Proselyting in the Park

Hey all!

Today is our first P-day, so please don´t get mad at me for not replying to all of your emails! We only have .5 hours each week on p-day to email, so I don´t have much time.

 

That email I sent to you was from a different person because I was unable to log into my own email, which was quite discouraging. The teachers here are awesome! All of them are bi-lingual, and most of them are tri-lingual or more. It´s amazing!

 

 The elders in my district are all really chill. We are all pretty good friends now. Two days ago we got called into the President's office and he told us that the elders in our district had been chosen to move out to a hotel 10 minutes away because there was a new wave of elders coming into the MTC. It´s pretty cool, because they totally trust us, which was a surprise considering how much we laugh and mess around.

 

The food is kind of gross at the CCM (MTC in Spanish), but they have told us the food is better out in the real world. We´re in Spain, but I feel trapped here, because we aren´t allowed outside of the MTC except for special occasions. We live on three floors, and it is kind of cramped.

 

On Saturdays we all go out to the park to proselyte.  It is MASSIVE, like, as big as central park(?).  I don´t know, I´ve never been there. We have to go and make contacts with real people, and try and talk to them in the limited Spanish we know. It´s really difficult to do that. My companion and I were having no success for quite some time, and we were getting discouraged. We went to go talk to some Sister missionaries because we didn´t know what to do. They pointed us over to a girl sitting on a bench, looking at the trees. We went over and introduced ourselves, told her that we are missionaries, and started talking. It turns out she is from Ohio, and was on a backpacking trip around Europe that took 2 months. It was pretty cool. It´s funny how much like ´´The Best Two Years´´ it was for us. ("The Best Two Years" is a movie about missionaries serving in the Netherlands.  It's an Oliver family favorite.) She was totally American and spoke English with us for about half an hour.

 

We play soccer everyday in a ghetto concrete field about half a mile from here. It is seriously the most amazing thing, but when real Spaniards are there watching they make fun of us. I´m getting pretty good at Spanish and fútbol now, so it´s pretty exciting.

 

Today our district is going out to the Centro de Madrid, and we are going to go and shop and explore the inner city. I´m excited!

 

Anyways, I don´t have much time, so I´ll email you next week!

 

 

I love you all,

Elder Oliver

 

p.s. I´ve attached some pictures of our Sunday choir on the temple steps. It attracted quite the crowd! 

***Note from Hayden's mom:  Many of you may have heard about the train wreck in Spain last week.  It happened the same day that Hayden arrived at the Spain MTC.  A young man that had just finished his training at the Spain MTC had just left that day, Elder Ward, was on the train that wrecked.  Fortunately, he survived the accident, about 80 people were killed in the wreck, and about 130 injured.  He must have gone back to the MTC while he heals from his accident, because he is pictured in two of the three pictures.  He is the young man in the back right.  We continue to pray for his healing, and for the other injured passengers, and families of all those affected.  What a tragic accident.