Ice-Burgos ahead!

October 29, 2018

"So put your little hand in mine, 

together there ain't no mountain we can't climb, 

Babe. 

*ha-haa* *ha-haa* *ha-haa* 

I got you babe!"

Put on your booties 'cause it's COOOLD outside! I wish someone had let me know that Burgos was the second-coldest city in Spain BEFORE I left the country of discount winter coats. Oh well. Burgos is a minimum of two hours from everywhere in the middle of Northern Spain. It's a pretty big city. So big, in fact, it was Franco's capital when the Commies still had control of Madrid. Alright it's not that big, but it takes a good minute to get around. Let's get to the week shall we?

On Monday we planned on heading out in the afternoon toward Lleida, but then I learned that my train wouldn't be leaving until 1:30pm on Tuesday, so we stayed one more night *cue Phil Collins* in Andorra. We said some more goodbyes and a few other odds and ends and ended the day with a visit in the Southwicks' home to say goodbye. It was good having them up there with me. They were like another set of grandparents.

Tuesday, we headed on down to Lerida, spent a little bit of time with the other missionaries there, then I was dropped off at the train station where I began my lonely trek halfway across the country. It was kind of nice traveling alone for a sec. 

I arrived in Burgos around 6:30 where I was met by my new companion, Elder Otero (not Ortero), and Elder Hetzel who is serving here with his wife. Elder Hetzel drove us to our apartment, we dropped off my stuff, and then I was out in the streets...on the way to the chapel to make some calls and send some messages. We had a visit set up with a man named Ruben a little bit later. I noted a Burger King not far from the chapel and asked if we could stop by real quick as I hadn't eaten anything since the night before. As I finished chowing down, Ruben showed up. He has an interesting story. He was meeting with the missionaries about a year ago, was on the verge of baptism, but decided not to the day of. Out if the blue he texted the missionaries on Sunday saying that he would like to meet with them and that he wanted to be baptized. We met with him and cleared up a couple questions he had related to Alma 40 aaand something else. Can't remember exactly what at the moment. He's really nice, talks really fast, and has a lot of really good questions. We ended up deciding to start meeting with him and going over all of the lessons again to help be ready for baptism. 

On Wednesday, I explored a little bit of the area in the morning, and in the evening we helped a couple members clean the church, then taught English. Since I am no English instructor, I had no other choice than to practice "introductions" in English (i.e. My name is blank and I am from blank). We went from there to months, then days of the week, then how to say years, then moved on the birthdays, which led to how to say your age, then fortunately, our time was up and I had no idea what else to talk about. All the people who come have a good grip on English basics for the most part.

As a weekly planning snack, Elder Otero made something called Sopa Paraguaya which is in fact not soup. It's essentially a cake where the main ingredients are eggs, corn meal, and cheese. Not too shabby. In the afternoon we met with Alejandra who is being taught by the missionaries. She's really nice and has a lot of really good, base doctrine questions. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she didn't have anything against it. That evening we also met with Ruben again and taught him the Restoration. He too asked a plethora of questions that were all purposeful and answerable.

Friday was another day of exploration divided up by a couple member visits. We met with Rosa and her sons. Her husband is the bishop in the ward in Logroño and their family is in a long-term process of moving to Burgos. For now, her and her three sons are here. She's a lot of fun! Rosa served in the Spain Seville Mission back when that was a thing, so we had a fun conversation about Andalucía. As it turns out, we know some of the same people. After more exploration (and rejection--we're still in Spain, remember?), we visited a member named Rosemary who also randomly texted the missionaries out of the blue about a week ago. She's a nice Peruvian lady in her early 30s who isn't very active in the Church. We introduced a little Book of Mormon challenge that the Europe Area has been doing to kickstart the spiritual aspect of her life. If I haven't described it before, really quickly, it's a 21-day study activity that has a question paired with a quote from conference and a scripture reference to help the reader find an answer to said question. We decided to go over one of the days with her and it ended up being exactly what she needed to hear. She told us that she wants to keep meeting with us and make greater efforts to come back to church despite her hectic schedule. Gosh I love the Book of Mormon!

A chess set in a member's home.

Saturday! We played sports, but not many people came this time. We kicked a soccer ball around with a very nice French Spaniard that we are also teaching, and then eventually played basketball with him and a kid from the branch when he showed up. I still and not good at basketball, in case you were wondering. In the afternoon we met with a man named Cipriano. He is a recent convert to the Church--well, recent meaning about two years ago. He's just this nice old Spaniard that knows everything about Burgos. He also lives with another member of the Church who was baptized almost a year and a half ago who is a 21 year-old Colombian. They're a fun duo. In the evening we met with Ruben again and taught the Plan of Salvation. Once again, a lot of questions, and a lot of answers.

I hardly have time to talk about Sunday but there isn't too much to say. The branch has about 40 people normally in attendance each Sunday, the branch president is a nice American...good stuff! We were going to meet with Ruben in the evening, but in the end he couldn't, so we'll be seeing him on Tuesday! Oh also, we finally had our daylight savings change so one more hour of sleep!

That's really all I've got for today. Sorry, it's a lot of info. I'll try to be getting more pictures that I have sent now and next week.

Buh-bye!

Elder Jensen :)