the Mediterranean with palm trees lining your view. It really is beautiful.

These pictures are from a cathedral we went and visited here in Palma last P-day.

                                                                        The Mediterranean Sea!  Pretty cool, eh?

I spy with my little eye something that is....American?!

Dear Everyone,

This week we had a crazy miracle. We were at the church doing interviews and a man walks into the building and starts asking how he can meet with the missionaries. Apparently he had met with missionaries before, but had moved out of Palma to a pueblo and lost contact. So he decided to show up at the church and ask around for some missionaries to teach him. It turns out his pueblo is in our area and he is super excited to meet with us. He was really impressed with President Pace, and kept talking about how tall he was. So he asked if we had time right then, and since we had just finished our interviews we said alright. So he took us in his car all the way to his pueblo and had us teach him in his home. Turns out that he has been studying the Bible for years with his wife and has come to know that all the churches he has visited aren´t in line with what he has studied in the Bible. He loves our message though. We introduced the Book of Mormon and he took out a notepad and wrote notes on everything we said. At one point he said that he´ll probably have to join with us, and then he said he´d love to serve a mission. It was literally the biggest out of the blue miracle I´ve seen on my mission so far. It was amazing. So my mom asked me to describe some of the culture out here. Well, one thing I´ve seen is everyone wants to be American. I´ve seen every single kind of American you can possibly see. Every American basketball team, football team, I even saw a Vancouver Canucks hat. But no one knows who the teams are. They also listen to American music without knowing what it means. The European haircut is huge here. The men will have their hair really long on top and a lot shorter on the sides. That´s mostly the younger ones though. When people talk here, they get really close to you and touch you a lot. There is some really great food here, I´ve heard of, but haven´t tried yet. I´m excited to try paella sometime, which is a famous Spanish rice dish that everyone raves about. 

Here are a couple of other pictures from the cookout experience we had last week with a member family.

And this is a picture of a tiny truck.  We see them all over the place, there are lots of tiny vehicles over here.  It's so cute, I should pack one in my suitcase to bring home for my mom!  :)  It should fit, right?

BBQ--Spanish style!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been pretty slow. I have been sick pretty much all week off and on. I had to stay in for a day and I also rested a little bit another day. When we´ve been out and working, we´ve been doing our part by contacting people on the streets and knocking doors, but no one has listened to us. In Palma there are almost no houses. Everyone lives in pisos (apartments). To knock them, we usually ring the top floor and just say "nos abre" which means "open for us" and we typically get in within the first 2 floors that we ring, but this week we have been ringing entire buildings of 8 floors without anyone letting us in. We will continue doing our best and we hope this week will be more productive. Today we went camping in the morning with the Querolos, a family from the other branch, Levante (ours is Poniente). They took us to a little pueblo called Bunyola where there was a campsite and we roasted hot dogs and they cooked up chicken and ribs for us. We also got to through around a football. It was pretty fun and reminded me of being back home. I´ll attach a picture, but it´s not very good. I look really weird with the watermelon ball we have. Today is a holiday and everything´s closed in Palma, so we´ll have to buy our food tomorrow morning. 

From the left this is me with a weird grin on my face, Elder McMahon my companion, Elder Burnett and Elder Farah, the other Elders that we live with and the Querolos´daughter who just got back from a mini-mission in Bilbao.

Wonder of wonders, Miracle of miracles!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been a huge week for miracles. We have been finding an incredible amount of new investigators and this week, we had the opportunity to invite a family that we´ve taught once before to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the authority of God. They accepted and now we are just trying to help them be ready for their baptisms on the 25th. The mother, Maria is from Bolivia and was baptized Catholic. She said she had a lot of faith, but feels like something is missing. She has 2 daughters, Ariana and Veronica. They were born in Argentina and their father is from Paraguay. He´s no longer in the picture though. Also, a friend of the daughters, named Carmen came to the second lesson we had with them and she also came with them to Church yesterday and all 4 of them stayed the whole 3 hours. We set up a visit for Wednesday and Carmen wants to come too. The Young Women also just opened up to Ariana, Veronica and Carmen while they were there. I really have a testimony of the importance of fellowshipping. It´s 100 times easier for an investigator or less active to come to church if they have friends there to help them feel more comfortable. I just wanted to invite all of to reach out this week at church and become friends with an investigator the missionaries bring or someone you don´t recognize.

Elder Coleman

¡Feliz Dia de Los Reyes!

Dear Everyone,

These past couple weeks have been good but hard. Good because we´ve been finding a lot of people to teach. Hard because nobody wants to meet until after the fiestas. So we haven´t really had as many visits as normal lately. In Spain they have 3 holidays in a row. Christmas and New Years of course, but they also celebrate Dia de los Reyes Magos, which might be even bigger than Christmas here. It´s on January 6th and it´s a holiday celebrating the 3 kings that brought gifts to Christ following the star. There was a big parade, which we did not go see, but heard it was pretty big. Also, today is Rebajas which is super exciting. It´s like Boxing Day in Canada or Black Friday in the States. It´s just huge sales and things are super cheap at almost every store. So today we are going to go to Porto Pi, where they have a huge mall and I can buy white missionary shirts for cheap. And socks too. All my socks have holes in them. I have found that there are a lot of good places to shop here. In Palma they have a Corte Ingles which is huge and like a big American department store. Also they have an outlet mall in Marratxí with a lot of American and European stores. And then Porto Pi is a big touristy looking shopping center. Whenever we go out towards there we always hear British tourists speaking English. I hear English all the time in the street, but it´s always British people. I´ve only ever heard Americans speaking once I think, besides missionaries. I am getting a lot better at speaking the language and especially at understanding. I can understand almost everything from most people. It depends on the accent still. There are some accents I still have a hard time understanding anything. I´ve already told you that the Cuban and Dominican accents are super hard, but I want to add to that list Andalucía, which is the name of an area in the south of Spain. They are so hard to understand. Our branch mission leader is from Granada in Andalucía and I can´t understand a word he says. I want you all to know that I love the work, I love being a missionary, I love Spain, and I love serving the Lord.

Elder Coleman

2014....The best is yet to be!

Dear Everyone,

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and that everyone is excited for New Years! I know I am. Especially because 2014 is the year where I will be a missionary for the entire year. From day first to day last, I will be on a mission serving the Lord. So, some news. It isn´t really exciting to anyone back home, but I got my residency here in Spain! I have to go tomorrow to Barcelona to pick up my DNI, the residency card. It´s exciting to me for a few reasons. One, I won´t have to carry my passport with my whenever I want to use my credit card, because they ask for either your DNI or passport. Also, I can go get registered at the city hall here in Palma and with that I get a bus card which makes riding the bus cheaper. So far, since being here in Palma, I have spent 42€ on bus rides. It all gets reimbursed by the mission, but that´s still a lot of money. Some more news is we´ve been finding new investigators like crazy. We found a few people knocking doors, an older Spaniard man, a 19 year old Argentine boy, and in the same apartment we found a potential investigator with a blonde girl from the Canary Islands that I honestly thought was American until she started talking. We also found a Cuban family that has been taught by the missionaries last year, but got really busy and the missionaries dropped them. But now they are available again. They have 2 kids and they are a really friendly family. We are also finding Phillipino investigators like crazy as well. Well, I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope everyone has some good New Years resolutions.

Elder Coleman

And finally, here are some pictures from Spain!

 A typical apartment building.

 The city square.

 A soccer stadium.

 The gardens at the castle in Barcelona.

 The castle I visited after first arriving in Spain.

 More garden shots.

 The view of Barcelona from the castle.

 My piso!  (Apartment)

 Behind the church building in Palma.

 There may be palm trees in Palma, but it's not feeling tropical!

 My companion, Elder McMahon, from Indiana.  He's the one running.

 I may be on a mission, but my eating habits haven't changed.