No letter this week because we had a great Skype conversation with him on Christmas. Just lots of pictures. He looked and sounded great! Loved talking to him - the best part of our Christmas!!
Hey, everyone – so this week was okay. It was super busy but we didn't get a whole lot of stuff done which was super disappointing. So, Monday was a cool p-day. We played some sports. Tuesday we had a zone conference where we learned a lot. We talked about obedience and faith, so that was good. On Wednesday we did some solid weekly planning and then in the afternoon I went to Alcala to do an intercambio. We taught some lessons, gave a guy a blessing and got back half an hour late because we forgot the phone at a different appointment. I went with Elder Louder – he's had almost two transfers. This was his first time leading the area which is good for him but he forgot the keys. We had to break into the piso with a card. Very interesting! It was very funny! I was very grateful for my experience in Vila Garcia where I learned how to pop a door. That was fun. That was Thursday morning and then Thursday afternoon we went on another intercambio with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Gonzales and got to practice lots of Spanish. It was pretty good. He really helped me. We were with the zone leaders through Friday morning. Then Friday afternoon we taught the Faz family and then went to the ward party and ate some good food! Then Saturday, we went to visit the Belgium family and ate pieta and a good Belgium lunch – pretty good. I ate some applesauce on potatoes and sausages – kinda strange, but it was good. Then we went to the chapel for a baptism of the sisters – Santi. I found him with Elder Farmer about 5 or 6 months ago. Because he lives in Torrejon, we had to pass him to the sisters and they were finally able to get him baptized. He is doing good. I go to baptize him. Then on Sunday, we thought the bishop was going to give him the gift of the Holy Ghost, but the bishop asked him again. He wanted me to do it and that was fun giving another blessing in Spanish. This time I did a little bit better than I did with Jorge back in my first area. My Spanish has gotten a little bit better, you know, after a couple of months! I'll be talking to the family in a week! Sunday we did some solid lessons with members and today we played some sports. Here are a few photos. You guys are awesome! Bye!
Hey, everyone! So this week's been good. It's been getting pretty cold here. The last couple of days has been quite foggy. I've been walking around feeling like I'm in a cloud. Then at night, its scary and gloomy – walking around Spain with all the fog and the street lights – kinda creepy.
This week has been different. We met with more investigators and fewer less-actives. We met with Juan the recent convert. He is awesome! He has been visiting his family in France but they are all here now so we can visit them. Then in January he will move with them to France. We met with someone new this week. There is a lady named Jenny. She is from Peru and she's been here about a year now. She met with missionaries there and she has met with missionaries here, but they lost contact. It turns out that her phone doesn't really work that well. We called her husband – his number was in the phone register – but he isn't interested even though she is. Things are going well with her. We have met with her twice. We set a date with her for baptism for January 28th, the last Saturday in January – trying to get past all the holidays. We invited her to come to church, and she needed to talk to her husband about it and ended up not coming. Hopefully we can get them to come out to the ward party and I'm sure that will help them. We're going to try to get a member to come with us next time so they feel a little more welcome at the church. We met with Arturo and Elisabeth and they are doing good. They are putting in their marriage papers this week to be married in January. Once they have a marriage date, then we will set a baptismal date. Its kinda hard because they live in a village that is not close to Torrejon. It's hard for them to come every week – they weren't here this week. I don't know. I feel like they should be coming every week but they aren't able to. Also, we met with some of our friends from Romania. We hadn't met with them for awhile. We shared with them the Christmas video and also our purpose as missionaries. We wanted to talk about keeping commitments but didn't have time. They shared some homemade grape juice called “mosto” and it is wine in the beginning stages but doesn't have all the alcohol. It was really strong, but it was okay. We also met with the boys from the Faus family. They are doing well. The oldest boy plays soccer so every once in awhile he doesn't come to church because he's playing. The dad is a referee so he also doesn't come to church sometimes. We are talking to them about there being better things than sports on Sundays. It's their choice on how they want to do Sunday observance, but we will try to help them. Also, we met with the family from Belgium. They are doing really well. The husband is still been a real stinker as he won't come to church. There may be some anger issue or something so we're still working with him. The wife is doing amazing – she went to tithing settlement and is going to Relief Society stuff. We don't know if we will be able to meet with them this week. We have a baptism of the hermanas – they are baptizing a kid and he's doing really well. He didn't come to church because his mom made him babysit the kids, but other than that he comes every week. Sometimes his mom won't let him but he's doing the best he can to come. Friday we have our ward Christmas party and we have to do some sort of skit. I have no idea what we are doing but we will come up with something. Today we played some basketball and soccer. We're also going to play some Settlers of Catan. Other than that, there's not much else going on. This coming week is going to be crazy with the baptism and ward party. Tomorrow we have zone conference and an activity for all the missionaries in Madrid. We are doing a white elephant gift exchange and we're eating so that will be fun. On Wednesday we have an intercambio – I'm going to Alcala. On Thursday I'm doing an intercambio with the zone leaders until Friday morning and then Friday afternoon, we have the ward activity. The week is full and it's going to go by so fast. After that I just have one more week until the transfer is over. I'm assuming I'm going to leave, but you can never quite say. I'll have a little less than six months at the end of December. I've enjoyed my time here. I'd like to go somewhere else, but I could stay here and go for another transfer. Well, that's all I've got. I hope you guys have a great week. Thanks! Bye! Here's my weekly email. Today for p-day we are playing some basketball. We are hanging with the “herms” (hermanas – sisters, in Spanish) right now.
Fun stuff for this week – not much happened. We did a lot of home teaching visits. We ate some good food. I really don't feel like writing, but, whatever.. We met with the Belgium family again. It was pretty good – we got some good food. Then we met with the Faz family from Ecuador. We did go to the temple today and that is why p-day was changed. I know it has been a week and a half , but I don't have a lot to say. We finally met with Arturo and Elizabeth. They are going to get baptized some time in January after they get married. Arturo finally got divorced from his Spanish wife and they are working on getting married. That's everything. Sorry this week's letter is lame and short. Bye! This week was good. So, Monday not much happened.
Tuesday, while we were at a members house, our investigator called us. He is really hard to meet with so we answered his call. He said he could meet with us in 30 minutes. The problem was he lives like 30 mins away so we would have to leave right then. One of the kids of this family is a returned missionary and he asked what was up. We told him and he told us to leave to be able to meet with him, so that was nice. This investigator's name is Najib and he is from Syria. He happens to already be Christian, so we didn't have to worry about teaching someone who's Muslim without a Christian background, so that was nice. We are going to try to meet with him again tomorrow so we will see. We are eating with the member family again tomorrow, too. Wednesday we met with Paolo, a less active who smokes a lot, and we are trying to help him. He said he would come to church, but in the end he didn't. Then we met with Juan, the recent convert and he is awesome, like always. He is excited to see his family this upcoming weekend and I think they might be coming back with him from France to spend the holidays here in Spain. Thursday we had some nice weekly planning and then some other fun stuff. We had a fun family home evening where we invited Juan. Gladys said her husband was going to be there, but he said he had to plan something for work (aka avoiding the missionaries, lol). Hopefully this week we will be able to meet with him. We will keep trying to meet with his family until he feels like being there. Friday we had a nice family home evening with a family in Coslada. We showed them how to make brownies, so that was fun. They loved the brownies even though I burnt them a little bit, lol. Saturday we met with Jose and his family. It's strange meeting with them because you feel welcome but you also don't at the same time. It was funny. Hopefully things will get better as we keep meeting with them. We also met with the family from Belgium and got some chocolate from Belgium (it was really good!) and some amazing food. They always try to make something typical from Belgium so that's always fun. The husband told us that his old branch president called him this week and he said it was a surprise from him....... later, when he was in the bathroom, we found out that his wife called the old branch president and told him to call, lol. The wife is doing great, but the husband isn't progressing really at all. We are going to see if we can get him to read or come to church this week. Well, Sunday we helped set up for a young women thing - some big show off thing they do for them - I forget what it is called in English. (Young Women in Excellence – haha!). Then we had a family home evening with a cool family that lives in Torrejón. We picked out names for Secret Santa. I got the mom so I think some chocolate and something for the kitchen will be good ... I have no idea what to get her! Well, that's about all. Love you guys! Elder Mackay Hello, everyone. This week was pretty good. We are trying lots of finding ideas but mostly trying to stick to contacting. It's not really working so we are going to have to try some other stuff. We are talking to lots of people but the amount of people that are meeting with us is zero! We will talk to really awesome people that are excited to talk to us. We will even set up a meeting with them and then they just don't show up. I think we need to do a better job with helping them feel the Spirit when they talk with us. That way they have a better chance. I think we are going to focus on activities. That could help. We are also going to work with the few members we have. We are kinda already meeting with them, but we are going to try to do a better job. There is one lady who is less-active, that is reactivating herself. She has finally gotten her husband to drive her to church. Her husband is atheist but he has only dealt with the Catholic church and so I think if we could get him to know our church, things could possibly change. From what I hear, he's a pretty cool guy – I've never met him. He kinda dodged us on Thursday – we went over there to eat. He said he had a meeting so he didn't show up. That was sad, but we'll keep trying to meet with him.
We finally met with a member called Paulo. He's Italian but he grew up in Venezuela. He now lives here and he's been a member for about a year. He's gone inactive and he's drinking and smoking heavily and he wants to come to church and to continue meeting with us. We are going to try to work with him and help him with the Addiction Recovery Program. He needs to get divorced so he can marry the girl he is living with. She is very sweet and really helps him out for which he is very grateful. She's not a member of the church and she has some interest so she is a possible investigator and his two sons have some interest. We are excited to start meeting with them and hopefully work with them. The family from Belgium that we meet with, they invited us over for Christmas dinner so we are really excited. It sounds like they are going to put a lot of work into it. We are meeting with them every week. It takes a long time to get out there, but its really worth it. We really love them and they are awesome. They put a lot of work into making a new Belgium dish every week so we can try it. Its always super good. The husband has issues with the church. They drink very lightly – once or twice a month they have a little bit of wine or beer, so we have to work on that. The wife really wants to go to the temple. She is excited to go, but the husband has some issues that we have to work on so they can go. It was kinda funny on Sunday – the bishop and the ward mission leader decided they are going to be home teachers for this family. She asked, “Does this mean you guys aren't going to come anymore?” We told them no, that we need to keep working with her husband and we love them and want to help. She was so relieved. I'm so glad to know they really like our visits. Juan is doing really good. He is in France for the weekend, getting back today. We are trying to do a noche de hogar with him and some of the other less-actives in his pueblo. Other than that, there isn't a lot more going on in our area. We are trying to work with the leaders a bit more. I have some photos for you. There is a family from Chile. There is this food called completos – hot dogs with sliced up onions, guacamole, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard – basically everything. They are called completos for a reason and they taste super good. You know the size of a french bread loaf? They put a completo is one of those and challenged me to eat it and I did. That was pretty fun. I'll send you the picture. That was my week. Thanks for all the emails. Love you all! Have a great week. So, we didn't meet with a single investigator this week. We dropped all our investigators because they are not progressing. They all had some some sort of problem, so we are starting with a clean slate. We are working on finding new ones. We had a nice visit with all our less-actives. We met with Juan, who got baptized not too long ago on Thursday. He's doing good. This weekend he's going to France to visit his family and then in January he's going to move there. I'm probably going to be gone to a new area by then. We talked to him about the priesthood and he knows a lot. He really should have been baptized a year or two ago. I feel like he knows as much as me about this stuff. He really gets it. He knows that he needs to change himself and really step up to be worthy of this priesthood. It's really cool seeing the reverence and respect he has for it. It really strengthens my faith and my testimony. Kinda made me feel like I need to take the priesthood a little more seriously. So it was really cool.
On Friday, we went to visit Maximo's family. Maximo was baptized back in August when Elder Farmer was here. The dad and the older son haven't been to church for the past two weeks so we are a little worried about them. But we are going to go visit them this Wednesday and see what's going on. I believe the dad is not coming because of work but I think he has control over whether or not he works on Sunday. Bothers me a little. I think the son is watching his dad and thinking he's not going to go if his dad's not going. I don't really know, but we will see what we can do to help them. Later, Friday night we went to the temple and had a beautiful experience. We were told if we weren't there by 6:30 with our recent converts, we wouldn't be able to get in. Juan told us he wouldn't be able to get there til 7:15, so we made plans for him to pick us up and go to his pueblo and teach a message instead. Then he decided it would be less miles and easier to just meet at the temple. We decided to just talk about family history work and, since he had his recommend, we would go in the temple and show him the font, even though there wouldn't be time to do baptisms. So, we went inside and it was really cool. We had just talked about how he could do baptisms for ancestors who had passed away, when Elder Holt saw us in the back. He asked one of the temple workers if there was time for him to do baptisms. The temple worker said he could if he could hurry and change. It was already about 8 pm, but Juan hurried into change and I quickly went upstairs to have some my family names printed off that I had found. He was able to be baptized for two of my ancestors and he was confirmed right by the side of the font so I would be able to see it. It was very spiritually powerful. But there is more to the story – maybe the coolest part. When Juan didn't show up to the temple on time, we left and got on the Metro and left him a message telling him that it probably wasn't going to work out. But then my comp and I both got a prompting that we needed to get off the Metro and go back to the temple. Then everything worked out the way it did. The Lord really wanted us to have these experiences. It was a very powerful experience for Juan – he absolutely loved it. Tomorrow we are going to do some family history work for his dad and his grandparents. He can be baptized for his grandfathers and when his wife comes back to town in December, she can do his grandmother & great grandmother. Saturday we had lessons set up by they failed us. We are trying to meet with new people but they just aren't showing up. We're trying to work with more members this next week and get references. We went out to the pueblo and met with the Belgium family. They were excited to meet with us and know that I won't be transferred but that I am staying here in Coslada. So we talked to them about faith and how it is a choice – there is that conference talk “Faith is not by chance, but by Choice.” We shared that with them and it really hit them hard. They really liked it. We talked about in order to have this faith that they need in order to reactivate themselves, they have to choose to do stuff. They have to choose to read the scriptures. They have to choose to come to church. So we talked about that and we talked about reading and praying. Ives said it will be hard to get him to come to church – that he's got something coming on that we couldn't get him to share. So we are trying not to be too prying – we just want to help him, but this week we're going to try to be more direct and show him that we really love him so we can help him and find out what's really bothering him. He talks about reverence but most of that is kids. Karin, the wife is doing really good. She came to church and she's reading everyday. She's progressing and she wants to go to the temple. She has a real drive and I can see that she has chosen to reactivate herself. There is something different with her, compared to Ives. I can see that she has the Holy Ghost with her and she's happier. I'm really grateful to see all of this. I didn't really do that much. I just showed up and invited them. But I guess most of the time that is all that people really need is an invitation. That's what's cool about missionary work is that we get to be the ones that get to invite and its usually not something really complicated. Most of the time its just an invitation like the Lord does with us. Its really cool. Sunday, not much else happened. We set up some appointments and we have our week almost full with less-actives and a couple of members where we are supposed to come visit their pueblos. These members have talked about inviting friends that they think they can share the gospel with. So, we are really excited to meet with them to see if we can help their friends. Something funny on Friday. Three different people asked me if I was Romanian. I often have people from Romania come up to me and start talking to me in their language. I think it is fun to mess with them so I often say, “Hey, how's it going?” in Romanian, because I've been taught that. They will think I'm Romanian, and I tell them, “I'm sorry, I'm from America and that's all I know in Romanian.” They are kind of surprised. Funny to hear about Donald Trump. I don't really know what is going on with him. All the Spanish people think it is terrible and that we should have had a woman president because its different. It's funny to hear their reasons on why they think Clinton should have won. The media is doing a good job making Trump look like an idiot. But I'm really way out of the loop. Well, that's my week. Love you all. Hope you have a great week! Today is Elder Wade's birthday – he's one of the zone leaders – and we went to play paddle ball. It's kind of a mixture of tennis and racquetball - it's interesting. It was fun. I was able to get into it and play it decently.
This week's been cool. We found a lot of cool people. It's just a matter of actually meeting with them. Right now there are two new people we are meeting with. The first is a girl named Ina from Romania. She's cool and comes from a Lutheran background, I think. We are going to meet with her tonight around 7. I hope we can get her to progress. This will be our second time meeting with her. Someone else we are meeting with is Andy and is from China. He speaks Mandarin and speaks English as well as he speaks Spanish. We are trying to teach him but he has absolutely no belief in God. So, its kind of weird teaching him. We'll probably have him read the story of Ammon in the Book of Mormon. It's just difficult because he has a Chinese Book of Mormon and its hard to know if he's reading in the right place. We'll have to figure that out. We have to teach him about faith and prayer. He's kind of weird about prayer – he doesn't like it. He was telling us we can't pray for him. But he's really cool. Right now we're handing out lots of Book of Mormons. President really got on us. We handed out 20 this week and we are seeing a big difference in our missionary work. It's a blessing to see the power of it. We are actually going to meet with a guy who is Muslim. Actually we have to see if we can meet with him. We have to make sure he doesn't have any family in the area, because his family could be attacked or killed because he's meeting with us or if he joins the church. He's reading about 3 pages a day and tells us he has to finish reading it before he can meet with us. We tell him we still want to meet with him. We are also meeting with a bunch of Romanians in Coslada. We can go up to just about anyone and say, “Hey, you're from Romania, aren't you?” We speak to them in Romania – the little we know. So its kind of cool. We also have books in Romanian. The sister from Belgium came to church on Sunday even though her husband didn't. They are at different points in their progression. They are willing to make goals to progress but I can see we are going to have to help them. The husband really has some doubts. We are going to have to help him. We didn't get to meet with Jose who was sick most of the week. We are meeting with Kenya tonight at 8 right after we meet with Ina. Hopefully things will go well with her. We are going over with her friend who is from the Dominican Republic. He just got called to be the 2nd counselor in the bishopric. Other than that, we have a bunch of potentials. We have a lot of members in these pueblos who want to work with us have friends that they want us to teach. When we tell them we are coming out to where they live, they start listing the friends we could meet with. It's kind of hard to get out there, so I understand why missionaries haven't been there. It's hard to work in the pueblos and in our main area. It can take two hours to get out to an area like that and then 2 hours to get back plus the time spent there. It can take all day. Me and Elder Pittman are getting along good. I'm really starting to understand him and love him. He is very conservative so it can be interesting talking with him, trying to make conversation. I'm really grateful for the chance to be able to work out here. Love you all! Hope you have a great week. So, glad to hear the beach trip was good. Weird to think that a year ago, I was in the MTC seeing all the photos from last year. Also, weird to see how people have grown in a year. Nice that Rachel is faithful and writes me every week. Ashley used to, but she must have met someone.
Well, this week was really great. Our area's going a little slow but we are working on finding more people. We got to visit with Juan, our recent convert, and he's doing really good. In a month or two he's probably moving to France with his family. That's disappointing, but I could be gone to a new area. Also, we are possibly going to the temple with him to do baptisms on the 11th of November so that could be cool. Friday we went and visited the Belgium family. They always feed us. Their neighbors couldn't come so that was disappointing, but we had a really good lesson with them, talking about the importance of our covenants and keeping them. It was interesting how they wanted to do better and they knew they needed to. It was kind of like they were just waiting for an invitation. So, they committed to read and pray. They told me they weren't going to church and that was hard, but I told them it would bless them if they did go. They drove us home and we got home kind of late, which is bad. We are working on that. The visits with them are important. Also, we visited with the Faus family. They are doing pretty good. The dad is inactive after baptizing the son, Maximo, back in August after I first got here. The family still comes. I wanted to talk to them about keeping covenants, too, but we ran out of time. Saturday, we visited with our investigator, Maria. She's moving to a pueblo near Toledo. Her boyfriend (who we thought was her husband) is kicking her out. We have to pass her on to other missionaries and hopefully she can meet with them more. That would be good for her. Sunday, we went to pick up our investigator, Kenya. She said she would go to church with us if we came and picked her up. She didn't answer. Then right as we were ringing her doorbell, we got a text from the Belgium family, saying they were on their way to church. I got really excited. They are my favorite people to visit – they are really cool. They came to church but they felt like it wasn't very reverent, at least during the sacrament, and people are talking the whole time. That's part of the reason why they haven't been coming. I think its mainly children and parents trying to shush them. They joined after their children were grown, so they may not quite understand that. So, we will keep trying to get them to come. I was so happy to see them! So, that was my week. Today as a zone we did some pumpkin carving and had some pumpkin cookies and pizza. The zone leaders treated us all – they took a big hit to their wallets. Now we are going to play some foot ball and play some games. It should be a fun day. Love you all and loved hearing from you. See you all next week! Hey, Mom!
Well, sounds like you had a good week. Well, highlights of the week - I don't remember much of last week, but we contacted a lady and she gave us her email. We set up an appointment and she came! So that was crazy! And she was sitting really close to me so we will see where this goes - hope that it wasn't anything. Well we invited the Van family to come to church and their neighbor, but they didn't come. :( Juan got baptized and it was good. We visited him and his family last night. We had fun playing some games. Monday we had interviews with President and it was really good and spiritual. Today I went to the temple and I'm so glad I can go - I loved it. Well, today I'm going to El Escorial (historical residence of the King of Spain). Love you guys! |
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
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