With the language, I'm picking it up more and more every day. I understand people for the most part. I miss a few words here and there but I'm struggling speaking but I'm progressing daily so its great:) With the teaching, I struggled a little the first few weeks because of the Spanish but these last couple weeks have been pretty good. I feel like it's hard to express everything I want to say because I can't express it in Spanish so I feel really repetitive sometimes with my teaching but I'm improving and starting to say more so its good.
This week was amazing!!!! Monday we had our final lesson with Andres. He has completely stopped progressing and despite our attempts we have lost contact with him. So we had to drop him. Sad, but we can't waste our time when there are others who are progressing more than him. Tuesday we had a lesson with Francisco. He is really interesting and he loves to tell us all about the crazy hard times he´s had in his life and he started to meet with us cause he's a sculptor (on his business cards he claims to be the best modern sculptor in the world) and he wants us to teach him English so he can move to America and get rich. hahaha With his difficulties we have helped him start to build a relationship with Christ and his atonement and he's very receptive to the gospel so far and he has a baptismal date for the 15th of march!!:) So that has been good!! I got my residency card on Wednesday so I am an official resident of Spain. That was pretty sweet! We also found a Colombian family Wednesday. We taught the dad in the street and during it we asked him, "So what's prayer to you?", and he was like, "It's a conversation with God, he's our father and so we can express our feelings to him." When we asked about prophets he said, "Ellos son pastores para el mundo." "They're shepherds for the world. They teach us and guide us" and we were like okay this guys ready!!! So we're going to be teaching them this week! We´re super excited!!! Thursday we got into the Branch Presidents house which has never been done before by elders here! He lives outside of A Coruña and it took a while to find it but we got in and it was an amazing relationship builder for us. Friday was Valentine's Day and we went all out! We wore red ties and sang love at home for our companionship study hymn. Then that night we bought each other pastries. hahaha It was fun. Saturday we taught Francisco again and then we had a movie night for ward missionary night. So we had an investigator there and our ward mission leader puts on Charly, the one with Heather in it. So first off we didn't know what to do, we had an investigator there or else we would have left but yeah that was bad for us. Not exactly a mission appropriate movie and we didn't know what to do but we prayed that night for help from the Lord to help that not distract us from the work and we've been good. So next time we will be a little more careful in making sure it's a solid movie that we can watch. That night we found out about transfers and we're staying and so are the other elders here in A Coruña so we´re super excited!! Sunday was an amazing day!! We had 2 incredible lessons with investigators. One was with a girl named Sandra she has cancer and has attended church a couple times a member came up to us at church and said okay meet me here at the chapel at 5 I'll take you to her house. That was like the greatest thing we could have ever heard from a member!! So the lesson was amazing and she is sooo ready for the gospel!! The lesson was powerful! She may be moving back to Brazil this week depending on some medical things so we pray the Lord allows what is best for her in this situation. We taught Eliot again. We teach him every Sunday night and he asked profound questions. We had a really good talk about the Plan of Salvation. Great week!! Great transfer!! After we totalled the numbers for the transfer last night Elder Gentry showed me his from his first transfer they taught 46 total lessons. and had 7 member present lessons. We taught 126 total lessons and had 40 member present lessons. So it was a SOLID first transfer! It was his birthday yesterday so we had a great time! We made cake during medio dia and our oven is broken so it baked the top and the edges but the middle was still not done. It happened with lasagna a week ago haha but it was still delicious but it made us so sick hahaha we´re still feeling the effects. Amazing week though!!!! We made a goal for 8 baptisms in the month of March and we are praying so hard to be able to achieve that goal. The Lord will bless us according to our faith so it will all work out! I love this work so much!!! Thanks for everything. Have an amazing week!!!!
((hugs)) and kisses,
Elder Jarrett Anderson
¡¡El reino de Dios o nada!!
