!San Fernadiós¡

July 31, 2017

!San Fernadiós¡

July 24, 2017

Or maybe "San Fer-nadamás." "San Farewell-o?

Bottom line, in the words of the late Sir Billy Joel, I'm moving out! This was an interesting week. Let's start with Tuesday!

The exchange with Elder Ruiz, due to Elder Garrard's exit interview, went well. I was worried about keeping busy and leading the area, speaking Spanish the whole time (he's a native speaker), but Elder Ruiz was sick. So we went to district meeting, then to our apartment until it was time to pick up Elder Garrard and Elder Williams from the train station. I was able to learn more about Elder Ruiz, but much of the time, he was quietly laying down. During that time, I still had to juggle calls to make adjustments to our noche de hogar idea with Abraham, which ended up not happening. To keep myself occupied, I made cornbread and started reading Jesus the Christ. The cornbread was absolutely fan-friggin-tasmic. Definitely something I'll make more often. Jesus the Christ is wonderful beyond description and I loooove the contextual background that the notes give. I think I'm on Chapter 8ish right now.

We met with Abraham Wednesday evening, and in short, his progress is on hold for now. Meaning he's reached "dropped" status in the area book. Essentially, he likes the church and the Book of Mormon, and he would like to keep coming to meetings and activities; but he would like to take "a vacation" from the lessons and commitments. This is all pretty much rooted in his unwillingness to quit coffee, which is a bit of a bummer. However, the seed has been planted, and it has started to grow within him. I have no doubt that he will find the Church (or the Church will find him) again soon enough.

Our weekly planning was all about prep for the next transfer beCAAUUUSE.... my current area is going to be absorbed by the two adjacent areas. We are going to lose a total of 8 missionaries at the end of the transfer. This was confirmed to Elder Gerrard after his exit interview. Saturday morning, we learned that Elder Anderson is going to be a zone leader in Murcia, and that I wasn't going to be Elder Bird's companion, so the following hours yielded much more excitement y anticipation. Much like the anticipation you might be feeling as you try to skim over this email until you find out where I'm going.

Saturday was awesome. The morning was spent cleaning and practicing musical numbers in preparation for the baptismal service. Elder Garrard and I had just enough time to eat lunch and study for half an hour before needing to go back to the church for the baptism. Everything went very well and there was a solid turnout.

After the baptism was the Spanish broadcast of the Pioneer Day concert and HOLY CRAPULA. That was so amazing. The Moana part almost made me cry because I immediately thought of taking Maren to watch it in theaters. Then proceeded to think about all the other movies I took her to. That was a little rough. But the constant stream of perfect music being blasted into my ear holes helped soften the blow. All of it was so good! With all of the gospel songs, you would have thought that Mr. Munari (is that how you spell it, Braeden?) was in charge of the song selection. If you haven't seen it, please do. With a quality audio system. Following the concert was a barbecue with a loooot of people. We enjoyed ourselves.

Sunday morning, during my journaling, the phone rang. I have been called to Badajoz in Extremadura! Whoo! I'm going to be with Elder Nye for this transfer, then he'll be going home too. Figures. I don't have time to account for the rest of Sunday which was really good. I'll do it next week!

Elder Jensen :)