Go South, young man, go South!

Dear Everyone,

Well, they transferred me. I´m no longer in Bilbao. Now I´m in Gandía and I´m loving it. It´s the furthest south our mission goes, so everyone told me it was going to be hot, but since I´ve been here it´s been freezing cold. Granted, it´s January still. My companion is Elder Arriarán, he´s from Cochabamba Bolivia. I already knew him from living in the same apartment in Tarragona, and he´s great. The ward here, from what I´ve seen is super good and we have a great relationship with everyone. This transfer, they just put 2 sister missionaries here in Gandía, when before there were only 4 elders. Now there are 6 missionaries, which is great, but they kind of jumped the gun a little bit. The sisters are staying in a hotel because they don´t have an apartment and they also don´t have a phone yet. It´s going to be super hard for them, but also a great opportunity as well. I know we´re doing great. We already have one girl who is going to be baptized at the end of this month. Also if you notice, I´m writing on a Thursday and it´s because I got here Tuesday late at night and all of yesterday was super packed. I barely have enough time to write today, I´m going to have to cut it short. We just have so much stuff to do here and so many lessons that we teach, it´s hard to find room. I´m loving it. Well, next week I´ll tell you how things are here.

Love, Élder Coleman 

Guggenheim-meh?

Dear Everyone,

This week has been pretty normal. Last preparation day we went to the Guggenheim museum, which is a super famous museum here. It was kind of meh. I liked it and all, it was just kind of weird. There was one room that rotated through videos projected on the walls of 5 people about my age just dancing in a white background for like 10 minutes each. Also there was a whole room just painted head to toe with multiple multi-coloured triangles. Modern art sometimes goes right over my head. We´ve been talking with tons of people this week. It´s weird because some days there are lots of people in the streets and some days barely any. We´re just looking for some solid people to teach. This week we were eating at McDonalds because they have gluten-free buns that my companion can eat because he´s celiac. As we were eating our food, a man comes up to us and says in English "I´m not interested in becoming a Mormon, but I sure would love to speak some English". Turns out his name´s Simon and he´s a 30 year old guy from London who knew enough about the Mormons to know that a lot of us are American. He was in Bilbao because he married a Spanish girl from here and was visiting her family. He´s super Catholic which is apparently very strange for a British person. It was an interesting encounter. Other than that, a pretty normal week. There are huge sales in the stores now, so we might got shopping today. Until next week.

cuidaros 

Élder Coleman

The Field Is White, Ready To Harvest!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been great. I don´t think I´ve ever found so many new investigators in one week before in my mission. We had a great New Years with a great Spanish woman who fed us paella. I never get sick of having paella. I thought the party was going to be bigger here for New Years, but there was almost no one out. When you talk to people all the time, you find some interesting people. I talked to a girl who had lived in Toronto for many years and wanted to go back to Canada as soon as she could. I also met a member from Jaén (in the south of Spain) who was up here to visit his girlfriend. He served his mission in the Calgary mission and him and Elder Hardy (my Canadian compatriate here) know a lot of the same people. We´ve talked to some pretty crazy people this week too. Everyone wants to express their opinion about everything and everyone wants to tell you about their problems. That´s pretty much all we´ve done this week though, just talking to people in the streets. Today however, we´re going to the Guggenheim, which is the super famous museum here in Bilbao. 

Élder Coleman 

Someone is sick!

Dear Everyone,

I don´t have much time this week, but I just wanted to say I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year! This week I got to talk to my family on Skype for the 3rd time on my mission. It was a good experience but always goes fast. Christmas was a good here. On Christmas and Christmas Eve we went to houses of members that might not have had very much company on Christmas and we caroled for them and visited with them. For Christmas dinner we ate with a couple that have been investigating the church for a while. The wife is from Colombia and the husband from Slovakia. We had an interesting mix of Colombian and Slovak food. We went the house of some Bolivian members for Christmas and ate turkey for lunch. All in all it was a good experience. I´ve been kind of sick lately, and at some points, it´s been bad enough that I´ve had to stay in, but it´s getting better. The Area Presidency of Europe came out with a plan for all the wards in Europe to work with this coming year of 2015. It involves a lot of aspects but some very key missionary points and we are excited to start working with everyone and their plans. We have some good plans for New Years too, so I´ll let you know how those went next week. Love you all

Love, Élder Coleman

"Él es la Dádiva" (He is the Gift)

Dear Everyone,

This week´s been kind of rough. Everyone is too busy doing Christmassy stuff that they can´t stop and don´t want to talk to us. However, there have been some super cool caroling on the streets and an African group went around playing drums and chanting super cool. We´ve got a few visits set up for the holidays, but not very many so I´m not quite sure what we´re going to do. We´ve been working a lot with a video called "Él es la Dádiva" (He is the Gift) in English. It´s the new video that the church put out for Christmas. We have tons of little cards with the link on it to look up. It´s a little frustrating because "Dádiva" is an uncommon word in Spanish and no one knows what it´s talking about, but it´s nice to be able to point someone to a video on Christmas. Today for preparation day we went to the painted forest again because everyone wanted to see it, and now I am exhausted. It´s a long trip and a long hike. We got some great photos though. This week our ward had a Christmas talent show. We, the missionaries, sang for our part. I feel like we were lacking a little bit though. It was neat to see the other talents people had. I love how someone decorated the church very festively, so even though there´s no snow, you can still tell it´s Christmas time. I´m excited to see my family this week, it will be the 3rd time I´ve skyped home so far. I hope to have more things to tell you all next week. Take care!

Élder Coleman

It's Raining, It's Pouring, But Christmas Won't Be Boring

Dear Everyone,

Well, my new companion and I have been getting soaked to death almost every day since he´s been here. I don´t think he likes Bilbao very much. He´s great though. He´s going to be going home in 2 transfers (3 months), so he´s going to end here for sure. All of the people we were meeting with have decided to not answer the phone or never be home, so we´ve had a rough week as far as getting in touch with people. The ward is getting together and doing a lot of things for Christmas. This Saturday there was a YSA (young single adult) activity and now the church is decorated with a Christmas tree and everything. It´s getting super nippy so it feels a little bit more like Christmas than it would in any other part of the mission. I´m kind of out of time, but we have some really cool Christmas things coming up with the ward. Next time I email, I´ll have more things to say and pictures.

Love you all.

Élder Coleman

Eating visits planned for Christmas and New Years? Life is Good!

Dear Everyone,

Transfers just happened. I´m still here in Bilbao, but my companion Elder Slauson got moved to Castellón. My new companion is Elder Vogel, from Orem Utah. He´s super great, and I´m excited to work with him. We have been seeing success with Julia, who we are going to invite to be baptized the next time we see her. We´ve also been putting up with this cold and rainy weather. This Friday there is a huge conference with President and I´m looking forward to it. Things are starting to feel a lot more Christmassy even if there is no snow because there are big Christmas trees everywhere and Christmas songs, and decorations. We already have eating visits planned for Christmas and New Years. The ward is really good to us. That´s pretty much it for this week.

Élder Coleman