Week 54 - August 17 - Transfered to Alcala de Henares

Well the information came, and I was right :) Elder Weiss is taking
over Oviedo, and he'll be training a brand new missionary! He's been
in the mission for 4.5 months, all of them with me, and now he'll take
over the area. I'm super excited cause he is SO ready.

As for me, I will be headed to Alcalá de Henares, a pueblo in Madrid.
It's in the East zone, but I don't know much more than that (haven't
seen the map yet). All I know about my new companion is that he's
Canadian and he'll be going home the same time I am, but I don't know
him because he visa waited. In other excellent news, in Alcalá live
TWO senior couple missionaries. I am now three for three in areas with
senior couples. I've been told that they'll give us food, which can't
be a bad thing. I've also been assigned to be District Leader again,
which will be great - I have learned a lot in that position, and I'm
excited to keep helping out.

Our last week in Oviedo was great! We did our best to finish the
transfer strong, and the week ended, of course, with a ward party. It
was the fiesta del sombrero and we danced to a bunch of music I
couldn't recognize and Elder Weiss and I wore these big sombreros like
in the Three Amigos. We were the life of the party, even though we
didn't dance with any girls. (Rules, etc. They don't prohibit dancing
en sí, though) And while we were there, we had a really cool
experience. An awesome returned missionary, Taily, brought her younger
sister and her younger sister's boyfriend to the party. And I
introduced myself and my companion, and he was a cool kid. All we knew
at that time was that his disbelief in God had been affecting
negatively on the girl, and she was confused and wasn't sure about
meeting with us because of him. So Elder Weiss started chatting about
life and Switzerland and stuff and getting to know him - show that
we're real people, you know? Which is always important. But then,
Elder Weiss slowly and surely started directing the conversation
towards our missionary purpose.

I was in and out, because I was waiting for transfer info and I had to
call the district and talk to the APs about being district leader and
such, so all I heard were bits and pieces. Part the conversation went
something like this:

"Do you believe in God?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I believe in people - in myself and what I can do, in like how man's
spirit is unconquerable. I really only think about science." (Typical
teenager answer)
"So what do you think - why are we here? Where did we come from?"
"Well............"

And then Elder Weiss started from the beginning and explained exactly
where man's spirit comes from, why it is unconquerable and why we need
Christ to become perfected. From what I heard and what he told me
later, it was a discussion worthy of the scriptures as someone
previously hard in the mind started to wonder and then, at the end,
ask questions. I know it sounds cheesy, but I was so proud of him! I
hardly helped, and the guy gave Elder Weiss his number to meet later
this week! Which is good, cause we still suffer for the need to find
new folks to teach.

We had a couple other funny teaching experiences that go in similar
vein. A man stopped us late
at night when we were running late to get home and said,

"Do you believe in Dios Todopoderoso"
"Yes"
"Will he save us?"
"That depends on whether or not we want to be saved."

I was going to continue and explain what I meant by that, but then he
patted me on the back and said, "You answered correctly" and then he
disappeared around the corner. And then there was Enrique, who told us
all about the five elements, (air, fire, "la nada", earth and
watermelon), went on about how all religions worship God so why all
the fuss, and closed his crazy rant about science and molecules and
anti-facism with the following: "I guess all I'm really trying to get
at is that, if we're God's children and all, he should have a plan for
us to become like he is!!" After stunned silence that THAT was where
he was going, I explained that was the crux of our message, and he
gave us his number. If you wait long enough and listen with intent,
there's usually something about which you can testify. But still
pretty weird. Almost as weird as the lady who looked my companion in
the face as we were walking down the street and said, "Y si te
crucifico yo a ti, ¡¿Que!?" Like a water off a duck's back, he just
gave her a thumbs up and a big smile.

Stewart's new area NE of Madrid

Dress ups - Missionary Style

Week 53 - August 10 - Thoughts on ingrown toenails, being an Eagle Scout, and speaking spanish

This is most likely the last time I write from Oviedo - if patterns hold, I´ll be on a train headed to Madrid all day next Monday. I could try and postpone this til Sunday night, seeing as we have maquinas that let us write a little the day before P-day, but I´ll be packing and making phone calls to folks headed home. So may as well do it now. I´m grateful to have missed all the heat in Madrid, and the cold up here apparently - Old Asturian folks say that fall starts right around the middle of August, when the rains come back and the temperature drops again. 

Before I continue, this necessary story about my zone leader. He has been told to wear one flip flop and one church shoe thanks to the very stinky, pus-filled, red and problamatic ingrown toenail he has. He´s got a minor surgery planned for tomorrow to fix it. But anywho,on Sunday, he gave a talk inviting all the members to do more for the missionaries. And to prove his point that missionary life is hard and being on the streets 8hrs a day isn´t effective, he took his foot, lifted it to the side of the pulpit and showed everyone his nasty toe and sandal DURING SACRAMENT MEETING, saying "Yeah, life is hard and I have an ingrown toenail." I got this report from the sister missionaries in his area and I honestly have no idea what to do about it. In all forms, the branch just laughed because Elders can do no wrong in the members´ eyes. 

Yesterday, we had a ward BBQ. (pictures to come). And, nobody here was ever a boy scout so I got really trunky building a fire with 1 match and carefully getting the coals ready to cook some delicious meat. Seriously - the last time I built a fire was really, really long ago. And I still got it! Then we played some soccer as I cooked everyone´s meat and won some brownie points with the ward. Nobody here was ever a boy scout - completely foreign experiences. I said the following sentences at least 30 times (directed to mostly small children)...

"No, don´t throw plastic in the coals!" (actually, that was to a grown man)

"We can´t start a fire with wet leaves..."

"That stick came off a tree? Nope, no good." 

"No, fanning the fire will NOT blow it out."

"Do not throw anything in the fire unless I say so - we´re trying to cook here."

Other than that, we had an intercambio, taught some lessons in the streets, wandered around looking for people, and had excellent sacrament services. We met a man named Nacho who explained that the doctrine of the Catholic Trinity was such a mystery that we could never understand it - and that is a beautiful thing. (Funny note - I had read a talk THE DAY BEFORE saying that beauty and confusion are opposites :)

Oh, and I´ll close with this - Elder Weiss is getting a LOT better at Spanish. It´s been fun to see him grow over the past 4 1/2 months. The other day, I explained the whole origin of the book of mormon - large plates, small plates, zeniff, Words of Mormon, translation, scribing, 116 pages, the whole works (it took us about an hour - he had a lot of questions.) And then, yesterday, we went to a member´s home. And as I helped in the kitchen cleaning and cooking (more on that in the future) he sat on the couch and coherently explaioned for an entire hour what I had explained to him, without entirely losing the attention of his audience or needing to stop every 3 seconds for a translation. It´s fun to look back and see that sort of progress, especially in someone I had the privelege to train. 

Love,

Elder Stew

P.S. Someone stopped me in the grocery store this morning to ask where the Aluminum Foil is. I said I had no idea and went back to selecting my fruits, until I realized, turned around, and explained - "Señora, no trabajamos aquí."

One Year Anniversary

Week 52 - August 6 - The Work Goes On

We´re a little pressed for time this week, the haircut guy wanted to chitchat. Which would be great, but as soon as I started to ask him about the church he clammed up. We made a goal this week to speak up more about the gospel in quick, awkward situations - at the grocery store, at a stoplight, in the haircut place, and as I tried to fulfill my goal he just kinda stopped talking to me. Oh well, we´ll be back in a month to get haircuts again. 

It was a really great week! The zone leader got a debilitating ingrown toenail (he can´t even walk straight) and his companion was puking, so we´ve planned some intercambios to help them not get depressed. We´ll see how that goes. 

Our sacrament meeting yesterday was a total home run. We were able to participate in a baby blessing, which was really nice. The baby cried the whole meeting EXCEPT those 3 minutes when the ward mission leader gave the blessing. (The dad is a recent convert and we´re preparing him to get the Melchizidek Priesthood). The youth returned from FSY with testimonies on fire and brightened up the whole meeting with stories about how their prayers had been answered and they had felt the spirit - two very simple parts of the gospel that sometimes we forget about. it was great to hear their testimonies because it was exactly what our investigators needed - a simple testimony.

That´s always an interesting thought for me, teaching to what the investigators need. Because we come out here armed with the scriptures and a good knowledge of doctrine, with PME and knowing just how to explain why a restauration was necessary and not a reformation and why Adam had to fall and the five steps of repentance. But not all of that is always necessary. The other day, we had an interesting thing happen when we taught a recently converted family. We were planning on teaching about the priesthood - but as we sat down and started to chat we realized that they needed something much more simple, applicable, and that would help them immediately. So, we explained and invited them to have FHE every Monday night. A primer vista, I know some people might get all up in a fit because that´s not really something we can check off our teaching record etc. But, I know that in that moment, they needed us to help them re-evaluate their priorities and testify that modern prophets had consecrated monday night to help them with edifying their family. And I felt the spirit, so I know they´ll do it. (But in all forms, we´ll be back on Tuesday to make sure they actually did do it).

In other news, I had an intercambio last week with Elder Malolo (new missionary with 3 weeks in Spain, waited for a visa 3 months in Utah). And he wasn´t doing too hot, so I wanted to really pump him up with excitement. Wednesday morning we forgot to set the alarm... and woke up at 11. Our room is really dark. Boy oh boy we felt like sinners. And then we called the district to let them know the meeting was going to be at12:30. Incidentally enough, I had given an assignment to read a Neal A. Maxwell talk on patience hahahahahahaha. And as I called the district n a partail panic, I called Elder Saltzman the zone leader who was with my companion and he said, "well, uh... we just got up too." So there was sinning all around. But that´s ok, the work still goes on. Even if I screw up He doesn´t!

Elder Stew.

Oviedo at Night

Week 51 - July 27 - We both woke up puking

This week was another tough one. We didn´t have much stuff going on, and then we went to Zone Training on Thursday, which was a GREAT meeting. We went home, the sisters´ investigator didn´t show up to the baptismal interview I was supposed to give, and then we had a failed lesson or two and went home. 

AND THEN. Friday, we both woke up puking. That is the worst. An old missionary once told me that hell is sickness and a chapa - the need to be outside and the need to be in bed at the same time. Well, he was right. We went back to bed and I ministered to my worse-off companion while puking myself. I now have a LOT more respect for moms who help sick kids while being sick themselves because been there done that for a companion. It´s a good thing I remembered some stuff like "don´t drink milk" "drink gatorade" and "go to bed". We slept probably 30 hours in two days, which would be really disobedient if it hadn´t been necessary. 

We did make it out of the piso enough to teach the FHE lesson friday night - we talked about commandments, and the whole world LOVED my object lesson. I did the same thing you always do in beginning math classes when you start to talk about proofs - Write instructions to make a PB&J, and then laugh as the person quite literally follows the instructions without any outer thinking, and then deliberately tries to make things wrong. The instructions said, "Take out the bread slices" And Elder Weiss dumped out the entire bag of bread and said "uh oh." The end of the lesson was that, just like only consistent and specific and detailed instructions will get us the same PB&J every time, only consistent and specific and detailed commandments will help us change the way we want. The whole "Be a good person" that the world thinks Jesus taught does me just as much good as as  "Make a PB&J" because they both forget the important "How?" I stole the spiritual part from an Elder Maxwell quote. 

There wasn´t much more that happened this week, pretty tranqilo and then we got sick and then we tried to heal ourselves with various random things from home and members. And then my companion got a big ol package of Swiss chocolate that puts hershey´s to shame (except the significant lack of Reese´s) Needless to say, we´re still on the mend. But life is good and the gospel is still true - I asked my companion what sort of sinning we did to bring the wrath of God down upon us, but he said - "No. God is testing us, like Job. We need to have a good attitude and do what we can." Which is pretty darn correct.

Elder Stew

Week 50 - July 20 - Two Missionaries Walking Down the Street

was a pretty darn good one. We worked hard, had fun, taught lessons, and even got to relive what life was like in my last area about half the time. It goes a little like this:

"Well, nobody´s on the streets. Mejor dicho, nobody sober is on the streets. Dang local festivals."

"We could try knocking doors?"

"Ok" - The portals don´t open, and neither do the doors if/when we do get inside

"Well I guess it´s gonna be walking around until we find someone we can contact."

" . . . . So if you were being confronted by a man carrying a battle axe, what would you use to fight him?"

"A tomahawk. It´s fast. You?"

"Probably a sword and a ... Hola, caballero, disculpe - Solo quería preguntarle una cosa..."

"No no no no quiero nada me están esperando, lo siento chicos."

"Solo un momento señor.."

"Hasta Luego!"

"I forgot where I was... Do you think it was weird for Alma to basically take over the entire country and church after being a repentant man for only like 3 years?"

"I never noticed that... where were you reading?"

"Tail end of Mosiah 29"

"Huh, I´ll take a look. I wanna know where Ammon got his sword... I mean, that´d be the first thing a Lamanite king would take away from a wandering Nephite, and the last thing he´d give back to him. And then all of a sudden we read about him cutting off lots of arms."

And that represents Saturday and Sunday, thanks to our local festivals and complete lack of people in the streets, with an unfruitful contact every once in a while. 

The really fun part came when we got to work with a new Ecuadorian family. They taught us to make Empanadas (which are not even that hard... just time-consuming) and we taught them about the book of Mormon. Janet (the mom) wasn´t really open about her own religious background. BUT. When we explained the importance of reading the book of mormon, she said, "So I need to read from where to where? And then do what? And then we´ll talk about it? When can I come to church?" Which was huge because as a single mom with two kids, she´ll really be the deciding factor in their progression. And what´s even better is that those lessons will be taking place at a members house that ALWAYS gives us good food - and teaches us how to do it, too. 

We also had huge success this week with a man named Asbel. He´d had some trouble with the Word of Wisdom and he´s really trying on the missionaries´ time. But, after a short relapse, he´s been sober for another week! And then he broke his arm, which just made him more humble and ready for our message. The most gratifying part of missionary life is seeing the repentance process up front. I really treasure the fact that, almost every step of the way since halfway through May, we have been able to SEE Asbel repenting - that is, changing. Nothing cooler than that. 

Love, Elder Stew

awesome cookies

Stewart Teaches a Lesson

Week 49 - July 13 - Ada goes to the temple

This week was.... a week. It was hard. We had a lot of time sucked up by transfers, preparing for President Pack´s visit, and so we couldn´t teach or contact as much as we wanted. However, we did have our very best contacting week in terms of how many numbers we recieved.... and the worst in terms of how many of those numbers were real (3. 3 out of 11). And then, Angel didn´t show up to his own baptism and we sat there for two hours waiting for him, me Elder Weiss and Mateo - all the other members gave up after 20m and we had a little more faith, cause with just us three we had enough men and authority to correctly perform the ordinance. Add that to the fact that Ada nearly backed out of going to the temple. 

But, in times like these the Lord answers prayers, probably because they´re a little more heartfelt and have more faith than when times are good. We found out that Angel DID want to get baptized, but he got delayed and couldn´t make contact with us, so we´ll do it this week. We had a SUPER spiritual lesson with an African girl named Mirey and a member named Jessica. And Mirey went back and forth on what she thought and believed, until we started asking Jessica for her testimony. And it was almost visible to see that every time Jessica testified, Mirey believed a little more and had a stronger idea of the truth. I know that the work with church members is so important because I have SEEN it - if Jessica hadn´t been there, we would have made no progress whatsoever. That was a cool experience. 

Another thing that made up for a bum week was what happened on Sunday. Ada, after getting back from the temple, fell asleep in church and started snoring (not the highlight, though pretty darn hilarious - good news is she was wide awake when I started speaking :) We set up a meeting for after church, and we started to ask her about the temple. It´s hard to convey how she felt, but here are some of her comments.

"IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL!! Look at all these pictures I took."

"I can´t wait to go back."

"I love how everyone wears white"

"I feel like that´s what heaven will be like"

"It felt like God´s house"

"I wish I could stay there all the time."

I decided that was one of my most joyful moments as a missionary. I knew Ada before she even decided to get baptized! We´ve been through her trials, her blessings, her good days, the bad ones, given blessings, talks, commitments... And all our work and the work of the spirit came to a head when she told us about the temple. In another 8 months the missionaries can teach her the temple prep class and she can go get endowed! The rule is to always see your investigators in white.. TWICE. Elder Emmet and I had goals for Ada that she would go to the temple after her baptism, and that forward thinking helped. Now Elder Weiss and I are planning for the future, the day when she gets endowed! That was the highlight of the week, and it completely overshadowed the failed baptism. 

Love, Elder Stew

Week 48 - July 6 - Another Transfer in Oviedo

Of all the things I expected at transfers, the last was that I would stay here, with my trainee, as District Leader for a THIRD transfer. I´m really excited because it means I get to stay in Oviedo for the next six weeks (after that it´s pretty much guaranteed I´ll leave) just when things are starting to pick up! 

Angel is going to get baptized this week, which WAS kind of a bummer when I couldn´t be there (he had to postpone the baptism thanks to family stuff in Portugal) and so now I can see that!

And in the last week the work with the members has FINALLY started to pay off - dinner appointments and member visits and the pain that it sometimes is to involve members in the obra misional is a long and difficult effort . . . and sometimes you can´t ever see the dividends. BUT, last week we got two member references! And unlike other references, member references are GOLDEN! TO put it in numbers, 1 in 3 member references get baptized, and maybe 1 in 40 other references get baptized. But to not put it in numbers, both references came from people who said, "You two are really good missionaries. And I think my sister (or in the other case, friends) would be really receptive to the gospel when you two teach it." Genesis and Yanet are both single moms who want the gospel to change their daughters´lives - they see scary things happening to average kids who get in bad situations, and want the gospel to help. We are so excited! If it´s nerve-wracking to have a brand spanking new companion, it´s even more so to teach someone closely related to the members - those are the golden folks you really, REALLY don´t want to screw up. 

We had an inspiring experience last Thursday. On Tuesday, we helped the hermanas with a lesson, which Elder Weiss and I treated as a learning experience. Not to criticize, but to identify where we were also lacking. Anywho, that led to an interesting discussion which shaped the way I planned District Meeting on Wednesday - all about teaching well from the start and asking questions and teaching like the Lord. Just like Elder Packer said, the teaching like the Lord is always better. And when he was teaching like Him, Elder Packer was always right on target. It was funny - this last week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I really got to love his talks and they way he taught, culminating with a FHE lesson where I taught about mercy and justice using his famous parable of the Mediator. You never really think about it, but that lesson just makes so much more sense after that parable than it ever did before. I was really sad to hear that he died, (incidentally, the Saturday after I had realized how cool he was). 

But anywho, back to the story. We tried to teach like Elder Packer, and by extension, the Lord, after all that had happened on Tuesday and Wednesday. And we had three REALLY spiritual lessons - my companion asked brilliant questions, we taught simply, spurred people to progress, and at the very end, the hermanas asked for our help cause they think we´re good teachers - and we got their investigator to commit to a date!

We also spent the whole week without buying groceries once. How, you ask? I shamelessly told everyone that I probably wouldn´t make it through transfers, and they invited us over for food. We had food Monday night, Tuesday mediodia, Wednesday night, Thursday mediodia,Friday MedioDia, Friday night, Saturday mediodia, Saturday night, Sunday medioDia, and Sunday night. Usually we bat around 2 meals per week, so that was a big deal. And what´s more, I learned that all those eating appointments got a better relationship with these awesome members here, and they trust us enough to give us references. Double dividends. Double blessings. Double work. 

Love, Elder Stew