Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/29/10

Wow. Thanks for the Christmas care package. I look forward to receiving it. I really appreciate it. It will be so awesome to read from the ward members.

That's cool to hear about your Disneyland trip. I´m glad you had fun. If you thought the food there was expensive, it wasn´t. Pizza here, can be like 14 Euros for a medium, and Mcdonald´s price is like eating at a real restaurant. It's about $8 for a meal.

This week sucked regarding the weather. It rained all week, and had super cold wind. It was barely above freezing, so it didn´t snow, but it was wet. My legs and feet are always drenched. But, its ok. We´re moving this week. Isabel is making last attempts for us to stay. She is way sad. But, we´re looking forward to our new apartment located in the middle of the city. We´re also gonna have a drier, which only a select few apartments in the mission have. Some members are gonna help us. The bishop and his son, and Fidel. Cuz, when Fidel is serving, he´s not smoking.

We´re about ready to drop Fidel, he really has no interest to do anything we tell him. He fed us like 3 times this week which is good. The past three weeks, we´ve been eating at members homes almost every day.

"Happy Thanksgiving" Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/23/10

That sounds cool that you're in Disneyland. We´re eating with the Box family today.

We had a lot of contact with Germany this week. A member showed me a ton of maps of Germany and told me a million trucker stories through Brittian. He said it's absolutely gorgeous. I may just have to visit it one of these days. They speak English very well, so i just may.

All the trees on the side of the streets are "orange trees" and they are all in season. The wild oranges aren´t good to eat, they are as acidic as battery acid. The oranges that you can eat are vey very tasty and very very sweet. I´ve tasted both. I´ve been eating so many oranges and mandarins lately. One member gave us 3 bags full from his orchard. I really like them now.

Whats the name of Harry Potter 7 in English? Here in Spain, its "reliquoes de la muerte" Relics of the Dead. I don´t think that's the name of it in English. lol. Is it?

We had an open house for the new chapel over here, kinda like the open house to the temple. We passed many flyers, had publication in the paper, and had a big banner draped on the church. The members set up many booths inside, explaining our role in the community, our beliefs about family and joseph smilth and family history, art, music and stuff like that. The attendance was pretty low, 173 people in 1 week. But it was good. We had one miracle. A lady and her daughter approached me and Elder Barsurto and asked if we belonged to the church, and we replied yes. She expressed a desire to see inside. so we took her to the zone leaders to show inside the building. Now she and her daughter and her mother, (all named Pilar) are going to be baptized. Which is way cool. Just not to our ward.

We finally found María... in the mental hospital. Her kids took her there. She suffers depression. Her kids want nothing to do with the church and they say their mom is crazy. So we can't baptize her but we can visit her. I really don't like the Spanish hospitals... I feel like in a 3rd world country...them and their socialized health care.

I heard the government of North-Korea shot 100 missles at South-Korea, and America might get involved. I´m pretty worried about that. The Spanish papers just totally slammed on the new book of Bush, and made fun of Palin, and honored Obama.

We´ve been having some success with an investigator named Angel. He´s the ex boyfriend of the Bishop's daughter. He´s been praying every night to konw if the church is true. and he still hasn´t had an answer. but he had a dream. He was a great mulitidude in a big and unfamilar city. And it was almost ancient. And the people were talking excitedly that Jesus had come. Kinda like the scene in 3nephi 11. So we got high hopes that he´ll be baptized soon.
We finally had one man come to our english class. He wants to talk agbout the church another day.
We´ve been doing many contacts lately, and almost all of them are old investigators. Which i hear is unheard of. They´ve heard the missionaries, 2 years ago, 20 years ago, and everything in between. We´re teaching some of them.

I´m excited today is Thanksgiving. We´re eating at the Box family's house, and the father said we could bring the whole district. We´re goihg to have turkey, jamon, all sorts of pies. And brittish people will be there. which i find ironic.
Life is good, we´re moving out this week into our new appartement and yeah.

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/16/10

Thanksgiving will be great this year. An american family has invited us to have a true Thanksgiving dinner with them, with pie, turkey, ham, and all sorts of good stuff you can´t get in Spain. I look so forward to it.


We had a fireside in our ward with our mission president. It was really good. The same american family mentionned above brought brownies, 3 cheesecakes and some cookies. Everything was incridibly good. I was itching to eat real cheese cake again.


We found an apartment that we like but it's being used as an office right now. The guy who will rent it to us is a professional remodeler for buildings, so it should be good. The location is incredible. Probably the best location that any missionary has ever had in this city, and it's just a little more expensive than the one we are living in now.



Anyway, we are staying with Isabell until the end of this month. Elder barsurto had expressed to our mission president how uneasy it is to live with people. Living with people can interrupt our studies. In our case Isabell has 3 TVs and David has a computer.


I was at training last lweek at the mission home in Malaga. It was really good.

Hi America


View from the pool at the mission home in Malaga


The training is over, let's all jump for joy!!

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/15/10

Some of the missionaries attended a 3 days specialized training at the Mission home in Malaga. Elder Bennett and his companion Elder Basurto were among the missionaries being trained.

Elder Basurto & Elder Bullen


On the pic above, Elder Bennett and Elder Masterson are showing off the weight they have lost. They each have lost around 25-30 lbs since they came on their missions. This is a walking mission and could it be the reason of their weight loss?


While all missionaries were looking at the camera, ELder Bennett had his eyes on the delicious dish in front of him and was not a bit interrested in looking at the camera.

This is a great looking group of Elders who work really hard everyday. Their enthusiasm and willingness to learn can only help them becoming the best missionaries they can be in the field. They look so happy. (Please click on the pic to see a bigger image)
Balcony: Elder Stowell, Elder Avellar, President Clegg, Elder Redd, Elder Hamilton, Elder Donoskovic

Stairs: Elder Basurto, Edler 2, Elder Masterson, Elder Burdette, Elder West, Elder Wells, Elder Ferguson, Elder Travis, Elder Taylor, Elder Bennett

Are the missionaries jumping for joy because they are the best missionaries serving in the best mission in the world or just because they are happy to have the special training over. What do you all think? (Please click on the pic to see a bigger image)

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/08/10

Our investigator Maria has turned into a nightmare. She has her anti-depression medication but she just won´t take it. We know she´s always home when we stop by but she pretends not to be there by not opening the door for us. We even caught her doing this.

Town Hall in Sevilla
Transfer happened again and I am staying here in Sevilla with Elder Earsurto for at least the next 6 weeks. We´re moving to a new apartment to the great dismay of our landlord Isabel. Elder Barsurto broke the news to her. Isabel has been crying all week and guilt tripping us everytime she could. But, she shocked me, when I saw her walLking through the chapel doors last Sunday. She hasn´t attended Church in years. It was testimony meeting, and the spirit we felt was particullarly strong cuz the ward temple trip was that week. Isabel asked if she could share her testimony even though she´s not a member. I was like, of course!! So I went up with her and she announced how devasted she was that we were moving, and I was pretty embarrassed. she did say that she felt the spirit super strong when we were staying at her place. That's good that she recognizes that.
I am glad to hear about the changes in the Ward and also thanx for sending me Jacob & Dylan MTC address. I hope more go on missions.

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/01/10

Funny. It rained super hard as well over here on the Saturday before Halloween. But, Halloween wasn´t observed until Sunday...lol. It's fairly new here, but they all love it. All the people see that I´m an american and ask what halloween is like in the States. They don´t do trick or treating here, they mostly throw big drunken costume parties with many decorations and such. At least the family is all drunk together lol.
Elder Barsuto & Elder Bennett

Satan threw us a low blow for Maria. The day of her baptism, she ran out of anti- depression pills and she was in the low point of her valley of depression. We spent like 5 hrs at her house this weekend. We gave her some pictures as present for her barren walls but mostly to cheer her up. Maria's baptism is reschedule for another time. a view of a spanish street.

Normally, a missionary stays 4 transfers in his first area which equals to about 6 months. I could possibly be moved to another city on the next transfer. I hope I stay. I like it here. We taught 21 lessons last week, and about 8 lessons this week. Next week will suck "numbers wise" because we´ll be in the mission home instead of teaching.
Beautiful city of Sevilla

We´ve been eating like 5 times or more at people´s houses´. We eat a fair amount at the investigator's houses.

Great choice for the new bishopric members. Could you get me the addresses of Josheph, Dylan and Jacob? Yeah, Brazil has worse problem for visa than Spain. Elder Larsen, had a friend who was going to Brazil, and he broke the record for time spent at the Provo MTC. He was there for 6 months. That particular friend was in a large group, and everybody got reasigned except this friend, and this friend´s companion. So this could be fun. They´ll probably serve in the States for a little while.
I´m glad to hear about Dylan.
Enjoy the view of the beautiful city of Sevilla. I love it here.

I´m doing well, I am working hard and stuff. I´m like the most thoughtful companion ever. It's Elder Barsuto's birthday, and I am planning a suprise celebration for him at an american family´s house. It wil be his first time tasting real cake. They don´t have cake here. It will be fun.