December 26, 2011 - Family Email

Patricio and Jhardelin.  I love these people more than anything

I want to so say sorry for being a loser, I felt like I had a thousand things to tell you all but I forgot!!!

 

Elder Barahona

This is the house I was at last night to do the Skype thing.  Love their kids!

 

I promised myself I wouldn´t be an awkward person online, but hey, the mission changes you.  Okay, I wasn´t that awkward.  Well I love you all and good thing I am getting a new camera because the screen got cracked last night.  I don´t know how but I came back upstairs after skyping and the screen broke.  I hope you all enjoyed the gifts.  I LOVED everything I got from you all.  Seriously you all spoil me to DEATH.  I am extremely grateful to have the best family in the world.  The best parents EVER.   I had an amazing Christmas and I don´t feel far away from you all.  Well it just doesn´t feel like Christmas in Spain haha.  My favorite thing I got was the skype talk. 

Well i just wrote Damon a letter all in Spanish, haha, because I can understand his beaner Spanish now haha.  I really do love you all and I am extremely blessed with everything I have.  Hey I love you all and I'm doing awesome I am excited for the hollidays to be over so I can start teaching people more.  I love teaching lessons, I love to teach.  Well you all choose the right and I love you.

ELDER HAFEN

 

December 18, 2011 - Email to Family

Hello family!

So cool I got your last package!  This last week was rather interesting!  Well really interesting.  But thank you for the package I got it this last Wedensday because Brother Ortegon had us over for dinner.  I am really suprised you haven´t got the packages yet.  He sent them two weeks ago today, they should be getting there any day now.  I hope they get there soon, they must be all caught back in the Christmas rush of things.  Don´t worry about not being home for Christmas.  Heather is too afraid to talk to me anyway. 

I am a little sad lately, I am getting really tired of not seeing the fruit of my labors here in El Puerto.  I am trying really hard to find people to teach and giving it all I got, it´s just really hard.  t month and I just don´t know about them.  I feel like I have to do a lot on my own here.  I will tell you more at Christmas.  But Mom, don´t worry about me I am fine and happy.  I don´t want you all worried and all that, Smile :)

So this week was rather strange.  Here we were one night just trying to get into Moises´ house and the black lady asks me if I am cold because I never wear a jacket or a sweater, they bother me.  We talk to her for like 5 minutes and get her number, she speaks english not spanish.  She told us she would come to church the next week with her friend and she didn´t.  But we call her and we set up a lesson to teach her Wednesay morning and we went in there and teach her and her friend.  They are rich, we are sitting there wondering how they have a huge screen tv.  So we start talking more and I ask her what her job is and she told me that she´s not gonna lie, she works at a club, she is a stripper.  So, we talk to the ladies and they are really nice and they are Christians.  They are both from Nigeria, the one lady that stopped us in the street and asked me if I was cold is named Vera and her friend is named Sonya.  Vera doesn´t speak English well, but the other lives in Norway and is very smart and reads the Bible.  So we teach them a short lesson on Wednesday, it´s called lesson 0 and it´s just a summary of everything we teach. 

On Friday we go to teach them again, and Vera had to take off and go to work, so we stayed and taught Sonya (the really smart one) the Restoration and she loved it!  She remembered every single little detail about the lesson before about the restoration. So we left her with some Books of Mormons, and invite her to church on Sunday with Vera.  She said Vera won't come because she works too late.  So Sunday morning comes along and we go to pick up Sonya and she is ready and we walk to church.  She is a really nice nice lady.  We take her to church and the members were awesome to her.  So good.  She stayed the whole 3 hours and she said she liked it a lot.  So we teach her a lesson during the seccond hour about the sacrament and baptism and she told us she wants to get baptized she just has to stop doing what she is doing.  She then told us that she is a prostitute.  WOW!!!!  She makes 10 grand a week up in Norway, and she is here in Spain for 6 months on vacation.  She we keep telling her she needs to change and she said she would get baptized.  But she said she CANNOT change because she sends a lot of her money to Africa where her family is suffering.  We are working on the whole faith and trusting in God.  She is awesome though!  I never thought I would teach a prostitute on my mission.  She isn´t working right now.  She actually really is a pretty lady and really funny.  So no worries she isn´t gonna bite us, we have talked to the Zone leaders about her and everything. 

Elena is doing alright, she didn´t make it to church this week and we didn´t teach her.  We see her almost everyday in the street while she waits to get picked up by her boyfriend.  She is really busy with the Holidays and everything.  She still loves the message and wants to hear more.  Elihu, I am mad we didn´t teach him last Saturday because he wasn´t home or wouldn´t answer the door.  He also never answers his phone so it´s near impossible to meet with him.  Especially when he lives 30 minutes away by bus.  Adrian is doing really good, we are going to baptize him the first week in January.  His dad comes the 22nd of this month, and the dad doesn´t like the church so they don´t want drama for his baptism.  So that will have to wait.  So this last week Henry and Paloma ditched us twice so we are done wasting our time there.  I think that is everyone! 

So Christmas we will be doing SKYPE at the Petersons home and they have really nice computers and said we can go into seperate rooms so it´s private.  We will be calling you at 6:00 to 6:30 here in SPAIN.  SO you all need to figure out the time distance because last time I ruined it.  Just stay logged on and around until we add you and start talking.  I will probably use my account again.  Well I am good and I am happy, no worries, just stressed about the work, I should be right?!  I shouldn´t ever feel relaxed!  Well I love you all so very much, I cannot wait to talk to ya´ll!

Cody

December 12, 2011 - Family Email

WHAT?????

You saw Elder Solari??  NO WAY!  HE was a beast missionary!!  He was the most amazing contactor in all of the mission.  He was one of the youngest AP´s then after that he turned into travelling AP.   He was the most nice person I have ever met.  He was one of the missionaries that everyone looked up to that was humble, nice and sweet to all the kids, even the kids that weren´t way outgoing.  That is amazing that you saw him!  I remember 2 weeks into the field I had heard about Elder Solari and we were walking to Zone Conference with a group of missionaries and Elder Solari was being so nice to me because I was freaking out about the language and I was scared and he just sat there and talked to me.  Nice kid, that makes me so happy you ran into him.  I am going to email him and tell him thanks. 

So before I start about the week I need to thank Brother Bryce.  He wrote me a long nice letter that I got last week.  He is a the sweetest man in the whole world.  He told me that he reads my blog every week so he will be reading this!  Thank you Brother Bryce!  and Andy Bryce!  Good luck buddy tear it up!!  The second is I am going to be sending a letter to the house that is for Maddi Jones.  She also wrote me a letter that got sent with a bunch of letters from the ward.  I don´t know her address and I will be writing it today.  The other is I forgot to respond to the question about the quicksilver shirts.  Could you get some for this kid?  I am guessing an adult small would be PERFECT.  He is this little 12 year old Bolivian member that is the missionaries best friend.  Oh one more thing, could you write a thank you card to Brother Ortegon?  He is awesome and some past elders in the mission are taking advantage of the whole base deal and he received 9 packages last week and only one of them was mine and one other was Elder Brown´s.  I only got the one so far.  It takes a little to receive them because they have to go through customs.  I am going to his house this Wednesday for dinner so hopefully he has my other package!  Oh yeah, I am staying in EL PUERTO.  My package that I sent to you all should be there soon.  It got sent last Monday one week ago.  Send everything to the base still!

Okay so yeah we had a good week.  We got 2 new investigators, still searching for the good ones that want to listen.  But we saw a lot of progress with people.  So to start off I don´t know if you ever remember me mentioning about Patricio and Jhardelin.  Well Patricio is an in active member and Jhardelin is his wife.  Patricio is from Ecuador and she is from Peru.  Well Jhardelin is not a member and kinda catholic.  She has been hearing from the missionaries for years and never got baptized.  Well her husband doesn´t want her to get baptized and neither did she.  She always has been having doubts and everything about the church.  But me and Elder Brown have been teaching her AWESOME lessons.  She loves Jesus so much.  She absolutely loves the Plan of Salvation.  Well yesterday after we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ she told us that she wants to be baptized!!  Well Patricio said no and he doesn´t want to be the one to baptize her.  She asked us how many more lessons we have left to teach her and I told her 3 left.  Patricio wants his brother to come home from the mission in 14 months to baptize her but she says she doesn´t want to wait.  I have been teaching this family for 4 and half months!  I love them so much!  She makes awesome food from Peru, I die every time I go over there it´s soooo good.  I would love nothing more then to see her get baptized.  They have a really complicating story that I will explain to you over Christmas.  So Adrian will mostly likely be getting baptized the 22nd this month!  WOOH!  His grandpa is here and a sweet man.  I talked to him for awhile at church yesterday.  Elena came to church yesterday and we taught her the Restoration and she liked it a lot.  After she came to sacrament and it was the children's program.  She loved the children's program because there is like 10 kids that are fluent in English and Spanish.  She loved it.  We see a lot of progress with her.  The other kid we got, I forgot to tell you about, is Elihu.  He is from El Salvador and awesome! We serve in two areas kinda.  A place called Rota and El Puerto.  Rota is on the other side of the Base.  Well Elihu´s mother is a member but works on Sundays.   So he has a really hard time coming to church.  He reads the Book of Mormon and believes and loves our church.  We have have taught him twice now.  He is a new investigator of about 2 weeks.  He is 21 years old.  Henry and Paloma, the same.  We couldn´t even meet with them this week.  They are so lazy and don't want anything. Pepi is too sick to come to church and loves the Virgin Mary.  So I think that is about it for investigators.  The two new investigators are Paco from Spain, that is atheist and Saida from Bolivia that doesn´t want anything.  We are trying with them though!

Thanks so much for the package!  You are amazing parents I love you sooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  My comp says thanks for the calender!  Tell Heather's mother thank you and I will do everything she tells me! 

I love you guys!

CODY

December 5, 2011 - Family Email

Hello family how are you??

Cody having Thanksgiving with his district. The Elder you see first on the left is Elder Reese Jackson - Cody played soccer with him on Rangers. Elder Jackson just arrived in Spain a few weeks ago and they ran into each other and had a great reunion. So fun!

Well just to be quick and get this over with mom.  My skin is fine!  So you don´t need to worry about that.  I still have the little bumps on the back of my neck so when the stuff gets here I will take it.  So I have not received my package yet.  I will probably get it at the Christmas Party this Friday because the American´s live like 20 minutes from the church.  So I really hope I don´t get transferred.  The 14th of December are transfers.  I would miss all my other packages!!!  But I will make sure Elder Brown gives them to President and I will have to wait a while probably.  So my package for all of you should be sent today!  I gave it to a member yesterday and he should be putting it in the mail today or some day this week.  I sent it to the house so be on the look out.  I put a lot of effort into this package it stressed me out some times.  I put a letter on top with all of the instructions!  I will be sure to write Grandma Hafen a letter.  I made Christmas cards and I was going to send her one.  She always writes me.  I get a letter almost every 3 weeks.  I have written her back no worries!  Her last letter I couldn't read her cursive though!  I will need your help after the mish.  So I let you know the people that I was personally sending them to and the rest I asked if you could deliver them!  Thanks mother.  Okay real fast I would like after shave because it smells good and feels good.  I don´t get irritated there, rarely I will get one tiny little pimples under there.  I would like two small things in the package really quick.  1. A floss refill 2. retainer cleaner tablet things.  Okay so have I answered everything? I hope so.  Now the week:

So the week went really well.  I can say I have done a lot of work since I got to El Puerto.  Often I feel like I have done nothing because it´s a hard area to find people that want to do stuff.  But I have tried really hard and worked a lot of less actives to try and get them back.  I have grown a lot here.  I am getting really close with the members here.  This week was good.  However we never met with Elena.  She is the lady from Paraguay.  She had to go to Sevilla for some reason so she didn´t show up to our teaching appointment (I was upset).  But we saw her on the street walking and we talked to her, the Lord put her in our path because we hadn´t talked to her and she told us she was coming to church.  Sunday came around and she never showed up.  We still have her number and we are going to teach her, I know it.  Well Adrian is doing good.  No he isn´t getting baptized this week.  His grandpa is coming the 20th to baptize him, but the mom wants to do it all the way in January.  Adrian´s parents are separated so he has to go with his dad over the Holidays so that´s why we are doing January.  We are going to talk with the Mom and try and do it before he leaves with the dad.  The dad doesn´t like the church so we are thinking it would be better before he is with his dad.  So hopefully the baptism is soon!! So lets see what more happened this week.  Moises is doing good I guess, we are teaching him but I think we just picked up another Juan.  He smokes and doesn´t have a job.  We are trying to see progress with him but who knows.  I have faith but he needs to change a lot of things in his life.  Henry and Paloma are better.  We had a drop talk with them.  I almost started crying when I was talking about Eternal Families.  My voice cracked because I know I can live with my family for  forever, like I can literally picture it, I know it.  It will just be perfect and amazing.  I got good at holding back tears when talking about spiritual things sometimes I break down but not often.  I only cry when I am with Elder Manning talking about spiritual things.  He makes me cry because he´s a baby.  But they said they would be baptized in the future.  I will make it happen soon; they just need a member in there to help push them.  I wish there was someone in the ward to help push things along that would be good friends to them.  I have been thinking so hard for someone but I haven´t found it yet.  So we aren´t dropping Henry and Paloma they are just not progressing that much.  So other than that the other investigators that are new we haven´t been able to really sit down and meet with them.  This last week we got to go to Cádiz and contact for like 2 hours out in the street.  Cádiz is breath taking.  I got to watch the the sun set over the ocean, it sucked. It was all perfect and orange and red and I was with a dude. Oh well I am taking Heather here!  So the weather is freaking!  We leave the house and it´s short sleeve weather and then it gets so cold because it´s humid.  I just tough it out and don´t wear a jacket.  I hate carying a sweater in my back pack.  So I am excited for the packages and hope that I am in Puerto one more transfer, I think I will!  I love you all and hope you get the package ASAP.  But there is stuff you can´t open till Christmas, or if you want to, you can open it soon. 

Love you!  

CODY

November 28, 2011 - Email to Family

I am laughing in the subject of my email because that was really loooong instructions of what I should do with all of those medicines.  So I hope there is other instructions inside the package!  But wow, thank you for doing all of that for me!  You all are my angels! (Mom, Mama Stratton and Heather). 

How are all of you?

Well I had a really good week, well the start of the week was rough but it all ended up good.  I have been in a grumpy mood kinda because I am sick of our piso and the workers have keys to it and they come in and out of it as they please.  We are moving out of it though in like 30 days.  The Land Lord should be receiving an email today telling them that we are out!  President Clegg said that we can no longer live in that piso!  There is mold every where and our piso just smells no matter how much bleach I use to clean it.  We have been piso hunting, something I thought I would never have to do in Spanish.  It isn´t bad I can say now that I never really get lost in a conversation and I can Speak pretty good.  It is weird, I don´t know when you can say you are fluent or not.  I would say I am not because I need to grow my vocab!  But as far as conjugating verbs into the right form, I can do that fast now when talking!  Speaking of Spanish I gave a talk in church and I didn´t even plan it out.  I received a call about an hour before sacrament meeting and I talked for 20  minutes straight. After the branch President said I was Elder Holland haha.  I went up and dropped the law down about reading the scriptures.  Speaking of scriptures I have a reading assignment for all of you.  I just read Alma 5 this morning and it´s one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon.  So you all should read it this week, it soo powerful!

So this week was really good.  We had a combined District Meeting with the zone down in Cádiz.  That was a lot of fun!  But on the train ride guess who just appears out of no where as a missionary, a new little missionary???  Reese Jackson! haha remember Reese from the Rangers?  Yeah I played soccer with him when I was just a little guy.  Of course he is still taller than me and all!  But he entered into the MTC in August and just barely got here like a week ago and he is serving in my Zone in a city called Algerciras.  So that was so funny to see him and talk to him for a while.  Small world huh?  So after the District Meeting we went to the Osmond´s home on base.  That was super good and we ate a lot of food, but it didn´t feel like Thanksgiving without my family or THE YAMS.  She made yams, but they weren´t Grandma Hafen´s yams.  So that was still way fun.  There were other members there, a young couple that are in their 30's.  They don´t have any children yet!  The guy's job is he takes apart bombs!  He jumpes out of planes and sneaks up and disarms a gosh dang Iraqi bomb.  So that guy is awesome, they feed us a lot.  But the Osmond´s are sweet hearts and invited us over to eat some Turkey.  The turkey was awesome! 

So cool story it was Friday night and I was rather upset.  We were about to get new investigators but the people weren´t home of course because they are Bolivians.  So our plans fell through and we had gone all week with out finding new people to teach.  That is what we are doing now because no one is progressing, only Adrian.  So I was mad and I just started walking fast and contacting everyone I see while passing by old investigators homes.  I get 2 futures which is okay and it´s about time to go home and we are walking by a corner and these two ladies yell at us and ask who we are.  So we talk to them for a while and one is from Brazil and the other Paraguay. YES!  So they told us they wanted to come to church and get a Bible.  We thought ha yeah whatever we will see if they show up to church.  So sacrament ends on Sunday and we walk out of the room and there standing in the hall way is the lady from Paraguay and her boy friend.  So she comes to the investigator class and she is super smart and she offered the last prayer and said thanks for helping me find these people and putting these boys in my path!  ha it was awesome!  We are going to teach her the Restoration on Wednesday and see how she is going.  She is a believer and loves this church.  She was asking me how do I become a member of this church?  She is Catholic and practices the Catholic church.  But that isn´t gonna stop us!  It seems whenever I am getting down or feel like we don´t have work, the Lord always comes through! We are imperfect and human and always mess up, but the Lord blesses us!  We also have one more person to start teaching a kid from El Salvador, his mom is a member and he just moved here a month ago.  So we are gonna see him too!  I am excited for the work!  I am doing good and I hope I answered all of your questions.  I have some questions!

1.  All of my quicksilver shirts, could you send them in one of the packages?  There is a member here a little boy that thinks quicksilver is the nicest brand in the world, so everything that is quicksilver could you send? I am gonna give it to him.  I remember all my quicksilver shirts are too small!

2.  Some aftershave in the package.  I think that´s it! 

I LOVE YOU.

OS QUIERO