Hope you all have a great week.
Elder Craig MacKay
So to start off this week, I talked to you guys on Wednesday and that was fun. When we got back, we visited the Franco family and ate pancakes with maple syrup... it was nice. Thursday we went to Avila and had some really good food with the members there, but we stayed a bit too long and we missed our bus. So we took a train to Madrid, thinking it would be faster than the bus that would come 4 hours later. Everything went wrong and we barely got back on time before we had to be back in the piso. Friday we did weekly planing and we visited Raul. We had some really good food, but I started to get sick, so we called it a night a little early. Saturday we spent almost all day in the piso because I wasn't feeling great. Sunday we went for the first hour of church and then left. I slept all day. Yeah, so my week was not too exciting. But, yeah, (sarcasm here) it was fun sitting in the piso all day, not being able to do anything.
Hope you all have a great week. Elder Craig MacKay This week and a half seemed kinda long. We are going to the temple this morning. Let me tell you about some of the highlights.
When I wrote you last, we were in Madrid. Then, last Tuesday we had a zone conference with the area 70, Elder Suarez from Portugal. He's a cool guy. He talked a lot about our studies and the importance of them. He also talked about the importance of commitments. It was a good conference. We spent the rest of the day in Vialba on intercambios and finished on Wednesday. We were out of our area for 3 days. It was kinda rough, but it was what we had to do. On Tuesday night, we ditched the elders from Vialba and went to visit our branch president who lives there. He doesn't live in Segovia. It was very fun visiting with him and his wife. They fed us some grilled cheese sandwiches and some salad. Because my comp wasn't feeling well and wasn't hungry, he was struggling to eat. He hid the sandwich in his bag so he could eat it later. Our branch president assumed he finished the sandwich and said he would go get him another one, since they had made 3 for each of us. My comp was freaking out at the thought of eating all of that. We don't normally eat dinner and after I ate one sandwich and the salad, I was full. Yet, there were 2 more sandwiches waiting for me. My comp saved me by saying he wasn't hungry, so we just wrapped them all up. They gave us some brownie-type things which were really good. We ate them the next morning for breakfast. On Thursday, one brother called us at 3 in the afternoon – he was drunk. We went to talk to him. He's an interesting guy. He doesn't really keep his commitments. We offered to give him a blessing of comfort. He didn't read what we asked him to and he wasn't doing any of it. We don't feel like he took it serious. But now he seems to be doing better. He came to church on Sunday, so that's good. It seems like everyday is the same. We meet with the same group of people – Raoul, Pancho and his family, Guiermo, Yunior, and sometimes we meet with Esteban. Saturday we met with an old investigator. She doesn't seem like she's really that interested, but she likes to know people and be friendly. She fed us some homemade flour tortillas with beans, eggs and avocado. It was okay. It was different from the normal Spanish food, so I enjoyed the diversity. It was okay. Sunday we had the branch president and his wife come along with 2 members, 2 sisters, so they could get to know Segovia. It was cool seeing them there. One of them was from England. She is the wife of the old branch president here. Monday we visited Guiermo and his mom, Cordoba. They told us about the dad, being drunk at 11 in the morning. He came home at 4 in the afternoon, completely wasted and had about 12 more beers on him. He just said he was sorry and that he is really bad, that he is not feeling too good. It was sad seeing him like that. We hear he is really rude to people when he's drunk, but he wasn't that mean to us. But, it sounded like he started yelling when we left. Other than that, we are just trying to get to know less-actives. The funny thing about it is the members say that the ones coming to church are the only ones with interest. But, other less-actives keep showing up for church with interest to become active again. So, we are kinda ignoring what all the members are saying. We are just going to go through the ward list and visit everyone... cause that's what we do. We find less-actives and find their friends or family members that aren't baptized and we teach them. That is how it works in a little village. Otherwise, everyone we talk to is Catholic... very Catholic. They tell us they are Christian. We let them know we are Christian, too. I think its funny what some of the people think of us. The other day someone called my companion an anti-Christ. That was kinda funny. Last night we slept in Torrejon because it is closer to Verones and the temple, by 30 minutes when you use public transportation. But, we chose wrong this time, because the train broke down for 30 minutes and we missed our temple session. We are currently sitting in the chapel by the temple, waiting for the next temple session. It will take an hour and a half, but we really don't have anything big planned for the day, but we will have fun. So that was our week. Oh, I saw Santiago, the wonderful guy I baptized in Torrejon. He's doing good – we took him out to Burger King. It was very good. The elders in Barrio 8 were supposed to send me photos of Primo's baptism (the father of Craig's first baptism), so I'm going to have to get on them. Hope you guys all have a great week. Bye!! To answer your questions, Mom, Yunior is okay. He is at the point where we will drop him or he will start to progress. It's hard to tell what he wants. He jokes around with us and sometimes it's hard to know if he really wants to do what we are telling him. Isabel is the girl from Bolivia. She didn't show up on Saturday or pick up her phone so.... I don't know what will happen with her. We aren't getting a car yet. President Pack would have to take it from someone, so it could be a while and I could be gone. Yadira's boyfriend isn't sure if he wants to take lessons and they couldn't meet this week, so that was hard. The new village assigned to our area is Avila.
I found out that Primo, the dad of Jorge, my convert in Barrio 8, is getting baptized this Saturday! So I'm pumped to know that in a year they will be in the temple! I'm excited for them!! So for my week - we did a lot of running around and people were not able to meet - so a lot of let downs. We did get the number of an old friend and we will try to meet with them. Not much else. Hope that helps with your questions. Not much happened this week. It was Stake Conference on Sunday and so we had to go all the way to Madrid. Most of our day was spent traveling. So we left Segovia at 8:30 in the morning and we got back around 6:00 that night. We also had interviews so we had to wait awhile for our turn. I don't know why we went last since we are the furthest away. Everyone else got to go before us, but whatever.
This week's been good. We met with a new investigator. She's from Bolivia. She's cool. The area's good. We are doing our contacting and stuff. I'm enjoying it. I'm been making fun of the English in my companion but I think he's starting to get tired of it so I'm going to have to chill out. He's a cool guy. We got permission to work in nice little village that is new to our area. My companion asked for a car because he's English and has his driver's license so we may be getting a car here soon. That would be fun. We have a whole lot more work because of this village because there are a lot of less actives there. So tomorrow I think we are going to go there and visit a whole bunch of members. We're just going to go and spend the whole day just passing by. We're going to find out who still lives there and who we can work with – who has interest and who doesn't. But I'll be excited to work with some of the members there – see if we can get the branch a little bit bigger. There used to be like 30 people, but now there's 10. I don't really have a lot to say. I'm ready to go eat at this American place – not really that great but its okay. Fun to go eat out. That's how it is. Hope you have a good week! Love you! Bye! So I just sent you an email last Wednesday. So, the rest of that Wednesday, we finished up our p-day, finished up doing a few things here and there. We went out and did some contacting and talked to a couple people. I don't think anyone wanted to talk to us. Thursday, I don't remember what happened – it was kinda boring. Friday we had district meeting. We skyped in so we didn't have to come in all the way to Vialba because that takes a lot of time. In the afternoon, we visited with Yunior, our faithful investigator. That night we had English class and then did some more contacting. It was pretty chill. Saturday we did our weekly planning in the morning. Then, helped a member with something – I forget what it was. It wasn't anything exciting. Then we visited a member, had a lesson, did some contacting. Then we went to the church for transfers. While we were there, I was in the kitchen and dropped a glass on my ipad screen and it shattered. Elder Johnson is being transferred to Torrejon, my old area, with just a few minor changes. I'm getting Elder Liptrott. He is English with an American mom. He's very English. On Sunday, Elder Johnson & I went and visited everyone in the branch. Its pretty easy to do that – all 10 of them. We got a lot of food appointments. We normally only get about 2 a week. We were going to teach Yadira's boyfriend, but he didn't have time – had to go work later that night. We'll teach him about the Restoration next time, but we were disappointed we couldn't do it this time. I'm on my way to Madrid right now to pick up my new companion. We'll play some sports while we're there so that will be fun. Have a great week! I'll talk to you next Monday.
Hey, everyone. This week and a half, not a whole lot happened. The highlight of the week - I went to the temple. It was really fun. Found out my sister is rooming with the sister of Hermana Walker (We were in the MTC together – we came out at the same time) at BYU-I. That was funny to find out.
This week, we did some more intercambios with the elders from Vialba. They came here to Segovia and we talked to a lot of people on the street. It was enjoyable – it was chill. Basically all our lessons failed us but we were able to go meet with a member. She works at a place that cooks chestnuts. We went there and talked to her and she gave us a couple chestnuts. They are pretty good but they are an acquired taste. You have to eat them a couple of times to get used to them. Kind of the same thing has been happening. We meet with less-actives, we meet with Yunior, our one and only faithful investigator. Oh, actually I do have something.... we have a new investigator. There is a less-active named Yadira and she is from Honduras. She is currently not attending church. She's a good lady. She's had a rough time from some of the members in the branch. We've been trying to meet with her. She gives us food every Sunday and its really good. We had hamburgers on Sunday and that was nice. The fun part of it is, she has a boyfriend who is not a member. He's from a pretty big city just north of here. He comes every Sunday because that's the only time they can see each other. It's kinda sad but it keeps them good. When we were eating at her house, they were there. After we finished, she said, “Hey, elders. We are going to read some scriptures, okay?” She had us choose what we were reading. So, we read about Enos. We found out that he's Catholic but really doesn't go to church. He's a good man who believes in God, but doesn't really know a lot. So we talked about prayer – real prayer, not just reciting something. We really had to explain a lot about the Book of Mormon. As we ran out of time, we told him we would explain more the next time. He was pretty cool with it, but when your girlfriend is forcing you to sit down with a couple of missionaries, you kinda have to be cool with it. You don't want to offend your girlfriend. That was kinda funny. He seems like a really cool guy. I hope things work out with him. It should help get Yadira active. We found some people on our intercambio that we are going to call and try and set some stuff up with. That's just kind of the normal. It will be exciting to see what happens on Saturday because its transfers. My companion Elder Johnson thinks he's leaving, but we will see. Maybe I will get sent out of here and he will stay. I think that would be hard on him. This area has not been very easy for him. But, that would be funny & I would laugh and then say I'm sorry. But, that's probably not going to happen. I probably have two more transfers here at least. So, I'm glad. Hopefully I will get some awesome person with a bunch of fire, getting ready to work, you know. That's everything I've got. Hope you all have a great week! p.s. At the Missionary Conference, last week, there were a few changes for us. The way things are right now, our morning schedule that we followed is that we wake up and have a 30 minute workout. Then we have an hour to eat, get dressed and shower. Then we have personal study for an hour and comp study for an hour. Now with the changes, we get up and we can do all that in whatever order we want except we also have to plan for the day, which we used to do at night and comp study is anytime during the day that works best for us. We can be flexible with the time we spend doing comp study. It can be as short as a half hour. Also we have an hour for lunch and half an hour for dinner along with half an hour to an hour for language study. Then at night, all they ask us to do when we come back is write in our journal and go to bed. We have an hour and a half to do whatever we want. We also have an extra half hour in the morning that we can use for whatever we want, except we aren't supposed to sleep, which sometimes is tempting. However at night we can go to bed earlier. We don't have to wait until 11. We can go to bed as early as 9:30, if we want. In our mission, we only eat lunch so we eat and have a nap if we want during the rest of the hour. We can have a snack if we want at night and we fit in the comp and language study. There are changes on p-day as well. We get up at 7, eat, get ready and study for an hour and leave by 8:30. Also, we used to have 9 key indicators, but now there are 4. Baptism & Confirmation are one. New investigators are also one. The other two are investigators at Sacrament meeting and investigators with a baptismal date. We no longer count progressing investigators or lessons with less-actives. We no longer count member present lessons or any kind of lessons with investigators. Its really different but its supposed to help us focus on those 4 things. We will still visit less-actives but it will help us stay focused and not waste time. So my haircut took longer than I thought, so you will only get photos today, some from a hike we went on today. Funny thing - I got stuck in an elevator this week for like 30 mins.
Well, this week not much happened. We met with Yunior. He is doing ok. He needs help getting a testimony of all of it. He will be a great member when he can be baptized. We met with almost all the less-actives. We had fun trying to help them. A lot of stuff has gone down with members in Segovia that has messed it up, but we are working with what we've got.
Well, I'm sorry guys - I don't have much to say and my P-day was shortened because we have interviews with President today, but I'll be glad to talk with him. Hope you all have a great week Hey guys,
Well this week was good we started out strong and did a bunch of contacting Tuesday in the morning and then we met with Yunior our only investigator at the moment but we are working on that. Then we did some service and had English classes. After that we did some more contacting. Wednesday was fun we had intercambios with the elder in our district. We met up at district meeting. For all my mission I have had district meeting about an hour long. If they were longer, they were an hour and a half long, from what I remember. But my district leader did one that was 2 hours so it was kinda long for me but it was good. I learned a lot. Then I ran around and did some lessons and it was good. Then Thursday morning was also intercambio and we changed back and then we contacted all morning. In the afternoon we meet with Yunior and then more contacting. Then we met with Soledad and she told us her niece wants to take the lessons once her kids finish the comunión in the Catholic Church so we don't know when that will be but we hope that is soon. Friday we contacted all day long but is was good and we had some fun contacts. We tried inviting to English classes and to play fútbol with us, but we didn't have much luck with that. Then at night we met with Raul. It was cool meeting with him. Saturday we stayed in piso because I was sick but I'm all good now. Sunday we had like 9 people at church so that was better then New Years. I met the branch president. He is cool. Then we met with Yadira and she is cool - just doesn't want to come because she was deeply offended by a member or something like that, but she is cool and is going to feed us every Sunday - sometimes just with food to go but hey that's something, so I'm excited. Today our district came here (to Segovia) and we showed them around and it was freaking cold but it has been all week. And here our photos of our day and our week So this last week I was transferred to Segovia and that was a surprise. I never thought I was going to have the chance to serve here. I'm excited to be here but I know the work will be slow.
Well, leaving Torrejon was strange. I had been there for 6 months and it felt like home, but it was time for me to go. I was sad the leave the district. I am really good friends with all of them. So I got sent here and Hermana Sam got sent to the north. I'll miss her - she is a cool sister. Elder Pitman got one of his old comps and so, other than that, the district is the same. So Segovia is really small. I feel like I know most of it already, but it's good. We have a good amount of less-actives to work with and we are on the hunt for investigators. We have one and, well, his mom won't let him be baptized. We are working to get him ready for this Diciembre when he turns 18. Other than that, the elder here before me didn't do much finding. Not much goes on here. Fun stuff that happened this week - We ate with 3 members and my new companion, Elder Johnson from Odgen, Utah, told me I will never have this many eating appointments in the rest of my time here. We ate with some members for New Years. Today I saw some members from Torrejon visiting Segovia, so that was fun. My comp likes Pokémon so I play with him for fun, but it's kinda funny that he likes it that much. Well, hope you all have a great week |
This blog follows
Craig's adventures in Spain as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints CRAIG'S
EMAIL ADDRESS craig.mackay @myldsmail.net Archives
October 2017
Translating
Craig's E-mails mediodía - noon or lunchtime noche de hogar - family home evening piso - apartment cena cita - dinner appointment fecha - baptism date menos activos - less actives consejo - ward council My Great
Companions Badge courtesy of Mormon Share |