Transfers

Hey, 

Elder Jäger is gone!! I'll talk more about that in a sec, but I know you guys will be curious who my new comp is... All I know is that his name is Elder Stulen and he is from Norway. His train will arrive around 9:00 tonight so I'll know more in next week's email. He was serving in the islands so he had to fly to Madrid and then catch a train up here. Elder Jäger is going to Alcalá de Henares. That is the city we went to in the ccm that is famous for Don Quixote. 

We had Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday after district meeting. We kinda laughed at Elder Jäger the whole time. We cooked for an hour tuesday night and an hour during mediodía on Wednesday, and the whole time was just chaos. For us that was normal, that's thanksgiving. But elder Jäger didn't understand why we liked it so much. In the end we cooked 7 turkey filets, 3 packages of gravy plus drippings, 2 packages of stuffing plus the extra bread we added, and 15 potatoes for 4 of us. We didn't have leftovers... but we did have a Thanksgiving hangover. 

Since we knew this would be Elder Jäger's last week here, we had tons of dinner appointments. We just texted everyone we have ever met here and we ended up pretty busy. That means this week was all aboutfood. Thursday night we met with our hippie investigator. The one with the naked prayer circles. I'm not really sure how to describe that night. We went up to the 4th floor of his art shop and built a fire. We cooked a bunch of blood sausage and hairy pig skin, then we all held hands and did a prayer circle. I don't know why that skin stuff is so popular here but I really hate it. The food wasn't good. I don't know what else to say about the rest of the night. Let's just say it all started with them telling us that the fire has more energy if we all take our clothes off. We won't be going back anymore. Oh yeah, they gave elder Jäger a cool stone statue thing they found on a spiritual trip to Perú. I was super jealous of that. The only other thing worth mentioning as far as food goes is that we found a Chinese restaurant. We ate there Friday for lunch. That's the first real Asian food I've had since July. I really missed that. 

President Pack changed the rules on music a little for Christmas. We can listen to non-hymn Christmas songs as long as they are Christ-centered. So since I didn't have any of those Elder Tribbett in my districtshared some songs with me over Bluetooth. I have about 1,100 songs now. Thats really nice with how much we drive. Most of it is allowed, hymns or good Christmas stuff, but some of it will be for later. Lots of Disney music, piano guys, star wars music... Yeah. Really good stuff.

I think there was more I wanted to email about, but I can't remember what it was so maybe next week.

Until next week, 

Elder Johnson 

Thanksgiving Dinner

Josh and Elder Jäger eating the German Apple pancakes we sent in the last package.

Christmas Lights

Hey,

I can't believe it's already been another week. We have been super busy again and time just flies. I just realized last night that this week I will hit 4 months. I never even realized I had hit 3 months. I've been a little distracted. I miss you guys, especially now in this time of year with Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I'm really enjoying where I am right now too. The mission is such a special experience. Everyday I'm learning and changing. I've got to tell you all about zone conference. It was super cool.

So Monday night we went to the main square in León and did a little Christmas choir thing. I know I'm not the best at singing but I still try. I've learned to try since I've been here. But I got volunteered to be the one that leaves the choir to talk to people so I didn't have to suffer. (I was never suffering, I think they just told me that so I wouldn't sing anymore) At first that brought down my confidence a little, at least with singing, but the rest of the night was huge confidence builder. I had some solid conversations with people and got some phone numbers for the Elders in León. 2 of them are even investigators already. So that was cool. I like feeling like I can do something. That night all the Elders from the zone slept in the león piso. We had 16 of us, someone said it was a mission record. I wouldnt be surprised. I was lucky enough to have a mattress, but I think one Elder tried the barney technique and slept in the bathtub because we were out of room. Funny thing about the mattress, it said Bilbao mission 1999 on the backside, so it's at least that old. But we have heard a lot about the Bilbao mission this week and everyone thinks it's super cool that Cari served there. Anyways, that was a super crazy night. We ordered a massive delivery of kebab and had a feast.

Zone conference on Tuesday was inspiring as always. We always learn so much about how we can improve our area. The second half was all training on the Christmas initiative "#lighttheworld." Christmas is going to make the work so much easier. We are planning an activity right now with all of the members in Salamanca and Benavente. we're going to get everyone together and have the members singing Christmas songs while the four of us talk to everyone. We're even going to wrap books of mormon to look like presents and give those out. We put up Christmas lights in our piso today. They hang from the entrance, all the way down the hall, into the dining room, and into the living room. We went pretty hard. 

Thursday was Elder Jäger's birthday. They stuff from the package was a good start to celebrate. Then tried that cheesecake recipe. That was really easy and we both liked it. It definitely isn't healthy though. We tried making Squash soup for lunch the way an investigator did... it didn't really work. We ended up with garlic soup. I'll attach a picture though. Other than that we were busy, we had 3 lessons scheduled. So we're going to finish celebrating Wednesday with Thanksgiving dinner and a birthday cake. All of our investigators and the members in Benavente love American desserts so far. We made peach cobbler on Friday and had a picnic at the sacrament park with some investigators, then yesterday we took a cheesecake to Benavente and had that for dessert. And then this Thursday I'm taking peach cobbler to have them try it. They agreed to give me a recipe if I give them one. Winning. 

I don't think I told you guys last week. We were in Salamanca for sacrament meeting and I guess whoever was supposed to speak didn't show up. So the branch president got up and said I was going to speak. That was fun. I had to fill 15 minutes with absolutely nothing prepared. That's hard enough in english. The good thing is I've gotten really familiar with the gospel over the last few months so I could just talk without having to think too much. Then yesterday I gave my 9th talk. I'm getting pretty good at these now. All I did to prepare was read the talk you sent me. After that I just got up and talked about that. I think it sounds a lot better when you're not just reading from a paper. I talked to Elder Barreles, one of the AP's, on tuesday. He said we should try getting a hotel room for sacrament meeting on sunday. He was in the same situation in the Canaries a few months ago. So we're trying to get permission from president for that. 

That package was sooo good last week. The ties are awesome. It's nice to switch it up. 5 of the ties I brought aren't allowed. The stuffing was crushed to powder, but I'm going to try to salvage what I can. I'll send pictures of the dinner next week. I also need to send pictures of Benavente. It's so beautiful there. It's all palm trees and green grass, but then they decorate the city like crazy for Christmas. Salamanca is the same way. Tons of decorations. I was thinking about it this week and I really have gotten everything I asked for. I'm in a crazy area, it's like a third world country sometimes, but then there's palm trees everywhere. Friday was even 75 degrees. 

That temperature is kinda fake though. It was one warm day. Saturday was 45 degrees. I went and bought gloves, a scarf, and a beanie today. I'll buy a coat if I need it next week. We'll see what happens with transfers. 

The pictures are 1. caroling picture 2. zone conference 3. Squash 4. messing around on the sheep farm.

Well, I think thats everything. Talk to you next week.

Josh

LEÓN!

Hey guys,

Its been another crazy week. Today is super busy too. We drove up to León for zone conference tomorrow and we're just going to spend the night in the elders piso here. Best P-day yet. We played soccer for like 4 hours this morning with the whole zone and now we're playing risk. I'm writing this in between turns so it might not be the best email.

I kind of complained last week and I shouldn't have done that. Everytime things get hard, that's when the miracles come. I should have known that before. This week we really went hard in the streets and we found a few people we could teach. We have 1 new investigator in Benavente and we have actually set a baptism date for December 9. She's progressing super fast and I really feel like this one is going to happen. We have already taught 4 of the 5 lessons, so we're almost done. (everything is broken up into 5 lessons, but the fourth lesson takes about 10 times to teach.) super cool that she is progressing so fast.

Erin asked about elder Jäger. It's almost certain that he will leave next transfer. It would be kinda weird for him to stay in Zamora for 7 months. We have a lot planed for our last 2 weeks though. We have a pretty solid bucket list right now. I think next week we're going to decorate the piso with some Christmas stuff.

 

I got the package already! The entire zone knows I'm spoiled now. You guys are awesome. I got the card. Oh boy. Elder Jäger loves the package. He says that one thing is pretty legit, so nice job. You nailed it. Where did those ties come from? I'm excited to switch it up a little.

Here is a picture of elder jager with his Christmas, and a few of me in Benavente. 

(Elder Jäger with his treats from us!) 

Week 15 - Chicken Hearts and Sleepovers

Hey,

This week flew by. We were so busy. It was one of those weeks where we had so much good, and a ton of bad, but you don't really notice the bad until the end cause you're focused on the good. 

Miracle/Spiritual Highlight: OK, so found an older couple in the area book this week and decided to go visit them. It showed that they are members, but not active. So when we got out there we had a spiritual thought prepared and just planned on getting to know them. They were so happy to see us though. It turns out they want to try to go to church, but they haven't been able to because of health issues. They thought they had to drive an hour and a half to valladolid. They had no idea about our new Zamora group. They're solid though, awesome testimonies. So we shared our spiritual thought and then asked them if we could do anything for them, and she asked for a blessing for her health issues. We talked about it for a minute and asked if he would like to give the blessing, but he said he couldn't because he didn't have the priesthood anymore. We were really confused by that, but it turns out he felt really guilty about not going to church for the last little while. We talked about it for a while and in the end he decided he would give her the blessing. Afterwards the spirit was really stong, and it was very emotional. I can't really describe it. But imagine what it would be like when you have a burden like that lifted off of your shoulders. It was obvious that had been bothering him for a while. And for her it was emotional too. She was just crying and crying and thanking us. But really we hadn't done much. So after all of that he asked me to give him a blessing. That was my first blessing in spanish. I've given one in english, and anointed the oil in spanish a few times, but this one scared me. It was so cool though. We're going back this week to see them again.  

Food: Hmmmm, food... yeah it was a good food week. Tuesday we went to a dominican investigators house. (He's awesome, he lived in New York for like 10 years so his English is perfect.) He was cooking when we got there, so he offered us a plate. I wish I had a picture of elder Jagers face. It was just a big plate of rice with chicken hearts and onions. Im glad I've tried that before cause it would have been pretty scary. I loved it though, I probably ate 40 hearts. Then the next day we went to "Mark's" new place and had a BBQ. They always feed us so much. I ate like 3 steaks, 1 chicken breast, and 3 sausages. Plus salads. I thought I was going to throw up. Im pretty sure they think they get extra blessings when they feed us a lot. 

The Rest: Yeah, so I mentioned that there was bad... we basically lost every investigator this week and our hopes of a church group here fell apart. We haven't found any new investigators in 2 weeks. Oh yeah, we had a baptism scheduled for Nov. 25, and that's already canceled. :) 

We were either dropped by the investigators throughout the week, or we had to drop them because they weren't progressing anymore. That one kind happened gradually. And yes that includes the "second mom" I had mentioned. We are actually passing by tonight to let her know. She has ditched us 4 times this week though, so we don't really have another option. Our church group happened pretty fast. "Mark" and his family moved too far away so they're part of Salamanca now, our member family moved to England, and we have no investigators. Cool right. So yeah, that's gone. The lady that I told you guys about that split from from her boyfriend had a little miracle this week, and blew it. She had some things happen at work that allowed her to come to the meeting yesterday, and she called us super excited, but then she never showed up. Nobody did. We haven't heard from her still. I'm hoping everything is ok, but we will have to move the date back that we set for the 25th cause she needs to come to church 3 times. 

We did have lots of fun though. Wednesday we were at "Mark's" new house and we helped him paint. We had the Salamanca elders come help us, so we slept in Salamanca Tuesday night and then had a mini roadtrip Wednesday morning. Then we had Intercambios Thursday and Friday with the Zone leaders. Valladolid is awesome. It's massive compared to Zamora. I was with elder Douglas, elder Jagers old companion. We had tons of fun. I think it's super cool that Cari served there. With all of that we had 2 Sleepovers this week, that's super fun. 

We didn't do anything fun today, just cleaned and took a nap. I am honestly just exhausted. I don't really have pictures because of that though. I think I can send some from last week that I wasnt able to send at first. 

Love,

Josh

elder jager isn't trying to flip off the camera, I promise. That picture is in valladolid. the next picture is our church/park. It's just pretty. I forgot to mention that we came home to our piso building being on fire on wednesday. theres the view from our piso. 

Week 14

Hey guys,

So I organized this email a little. So there is a paragraph for the miracle of the week, fun, food, and other stuff. You know, the important things. 

So daylight savings was this weekend so we change our schedule. Now we wake up at 7:00 instead of 7:30 and go to bed at 11:00 instead of 11:30. That also means P-day ends at 6:30 now. 

Fun: We had tons of fun this week. We had some good service on a new farm this week and we went to a Halloween party last night. We haven't been working on farms much lately cause the work here in Zamora has really picked up. We had 2 days this week with 5 lessons. But Saturday we were able to go up to Benavente to visit a less active member and do some service. He makes cheese so he has about 600 goats and sheep, so we thought that's what we would be helping with, but instead he had us painting. We were there for most of the day cause it doesn't make sense to drive for 2.5 hours there and back and only visit for 1 hour. So I painted a big tractor and part of a barn. I was actually thinking of Emma and Erin the whole time. They would have been in heaven.Painting and animals. Then last night we went to a Halloween party, that's a pretty fun story. Last week we were just talking to people on the street and we were asking people about Halloween cause it's not a huge thing here. This one lady was actually prettycool though and said her husband lived in the US for a while and loves Halloween. She invited us to a neighborhood party cause she wanted to know if I thought it was a legit American Halloween party. It was. We had to be creative with our costumes since we still had to have missionary attire, I'll attach some pictures. But we definitely stood out, everyone else was pretty scary looking. They don't mess around here. 

Food: this week was kind of boring as far as food goes, but I think this is an important category to have. We spent a lot of time with Spaniards this week, so the lady from the Halloween party offered to teach us how to make Spanish tortillas. I'm super excited for that. She makes some good ones too, like really basic but good. Some people try to hard and put hot dogs or something in it and it's just not good. The other Spanish food we eat a lot is cocido. We ate it 3 times this week. It's the essential Spanish fall/winter meal. I would recommend finding a way to try it. 

Other: So this last week we had Intercambios here in Zamora. That was super fun. I was with elder tribett. We had 2 lessons, one was with the hippies. It was really funny watching his reactions to the prayer circle and the other weird stuff we do. This next week we're going to vallodolid for Intercambios with the zone leaders. That will be really fun. I'll try to get some pictures for cari. I think dad asked about what kind of workouts we do in Zamora... We go running every morning and take a soccer ball with us and a basketball. Then if we see someone playing soccer we play with them, if not we stop somewhere and play a game of HORSE or something. On days where we dot have as much time we have an app called "7M Workout" that's pretty good. We found a good 5k route that passes by a few courts though, so that's my favorite. Its actually cool hearing about young men's. You guys are doing some cool things. That song they sang is one we sang in the CCM. Super cool song. I kind of wish I would have been more involved in young men's and taken it more seriously. I have a completely different view on that now. 

I attached some pictures of our adventure this morning with the rio duero and the castle. That was super cool. We took some cheesy pictures too. I'm still debating whether or not I should send those. We had some fun though. The other ones are from the Halloween party. 

Talk to you next week. 

Josh

Week 13

Hey guys, 

So yeah I suck. I didn't mean to leave you guys hanging like that last week. I didn't even think about that. We eventually did get into the piso and back to zamora. We did miss a lesson but we rescheduled and had it wednesday. This has been a pretty weird week. A lot has happened, but at the same time I feel like it's all the same. I think it's just cause we're really busy, but I'll try think about the highlights cause I'm sure it doesn't all sound the same to you guys. 

Last week I mentioned prayer circles and igloos. That wasn't a joke. We have some investigators with some pretty whack ideas. I don't remember if I told you guys about our hippy investigators or not. It's the same guy that took us on a tour of the castle. We have a lesson with him and his 2 friends every 2 or 3 days for the last 2 weeks and they're actually progressing really well. They're artists, and one of them actually made me a really cool sculpture. We always meet in the second floor of the art shop, which is really cool. So in our first lesson with them we asked if we could say an opening prayer and they were cool with it, so I prayed, and then it got weird. As soon as I finished the guy next to me started praying, then when he was done the next guy started. So when it was elder Jagers turn he tried to explain how we normally do it for a second and then he was just like "eh, why not" and just went with the whole prayer circle thing. Luckily we don't do that anymore. Afterwards they invited to hike up to Lake Sanabria with them to do the prayer circle ritual thing with them in an igloo. Apparently they all get naked and do a prayer circle and they're "Reborn again". Idk, it's weird. But as we have been teaching them we keep finding that we have a lot in common. They were telling us about this energy that is in all of us, and how when we do good things or talk about God the energy is stronger. 

We have a name for that, it's called the holy ghost. They also told us about these other worlds we would live in after we die. Like other worlds God created and if we're good in this life we can become gods. So tonight we're starting with the plan of salvation. I think that whole thing is pretty cool. People here are definitely prepared. 

We have lots of new investigators this week. In fact, every week our mission sends an email with all of the stats from the week and a message from President pack. And this week and last week we made up 10% of the mission with how many new investigators we found. We found some creative ways to talk to people. The first one is a survey with the tablets. We have 4 questions that we ask people, like "do you believe in god" or "do you think you can receive answers to your prayers" and it's going well. We automatically have a conversation about the gospel. Its easy. We have 2 new investigators from that. The other thing we do is a selfie competition. We just take Selfies with people on the street that we don't know. We just ask them to hold the BOM and take a selfie, then we add them on facebook and we can tag them in the post. The goal is to make more friends here in Zamora on Facebook, but this way the BOM is already in their hands-how easy is that. So we have 4 new investigators from that. The only thing is they're all girls between 18 and 25. This is what I was talking about when I said I got kissed twice last week. It's tricky not to make it sound like you're 1flirting when it's a foreign language. 

Good news with the language though, I speak spanish. It's not perfect, but I can say what I want to say. I still need A LOT more vocab but I can communicate just fine. Yesterday we had our first video lesson over skype. Super cool. There is so much potential for the technology. This week we had more lessons than elder jager has ever had in his mission. I think 16 or 17. 

I'm out of time, but now that I look back on it, this week was pretty interesting.

Talk to you next week,

Josh

From our Hangout conversation this morning:

Last night I had some Bolivian dish that was basically just boiled meat with the salad from pausas on top. But the meat was just pig parts, bones, whole ears, snouts, all kinds of stuff. I liked it though. The tapas were amazing. I tried all kinds of stuff. I also had rabbit and chicken hearts this week.

Pinchos and Tapas are the bomb

Hey guys, 

I don't have a ton of time today. Transfers are a really crazy thing. Elder Rosales from Salamanca is going up north so we had to come down to hang out with elder Bateman so he's not alone. Here's where it gets crazy. Elder Rosales missed his train this morning. So we bought another ticket and went back the piso to wait for the next train, but since we had an hour we decided to go get haircuts and when we came back to grab his bags we realized we were locked out. So now we have waiting for the landlord in a burger king for the last 4 hours. I'm not really sure what's going to happen. The landlord is in Barcelona right now and our car keys and tablets are in the piso so we can't leave. (I'm writing emails on the phone today.) So yeah, elder Rosales has missed 2 more trains today and it looks like he will miss at least one more. It's been crazy. 

Other news from Zamora, we have 2 more new investigators, both are Spanish, Toño might be one of the best guys I've ever met, Pinchos and tapas are bomb, and we tried an idea using Facebook to contact that probably won't continue because I have already been kissed twice this week. Yeah I know, crazy right. I don't really want to explain that right now. 

The storm you warned me about hit during sacrament meeting at the park so we had to move to a friend's piso. I'll probably post a picture on Facebook of the meeting. But we asked Toño to speak and he was amazing, he told the story of his conversion. I'm hoping that was a turning point for one of our investigators. The spirit was so strong, I know she had to feel it. So that was great. President sort of gave us permission to start looking for a building for sacrament meeting. The other option is that we find a bigger piso and meet there. IDK, we're just going to keep our eyes open until he gives us full permission. But that's really cool. There is already so much growth here. Toño took us to get Pinchos andtapas Saturday night. I'm glad I was able to get the real spanish experience. We met him at a bar at 9:30 and then went from bar to bar trying all kinds of new things. That was amazing. Anyway, I'm out of time, but the church is true. Read the book of mormon, it's a good book. I'm gonna go go have a prayer circle in an igloo. (that's next week's topic)

Talk to you next week. 

Josh