Thursday, August 28, 2014 (We Get 45 Minutes!!!)

Round-a-bout where the Spaniards celebrate when Real Madrid wins

So we made a deal with President Lovell.  On Thursdays we have p-days and we get to go to the temple in the morning.  (please excuse my misspelling because of our lack of time to type.)  And if we go to the 7am session, we can have 45 minutes to type and read emails.  But I like handwritten letters better because I can have more time to read them and can hold on to them for later.

So the temple was great this morning.  I love having that spirt with me all day.  The session holds only like 40 people, so It´s really small. 

Last Thursday we went downtown and did some sightseeing.  I took a bunch of pictures, but these computers suck because they are really slow and they are all using the same wifi thing so that makes it even worse, so I can´t send you guys a lot of pictures.  Are you getting my pictures?  So it was a good Thursday.  And every Thursday night we get to watch a recording of a devotional because we´re 8 hours ahead of you guys and the people in Provo are just having lunch.  Last week’s talk was from Holland in 2011 on "feed my sheep".  It was really good.

So every day we teach an investigator twice a day mon-sat.  It´s a great experience to practice the little Spanish I have, but It´s all good.  I love teaching though.  I get words and promptings inside my heart and I just say them out loud.  Sadly I can´t say everything because of the language barrier, but I try my best with what I have.  I love bearing my testimony in the lessons.

So last Saturday was the best day ever!!!!  (in case you didn´t know on Saturdays we take the subway and we travel to this huge park.  It´s like the size of one of our street bocks, 1mile x1mile or something like that.  And we just go and teach people for an hour and a half.  Then at 11am we sing then go back to the MTC.)  So me and my other companion, Elder Johnson (we go on splits/exchanges on Saturdays) get to the subway and we start teaching this lady who happens to be a missionary from some other church.  She gave us a pamphlet and we gave her one, and she gave us a passalong card and we gave her one.  We would have given her a Book, but she already had one.  She got off the train and we started to talk with another guy and we lost track of the time and got stuck on the train, had to get off and get back on another train.  Once we got to the gates of the park, this Catholic lady started chastising us because of something, but I couldn´t really understand her because she spoke really fast Spanish.  So that was fun and we had good success at the park by talking to lots of people for longer than 15 seconds.   My favorite part was when we just finish talking to this atheist guy and we walked over to this Indian family and it was SUPER awesome to talk to someone in English.  So we gave them a pamphlet and talked to them for like 30 minutes, which was great because I could speak everything that came to my mind by the Holy Ghost.  This guy was very interested in religion because he was trying to study why the world has so many different religions.  This family was Muslim I think.  They were really receptive to the spirit and our message and hope they meet other missionaries and get baptized and enjoy the gospel in their lives.  They move around a lot, so I´ll never know what happens to them.

So I have a few minutes left.  I had a mini meltdown on Tuesday because of all of the stress of the mission I had bottled up.  However, I had a good companion who helped me get back on my feet.  I love this mission and the gospel.  I hope you all have a great week and have a great day.

Love elder Gonzalez

ps open your guys emails accounts so you can read my emails during breakfast.

30 minutes is not enough time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (August 21, 2014)

So i really have like 20 minutes to tell you that my week has been crazy fun and crazy spiritual.

 

Last thursday our district and another district went to the REAL MADRID stadium and it was sooooooo cool and really big.  IT holds like 80,000 peole.  I told my companion what it would be like to have general comfrance.  I loved it.

 

I had some big bumps in the road with my companion these past couple weeks.  We were able to work them out.  I had a hard time just getting used to having a companion with you at all times.  I really love elder Johnson and can´t wait to work with him the rest of this MTC experince.  (sorry about my spelling, but I have only a few more minutes to write everything)

 

I really love all of your email, but I can´t read them all and I can´t print any of them off. 

 

Happy birthaday to Vic and Tony!!! sorry I can´t be there, but I love you guys with all of my heart.

 

We don´t have live CES devotionals, but we watch re-runs here in spain.  it´s such a great experience to watch/listen to these apostles teach and testify of Christ. I loved Elder Callister's talk he gave in March or may where he talked about the blueprint of the Restoration/how the church runs. 

 

We had tough investigators these last 2 weeks and now we get new ones this week.  The language barrier is bugging me so bad because I want to bear my testimony and not little snip-bits of them.  I love teaching though.  I really love this gospel and this mission experience.

 

The temple was great this morning.  However, we had to wake up at 5:30 this morning to catch the 7am session.  I was half awake during it, and I felt so bad.  I love the temple though.  I wish you guys could see it.

 

soccer is the bomb here because we go over to this ghetto park to play on this concrete field which is just covered with garbage.  But it´s so much fun.  The teachers here are crazy good at soccer.

 

answer to dad´s questions:

How many of the 25 missionaries that traveled with you to Paris actually made it to Madrid?:there were like 30 and like 3 are going to paris.

How many of those missionaries are going to your mission?

Are you liking the Sunday services at the MTC?: like 12

Are you getting enough sleep at night?: yep

Had you had a chance to go running?: No

Are you taking pictures at least 3 a day?:  we can´t take pics in the MTC until our last day.

When is your departure date to Barcelona?: sept 16.

 

Love you all and hope you guys have a great week.

Elder Gonzalez

August 14, 2014

Hi mom

 

Spain is so cool!!!!  I only have 30 mins to email your guys and all the other people who emailed me, so I want to be sure to tell as much as I can about my mission.  This place is great, because all of our teachers are spaniards and they speak nothing but spanish and I have to work super hard to understand what they are saying to respond back to them in spanish.  This work is so awesome because the people are great!

Today is p-day, so we get to go to the temple and after lunch we are going to the real madrid soccer stadium for a quick tour.  Every day we get to go outside the MTC and go down a block or two to play soccer which is a lot of fun because the teachers here are way good at it and sometimes we play with local people on a concrete amphitheater.  The temple is very beutiful and it´s just like downstairs from our mtc and it so nice inside(I went to it last thursday)  I love this work a lot.

My comapion is Elder Johnson from Highland UT and it took a while to get used to him because I just had a hard time getting used to be around someone 24/7.  I had a hard time just trying to like him because he was off the walls crazy, but after a few classes and some great talks by the President I was able to realize that I am out here not as myself but as a servent of the Lord and I need to stop complaining and just get to  work and have fun with whatever life throws at me.

On saturdays, we get on the subway and travel downtown and start talking to people on the train and in this really cool park.  There are so many people there and we have 2 hours to talk to people and hand out books of mormon.  This one lady from argentina got mad at me and Elder Bennit (on saturdays, we switch companions for the day) because one, she´s budhist and two she said why were we out here if we can´t speak the language (she said that to us in her small english).  Well, I wanted to say back to her that we aren´t teaching but the holy ghost is and we are just messengers from our father to spread the gospel to everyone and we are just doing our best with what we have right now, but I couldn´t because my spanish isn´t that good.

I love you all and hope you have a great week and will talk to you next week.  I´ll try to send some pictures to you guys, but I don´t know how to do that.  See ya later!!!

 

Elder Gonzalez

Arrival, Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Hi family!!!!!


I finally made it to Madrid in one piece.  I had two long flights and a crazy layover in Paris.  This country is really cool!!  Our flight had like 25 missionaries that were leaving to spain with me.  All of my stuff is here and I am really tired because I didn't get any sleep last night and am just running on fumes.  It is great to be here and I can't wait to show you some of the cool pictures that I took and just to let you know that I have my P-day two Thursdays from here.  I just want to let you know that I love you and really miss you guys, but I'm loving the mission so far.


Elder Gonzalez