Missionaries Need a Naptime

I was kind of bad at journal writing this week, but here we go. We all know that even though I say this will be short, it will be long.

It´s all going pretty well. We have some baptisms on the way and we just need to wait for time or special situations. It´s kind of patience-testing, but I´ll survive. I´m sorry I don´t have much to tell about the investigators this week. Henry, who just got baptized, has very little light in his room so he can´t read so we got him a headlamp as a present and Elder Fisher gave him a tie for church.

Christmas Eve was mostly tracting, but I use that term loosely because it was Christmas Eve and we´re in Spain. There was almost no one on the streets. We did that all day until the afternoon where we went to a small bit of a Christmas devotional. We split for a member´s house and had a huge Christmas Eve dinner and celebrations. It was really fun to be around a lot of people and have somewhere to be on Christmas Eve. And for some reason they were all Ecuadorians. I seem to know a lot of those on the mission.  We woke up on Christmas and went to the same members for the morning. I opened my presents there with everyone and made biscuit cinnamon rolls. The first batch was really wet and didn´t come out well but I learned what to do the second time and made a beautiful batch. Everybody loved them and everyone was full. Also everyone had that wonderful sick feeling after eating those because your stomach cannot handle the deliciousness.

I got to call my family and even though they were right ways up I was upside down. No idea why. C´est la vie. It was pretty great. I was kind of tired and didn´t know what to say, but we got to talk a lot. It was weird because my mind was back at home and I couldn´t think of the mission stories and whatnot. And they told my I say "whatnot" a lot. You guys love it. I wish I could´ve seen Wesley too, but I loved seeing everyone. I won´t type much about the call because most of the people reading this were a part of it and I don´t remember the exact wording. Although one thing I do want to mention that I think got misunderstood was that "coger" here and in the dictionary means "to get" but in a lot of parts of Spanish America it is the equivalent to the f word. We use it the right way, it´s the other countries that use it as slang in terrible ways. I don´t want you all to think I am starting to swear like a truck driver, or worse: a Spanish person. They swear a mountain load. But anyways, it was really great to talk to family but it was really sad to hit the end call button.

Today was pretty interesting. We got haircuts and turns out they were 3 times the cost as other shops. Wow. We found a Subway! It was great to eat that again. And we went to the grocery store, Mercadona, that I always went to in my first area. I was happy to find all the good items and brands again. Like how they have quiches and a huge bakery section. And I found worchestershire (that´s how you spell it?) sauce! It was so exciting because you can´t find it anywhere and I need it for quite a few recipes from home. It was a simple joy to go to that store and find all the things I used to get. All of it is the glorious store brand, Hacendado. It was nostalgia.

It was a pretty uneventful week and I´m pretty tired. No idea why. But it turns out this was pretty short. We had a lot of failed stuff and obviously Tuesday and Wednesday weren´t the best days for mission work. Like always I have hope for the future! Hopefully a less tired future. I suppose it´s good that I´m tired because that´s generally linked with work. I love you all! Miss you loads! Talk to you next week!

Elder Morgan the Younger

I found Daniel's mission companion's  mother on a missionary mom website.  She was kind enough to send some photos.  Daniel hasn't sent any for a while, so it was good to at least see what his companion looks like.