Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 02/21/11

I finally got my birthday package!! Thank you so much. It's really wonderful. I´m glad to hear Neil is doing so well!! I´ll send more pix next week. I'm going to Gibraltar today.
San Fernando Zone at Zone Conference in Malaga.

So, I leave Jerez this Wednesday!! I have mixed feelings, but I´m excited to see Almería!!! Apparently it has the biggest and strongest ward in all of our mission, and my new companion will be Elder Hamilton, who is in my group. We get along great,except he doens´t like onions in his food, but we´ll llive. I´m extremely excited. I didn´t get to visit everything that I wanted to in this province, but, maybe I´ll have another chance in the future.

This week, with Elder Long, we´ve been working like bulls!! We´ve been going on splits with members often, and this week we exceeded the standards of excellence by far!! We have 6 baptismal dates. Elder Long and Elder Waite will even have more baptismal dates when I leave. I´m excited for them. Elder Long is struggling to understand the accent of the people of Cadiz, but he has excitement!! We´ve been talking to more people on the street since he's been here. And more people have been giving us their information. It just goes to show, when we try, the Lord helps us succeed!! We taught 24 lessons this week, and 20 of those were to investigators. We had 14 people show up to the last English Class.

I feel like I just got here...into this town! (I did just 2 months ago) It's easy to be happy when you are having success. But, I know I´ll have success wherever I go!! I have a strong testimony of success from contacts from the street.

One night when I was serving in Dos Hermanas, I got a strong feeling that I needed to contact someone. It was late at night, and we were late returning to the piso when I had the prompting to talk to the next person I see. I didn´t speak Spanish well yet, but I did exactly that. Some man was standing on the corner, I approached him and starting talking to him. His name was Felix. Now I heard he just got baptised in Dos Hermanas by the Elders over there! I´m so happy.

Three of our upcoming baptismal dates in Jerez are from contacts on the street. If there is one thing that I learned from this city is learning how to love the people. It's easy to dislike those who dislike us, but when we show christ like love, it blesses every aspect of the work. Contacts, lessons, and so many things.
Singing the mission song at Zone Conference.

I´ll miss this town Jerez. We have some awesome members and some awesome investigators. I´ll miss Calixto, the awesome Bolivian man. We teach him almost everyday outside in a public courtyard. He reads and prays everyday, and we´ve given him a ton of pictures religious to hang up in his Finca. Then I´ll miss Paloma, the lady who mistook us as Jehovah´s Witnesses but still invited us over to her house. We became really good friends with her son Kevin. We´ve had an intense week with her. She called us and asked to be put in the water as soon as possible. Cuz, she was moving to Madrid. But, she had to quit smoking first. We´ve taught some powerful, spiritual lessons, and we gave her some good inspirational things to help her quit. But, she called us crying one day and saying that she couldn´t quit in one week. Then we told her that the church of jesus christ also existed in Madrid. She was happy after that. Kevin, her son should be baptized this saturday.

Paco has been awesome, and he´s been introducing the gospel to more of his friends, who wanna be baptized. He showed his buddy Tano, the baptismal bulliten, and pointed to the spot where tano´s picture would be.We had an awesome ward activity this week as well. I haven´t eaten so much in so long!! The Ward had all sorts of great foods.

I´ve been memorizing scriptures more recently, and they´ve been really helping me to be a better teacher and improve my Spanish by a ton!! I feel a whole lot more confident with Spanish.

We also had another miracle. We vistited an old, dropped investigator, named Felipe. He is a 16-year old from Brazil. He knew the church was true, he just wasn´t ready to drop his wreckless lifestyle. But, something changed. You can see it on his face. He gave Elder Waite his last lighter and said, this was my last lighter. I don´t smoke or drink anymore. He wants to go on a mission. And his girlfriend, cousin and friend are all being taught as well. His girlfriend has a baptismal date set up. We gave them a blessing of health the other day, and it was super super spiritual. I just love seeing the change of people. When they let the healing rays of the gospel warm them up.

Elder Long, and Elder Waite are awesome dudes. I´ll miss them a lot. Being in a trio rocked.

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 02/14/11

I am sorry for not writting a letter this week but enjoy the pics.
Elder Waite, Elder Long & Elder Bennett. This is our new trioship. Elder Long is from Utah and he's being trained by Elder Waite.

Knocking on doors...


Elder Long presenting his first Book of Mormon. Not bad for his first time...hein?

We are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We hear no Evil, We see no Evil and we speak no Evil.


The town of Bornos


Elder Long observing how we do contact on the street.

More door contacts. We are working the new guy like crazy!!

a group of American exchange students, that are also protestant missionaries, that we taught, randomly, thru contacts.


Is this all mine!!! YUM, YUM, GOOD!


Priest Activity, eating churros!

Here I am playing my Flamenco guitar on the beach of Cadiz. Have a great day everyone!

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 02/07/11

Yep. I¨ve done 9 months! It's been great. This upcoming week, my companion will be a trainer and I will also be staying here. So idk what that makes me. But, whatever the case, I´ll be in a trio. I´m excited to see what happens.


That's crazy to hear about Neil!! He´s just growning up so fast. Next time you see Tanner Sorenson's parents, could you please get his address from them? Tell uncle Bruce "hi" for me. I hope he´s doing ok.


We are going to get more baptisms before I leave. We are teaching some awesome people! The presentation board rocks, and i´m stoked to use it.




We have been using various tactics to get people to English classes, and we´ve been getting the most fruit by posting big flyers in public places, light poles, outside of resteraunts and stuff.
The ward is super hpapy and excited about all the progress that we´ve been making!

I´m good on stuff right now... but if i need anything, I´ll let you know. thanks though.

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 01/31/11

The work is doing really well and we've been playing a lot of soccer. I´ll probably get the birthday package you sent on the 17th of February. I will let you know for sure. I´m excited to receive it.

Yes, Raul did get baptized.
Picture of Raul (on the left), he was baptized by his buddy Paco (who practically threw him in the water).

It was the oddest baptism ever. 3 weeks ago, we gave Raul a tour of the church and he asked then to be baptized. We taught him everything in the following weeks. He made time for us to teach him despite his lack of free time due to his demanding job and unpredictable work schedule. He didn´t have a single doubt with any of the commandments. Tithing? we told him the money is used to help people & build new Churches and Temples. The Word of Wisdom? He´s a gymnast and he doesn´t smoke (which is rare). So at the end of the 3 weeks, he was ready and was baptized. We are super happy!!!!This makes number 7 for me!
We had a total of 9 baptisms in our ward in 2 months. Awsome, right? They say Europe is difficult, but, I don´t understand. We´re just seeing so much success.

Our lessons this week were low, but we were super busy!! We spent almost 2 entire days making a super cool presentation board about the Restoration to use on the street and for the Church tours.


We had 2 tours of the church this week. The first tour was with the mayor elect Maria Jose Palallo and her political staff.


Bishop Jesús and President Lopez teaching the Mayor elect, María José Palallo


Political toast with the mayor elect Maria Jose Palallo!!!

and the second tour was with the current mayor of the city and her political staff.
President Lopez teaching the Mayor of the city

The mayor was interested in family history


Hermano Girón teaching about temples

Both tours were pretty good, they liked what they saw and heard. We watched a movie and showed them the different rooms of the church. They liked that we don´t have paid ministry, that we do geneology work and have the missionnary program. We have a couple of people from these political parties that are interested in learning more about the Gospel. One guy knew Utah, because he liked the Utah Jazz (which I thought was cool.)

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 01/24/11

Thank you for the birthday wish. It's good to be 20. The mp3 player sounds like a good idea. I have an extra SD card as well. Thank you for the Christmas money and birthday money. My birthday has been good so far.

All the following pics were taken at an ancient castle named Alcazar. It's such a cool place.



This week was really good. We´ve been working a lot on our presentation board which will be shown on the street. The baptism of Manoli was way good, and we have another baptism coming up this weekend. His name is Raul. And the tour with the mayor will also be coming up.



We also had our first trickle of success from the English class. We had 4 new people that came. We set another baptismal date with a lady we contacted on the street. We almost reached the "Missionary standards of excellence" this week again but just missing one person at church. The mission work in Europe is going really well.


I will get your package sometime soon, I'm sure.

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 01/24/11

MALAGA MISSION HOME - SPECIALIZED TRAINING.
Elder Waite playing the Harmonica accompanied by Elder Bennett on the guitar. They played "the Army of helaman".

The San fernando zone.

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 01/17/11

Did uncle Gille send me his package yet?? I have not heard or received anything from him yet. And if he has not, size 54 jacket and size 48 pants should work. It's hard to find a bigger size. Just the European pants do not fit my calves.

The baptism went really well. Her name is Manoli, and her boyfriend Paco Galán baptized her. He's one of the members in the ward. We had one investigator at the baptism who loved it and he wants to be baptized as well. We are in the process of teaching him.
Elder Bennett, Manoli, Paco Galan & Elder Waite.

Me and my companion Elder Waite met the mission's "Standard of Excellence" this week. We taught 22 lessons, set 2 baptismal dates, acquired 3 new investigators from referrals and 7 more investigators by talking to people on the street. We have also baptized one person. This is the first time on my mission that I have met this standard. I feel good!
Pic of a beautiful Sunrise at a random park

My zone in Cadiz and the priesthood leadership is awesome. They are all mission active and we are doing many things. The ward has given us a ton of references with this new plan, 1 of 5. Where they give us 5 names and they contact them, and one of them will be baptized.

Also this week is a tour with the mayor elect and her campaign staff. It is going to be really good. I'm so exited!!
Pic of a sunset

I am glad to hear that Joseph and Dylan are doing awesome. Joseph will do way good. How is Phillip doing?

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 01/10/11

Yeah, the missionary work is doing well but was not always going well. We had 8 elders here in this area at the beginning of last year. They usually taught an average of 3 lessons weekly but were not having any baptisms. Now we are changing that. One of the converts is really doing a lot missionary work. He is referring all of his friends. He came with us on a tour of the church with one of his friends. He showed his friend the baptismal font first and said, this is where you will be baptize. After the tour, the man asked, if I study these things and find out that they are true, what do I have to do to be baptized? It's promising, I can feel it! We also have one baptism schedued for this Saturday. This new convert really wants to promote the church. He knows the mayor elect personally, and we will be giving her and her associates a tour of the church and inviting them to be baptized as well. Also this man has connections with the radio, TV news, and newspaper, and he wants to put our name out there. We are really excited.

We just finished celebrating a huge event here in Cadiz called the 3 kings day. This is one important event in Spain. It is virtually as important as Christmas itself especially for kids, as this is the day when they get their presents! It's celebrated on the 6th of January. The children look forward to this day. Every town and city in Spain will have a procession on the night of 5th January where tons of sweets will be thrown from the passing floats to children and adults. From this event, we've got chocolate and socks and a few presents.

We took that night to organize the area book. Jerez is pretty cool. It's one of the most awesome cities. We played soccer with the locals on our P-day and it was pretty fun.

That's awesome about Joseph. I am so glad for him.

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 01/03/11

I don´t have much time to write, I will write more next week. But, I´m glad you enjoyed the package. I don´t need anything really.
The pic of above was taken with the view of a muslim castle and a cathedral behind.

this guy and the barrel is named "eat drink and be merry, for tommorow we die".

On new year's Eve, the people here don´t really stay up until midnight.... Midnight is when it starts. They usually stay up on average until 5-8 in the morning.
They don´t have a count down either but they do have a cool tradition called the Uva. When the clock strikes 12, they eat 12 grapes every second, then they make a wish. Sorry it's so short! Enjoy the pix.

The next four pictures below are a panoramic view of Ubrique.




Now, enjoy the beautiful rainbow....

Merry Christmas - Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz

Christmas has arrived. We finally opened Elder Bennett's package that he sent us. It was so thoughtful of him to send goodies and souvenirs all the way from Spain. He's such a wonderful young man. He also included a letter. It just melted our hearts to read from him. Later that afternoon about 1:40pm, he called home. We talked for 10 mns then we were cut off. He called again and the same thing happened. He tried again at 2:10pm and we finally were able to talk longer (about 1 hour). Ahhhhhh, it was so nice hearing his voice again & learning more about his experiences in the Mission field. He had so much to say. It's such a blessing to know how much he's enjoying his mission & how great his love is for the people of Spain. This is one of the best Christmases for us.

Elder Bennett & his companion Elder Waite


Here's Elder Bennett's letter.
Hello & Merry Christmas family!

You will find that I have included in your package some stuff to eat. Most of the goodies are from Switzerland & Germany cause their sweets are just better. I also sent you a lot of "polverones". These are very Spanish and they are good. I sent a plate with a bull picture on it and I wrapped it with a scarf. Linsey can go ahead and keep the scarf. I sent a key chain with a spanish crest and a bull on the back, that's for whoever wants it. I also sent a Ferrar key chain (the one with a horse on it). David, the african we lived with told me "that's for your mother; mother is so nice and very important". I sent some "cherizo" and they are fantastic. The Spanish use it in their eggs, spaghettis and a number of dishes. It's treated meat so it doesn't need refrigeration before initially use. There's a shirt that says Spain on it. Whoever wants that can have it. I think tha's all. Thanks for the gifts and stuff. I hope all is well. I miss home and stuff. Hope you are having fun. Merry Christmas!!!

Love.
Daryl

Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz 12/20/10

I am now in my new assigned area "Jerez de la Frontera de Cadiz'. The transfer was hard, especially having to carry my two overpacked and heavy luggage but I made it. The train ride from Dos Hermanas Sevilla to Jerez de la Frontera Cadiz was only 40 minutes.


Jerez is absolutely gorgeous. It is a breath-taking place. It's a town full of gypsies. Everyone here is part gypsy. They all sing and dance. But, they're almost all pure blood spaniards. There are hardly any Nigerians or South Americans. They're more Analuz here. In church even, they do not shake hands, they just kiss each other on the cheecks. Everybody makes you feel sooo welcome. The ward, is so so so friendly and loving.
By the way, we reached our baptism goal. Yes we did it! We now officially have 200 baptisms and still counting!!! We certainly deserve a little chicken to celebrate our success here. Right?? Hourray for Malaga Spain Mission!!! We also had our Stake Pres and our Stake Mission Leader from Sevilla to join in the fun.

Christmas Zone gatherings. Two awesome looking zone, Sevilla & San Fernando.

The city of Jerez is gorgeous. The architecture is old, and there are hills and killer views to enjoy. This city is giagantic, it's almost as big as Sevilla. It would probably take about 2 hours or a little more to walk from one end to the other. And that's not all. Our area encompasses a ton of other really big cities all around, in about a 2.5 hour bus ride distance.

I love it here!


This is a beautiful city!

I saw the most beautiful city in my life this week. It's called Ubrique and i'ts in our area. Ubrique is a small little pueblo sitting inside a valley. Its 2.5 hours by bus, and 28 euros to get there. It's actually one of the most famous expoters for designer leather in the world. There are a ton of shops selling leather purses, jackets, shoes, belts, wallets and all sorts of designer stuff and, its so green. It's so good to see mountains again. I missed the mountains. We had the oppurtunity to climb the mountains to find a less-active member. It was awesome. So we will mostly be doing heavy work in Jerez.
Gorgeous!

The people of Jerez are so much more friendly. Maybe it's cuz they drink so much wine...(lol), I am kidding. There are wineries everywhere. Jerez has some of the most famous wine in all of Spain. We even found some in our piso. It was way old. Wine is actually cheaper than beer here. But, everybody is so nice when we contact them on the road. I love it. I love Jerez.
I love the mountains

We did some pretty good work in the few days I have been here. We had three people baptized last Friday. We met Paco who was a brand new convert. He was baptized 2-weeks ago, but you would think he was a strong member for years. On Friday, Paco baptized his wife and I had the opportunity to baptize his niece Virginia and my companion Elder Waite baptized his other niece Esperanza. Paco is so excited about the Gospel and he wants to do missionary work with us. He's refering us to his friends and neighbors, and missionary work is picking up so so well!! The ward is excited with all the recent success and everyone is pitching in and offering help. I just love it.
Elder Bennett, Paco & his wife, elder Waite, Paco's two nieces Virginia & Esperanza.

Christmas is going to be swell!! We get to stay out til midnight on christmas eve and we get all of christmas day as P-day. I have recieved your package and I will open it on Christmas day.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!