Better Late than Never

Sorry. I know like two weeks without email right? Well the first one I´ll admit was laziness, but now I have an excuse. We had special training this past week and so they made us move our P Day so that is why I havent emailed you til now. But until Monday I will write you this. Remember, for Monday I need to talk the BAPTISM that we had, the training that I had, the Day of Miracles that I had, and the package that I got from the parents.... I think that was all I was going to talk about before they moved my p day. So remind me for Monday when I actually have time. 

But I will address the earthquake thing. The earthquake actually did some damage to the area, and of course since we are the Church of Jesus Christ we had missionaries there. To be honest I am not too sure what happened with them. I do know that the church building and the apartment building the elders were living in had significant damage done to them. The elders had to move for a breif period cuz they cant go back yet. They couldnt even get thier clothes. I am not sure what they specifically did, but the work goes on!!! Sorry I cant email much today but we have a lot of appointments this afternoon so we agreed to only stay here for like 30 mins, so I cant talk much. Monday though!!! Love you guys!! Tell Liz not to freak out about Jonas. And Liz Perry is getting married??!! TOTALLY UNACEPTABLE!!!! I havent even met the guy, and on top of it all you know how many letters I have received from Liz Perry (including Provo MTC time?) the same amount I have received from the Bennions dog Lulu..... ZERO. Ugh.... seriously?? Alright.... well.... til next time. Adios. Love ya!

Mother's Day

his past week has been a bit insane. I'll admit... the whole week I just looked forward to Sunday so I could call home. There were quite the memorable number of events this week....

First, I don't remember who I told this story to so some people might have heard it before but... this happened to someone else as well, and it is pretty much identical to what happened to me and my companion. We were waiting at the bus stop and we see these two Gypsies start walking towards us. My comp starts freaking out and is just uh oh...... I don't even have anything against Gypsies but it was funny to see his paranoia. Then, this guy comes out of nowhere and talks to them and then they just walk the other way. The guy then comes up to us and says, "So you saw those two Gypsies? Yeah.... well.... they were going to kill you." Hahahaha. To me it was more funny than scary. I don't really believe they were going to kill us, but it was still funny.

Another story from this past week..... the day before I got into this area the previous elders baptized this guy named Carlos. Well, he is this professor at a college and is super smart, and was a golden investigator. Whenever we went over to his apartment he would always ask us the "deep Gospel questions" and what not. He pretty much had every piece of literature about the Church and picture and everything. Some of the others thought he was a little strange but he seemed really sincere so we all gave him a shot. Well..... we just got a letter from him last week saying he no longer wishes to be a part of the church anymore. In fact, he never wanted to be a member of the church. He was actually an undercover agent for the Vatican and infiltrated ours, and other churches in the Puertollano area to report to the Holy Pontiff. Right...... Interesting to note that while he pretty much bashed every part of the church in his letter, including saying he doesn't believe anything about "Pepé Smith", he did say he felt bad for deceiving, not the members, but the missionaries. So we did our job fine. We taught with love, but..... he was either a little loopy or..... he really is an undercover agent for the Catholic Church lol.

Well on some happier news we have some baptisms this Thursday!!! Diego and Maribel are getting baptized. Diego wanted to get baptized for a long time, and we finally got his mom to get baptized too. The thing is, Diego also has an uncle whose whole family is already members. But when his family baptized (wife and two daughters) he said he doesn't want to get baptized with a bunch of women. He wants to get baptized with men lol. So when his nephew (Diego) would get baptized, he would. Well guess what? Diego is getting baptized! So we called him up and he said we could come over and talk. He lives on a ranch where he works. The family who owns the ranch puts him up in their own house on the property. So it was about an hour  away, but we drove out there with the Branch President and took a tour. 

The tour was really great. The property is huge and we spent a long time driving around. They had a pickup and so we rode in the bed of the truck and we went offroading and we drove through a river and everything. It was great!! My clothes got pretty much destroyed with mud though haha. Well, afterwards, we talked over some food. They brought out a nice plate of bread and chips, rice and meat. The meat looked all deformed and waht not, but they said it was just pig so I started eating it. I realized that it was all really fatty, but it did taste really good. Only after eating about 4 or 5 pieces did I specifically ask what PART of the pig was it... Well.... it was the head of the pig. I was eating the ear, the snout and the tongue of it. I'll admit though it was really really good. But it was hard to continue eating after I knew what it actually was. Thankfully, there wasn't the eyes or anything like that. But I did look closer and I did see the snout I was eating still had all the hair and everything, ughhhhh.

After our talk I felt we really got through to him but he wouldn't give us an answer there. He would pray about it with his wife and let us know. So we will know about it today sometime. I was hoping he would come to church yesterday but he didn't show up. I had to give a 15 minute talk, so I talked a lot about the importance of baptism but he was a no show. But regardless.... it was a good talk for everyone else to hear lol.

We have zone conference this Wednesday, Baptism this Thursday, transfer calls (if me or Corradi gets transferred) at the end of the week. It looks to be a bit more exciting than usual, especially with a baptism!! It will be great. I will let you know how it goes!! Until next week!! 

Adios!

Easter Week

Easter Week!!! Semana Santa!!! This week has been extremely frustrating. Everyone is in their house and has the week off, but no one wants to talk. There were multiple occasions where we knocked a house and the person was like, "Oh, sorry. I am with my family right now, can't talk." Seriously??? That is who our message is for. So frustrating. 

We are working hard on the investigators we have. There is this lady named Vanessa who is married to a less active. She has been wanting to get baptized but can't yet, because they aren't married. They are from Ecuador, and while they are waiting for the papers to come over to get married we have been visiting them. The frustrating thing is that they don't come to church. We weren't really sure why, but last night we had a good talk with them, and hopefully they will come to church this week. If they don't I don't know what I will do.... 

Another investigator we have is Diego who is an 11 year old boy who came to primary once with his friend and loved it and said he wants to get baptized. We then talked to his mom, and she isnt the most open to it, but we started talking to her a bit and she is opening up. Hopefully, they both will get baptized. 

Yesterday was our District Conference in Ciudad Read. It was probably the longest thing I have ever been to. It was 4 hours long. But to be fair, it was really good. I even spoke at it during Priesthood. It was really good, and the mission president came and it was just a good time. In fact, before the Conference we met the mission president in his hotel to help hm and Sis Clegg with some stuff. I don't know if they have these in the US, but we rode a car elevator! The hotel had a parking garage underneath it, but to get to it you didn't drive down to it, you drove into a car elevator that just took you down. It was way weird. I thought at first it was just a normal elevator, but then I realized, wow.... this elevator could fit like 35 people. 

The one cool thing about Spain too is that we get to take trains everywhere, super high-speed trains. We get around pretty quickly. We get to Ciudad Real in 10 minutes where it take 3 or 4 times that by car. Also, another thing I noticed is that juice here is so cheap. For example, you can get 4 liters of juice for only like €2. But if you want to buy soda, it's way expensive. Just something else I have noticed haha.

Well, hopefully this week will be a bit more exciting and productive. Thanks for all the support!! Until next week!

Love,
Elder Steven Card

Pictures

                                                      Some of my new zone in Puertollano

Holding up the Branch President of Puertollano

Semana Santa

Well it is officially the start of Semana Santa in Spain. It is pretty hardcore, and even more so in the south I am told. I totally forgot it was the start of Semana Santa, until I came out of the church and saw all of the outfits everyone was wearing throughout the streets. For a lack of a better explantion, they look like the KKK outfits. Various colors, but they all have the sheets with the tall pointed top. I wish I could've snappated a picture, but I didnt have my camera on me. But since it is going on all week I will make sure to get you all a picture. The past week has been a lot of work. We have tried to contact all of the futures that we found the week before. There were some crazy stories. There was this one lazy who after talking to the missionaries gave them this little tiny tiny tiny book filled with Miracles of Jesus. She said, that we needed to bring it back next week, to prove that we were trustworthy. Another lady, had tears in her eyes after she opened the door because she had been waiting for missionaries to knock on her door for a long time. There were countless other stories as well. This made us pretty excited to contact all of these investigators.
Sadly, they weren't all golden like we though, but we do have a bunch of new people we are now teaching. One is this 11 year old kid named Diego. He came to church with one of his friends, and after Primary, he loved it so much he said he wanted to get baptized, so now we are teaching him and his mom. Hopefully, his mom will lighten up a bit, because she seemed a bit stand offish at first. The one I wanted to meet the most was the lady who had tears in her eyes, but all week we couldn't get ahold of her. Maybe this week she will be there, because I really want to know her story. Puertollano is just awesome. It is a small city, with a small branch but with so much heart. The members here, even though there are few, are very strong and loyal. They just love the Church. Days can be long here though. An entire day of street contacting is tiring. That is why we rejoice when we receive a reference from a member! So people back home make sure to give the missionaries references! They love them. I know that we see a lot more success from the references.
The food here is just amazing. I feel like I am gaining so much weight. The members here feed us almost every meal. And every meal has multiple courses. It always starts our with bread and cheese on the table (which I go nuts for) followed by a type of soup, and then the main meal. At the end you don't even want to get out of your seat because it hurts. The food is just amazing. I haven't had anything too strange yet. The strangest thing so far was probably just that pig leg that you all saw, and wow, that was so so so amazing. I wish that they had that in the US. Fast food is pretty much non existant here. There is really only BK and McDonalds, and they are way overpriced. If you go out to eat there, it is pretty much going to a restaurant. We went to BK earlier, and not only are the portions way way smaller, the price for it is absurd!! I miss cheap large portioned American fast food. It's amazing how such a small thing like that you miss so much. I got my BK "grande sized" and I feel like you get more in the American kids meal! But, nevertheless, the food is till pretty good. But just because of that we don't eat out too much. The supermarket is pretty cool though. If you use your money right you can get truck loads worth of food for cheap. One thing I noticed here is that the price changes based on the "type" of food. For example, if you want chocolate ice cream, that will cost more than just plain vanilla, but strawberry costs more than chocolate. It's weird. Is that how it works in the US? I always remembered it being like if they were all from the same company they all cost the same. Like, orange soda costs more than coca'cola even if it is in the same amount.

                                                                 Madrid

Meh, well it's now time to go... but I hope that you all have a great week!! Thanks for all the love and support!!
Love,
Elder Card

Puertollano

Puertollano! Wow what a city. This past week has been just an emotional roller coaster. I was lucky enough to have a train take me directly from Algeciras to Puertollano. The four hour train left at 3 so I had a long time before I left. 

At around 11 we dropped my "dad" (trainer) off at the bus stop and he headed home. It was sad to see him go. Then It was just me and the two other missionaries, White and Masterson, for the next few hours. We decided to get some stuff to eat and travel to to Plaza Alta. It was a good final few moments. I then sadly packed up all of my stuff and headed on to the train. I got on fairly early so I had a lot of time to sit in the seat and reflect over the past 5 weeks. As I did so, I got emotional, and it brought me back to when I was sitting on the airplane in Medford, waiting to depart from the gate. I just thought of all the people that I have met and everlasting friendships I had just made. It was really hard to leave... and that was just after 5 weeks!!! Because of all that I pretty much slept like a baby on the train.... woke up every five minutes and cried. haha just kidding, but I fell asleep and was knocked out. I think I woke up twice in 4 hours. 

When I got to Puertollano I was delighted to see mountains and trees and a lot of green!!! I can't see Africa anymore but it is a lot more like home. I was also happy to see no hills. Well not too many. Algeciras I swear was built so from no matter where you were you were always walking up hill. I then, met my companion, Elder Corradi from France, and we went to President Montes' home. The area was just reopened in February so there is a lot of work to be done. Most of our day is filled with contacting people in their homes or on the street, which I like, since I get to interact with a lot of people. I was also blessed to be in a super nice apartment. It actually has a dishwasher!!! What a miracle!! It is extremely comfortable. 

This last Saturday we had this thing where missionaries from all over came into our area and we divided up the city. Then we did nothing but try to find future investigators. At the end of the couple hours, as a group we came away with 30 new futures to contact this week. So it will be a busy week. Sunday was awesome. It was an extremely small branch though. We had the branch president and his family, two other families and the mission president and that was it!!! And I thought Algeciras was small! Well, now I have to try my hardest to make sure that this branch eventually becomes a ward. I know it can get done! It will get done! Which means I need to start now! So I will talk to you all later! Wish me luck!!

Love, 

Elder Steven Card

Transfers Are In!

My first transfer will be over this week in Spain, and I am already on the move! That's right!! I am already getting transferred from the paradise that is Algeciras. I don't know if that is usually too common, to move after your first area after just one transfer, but it is time for me to go! I will be going to a small pueblo named Puertollano! It is called the city of two lies because the city neither has a port (puerto) nor is it flat (llano). Anyways, it only has about 50,000 people and so it will be not too much different since I am in a small branch here in Algeciras already. To be honest, I am actually pretty sad about leaving. Even though I was only here for 5 weeks I got pretty attached to the people and to the other missionaries here in the piso. My new companion is from the south of France and he isn't that much older than my (mission wise). He apparently speaks really good English and Spanish, so we will see how easy it is to communicate with him.

 

Anyways, so I leave this week. I am still not sure how I will get there. I am thinking that there is a train straight there so I might be lucky. This past week though was pretty fun. While knocking doors we met these Muslims from Pakistan that were actually way open to learning more. They lived on the fifth floor, and we started on the eleventh floor and went down. They were the first ones to actually be interested, so after six floors it was encouraging to get in a door. There were three of them, Ali Shah and Sayid from Pakistan and Mohammad from Morocco. They talked a lot about Jesus Christ and how he was just a prophet and not the Son of God. It was really interesting to hear a different point of view other than just Catholicism. Anyways, he talked for a long bit, and we left him with a Book of Mormon and said we would come back. Now I am curious how things will turn out since I will be leaving I won't know how things end up with all of Elder Ward and I's investigators.

 

General Conference was way different in Spanish. It's not like we get BYU TV here so we had to stream it over the Internet and huddle around a laptop but it was still cool. Because of the time difference we only got to watch two sessions. Both morning sessions, and we watched them at 6PM here. So it was a weird feeling, since we had already worked a full day and then watched it instead of starting our day with it. I don't know the next time I will be able to watch the rest, so maybe I will just have to read the talks next month.

 

Anyways, the weather here is pretty much perfect. It's been around 22 degrees Celsius the whole week. Apparently, wikipedia is a liar, and the missionaries all here testify that it gets up to 45 in some areas in the Summer. I am so not looking forward to that, but I will enjoy the nice weather as it lasts. It's always fun in the piso at night though. Just a few weeks ago we bought this pig leg that has been cured for a long time. They seriously, just cut off the pig at the thigh then hang it up. So we bought it and bought a rack for it and placed it in our kitchen. Then whenever we are hungry we just get a knife and slice a bit off the pig. It sounds and looks disgusting, but it seriously is some of the best best best meat ever. We just finished it this morning, so I will send some of the before and after pictures. It is intense. What a find! Well, I need to get packing now..... I hate packing I feel like I never can get settled, but hopefully when I unpack later this week I can stay unpacked for awhile.

 

Until next week!! Thanks for everything!!

Love,

Elder Card