Confirmed!

I´m staying! I was happy to stay, but it´s still sad because it´s not the same Torrejón that I knew. Everyone who was here at the beginning is gone now. We had a good group. It´ll be different here, but it´ll still be nice. The members are still here. My new companion is Elder Bybee. He was in my MTC group. I´ve known him for about 3 hours so I don´t have much to report. He seems pretty chill and nice so far.

President Jackson apparently just likes to join in on lessons when he has time. Hermana Jackson joined the sister missionaries too.

My butterscotch brownies came out well! I even broke a few people´s diets with the tempation of them. They tasted really good. They´re another food that leaves you with that delicious sick feeling when you´ve eaten something really good and rich. And they don´t really drink milk here so it was much more powerful without that help. Ya, I´m always open to recipes. I learned how to make a dish called "seco de pollo" (dry of chicken?) which actually is very juicy and I want to make it at home. And I had a really good Spanish dish called cocido (pronounced koh-thee-doh) and I think you guys should try to find a recipe or a restaurant to have it.

Ya, I´ve seen lots of little miracles here. They´re pretty great. You can find lots if you are looking for them. If you look for the bad side of things you´ll find plenty and if you look for the good side of things you´ll find plenty also.

Last week the sister missionaries joined us at the gym and it was pretty funny sometimes. One was doing the bench press and was struggling and couldn´t lift the bar and her companion who was "spotting her" had her arms folded and was gazing off at nothing. So we had to run and save her a bit.

For the ward family home evening we had a pretty cool lesson. A sister offered a donut to everyone and for every person my companion had to do 10 pushups if they wanted the donut or not. It´s a cool lesson on the atonement. He did something like 250 pushups. 

The husband of Juliet, the African woman we baptized, wants to be baptized. He actually asked how long it takes to get to baptism and said he wants to do it faster than his wife which was about 3 weeks. Wow. I confirmed Raquel, the Spanish woman which was really interesting to do in Spanish but it was exciting. Now she´s officially a member of the church! We can relax and be happier now. Time to go find more Spaniards!

We had a culture night! We represented the USA and Mexico and made delicious food and the sisters clogged with normal shoes which was odd but still cool. There was a lot of interesting food and a couple dances and a like remake of an Ecuadorian sitcom. It was a really fun night and people enjoyed it.

I´m always happy with time cruising along until transfers come and then I want it to slow down a lot the last few days, but it doesn´t. These last few days were fun but sad that things were going to change. But things have changed for the better too. I´m kind of excited to see how it goes.

I miss you all and love you loads! I hope you´re all doing well! We´ll pray for you guys!

-Elder Morgan the Younger

GOL!!!

Yep, the ominous transfers are coming up in a week. They´re like a twisted Christmas. You might get a present, and you might not get a present and you might enjoy or hate one of the options. It´s about 50/50 here so we´re waiting to see what happens!

The bus company went on strike for a while and I got blisters which are a wonderful combo, but it´s over. We really need to have something like a little Smart car or a Fiat 500 to drive around. Especially since we have pueblos to go to.

President Jackson joined us in a lesson! We called us about two hours before and asked us if we had a lesson that he could come to with us. We were a bit nervous but it came out well. Although we weren´t sure if we should use him as a missionary or a member. The lady we taught was a nice little Columbian lady we met on the street. 

Last night while getting ready for bed you could hear when Madrid scored a goal against Barça because the everyone in the bars nearby screamed "GOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!" and screamed for a minute after. We had a similar moment! Our glorious Spanish investigator, Raquel, was baptized after teaching her since when I got here! It´s been about 4 months and it´s finally paid off! It feels really nice and we can relax a moment. Although this is somewhat of a secret because her family is split, like the rest of Spain, between being extremely Atheist or fervently Catholic. So if you meet any Spaniards don´t mention this! If anyone´s counting baptisms we say Spaniards count as like 10 normal ones, just so you know. If Spain didn´t have Africans or Latinos it would be one of the hardest missions in the world.
 

Raquel is the redhead on the right

I searched out the rumors and discovered real brown sugar! So I´m going to make butterscotch brownies to celebrate with the baptism!  

Our other Spanish investigator put in his papers for marraige and got a French bulldog puppy! Both are good things!

Gotta go! Love you all! Miss you loads! Hopefully I´ll have more time and have written more in my journal! I´m kind of failing! Hasta luego!

-Elder Morgan the Younger

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Ooh, I would have loved to go to Disneyworld. Although I´ve been walking plenty enough so maybe not. Yes, I am bummed that I couldn´t go but I was expecting for you guys to do fun jazz while I´m gone. I can´t expect life to stop for two years. Although that would be convenient. I haven´t reached that level of power in the priesthood yet. 

I heard my favorite reason for why the Catholic church is true and ours isn´t. A man told us last week that the Catholic church was true because there are more people in it and that apparently is solid evidence. He ignored us talking about authority and stuff.

March 11 was the anniversary of some accident. The statue outside the train station was surrounded by candles and bunches of flowers put there by people. No idea what it was, though. 

The members were watching the news and there was some wave of like a thousand Africans hopping a fence to get to Spain. Or I guess the strait of Gibraltar to Spain. It was freaky looking. They went in a giant army and swarmed it like some zombie apocalypse film. 

During a lesson an investigator said she was having a hard time accepting the Book of Mormon as well as the bible. She said all her life she had been taught, "Bible! Bible! Bible!" and right then me and my companion looked at each other and smiled and we flipped to the "A Bible! A Bible! We have a Bible!" scripture. I believe it´s in 2 Nephi 29. It was the perfect situation. 

Last Monday I obviously went to Segovia! It´s such a wonderful city. And it was a much more fun trip this time. We had a car, we had people we wanted to be with, we made sandwiches in front of the castle, we had native Spanish speakers with us, and I actually can speak Spanish now.

On Friday there was a talent show! We, the missionaries, and some ward members did the Cotton-eyed Joe dance.

There were a lot of good talents even though some were purposefully ridiculous. Some of our friends did a really good skit I had seen before on youtube. It has a girl in white dancing with a man representing Jesus. There are 4 other people who represent bad things of the world that get between her and Jesus and won´t let her get back and make her feel terrible but Jesus rushes in an pushes them all away. It´s good.  Mom, I think you can find it on Jhony's FB page.

It´s getting pretty hot here. It reached the equivalent of 88 degrees here. I´m used to that not coming until June and it´s deathly. Hopefully it goes back down. I miss my beloved snow. Maybe the heat´s making me tired. No idea. Either way I´m hopefully going to be able to rest. I miss you all a lot and love you even more! Have a great week!

Os quiero,

-Elder Morgan the Younger

Doctrine and Covenants 116

So, storytime. We went to Segovia today with people from the ward! And this time I had the camera charged! Turns out, we partially lost the car and people who aren´t missionaries walk very slow. I suppose "normal" but it seems so slow to us. After that their GPS was all funky and led us on the weirdest trip through Madrid and we got lost-ish. Eventually we got home, and had a boss lesson. After all that, I´m finally here a bit late. I have to go, but this is just so you know I am alive and so you don´t worry. This will be the D&C 116 of my novel of letters in the mission. At least I think it´s D&C 116 that´s super dang tiny. Now you can actually read the whole email in one go. Umm... I can´t remember anything life changing that happened this week. Some people gaining testimonies! Videos work like a charm sometimes. Thank you whoever made the 3rd disc of the D&C DVD collection.

Here´s a second paragraph so this looks a bit longer and so everyone feels better. Sadly the tab key doesn´t work to add to the nice paragraph effect. I´ll do that in my book! Exciting. Sadly, I must go. I love you all and and miss you loads!

Os quiero,

-Elder Morgan the Younger

Mom speaking:  Since this is such a short email, I'll include some of the photos I've been getting the past few weeks from Facebook and his companion's mother. The outside photos are taken at Parque Europa and include ward members and an investigator.

All the Torrejon missionaries

Fourth Time's the Charm

Brownies in a mug are a hit and they tasted really good. :) Especially since they sell really good cocoa powder here. Thanks for the recipe!

The "Do you want to take me" was supposed to be something along the lines of "Will you talk with us?"-*

Funny story. So, we wake up early to go to a gym nearby for our excercize in the morning every day. Last week we got a call that two girls were calling for us downstairs. Turns out the sister missionaries locked themselves out of their piso without a phone. Thankfully they just had to ask the gym to find the "Two tall americans" and they found us instantly. And on the subject of excercizing, my companion has to look good for home so we do super intense workouts before bed. Hopefully it shows soon. 

There´s a reason we say the field is black and ready to harvest! We just had our third Nigerian baptized! Paul Osaghae! He´s so solid. Thankfully it went much more smoothly and less stressfully than the last time. And even more cool is that he was baptized by the first man we baptized! It took 4 times due to a left hand and a head, but it happened in the end. Paul´s pretty happy and more solid than ever. I love these people!

They´re doing a Mission Tour where a general authority visits around the mission and does many things like giving a talk. We got to hear from Elder Teixera (from Portugal I believe) who is over Europe. And we heard from President and other people like their wives. It was really good and we learned a lot. We need more of those! Sadly they only happen once a year. 

I got the birthday card. That was wonderful. For the world to know, I received my birthday card which was a cow orchestra. It starts with the orchestra warm up and then you can press buttons which are 5 different notes of cows mooing. They also give you music and, to quote the card, plenty of "udder-ly" terrible puns. It made me very happy. Thank you. 

On the food section, I have an assignment and a story. You all (Including my illustrious brother) must find a store that sells Pandebono. It´s delicious columbian cheese bread and I´ve eaten it many times here. It´s really good. I also remember Wesley talking about something called an alfajor (something like that) and we found some here and ate them and enjoyed them. And yesterday we made arepas which are like really thick corn tortillas fried in a mountain of oil. That, combined with the really rich hot chocolate of Spain almost killed me, but I deliciously survived. I think my stomach is still lined with grease and chocolate. I have many things to cook for you guys when I get back! The hard recipes, though, are those which are just "a lot of this" and "add some of this" but I´ll try to get them.

Well I´m off to preach the gospel and go eat! Sorry if I forgot to write something! Tell me if I did! I miss you all loads like always and love you all like always! I hope you´re all doing well!

Os quiero,

Elder Morgan the Younger


Some random photos I got from Elder Fisher's mom: