Jan 5 2015 email

Well, I hope that you hade a better new years eve that we did. We ate the 12 grapes at midnight, and we drove straight home and crashed. I was so tired. And stressed from all sorts of things that were going on at the time. However after a good night's sleep (we were allowed to sleep a full 8 hours that night) we got ready to work and actually ended up staying in the apartment to plan. Then, we scheduled some doctor's appointments and found some really good investigators.

We have been working really hard lately trying to figure out how to fix these health problems that continuously plague our companionship. There are all sorts of things that have been going on, and we are starting to make some progress. This Friday we may very well know how to fix these problems, and that gives us a little bit of hope.

What gives us the most hope of all though, is that some people have actually started keeping commitments. I have been working really hard lately trying to figure out how to help people make and keep commitments, but my goodness. It is really hard sometimes. They say they will do it, and then when I check up again they haven't done it!   Grrr... I wish people would follow through on their commitments. However, I am not perfect either. I try to do my best to do such and such, and sometimes I don't do it perfectly.

We have a companionship goal of baptizing 2 people this month. How are we going to do it? We are going to pray really hard, and do everything we can to help these rather flojo-people come to church and commit to baptism. With the chance that I may stay a fifth transfer here in Marbella, I might actually see more than one baptism here. We are going to work really hard with the ward to help them improve their home-teaching and to become more effective members in whatever calling they may have. This ward, along with many other wards in Spain really struggles with that. And it isn't because they're unwilling to do it, but that most of them are converts and don't have the 2 years of experience as a missionary. 

I just hope that people will realize like I did, that home teaching really is fun. I love the families that I taught, and I remember them really well. We were and are friends and there is nothing that helped me prepare to be a missionary that knows how to work with PEOPLE more than home teaching. 

If you read this and don't have 100% home teaching, please, go out and do it. It isn't a chore, but a privilege (cliché, but very very true).

Anyways, I love you all, I hope you have a great week, and I hope that you set good, achievable goals for this next week, month, and year.

See you this year!

Os quiero mucho,

Elder Oliver

These are pictures he took that week, but there were no explanations.  Use your imagination!  

 I believe the below picture is the Moorish defensive walls, built around the 10th century.