D&C 20:10-12

10 And thy brother Oliver shall continue in bearing my name before the world, and also to the church. And he shall not suppose that he can say enough in my cause; and lo, I am with him to the end.

11 In me he shall have glory, and not of himself, whether in weakness or in strength, whether in bonds or free;

12 And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night. And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men.

Monday, September 30, 2013

A Glimpse of Christ's Love

Well. This has been a good week. I'm flipping exhausted.

Today, we went to the mountain in Cartegena. It was a rough hike. I have been a little under the weather yesterday and today, so it was quite the painful hike. I took some fantastic photos, and I wish I could share them, but this computer isn't reading my card. I'll have to use a different one next week.  (Note from mom:  I got some photos, I don't know if he finally got it to work, or if these were from his comps camera.)
Captioned by Hayden, "Let us All Press On."
 The caption for this picture read, "Awkward Spaces between Elders and Hermanas."  



Tomorrow I am going to Málaga again to finish my residency paperwork. That'll be nice to have that finished up. I wish that I could have told you happy birthday in person, mom, but I celebrated your birthday by eating a donut. I wish I had bought the slightly more expensive donuts, because the 24hr store donuts were awful. But I still celebrated your birthday, so... yeah.

This week we didn't place any Libro de Mormóns, but we did place one in Finnish, German, Norwegian, English, and Hindi. I'm starting to wonder if I am ever going to speak Spanish... Haha, just kidding. My spanish is improving every day, and I have been told by several people this week that they can see my improvement. That is always nice to hear. 

Starting the day after General Conference, the whole mission is reading the Book of Mormon. We are going to finish it before 2014. Which means, we have to read about 6.25 pages each day. The cool thing is, is that we are reading it in 85 days, which is about how long it took Joseph Smith to translate it. That's going to be sweet.  Buuuut... I have a personal goal to read the English and the Spanish BoMs side by side, verse by verse. I have to read 13.5 or so pages per day. And reading it out loud will help me become fluent before Christmas.

There are miracles happening all accross the mission. We are finding investigators in all sorts of places, and this week a whole family started listening to us. My greatest desire is to see all of these families sealed for time and all eternity in the temple, so the first step is to get them baptized and confirmed. 

Every day I grow to love these people more and more. Somebody at the MTC said that since we are authorized representatives of Jesus Christ, we get a little glimpse of the love he has for them and us. Despite many of these people being disrespectful to us, or just being rude to everybody, I love them. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses that don't smile at us. Except one, he was cool.

Friday, we took the bus to a potential investigator. 25 minutes on the bus, and 40 minutes of walking from the bus stop. We always walk fast, but we were tired and it was hot, so we tried hitch-hiking, but it didn't work. I guess Españoles don't pick up random guys dressed in shirts and ties. Oh well, vale.

Speaking of which, 'vale', is a word that is quite popular here.  For example, whenever you need a word to fill in empty space, you say vale. Whenever you are setting an appointment, you end with vale. When the check-out lady at Mercadona gives you your change, vale.   ¿vale?  sí, vale.

I think it is kind of ridiculous... But oh well, vale.

I got the camera! I also took some pictures, so that was cool. And I made some videos, which was also cool... So yeah.

I am so tired I can't concentrate on the email, because I can't remember what has happened this week. I think I need some water.

Speaking of water. I drink it. A lot. I regularly drink 3-4 liters per day. The tap water here tastes even worse than the water in Peoria!

Anyways, I'll try to email better next week.


¡Os quiero mucho!
Élder Oliver

Here are his pictures for this week, and the limited info he gave me with them.

 This is the view from the Cartegena Elder's apartment in the morning.
 Fun with fridge magnets.
 This one just said, "new camera!"
 This is their baptismal font.
 He wrote, and I quote, "Some old military fort."  Maybe I"ll google it later and fill in more info.  If anyone knows anything about it (Connie???), please feel free to fill me in!
 The view from their piso in the morning.
One of these days, maybe we'll get a picture of him actually making a normal face!
And lastly, zone conference.  This is three zones combined, the Cartegena, Alicante and Murcia Zones.  I got this picture off the Spain Malaga Mission Blog.

Monday, September 23, 2013

78€ Ankle wrap

So, you may be wondering why I would spend 78 freakin euros on an ankle wrap. It is quite the story.

On Saturday, we go and play some fútbol at the park with the kids in the ward and their friends. Things were going just fine for about an hour, until I got a little bit too excited about stealing the ball. I was reaching out with my right leg trying to snag it from him, he tipped the ball putting it just out of my reach, and I stepped on it, slipped, and my whole bodyweight landed on my --now sideways-- foot. As you could imagine, it hurt like a... a, um, something that hurts a lot. And I couldn't put any weight on it for a few minutes. On our way home we decided to stop by a farmacía, but we didn't have our money on us, so we went back to the piso to grab my wallet. We went to the farmacía, bought the ankle wrap for 8€, and I was happy, until we got back to the piso. I discovered that I didn't have the keys. We managed to get inside the building, but we couldn't get into our piso, and we couldn't break into it, because the doors of our building are missile-proof. So, we waited for 2 hours, making phone calls left and right, trying to find a spare key. The only spare key was at the apartment of the owner of our piso, and he happend to be in France that day. Just our luck. So, we called a Cerrajero (locksmith) to come and help us out. That was a good/terrible idea. He charged 70€ no matter what service he provided. We felt that was a little unfair, especially because it literally took less than 20 seconds to open our door. He was making about 12600€ per hour, for a few seconds. So, we went to the ATM, got 70€ out of my personal emergency fund (because neither of us had gotten our refunds back) and paid him.  It was quite the adventure. Luckily, that 70€ is refundable.

Anyways. 

We have had a good week, again. I can't believe I have been in Spain for nearly 2 months already. It doesn't feel like I have been gone that long. I love it here. There are little things here and there that I look at and just say, "what?", but I am quickly becoming accustomed to life in Spain. We have the most  wonderful investigators, and we have had some interesting experiences. 

For example, we have an investigator who's grandson, Edgar, fell from the 5th floor of an apartment building, survived, and is now severely incapacitated. He mostly just grunts and groans, and waves his arms around. The week before I came to Torrevieja, Elder Rodríguez and Elder Berry were teaching her family, and for the closing prayer, Her son, (Edgar's uncle) offered to say the closing prayer, and it started out nicely, but quickly turned to him shouting and doing some voodoo stuff, and placing his hands on Edgar's head. Since then, Elder Berry --now moved to some other place--, Elder Rodríguez, and I have all noticed that when you can really feel the Holy Spirit in the room, when everybody is on a spiritual high, he starts going crazy. He flails his arms, yells, and tries to grab his Grandma's face. But, the moment we change the topic, he calms down. Immediately. His eyes change as well. Normally, his eyes have a light in them, he looks genuinely happy. But for example, when I challenged Mery to baptism, she was so excited-- she could really feel the truth of what we were telling her-- Edgar lost the light in his eyes and tried to cover her mouth. Like he didn't want her to reply.   So... We think --very tentatively, and with much prayer going into this-- that Edgar might have some sort of bad spirit trying to live in him. Sounds ridiculous, but if it happened in olden days, it can happen today.

As for life here, it is going good. We have meals with members frequently, and some of them are very helpful with the missionary work. However, the ward mission leader is moving to Norway this week, and one of the really helpful families is moving to Alicante. I hope all of them have the success they seek. 

I gave a talk this last Sunday in Sacrament meeting! It went really well, during the talk, but before was a little bit crazy.  I woke up Sunday morning (accidentaly slept in 20 minutes too) @ 8:00, and realized. "Oh crap. I forgot to write my talk." So, I wrote my talk as fast as I could, showered, ate a cracker, and we left. Then, I realized it was supposed to be in Spanish, so I started translating it while I was greeting the members at the door. I finished the translation about 5 minutes before I gave the talk. It went well, and a lot of the members were impressed that I gave it all in Spanish.

Speaking of speaking in Spanish, Friday was my first Ayuna de inglés. I went the whole day without speaking English... It was unbelievably difficult, but I managed, and I got my words out pretty well.

Elder Rodríguez thinks at the rate I am learning I will be fluent by Christmas. That's not fast enough. I need to be fluent by November. Personal goal. Faster than anybody else. SEE? That's how prideful I am. Always trying to beat people, even in things that really don't need to be competitive...

Anyways, I love you all, and wish everybody good luck in their pursuits!
Os quiero mucho,
Élder Oliver

ps. Mom, I'll send that letter sometime soon. I didn't finish it last week.
pps. Family and friends, feel free to email me. Tell me about what is going on in your lives! I'd love to hear from you!





Monday, September 16, 2013

September 16, 2013

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PORTER!!!
I love you, bro!

Sorry, but that is the best I can do while I'm out here.

Anyways, life is great here! We are having a lot of success (and most missionaries don't have a lot of quantifiable success here in Torrevieja). Élder Rodríguez is a fantastic teacher, to everyone he speaks with. Everyday I see my Spanish getting better and he helps me learn how to teach with the spirit. That dude is a stud. He really knows what's going down out here in the mission field. Élder Rodríguez and I have a lot in common. He and I jam out in the piso to MOTAB and assorted churchy music. It's pretty fun.

Okay. Now to answer some of your questions...
 
My camera is nearly non-functional. The shutter button fell out, so I taped a thumb-tack to it, and it kind of works. It still takes pictures, but the screen is broken, and I can't turn on the flash or other options. It might be a good idea to send me a new one. (If you do, make sure it uses micro-usb rather than mini-usb.)
I am going to email President Deere and ask if we can use dropbox. That would be sweet.
You CAN send pictures/videos/assorted things to me.
we have 1.5 hours to email on p-day. It is quite nice. We go to the locutorio. It's a public computer place, but we have to pay.

I'm so freaking proud of everybody in the Family! They're just doing work!

This week we began teaching F & L. F is a menos activo. He is from Columbia, but lived in Norway for much of his life going to art school. He is a fabulous painter. L is our golden investigator. She is also from Columbia, but met F here in Torrevieja. She filled out a pamphlet's questions in the back! Completely! That is the first time Élder Rodríguez has ever seen that. She totally felt the spirit at our first lesson, and we have had a few more since then. She asked, "how can I feel that more often?" and we were, like, "Weeellll. Let us tell you about baptism." And she wants to get baptized!  But first, we have to set a date for marriage before we can set a date for baptism. F is golden too! He totally wants to come back to church, get married, and take her to the temple!  So, we will see how things go after F gets back from Norway next week.

We have district meetings in Cartegena every Tuesday. It wouldn't be so bad if we had a car, because it is a 25 minute drive, but we have to take the bus. It is a 2 hour bus ride, both ways... But, the people in my district are all way cool, and we are going to have a zone p-day one of these days and go do some cool things. I don't know what, but they will probably be cool.

Last week we had a day of absolutely no success (with a small exception). All of our plans fell through for that morning and that evening AND that night. It sucked. We walked from piso to piso, knocking every single door. We probably knocked 350 doors, and nobody would listen to us. We had little success making street contacts as well. That was the first day so far that I have truly wanted to just go back to the piso early and call it a night. It was really discouraging. But then, we had somebody answer the door, a man named H, - just a crack- and said to come back tomorrow (Sunday).

So we did. And it was perfect. His wife answered the door, and Élder Rodríguez began to introduce us in a slightly different manner than usual. And it worked. He was asking all these questions, and they were golden. Every one of them. We could totally feel the spirit, and she could too! She was just standing there in the doorway, talking to two boys with ties, crying-- despite the chaos of the kids having a nerf war behind her. It was an amazing experience. As we were returning to our piso that night, I was talking about the meeting with Élder Rodríguez, and he didn't remember much of what was said, which shows me that he really was teaching with the Spirit of God.

We are always busy, always tired, and always hungry (well, I am... but that is normal). Something that is so cool to me, is that even though we do about 7 hours of study related stuff per day, we have time to do everything else.

Tell everybody I love them! Keep working hard, and choose the right!

Os quiero mucho!
Élder Oliver

Monday, September 9, 2013

In the Field!

Hey Mom! I finally got the opportunity to email you. So much has happened since last monday. So much good has happened.

So, on Tuesday morning we left the MTC. Many were crying, but I was smiling. I couldn't wait to get to Málaga. We took a bullet train and averaged about 280kph all the way there. That was pretty cool. Then we arrived, and the 38 of us got off the train and walked into the the weirdest building I think I have been in. It was a train station-airport-bus station-supermarket-mall. That was pretty weird. The first thing I noticed when I got off the train, was how freakin humid it was there. It was seriously like walking into a pool. We met President and Sister Deere, and all the office Elders. They were all pretty cool.

We then journeyed on to the Chapel, where we began several boring hours of training, which culiminated in an evacuation due to a massive ozone leak. That was interesting. We all went our separate ways from there. The Hermanas went to the mission home, many of the Elders got to go to the AP's apartment, and the rest of us got to go to a really seedy hotel, where all the rooms were themed after important historical figures. I stayed in the Van Gogh room.

The next day, Wednesday, we worked on residency and all sorts of other paperwork. We got some more training throughout the day, and ate some food and played some ping pong. Then the fun began. All the trainers arrived, and we finally got to the moment we had all been waiting for.

We went into the Chapel in Fuengirola (because the Chapel in Málaga was still a little sketchy), and all sat down. Then, we got our assignments. Élder Rodríguez is my trainer. He is from Ecuador, and this will be his 4th transfer. He and I are serving in Torrevieja. It is a vacation city on the Eastern coast of Spain. It is very humid here as well.

Élder Rodríguez is a very hard worker. He understands English very well, and has been teaching me a ton about the Gospel and about Spanish. He is a fantastic cook, and plays the piano like nobody's business. I'm excited for the weeks to come!

Torrevieja is a nice-ish place. It is right on the beach, and offers a beautiful view out of the window of our apartment. However, the streets are pretty dirty. There is a lot of trash on the ground, and people let their dogs poop wherever the heck they want. Which is a little weird to me. The weather is great though. It rained yesterday, and that was super refreshing.  There are so many tourists here. I have spoken English almost as often as I have spoken Spanish. And surprisingly, I speak German frequently here too. It's pretty neat.

However, people here don't really wear clothing. A bra and bootyshorts is pretty modest apparel for the women here, and most of the men (especially old men) wear their shirts unbuttoned down to their bellybuttons. There are also an astounding number of bars, nightclubs, and hookers.

Everyday we study for what feels like forever. We get up at 7:30, workout, eat breakfast, shower. 9-9:30 we do personal study. We then do companion study till 11:30.  Then, Vamos a la calle!  We work for a few hours, then return to the piso (apartment) at 2. During Medio Día we do more personal study, language study, eat lunch, take a nap (if there is time) and look at the area book. Then we leave the piso at 5, and don't come back until 10:15.  It's pretty exhausting.


Anyways...

This is my address

   Calle Ramón Gallud #136
   Piso 5.1 Torrevieja
   03182 Alicante.
   Spain

Send me stuff. That would be coolio. And send emails, and have the kiddies write to me.

Love you all!
Élder Oliver

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Hayden's first assignment: Torrevieja

 With his trainer, Elder Rodriguez.
All the missionaries that came from the Spain MTC to Málaga on Tuesday.


This was taken from the official mission blog.  We should hear from Hayden on Monday to get more details about how everything went down, but I think it's safe to say that he's happy.  Seeing that smile and thumbs up on the blog today totally made my day.  I've been waiting all week for this!  

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

He's in Málaga!

Well, I got to Málaga! We are staying the night at the mission home tonight, and tomorrow we are getting assigned our trainers, and our areas. I'm so excited!! This is the coolest thing in the world, I am having so much fun, and I am always learning more and more about the gospel.  I'll send you an update on p-day about everything. I'll also send you my address, so you can start sending me letters and packages and love. You know. Family type things. 
 
I love you all! Tell Regan I will email her on p-day. I can only send one email at a time right now.
 
Love,
Elder Oliver

Monday, September 2, 2013

Last post from Madrid!

Hayden sent me an email late last night saying, "Mom, are you still awake?"  I was so excited!  I emailed him back, and we actually messaged each other for about 20 minutes.  


Tomorrow I am heading out to Málaga. We are going to be taking a train, and it will be a very long train ride.
Probably close to 6 hours... Ew, but I am so excited!!! I can´t wait to find out who my trainer is going to be. This is seriously the coolest thing I have ever gotten to do. I'm so happy to be in Spain.  I can´t believe how fast the time has flown by. It's the weirdest feeling, I have memories of each day here, and it feels like an eternity since I last saw any of you, but it only feels like I've been here for about two weeks. Not very long...
These other missionaries in my district are now some of my very best friends. I love them all! They are so fantastic and they are a force to be reckoned with in Spain.

After complaining that he never sends pictures, I received this:
 And then this one:

These are my district Élders!   from right to left, (but I think in the picture it's our left to right)  Élder Polansky, Élder Parkinson, Élder Ward, Élder Streiff, Élder Smiley (doing the peace sign)
I love these guys! They are some of my best friends!

This totally made my night, I couldn't fall asleep!  Please pray for all those elders who will be traveling to their missions in about 12 hours!  

Can't wait to hear where he's going!