Chiquitito*

Well, this week also was pretty uneventful besides the mission tour. Elder Dyches of the Seventy came and spoke and so did his wife and of course so did President and Hermana Jackson. It was all really good but nothing impacting and life changing as the other one. I guess that´s because this one was meant more for the rising generation. But it was really good. Also, on a random note, they taught us how to make missionary shirts with origami but I already knew how thanks to my trusty Mormon origami book I got last year.

Well I am just frustrated because on Saturday we had one of the best lessons of the mission and our investigator still dropped her baptismal date. The Spirit was strong, her family was there and bore testimony, we taught well, we had a boss recently returned missionary that we brought with us, we answered all her concerns perfectly with great scriptures, and nothing changed for her. I feel like those prophets who are basically like, "Well I´ve done my part so if you are condemned for all eternity, it´s not my fault. Peace out." Some people´s minds confuse me. I have done so many mental face palms while listening to people here.

Umm... So it truly was uneventful. Just stuff that I don´t write about despite promptings from your side of the ocean. Plus I´m a bit under the weather so I shall end here today. I love you all! Miss you loads!

Os quiero,

Elder Morgan

 

*Means "little" and I'm guessing it refers to the size of his letter this week.

My Valentine Streets

Well this week was pretty uneventful.

We got to go to the temple! It was nice. The temple film was one I had already seen. I gotta see lots of missionaries that I hadn´t seen in a while. Also we had stake conference and this stake includes Villalba so I got to see almost the whole ward again. It was really cool but we had to leave fast to get out to a pueblo on time so I didn´t get to talk much afterward. I miss that ward so much. I honestly just want to be in all my wards at once. Like mix them all together.

Abomination of the week: My eyes are plagued with the "Fifty Shades of Grey" posters that are literally everywhere. It´s not anything bad in the photo, just the fact that they made the dang movie. And they´ve been here for quite some time. I hope for change soon.

Well my Valentine last week was the beloved streets of Carabanchel. I suppose there was not enough love left over for people to love us so we only had one lesson at the end of the day. I seem to have a certain street in almost all my areas that I´ve walked on SO much. In Barrio 8/Vallecas it was Avenida de la Albufera. In Torrejón it was Avenida de la Constitución. In Villalba it was Calle Real. In Barrio 5 there wasn´t just one. And here we have our good old faithful Calle de la Oca. On the plus side my legs are very in shape. I want to see how close all the places I walked to at home are with my missionary pace as well. They´ll probably be like a third of the original time. Non-missionaries walk so slow!

The last story of the week is that we got to eat with an American family, The Siddoways. It was so good! Taco bean soup and tortilla chips. The salad had sweet beloved Ranch dressing--which cannot be obtained in Spain easily. They were really nice and their two twin 3 year old daughters proceeded to show us every single toy they owned while we waited for lunch. It was very cute.

And Carnaval has started. Not much happens here except kids in cute outfits and adults in less virtuous outfits.

I miss you all and love you all!

Os quiero,

Elder Morgan

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Well this week got dang cold. I believe that Polar Vortex of Death or whatever people were mentioning hit us finally. I finally whipped out those thermal pants Mom sent last year because we had a long day in the streets when it was below freezing. It snowed lightly here and we had almost a normal amount of snowing for a couple minutes. In the north and even in Villalba it was snowed quite a bit more. Elder Sargent, from Villalba, said it was a blizzard in Leon. I am hoping for enough snow to stick on the ground here! I miss it so much.

Well not much stuff happened this week. A man with a teardrop tattoo contacted us in the street. For all of you who don´t know what that means, it means he killed somebody. Scary. He also told us how and why. His friend tried to kill his dad and him so he got a machete and got him after. And he had quite some apostate thoughts. He told us that you could steal if you were starving and he said that money was more powerful than God. In fact, he even said the phrase that "you can do anything in this world if you have money" which sounds eerily familiar. I was waiting for lightning or a pillar of fire to come down.

We stopped a moving car! Some genius parked his car outside the chapel which is on a hill and forgot to put all the brakes on. It started rolling right when we all walked by and we wondered who was the genius driving it until we realized there was no genius in it so we had to pull some feats of strength and stop it. On the subject of people and cars, double parking is somewhat legal in Spain but here they just do it everywhere! Almost every day during studies there´s somebody honking their horn because somebody trapped them with a double parking. And I´ve seen quite a few traffic jams where the source is just one double parked car in the wrong spot. And I think when the Bizarre Foods show went to Spain they got trapped by double parking too. Glad I´m not driving here.

Well my birthday was pretty uneventful. I got a text from a convert and a call from another missionary and a call from President Jackson. In case I haven´t told you in the past, President and Hermana Jackson call every missionary on their birthday and wish them a happy birthday and sing their special happy birthday duet which sounds pretty boss. But not much else happened. I had a very nice breakfast and lunch I made too. That´s all I really expected from an area I´d been in for almost 3 weeks.

The computer is no longer a monster so I can send pics. We write in a pretty normal locutorio, but they have a cool system here. Instead of just paying for what you used up that day, you buy a chunk of hours and they give you a little username and password and you use it up as you go. But ya, I´ll send that.

Not much else to report. We have a lot of cool people that we teach and have found. Everything is going pretty well here. Nothing sticks out--thus my random stories--but it´s just chill. I´m fine with that for now. Love you all! Thanks for all the birthday emails!

Os quiero,

Elder Morgan

Cool Buildings in Madrid

Interesting Graffiti Art in Moncloa Metro Station

Elder Morgan was happy to find his favorite author in a bookstore

And here's his favorite book series in Spanish

The End of the Second Decade

Hey, do I have a family member that went to Ecuador on their mission? There´s a family here who were baptized in Ecuador (not sure how long ago) by an Elder Morgan. The dad is Wellington and the family name is Castillo and they were in Recreo, Guayaquil and Esmeraldas. Just wondering.

So I went on intercambios with Elder Gorge, who is also from Indianapolis. So we talked a lot and found out a few things. The Pereiras moved to his ward and he knew them. We might have met his grandma. He said he thinks Brother Roach is in the stake young men´s presidency, and I couldn´t remember much more. But it was really cool to meet someone from there. I didn´t recognize a lot of the places and names he said because I obviously was young. And he is of course a Colts fan. He makes fun of how much corn they produce and I do remember that. One of the other elders call him "Child of the Corn" from some book or movie called "Children of the Corn." Little nostalgia moment.

I found out that friends of one of our investigators are from Torrejón. They got re-activated or just taught right after I left so I didn´t get to know them, but they know the ward and the city. That was another nice nostalgia moment.

It got dang cold. And not the nice cold, but the windy cold. So we had some nice contacting moments. Not really many in the street. Also it got pretty rainy which warmed it up a bit. Also, my umbrella already kind of broke. One of the arms broke but the rest still works. 

Ya, we saw the "La Marcha Para Cambio" posters everywhere and they had stencils they painted the "31-1-15 12:00" everywhere. Naw, they didn´t bother us. It was back in my old area where all the marches happen. Not sure what the group is called but maybe it´s "Podemos" or it might be "Sí Podemos" which actually means "Yes We Can" which sounds vaguely familiar. But that´s cool that you guys heard about that. I´m pretty sure nothing bad will come from it. They went down Calle Alcalá. It´s not that big of a march. Just two metro stops if that means anything to anyone.

Ya, not sure how my birthday will be. It feels weird that it´s coming. I don´t know how exciting it´ll be because I just got here and our district isn´t really that close. I got some nice food and a member actually gave me a can of root beer last week. At least once I´m 20 people will be less surprised about my age. A member family in B5 thought I looked like Jason Statham. I took it as a compliment.

And on a random note I bought a nice European white shirt which is a bit more fitting and has the Italian collar which looks cool. 

Also I am excited about the two pieces of news that I can´t mention specifically due to their temporarily secret nature. Both were kind of expected but I wasn´t sure when they would be. I have to look nice when I get home then. No more procrastinating on losing weight and no temporary beard growing. But ya, I await the approval to talk about them.

Also, I was going to send pictures today but my computer right now is a monster so I´ll try another day. I love you all!

Os quiero,

Elder Morgan