No Really, I Couldn't Eat Another Bite!

Dear Everyone,

This week we didn´t eat in our apartment even once. My companion is going home. He´s finished his 2 years as of next Monday and we have been meeting with all the members for lunch, saying goodbye and all that. I love getting to know all the members and their stories. For example, there is a member here from Holland who married a woman from Bolivia and they have a daughter who just got married and is living in the US. That´s what I love about the mission, everyone has their stories. This week we got a referral from the office for a woman who lived in a far away little town. We called her and turns out she´s a member from Mexico and is married to man who is not a member (not quite sure where he´s from but I don´t think Spanish is his first language). She wanted us to go teach him because she had been teaching him out of the Gospel Principles book for the 2 years they have been married and she said she has been praying every day that the missionaries could visit them so that her and her husband can acheive their goal of being sealed together in the temple one day. The problem is she lives far away in a place called Ontinyent and doesn´t have any money to get to church. Also, even though she pertains to our ward, it seems the closest ward is in Alcoi, which belongs to a whole different mission. I hope to be able to help these people, but I am super grateful to be able to answer this faithful woman´s prayers. Well, that´s pretty much all that I can think of that happened this week. I love you all.

Élder Coleman

Spring cleaning....a boat?

Everyone,

This week was a fun week. On Tuesday I translated for a member in the ward who is an indexing family history missionary. I translated a meeting with people from all over Europe and it was super interesting. Indexing is a really interesting thing, and it´s interesting to see all the work put into it. Also this week we cleaned a boat. A member has a really nice sailboat that had beds inside and a small kitchen, some couches and tvs and stuff. We helped him clean it, vacuum out the inside and hose off the outside, but it was a super cool boat. Today we ate something called calçots which are a Catalan dish. It´s roasted green onion dipped in a special sauce made just for it. I really don´t have a lot of time this week, but I´ll tell you more next week. 

Love Elder Coleman

A cold Canadian?

Dear Everyone,

This week we have been all over the place. Gandía continues to be a frozen wasteland. Everyone asks me why I´m not already used to the cold, being from Canada and all, but I always tell them that it´s the humidity that gets me. This week we went to Valencia on Tuesday and Wednesday for a special training. It was good, we learned a lot and we got to watch Meet the Mormons, a great movie that the church made. It was in theatres in the US a little while ago. This week we also had to say goodbye to 2 of our recent converts who moved back to Bolivia to study and find a better life. So this week´s been full of goodbyes and farewell parties in the church. Gandía is a lot smaller than Bilbao and there aren´t very many people in the street so we´ve been working with our recent converts and meeting with their friends. We were working with a guy who was really great. His name is Adrian, but he is in Galicia now and we don´t know when he´s coming back. Today we went with a member to a bar (here they´re more like cafes with a bar in them) and we had a great Spanish meal and played pool and foosball to finish it off. 

Élder Coleman

A baptism, beds, and BBQ!

Dear Everyone, 

This week, we had a baptism! Her name is Zoila (pronouced Thoyla), she is from Spain and she is incredible. She was super prepared, she´d been living with a member and had tons of friends that are members and she already knew a lot about the church. Her conversion story is amazing, she keeled down to pray and before the prayer was over, she had her answer. Her baptism went super well. Today the mission president and his wife brought us beds, because we had been sleeping on mattresses on the ground, so we´re excited for that. Another exciting thing is tomorrow we have a conference that lasts 2 days in Valencia. On Wednesday, they are going to show us Meet the Mormons, a movie that the church came out with a little while ago that I haven´t seen yet, so I´m excited for that. It´s going to be in Spanish, so I wonder if that means we can get a copy of it to show investigators. Today we also went on a hike to the top of a mountain and we could see everything for kilometres. Then we went to a member´s house, had BBQ in their backyard and watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" in their home theatre. They have a super super nice house for Spain, with a large yard and a pool, a brick BBQ and nice views. All in all, it´s been a good day. Also, we went to a Herbalife centre a couple days ago (long story, but basically because an investigator roped us into it) and we got health tested. I don´t know what the science is behind it, but they weigh you and do a few calculations to tell you how you are health wise. Turns out that not only am I perfectly healthy in that I have no fat, but I also have enough water in my system, something that the guy said he´s never seen. Everyone always lacks a ton of water he said. It was interesting but then he tried to sell us some smoothies that would help us (me to gain muscle and my companion to lose weight). They´re super pricy so we said no, but it was an interesting experience.

Élder Coleman

Habla Ingles?

Dear Everyone,

Well Gandía is starting to warm up. When I got here it was freezing, but it´s getting better now. My companion and I get along well enough, although it´s interesting to go all day without speaking any English. The last time I had a Spanish speaking companion was about a year ago, so it´s been a while. A lot of people here think I´m Spanish though when they first meet me. I´m not perfect or anything, but the key to making people think you speak a language perfectly is getting really good at copying the accent. If you have a good accent, it really doesn´t matter if you know a lot of fancy words. Something interesting about Gandía, there is a super famous TV show filmed here called Gandía Shore, it´s based 100% on Jersey Shore and it´s famous throughout all of Spain. Today the bishop and his wife, along with the first counselor and his wife took all 6 of us missionaries to a cool waterfall/natural pool type thing. Afterwards, we all went to some caves where the Arabs hid out during the war between Spain and the Moors (the arabs that had taken over most of Spain). It was super interesting. Well, take care everyone. Until next week.

Love Élder Coleman

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