We're all mad here!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been interesting. We have been finding a lot of interesting people. One investigator that we have on date for baptism, we just found out has schizophrenia and so we´re going to have to talk to someone about what to do now. Also another guy we stopped on the street says he sees pillars of light whenever anyone dies and that he thinks angels are aliens that bring death. Another interesting encouter of the week was when my companion and I went on a split. (We both split up and go with different members to teach lessons at the same time.) I went with Camilo, a 20 something year old recently returned missionary and we went to a lesson with a less active family the ward asked us to work with. The husband, named Rafa, was drunk out of his mind. He would tell jokes that weren´t funny at all and just die laughing. He got up to serve us food, passed gas rather loudly and then when his wife called him out on it, he blamed it on his flip flops. And to top it off, he somehow convinced me to let him put anti-inflammatory eye drops in my eyes. He works at the hospital and I found out later that he stole all the eye drops from his work. My eye was red from an encouter with a cat earlier in the day, so both him and his wife suggested I let him give me the drops. Well next thing you know, I´ve got eye drop juice all over my face and I´m crying because he put way too much in and I think I learned my lesson about being a little bit more selective about who puts stuff in my eyes.That´s about the most interesting thing that happened this week.

Élder Coleman

We'll come knock on your door, we've been waiting for you, where the scriptures are his and his and his, Three's company too!

Dear Everyone,

This week has been a good one. First of all, we had a good specialized training in Barcelona. I learned a lot of new things about working with members. When we got back, we went to visit a less active family who lives far, in a pueblo called Valls. They have a daughter of almost 3 years old who is quite a talker. Some of the things she said, I have no idea where she came up with them. Also this week they announced that Tortosa recieved permission from the Area Presidency to open a group their and stick missionaries there as well. I am excited when I see actual growth happening here. It´s sometimes hard to see in Canada or the States, but here it´s easy to see the growth of the Church taking off in Spain. Also something that was somewhat of a miracle. A lady came a couple of weeks ago to church on Sunday by accident. She was looking for the church where her friend´s daughter was going to be singing and ended up getting confused and showing up at ours. Emma, a super active and missionary minded member from our ward, invited her in and when her offer was declined, took down her number so that we could get in touch with this woman. We called her up and could never set anything firm up with her, but on Sunday she said it would be fine if we came over around 6. We went and brought with us our recent convert, Grau and she was super great. But the best part is, she had invited a lot of friends over at the same time and they all sat and listened to us teach about the Restoration. It was a great way to end a good week. Oh and something interesting. I´m currently in a trio (I have 2 companions). But it´s just temporary. Elder Ferrer´s (the one from Argentina) companion went to Murcia for a couple days to do paperwork for his Spanish nationality (he´s from Bolivia but has lived in Spain most of his life). It´s nice having a companion who can speak Spanish fluently, but I´m not a super huge fan of trios. Someone always gets left out in lessons. Oh something of note. A Brazilian guy from Torrevieja (in the south of Spain) came up to us on the street and said he´s a member. He was stopping by for a day and than catching a ride with someone from Tarragona to Germany to look for work. The funny part is, he served his mission in Madrid and actually lived in the same apartment as Elder Chris Smith from back home. The guy´s name is Fabio, but would have gone as Elder Cardoso.

Love Élder Coleman  

It's a sad, sweltering, service kind of week.

Dear Everyone,

This week has been a weird one. Super interesting but sad at the same time. Well last Sunday, the 3rd, 4 people came to church from France. They were members of the church on vacation from France and I talked with them and helped in some of the communication. So during the week I get a phone call saying one of the French members was in the hospital and they want me to come help with translation. Well, we were super far away from the hospital at that point, so I couldn´t. But the next day I went with a sister from the ward to visit and turns out he´s in a coma from a stroke. The whole family had driven down from France to see him and they were all in tears. I found out that they were just waiting for all the children to drive down so they could pull the plug and let him go. It was a huge shock for me. Anyway, he passed away on Saturday. On a lighter note, I changed a tire for the first time on the mission. I remember doing it once with my grandpa and I remembered most of the steps, but this European cars hide everything so well that it took us 30 minutes to find the jack, the wrench and the lever that lowers the spare tire down. This week also, we´ve been dying of heat. It´s absolutely oppresive. The way the humidity is here, even if you go into the shade, it´s just as hot as directly in the sun. The only relief we have is our apartment with air conditioning. Well, my time´s up for this week. I hope everyone´s doing great. 

Love Élder Coleman

Taking care of business....and laundry!

Dear Everyone,

So transfers happened. I´m still here in Tarragona and I´m still with Elder Green. Some things got switched around though. For example, they took the sister missionaries out of the area and closed their area. Now we´re going to have to take on their area and people they were working with. Also, they switched the other companionship so now the two other missionaries are from Argentina and Bolivia. It´s going to be interesting living with 2 South Americans. It´s super interesting how they expect us to cover all of the province of Tarragona with only 2 companionships. Also, our ward is looking to split within the next month. We already have around 140 people come every week to church. In Spain, that´s a huge amount of active members for one ward. This week the heat´s been unbearable. It probably doesn´t get a lot hotter temperature wise than home, but this humidity is oppressing. I´m always sweating all the time. Most people don´t have AC so their houses are like little ovens. Oh I found this new product that completely removes the dark ring I get around my collar because of sweating so much. It´s called KH7 and I´m pretty sure I´d lose a hand if I got any on it. We´ve been doing a lot of finding lately, which means we´re looking for people to teach. We´re always talking to people on the street, but our most promising investigators come from members inviting their friends. So just keep that in mind all of you back home. Another piece of news is that Jordi Grau, our recent convert that we baptized not too long ago went with the bishop and his family to the temple to do baptisms. I think it is such a blessing to serve in a country that has a temple in it. Well, I hope all is well back home. I hope some of you can send me pictures of the fun stuff you´re doing. 

Love Élder Coleman

Birdie, birdie, in the sky....

Dear Everyone,

Well this week for the first time in my life, a bird pooped on me. I was just walking along and next thing you know I have a huge green/white stain on the front and back of my shirt because it hit me right on the shoulder. Well I cleaned it up, but the top of my planner is still stained. This week we´ve been doing a lot of finding and a lot of sweating. The sisters got taken out of the area for a week because their apartment is infested with bugs. They´re going to fumigate it while they´re gone. We´ve been having a lot of family home evenings with the members here. It helps strengthen them and we´ve actually found a fair amount of people to teach through members inviting their friends to family home evenings. Overall it´s been a successful week. We also went over to the bishop´s house for a barbeque. He has one of the nicest houses I´ve seen in Spain. I wish you could all come here with me and see the things I´m seeing everyday. I love Spain, it´s a beautiful place. I hope to do some more interesting things this week, so hopefully my next email is longer.

Love Élder Coleman

Don't Throw The Missionary Out With The Canape!

Dear Everyone,

It´s been hot here. Wow. I am so grateful we have air conditioning. Lately we´ve been doing a lot of finding and working with less actives. It´s been a lot of hard work. We´ve also done 3 moves this week. The last one we did was for a less active family and part of the move included moving something called a canapé ( I put it into google translate and it just says trundle and I don´t know what that is). Anyway it was super heavy and we had to lower it out of the window. There was a little miscommunication and someone almost threw it and me included out the window. Well we ended up saving the thing and I came out with nothing more than a large goose egg on my head. Today the members are taking us up to the mountains again. I´ve been hiking almost every single preparation day this transfer. The landscape of Spain reminds me a lot of back home. Something cool about here though is that you always find old buildings no matter where you go hiking. I feel bad because I don´t really have anything interesting to talk about. This week has been pretty boring. Just keep helping the missionaries wherever you are, they can use all the help they can get. I love you all.

Love Élder Coleman

It's Like A Heat Wave!

Dear Everyone,

This week I have been so exhausted. I think it´s the heat. It really drains you. It´s been in the high 20s here in Tarragona. I don´t think it´s dropped below 25º all week. The worst part is we are almost always in view of the Mediterranean, it´s so tempting to just jump in for a little bit. As for the work here, it is going super well. Actually the mission president and the stake president are both super gung ho to open up a brand new area in our ward. There is a town called Tortosa ( you can look it up on Google Maps). It´s super far away from Tarragona, but they belong to the ward here. There are quite a few members out there but almost all are less active because they lack the financial means to travel so far every week. It costs 16 € round trip on train. I´ve been down there a few times and the people are super prepared. So there has been talk of opening up an area and putting missionaries there. In fact they put the petition in to the area presidency and they´re waiting for a reply. It´s really cool to see the church growing here little by little. Well I´ve run out of time for today. Until next week. Hopefully I´ll have pictures next time. It´s just I keep forgetting to charge my camera. Cuidaos

Love Élder Coleman