Belorado: The City of Old

December 04, 2018

Belorado: The City of Old

November 5, 2018

I've had a full week and not too much time to lollygag with writing so let's get right into it.

Monday: We went to this hill that overlooks the city and has a fun little park. We goofed around, took a couple pictures, made a couple videos, the usual. On our way to an appointment with Rosemari (lady from last week) we discovered that she couldn't meet just when we had gotten to her neighborhood way out in the boonies. Due to the lack of people outside, we decided to sit down on a bench and make calls, have some text conversations, and make further preparations for the week. We sat there, slightly bundled up and went to work. Slowly but surely the temperature decreased as time crawled on. It got really cold. When we finally stood up to head homeward, every single joint and muscle in our bodies rudely reminded us just how cold it was. My knees creaked like a rusty-hinged barn door and every single fiber of my being screamed at me for sitting there for so long. During our walk back we were shivering more than we had been on the bench. Funny how that works out.

Tuesday: Not much happened in the morning, but we had a good evening. We met with a less-active member named Jorge. He's an interesting one. We're trying to get him back to Church bit by bit. He actually is the reason we met Philippe, of whom I will explain more about later on. Jorge is a Mason (he asked us if the Church is alright with that) and he's trying all he can to be "protected spiritually". Just like that one guy in the movie The Mummy, he has like four trinkets from different origins and religions around his neck; it made me chuckle. We explained that the best protection he could receive was through being worthy of the presence of the Holy Ghost and what he could do to do so. We also met with Ruben where we taught lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. All went well there.

Wednesday: Due to events of the week, we had our weekly planning in the morning, and then had some more solid things set up for the evening. We had English class where, due to the spirit of the season, we ended up going over Halloween-related vocab. It was funny because this time we only had two older Spaniard men and Philippe. After English, we met with Philippe to go over The Restoration with him again.

Okay, quick explanation. Philippe is from Paris, but his parents are Spanish, and he's been living in Spain for the past ten years more or less. There was an activity with the branch the Saturday before I got here. Jorge brought Philippe (none of the missionaries had seen either of them before) to the activity and Philippe came to church on Sunday. Philippe was invited to hear the first lesson by the Hetzels. On Tuesday, the elders passed by the Hetzel home to say goodbye, and ended up stopping by in the middle of a lesson with Philippe, so they sat in for the latter part. We played soccer with him last Saturday, and he came to church again my first Sunday here. That being said, we had a tandem visit set up with Philippe at the Hetzels' on Thursday, but we wanted to meet with him to get to know him more, and to go over The Restoration again just so everyone was the on the same page.

So yeah, that happened. We then had a good chat with a member who was cleaning the chapel.

Thursday: We met with Philippe, as planned, at the Hetzels'. He had shown up early, so Elder Hetzel, understanding that Philippe wanted to know more about Joseph Smith, put on the movie that the Church made that's about an hour long. We arrived halfway through the film (this seems to be a common theme) and sat down and watched it with him. After that, Elder Otero, Heztel, and I taught The Plan of Salvation to Philippe and all went really well. Philippe has a very bright spirit and he's really embracing the doctrine. Elder Hetzel invited him to baptized on the 24th, and he said that hopefully he can. It was a long, but very good visit.

From there, we drove out to a pueblo called Belorado to visit a member who lives there. She's a nice Ecuadorian woman who lives there with her husband. She fed us lunch, then next thing I know, we were shown the town and the surrounding area. We drove out to an abandoned pueblo, visited a hill overlooking the local mine, climbed a mountain in town to what remains of the castle that once stood there (I guess this tiny village in the middle of nowhere used to be the home of the King. Who'd have thought?), visited the center plaza, stopped by a bar for some Colacao (saw my first bullfight on the TV), then came back to the sister's apartment. By the way, we did all of this with her husband who is not a member of the Church. He's really nice. Anywho the purpose of this visit was to give a blessing to Lucía (the member). I found myself getting a little choked up as she was describing what things her body had been going through for the last little bit. A frozen shoulder, fibromyalgia...heck I was going to give a blessing to my own mother! (💙) We gave her a blessing, I felt the Spirit, we headed back to Burgos. The day ended with a visit with Ruben where we explained the commandments, and invited him to be baptized as well. He is also on track to be baptized on the 24th.

Friday: Woke up at 5 in the morning to catch our bus that left at 6:45 to go to Bilbao for district meeting and a mini zone meeting. It was fun. I got to meet my district, and some friends that I've made in the mission (shoutout to Elder Pain and Elder Iñesta). When we got back we had a visit fail on us, and we visited a friendly member family.

Saturday: We played soccer, but with more people this time. We then went to the far west part of Burgos, knocking doors, trying to talk to people, etc. It's pretty far away. We also met with Ruben one more time to explain the Priesthood and auxiliary organizations of the Church.

Sunday: Philippe couldn't come to church because he was in a pueblo with family, but Ruben came, so that was nice. We met with our branch president in the evening and I will explain more about that later because I now have no time. We taught Ruben about temples and family history and hope to get him involved with that too.

Ugh, I have to go now. Pictures are being weird and not sending, so I'll try to figure that out this week because I have lotttts.

See ya!

Elder Jensen :)