Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

This week was black and white. I had great days, not so great days, wonderful investigators, and frustrating investigators. Like we got to teach the guy who works at Starbucks the Word of Wisdom. I thought it was going to be quite the lesson. Turns out, he doesn´t like or drink coffee! Woot. But he does love tea--but he straight up accepted the Word of Wisdom. We finally got the address of the guy who keeps failing our lessons at the church! Now he will never fail! We were getting pretty sick of that. He´d come sometimes. Other times, he´d call us desperately wanting to meet in an hour so we´d get to the church then. Right when we travel all the way across our area to the church, he cancels the lesson he sets up. But no more! We have some pretty golden investigators and some that just need to read or pray or go to church. I don´t want to get into that because I´ll get frustrated. Anyways, I´m really excited for the lessons this week!

No, gypsies aren´t Africans.* Gypsies are nomads from India who spread across Europe a while back. They are a distinct race, and everything. You learn the physical differences and they do look quite a bit Indian sometimes Ya, they´re called "Gitanos". My experience with them is that they generally have parties on the street, drink, smoke, yell at people, and sing loudly in public. But now they hibernate for the winter so we´re safe. There´s quite the cultural mixing pot here. We give out half our books in Spanish but the other have have been Arabic, Romanian, French, African dialects, and whatnot. It´s all very interesting. We are now teaching this Romanian guy and he was so excited that we had a Book of Mormon in Romanian (Cartea lui Mormon). He said he´d read it all!

We have our own little washing machine in the kitchen. We have drying racks that we fold up and hang dry everything. If you don´t have fabric softener things are really stiff. I will never take for granted the beauty of our wonderful dryer again. So many other simple things too: Shower heads that stay on the wall, beds that fit Americans, normal sized elevators that don´t feel like death is at hand, etc. I got my hair cut at a haircutter. Apparently they are mostly Morroccan men. It looks pretty dang European/Russian. It´s hard to describe. The other guys in my piso** are Elder Miles and Elder Anderson. In my district are Hermana Hansen, Hermana Thunborg, Hermana Clay, Hermana O´Keeffe, Elder Quesne, and Elder Alpblanalp and the guys in my piso and my comp Elder Shumway.

Random stuff. I finally had the infamous Choco Flakes cereal. It was pretty good. It´s practically cookies in a bowl of milk. It´s Portuguese I believe. We have a game like slugbug but instead of VW Bugs we have Nuns and Priests. Nuns are one punch and Priests are two. We yell, "Monja!" and punch. Monja is a nun. And there is actually a guy who sells chestnuts roasting on an open fire! I´m so excited to get that when it get´s cold. So excited. That and hot chocolate (which is literally just like melted chocolate) and warm churros. Yum!

Sorry if I didn´t respond to much. Hopefully I have news of a baptism soon! Love you all loads!

-Elder Morgan the Younger

*Our home teacher served his mission in Madrid and he told us the gypsies come from Morocco and other parts of Africa.
**apartment

Some random pictures Elder Morgan sent with his letter.

MTC Group and Teacher

MTC Fun

"Sweet Building" in Downtown Madrid

View from their Madrid Apartment

 

The Grapes of Wrath

Oh my heck, there is something about people from Mali and grape picking. That cool guy, Aguibou, from Mali? He left to go pick grapes is Zamora like I said next week. We found a new guy from Mali named Yakuba. Guess what. He´s going to the northeast to pick grapes for a month too. And we met another dude from Mali. Who knows. He may have left already to pick grapes. It´s good an all that they got jobs, but for mission lessons... not so great. But don´t get me wrong, everyone I´ve met from Mali is great. They´re some of the nicest people here. Really I should be blaming grapes and all the dang drunks. Legal drinking age is 14 and buying age is 18. For alcohol, not grapes. Maybe I should blame the grapes less than the drunks, but the Drunks of Wrath for a email title doesn´t flow off the tongue and it wasn´t a book by Ernest Hemingway. I might be wrong on the author´s name but lots of people won´t know or care. Anyways...

From Mali we travel to Nigeria. We were talking with the elders quorom president who is from Nigeria. It was the end of the night, but he wanted to give us some food so he put some pepper soup in tupperware. First off, pepper soup is essentially water and parts of super hot peppers. This one had goat meat. I was interested. We opened it at home and found it was goat stomach. Yum. I was beyond curious and hungry, so I tried it. Imagine the feeling of eating broccoli, but it´s made of eternally chewy something that has a slight taste of meat. That´s stomach. It looks great too. I should have taken a picture. It was ok, just a little weird and time consuming. Apparently the technique is put small bites in that you can swallow because there is no way to chew it. 

I did intercambios* again, but this time I moved. I went up to an area called Cuatro Caminos. Dang I forgot how ghetto of a neighborhood we live in. It´s nice up there especially compared to here. But I love this place too. Not much happened. We were both greenies up there and he didn´t know where much was so we got lost. I was glad to be home and realize how great my comps are. 

Random news! It´s getting colder now and I love it! My comp from Arizona... not so much. I can still live with just a long sleeve shirt. Everyone else is rocking the cardigan or rocking the sweater. Maybe someday. Clothing can be dang expensive here, just like home. Some places are the kind that sell 40€ white tees and some are the places that sell fine looking shoes for 3€.  I´m expanding my food skills. It´s hard because the things have to work in the short amount of time.

Transfers! We lost 3 hermanas from our original 6 and gained 1. None of the 4 elders left. Cuenca--they are far south-east but used to be in our district--shrunk again so now they´re back with us! My comp gets to enjoy his last transfer being a trainer and a zone leader. The city got 2 new zones, hence the new leader. Our zones were way beyond normal sized. We were like 56? And I believe the size range is supposed to be around 24 to 36. No title for me yet, but I have a transfer in the field under my belt. Half greenie! 

On all the investigators. Two are now picking grapes elsewhere, one still needs to quit smoking again, one still needs to get married but his papers will be done in January, one now has to work overtime for Starbucks (Coffee of Wrath), one´s progressing nicely to his baptism, one has a huge load of school work and wants to be absolutely sure about the church, two others are also fuzzy, one family we can only see once a week and they just started, and the rest are pretty normal. Despite the many circumstances, many seem to be on the right path. I´m very excited and hopeful. I have a bad memory. There are just so many names and ethnicities and situations to remember. Ideally this would be the bigger section of the email, but I can´t remember our lessons in detail and I´m still trying to understand some people still. We should have some sweet progress on lots of people soon. Like we´re teaching a part member family. The parents are great and seem like long time converts, but they haven´t even had a year yet so we get to do temple prep sort of. The Restoration video hit a guy pretty hard. Although he´s the Starbucks guy and it seemed like he was breaking up with us. He even said, "I hope we can still be friends." But he´s not leaving us. Just doing more work.  Agh, this is frustrating. My mind knows there are so many lessons and whatnot to talk about but they´re not there. Oh well, hopefully when I´m more experienced I´ll remember more. 

I understand about the state of the numbers in the Missionary Impossible card game. My planner after its short duty looks like the 6 week card. It´s bent and broken and dirty and who knows what. My new planner is pristine and ready to rumble. I got pictures to send! I´ll put them in another email. Pardon my incorrect signature last email. I was writing other short emails before to people who gave me nicknames. 

Love you all loads!

-Elder Morgan the Younger

*exchanges

Roman Aqueduct in Segovia

Cathedral in Segovia

View of Castle in Segovia from the Tower

 

I sort of got a shoutout from an Apostle!

So, I found out two funny things about the government and one sad thing. The sad thing is that the driver of the train crash is only getting 12 years in prison. That´s messed up. He was speeding because he was late, he just didn´t think the train would fall. Wow. So, ya. The funny things are that you can apply to the government to be legally boyfriend and girlfriend and get tax benefits and whatnot. It costs €1000. We joke that it´s the next step beyond facebook official. Government official. Also, they build the cobblestones on dirt and sand. Whenever it rains, it gets ruined, starts sinking, and they have to redo huge sections of street. They are literally under construction constantly. I guarantee that if you look up the street La Albufera on Google that there will be construction. 

I can´t remember what I´ve told. Pardon me if I repeat. We had a lovely conversation with a drunk Romanian guy with his ever so classy wine in a one liter box. Everything comes in a 1 liter box. I got to see my MTC teacher right before she got sealed in the temple! We were doing a lesson in front of the MTC and temple and we said Hi afterwards. We taught a man that looked like a Spanish George Clooney. Speaking of which, I see the posters for Gravity everywhere. Tell me how that one is. We had about 5 blessings given in 1 week. Thankfully I had my trusty little bottle on my backpack. We stopped what we affectionately call the "Tribal War". A couple Africans from opposing countries had some conflicts. The bishop--a little Ecuadorian man-- asked us to come to the meeting between the two in his office to help but mostly to protect them both. We found out one of them was a general in his army for 11 years or so. That was crazy but hopefully resolved. One of our investigators finally quit smoking, but wouldn´t come to church. He came to church! And started smoking again... Really? So his baptism might be moved again. 

Random quote from Elder Ballard from his talk to us: He said he is so busy and works so hard travelling over Europe, but the reason he goes on is because he understands Gethsemane and the Atonement. Wow. I had written that in my journal. And did you notice the shoutout to us missionaries he met during conference? We were part of those 3000 he met over the week. 

The random favorite quote of the week was when the elders from Cuenca visited. One of them grabbed a vase, put it over his mouth, put his hand on an elder´s shoulder and like Bane said, "Do you feel in charge?" I died laughing. It was a perfect impression and so random. It´s something the bad guy says in the third Batman. I also have a reputation for jokes in this area now. 

I love Noche de Hogar (FHE) and English classes on Wednesdays. We do both for members and investigators and anyone who wants to come. The NDH´s are always fun and everyone is happy. The English classes have some pretty interesting characters and conversations. Most of it you have to see and hear. I love all those guys.

I got to go to the temple! I loved it. I had the headphones half on so I did English and Spanish simultaneously. It was also a nice place to just chill and take a much needed emotional break. 

I want to share one of my favorite meals that my companion taught me. I make 3/4 cups of rice, put it in a bowl with a chunk of butter on the bottom, fill it with milk, put sugar on top, and put it in the microwave. It´s like some amazing hot cereal that is pretty cheap too. He said his mom would make it for him. Try it, but I don´t know the milk, sugar, and butter amounts. We just do it by sight. I learned a sweet way to make a Spanish tortilla but that´s too complicated for email. I wrote it in my journal for when I get home. It makes it poofy! 

Conference was amazing. Also very... heavy? I don´t know the word for it. It was powerful and deep. I, like many other missionaries, now love conference. I loved so many talks and took so many notes. Although some I just put "Just watch it later. I just want to watch and not write." They were good. It was also really fun to see everyone since a lot of people came from the surrounding area. Missionaries mostly were who I talked to. We watched the morning sessions live at 6PM on Saturday and Sunday, Priesthood was a recording at 11 AM on Sunday, and so was Saturday afternoon at 2PM on Sunday. We don´t get to see Sunday afternoon now. Only if we somehow get to see it on the web later or read it in the Liahona. We couldn´t go home between sessions, so we just all chilled for an hour or two between everything. All public transport is slow and much less frequent on Sundays.

I still don´t remember much about investigators. Sorry. We have 2 official fechas (baptismal dates) and 1 who just needs to come to church to make it official. Aguibou just moved to the wine country for a month (Zamora?) for work picking grapes. Most everyone else just needs to come to church but can´t because of a novel´s worth of reasons. I´m excited for the next few lessons with some people because it will definitely improve them. It´s weird how I write more about stuff that takes less of my time and I write less about stuff that takes most of my time. I just wish people would come to church more and not be busy.

It´s definitely much better now! I feel much different. I´ve improved a lot. It´s not like I was bad before the mission, but missions definitely make better people. If I write more I might get arthritis, and I´ve already a mountain of things. Spanish lesson of the week: Un montón* of something is like a super "a lot". Dang, I know I´ve forgotten to write a lot of things and answer questions, but I´ll remember them next week. Love you loads!

-Elder Danny Morgan

*monton means a pile or heap

Segovia!

Whoops, forgot a subject last time. First I need to write about today before I forget, We went to Segovia! It´s gorgeous. It´s a pity I can´t serve there. Maybe it will open again in a couple years. I´m definitely going there as a non missionary. We saw the aqueduct which was amazing. It´s so huge! The pillars are like as wide as I am tall or more. It was so huge and cool! Basically every street was a beautiful view. It´s all antique-ish. And all the streets are the legit cobblestone where they just grab a load of rocks and put cement between them. We saw the cathedral but didn´t go inside. It was pretty dang spectacular. Look it up.

We went to the castle and inside the castle! It was pretty dang sick. Although in one room the people in the paintings have just straight black eyes which is beyond creepy because it was kind of dark in there anyways. We went up the tower which is quite the hike. It definitely would be hard to invade. At the top you get a reward for your muscles burning because the view is amazing. I took some great pictures. It´s just perfect. My camera died right before the castle, so I´ll send them later along with others. And I have to get pictures from other people.

Afterwards we decided to be really American and go to the Burger King. It was good, especially the free refills of Fanta. I was full to the point of uncomforable-ness. That has been a while. But the burgers... The patties were so tiny! They were like 3 inches across or something. If you get a XXL one then it´s normal American sized. We got to wear normal clothing! It feels so odd. I think I may have either lost my beloved red shirt or left it at home. Is it at home? A huge part of the fun of the trip was the group. It was the guys from my district and Barrio 1. They have some really funny people and they´re all really nice. 2 are from my group. And the hermanas were both hispanic so it was quite the test of Spanish. One was Argentinian so we got to hear the sh sound on the y´s and ll´s. 

This week was so much better. We essentially opened this area when I first came. But now we have some progressing investigators and baptismal dates. I´m getting used to the exercise and schedule. I can´t remember many experiences because I forgot my journal because of Segovia. And I have to type like a madman because we only have an hour left and we still have lots to do. It´ll be much better next week. I want to tell stories but I´ll save that for next week too.

I´ll just quickly mention a few things. We had a couple days sprinting home and making it 2 minutes before curfew. It´s been cooling down and raining! My companion from Arizona is not happy with that but I love it. Lots of cloud and mist and rain. Umm, more stories next week. My companion is a passionate lover of mate* and country music. Don´t talk bad about either. He made me try the máte and it was pretty dang gross. And I´m not the biggest country fan. But it´s all in good fun. Love you all loads! Be excited for stories. Hopefully I wrote them down too.

Random weird Spanish lesson. They say "me cae" and then bien or mal. It means I like that person or I don't like that person, but literally it means "they fall me". I hear it and it still makes me weirded out. Just like hearing English. My brain always sort of trips when I hear American English.

Love you all!

Elder Morgan the Younger

*Mate is an herbal tea popular in Argentina
 

Life in Madrid

So I'm adding pics of the beautiful sunset, one of the cool tree lined streets around here, and the view of the temple that we got every time we went up the staircase. I haven't been able to look at many so I´ll do that later. I finally got my camera to work so here it is!

Sorry, it's hard to remember all the questions. Here are the answers to what I remember. We live in Vallecas. Brother Corbridge sent me an email and asked me if I was there. He knows where it is. We live in the second most ghetto place with gypsies around us. If you want really specific, here it is. There's a train system called renfe cercanías. We're just a hundred feet north of the El Pozo station. The street is Calle Violeteria or something like that. We have 4 people in the apartment. We call them pisos. We have little cell phones with the normal keypad, no more than that. Apparently Europe gets everything last, but who knows when we´ll get stuff. It could be in a month or it could be in a year. I´ve also heard that we might not be able to take them out of the pisos and only use them as an area book and whatnot. I´ll find out what the President says when we get them. We do email in little shops called Locutorios. They sell computer use based on time and print stuff and have phone booths and other things. It varies between locutorios.

Man, half the time in the work is travelling. It's a big city. It's about 20 minutes by bus to the church. But it's hard to be on time because things vary. You might get the bus or metro or renfe perfectly or you might have to wait an extra 20 minutes. It´s interesting. 

I don't care about miss appointments too much. This is definitely the refiner's fire time. It's ok though because everyone says that it gets better as you go on. I do feel good being exhausted at the end of the day. There's a lot to explain, but I know it will get better. The good thing is I will come out of this as a seasoned veteran. And ripped. Dang ripped. The missionary walk is quite the pace. I'm down to like 88 kilos from 100 initially.* Best weight loss program ever. That´s normal supposedly. It should slow down. My comp used to be a bigger guy and he´s lost 70 pounds overall. 

I learned how to counter Jehovah's Witnesses! They're bigger than us in Spain and they're around a lot. Testigos de Jehova. Everyone thinks we are them. I hear the word "testigos" a lot. My comp told me about their lessons that are always the same and how to answer their accusations and questions to flip it around. They have some interesting beliefs. Now I have the counter to their bible bashes! The Armor of God.

Alright, so stories during the work. We actually had a guy come to us on the street instead of the other way around. He wanted to learn English and we quickly changed it to church lessons in English. He's going really well. He likes it. He found a friend at church that's from Peru too (he's from Peru). We have a lot of menos activo** people to teach. It's hard because a lot of them have work which is really important for people in the Crisis. Spain is at 25% unemployment overall. Some areas it's much worse. John Anthony continues to call us every day to tell us that he is watching the news or just blessed his food. He's getting so close to quitting smoking! He got down to 3 cigarettes but went back to 6 and ten but then goes back down. This last bit seems to be the hardest. Hopefully he'll be good by October. We're teaching this awesome African guy called Aguibou (Ah-gee-boo) on the city center steps a lot. I really need to remember more of these people. I'll try to remember to write a list. We have a lot of references to go try out. We're getting to know a lot more people in the ward so we're getting more references, members that want to come, and whatnot. This should be a great week. I'm excited!

Random Spanish lesson of the week. People never say "Hasta luego!" They sort of scrunch it up and it becomes "Staluego!" Now you know.

Love you all and I miss you loads!

-Elder Morgan the Younger

*He's lost 25 pounds.
**less active

La Vida Bella*

After writing last email I forgot loads of stuff that happened that week but I don't want to go into it now because that wasn't so great. Like I said, it was crazy. I don't remember if I've said this, but I feel like I'm in that Japanese movie called Spirited Away. The girl gets a new name and starts forgetting her old name and needs her old name to get home. It's weird to remember that my name is Daniel not Elder Morgan. Hopefully I remember my name for these two years. 

I forgot to write about my last MTC days. Monday we had Dominoes pizza, took pictures, and a emotional testimony meeting. A funny moment was in the testimony meeting. At the end a girl said she could feel the spirit so strong that she wouldn't be surprised if Jesus walked in at that moment. Right after she said that the door opened and we all whipped our heads around in shock but it was just a tiny Spanish man with a clipboard. Maybe his name was Jesus. They have a lot of those. It was so sad to see everyone go. I got email info so I hope I´ll see them all again. I see a few people at zone meetings and whatnot.

Speaking of awesome meetings, we got a talk from an apostle! Elder Ballard is going around Europe for leadership conferences and whatnot and President asked if he would come and see us. He was able to squeeze in an hour to shake all our hands and give us a talk. It was pretty awesome. Although we had to wake up dang early to get to it.

The problem with many people here is that they won't say no to our faces. We get them to accept appointments but then they won't answer the door or their phone. One day we had all 7 appointments fall through. It was actually kind of funny. That's all you can really do about that. Laugh or else you cry. It's interesting teaching. Especially when I can only catch a few words. Poco a poco.** That's the rough part. The two main messages I'm being told by everyone is it will take time and you need to be patient and that missionaries need to not take so long and do good work. I don't know how to put it but they're conflicting and it's hard to find the medium. Although the second one is more for the experienced missionaries but it still is quite prevalent. I at least know I'm working hard because I am exhausted a lot.

I'm not sure what I have but I'm surviving so far. The blood tests came back ok so that's good. I have some appointments elsewhere hopefully soon. It's hard because they're far away. I did get some meds so that may help me get through all this jazz. Oh my heck, there is literally a pharmacy on almost every street corner. They all have glowing green crosses. People must be druggies here. It's cheap too. The stuff I had to get only cost 8€. People drink and smoke like there's no tomorrow here too. It's quite the crazy life style for a lot of people here. A lot of people don't get married until much, much later and look like their kids' grandparents. 

I'm sorry I don't remember much about my investigators/menos activos.*** There's so many yet so few. By that I mean so many that we try to meet but so few that we actually get to or we just don´t see them that much. We do a lot of menos activo work here. We have like 4 people we are teaching named Viviana and that get's confusing. The a lot people who we do teach have really strong testimonies. Not all but there are a lot of really good people. I hope to be able to actually teach more.

I've had a few conversations with people in Spanish. Mostly casual ones about random things. More than often members or missionaries. I met this really nice Italian couple and we had a Spanish/Italian/English conversation. It was quite interesting. We had both seen Life Is Beautiful so that was fun. It made me happy. There is a big mixture of accents so that makes things interesting. I hear everything from Dominican to Andalusia to Paraguayan.

That is quite the email. I could write more but I won't. Please still pray for me, if you would. It's still rough, I just don't want that to be the main theme of my email. I really love physical letters too. This is definitely a trial of patience and humility. Wish me luck and pray me luck. 

Vale,

Elder Morgan the Younger

*The Beautiful Life
**Little by little
***less actives

MTC Life

Elder Morgan's companion's mother was nice enough to send me (Mom) some of the pictures her son took.  I'm including a few here.

With Companion Elder Lopez from Layton, Utah

District in the MTC

Checking out a soccer stadium

In front of the Royal Palace

More touristy stuff

 

Tired on the bus--who that joking around?

Studying hard or hardly studying?