Training for the Trainers Day

October 1, 2012 - Family Email

Paqui, Juan, and Albe's Baptisms

Family,

Hey to answer your question yes  I am staying in Jaén!!  I am excited because I feel like I need to stay here.  I had a dream that President Deere called and he had a new assignment or something for me and I had to go to an area near the beach.  Well I guess it was him telling me I was going to train again and I had to go to the mission home which is on the beach.  So I go to the mission home tomorrow and on Wednesday I get my new companion.  I am really nervous I don´t know why.

This week rained like crazy!!  For like 4 or 5 days straight it was dropping buckets of rain.  I also got sick but that didn´t slow down the work.  I am feeling a lot better, I think it was the quick change in the weather.  So yes as you all know we had 3 baptisms and they were unreal!  Watching Alba´s baptism was one of the best baptisms I have every seen!  Missionaries have been trying to get her baptized for 4 years!  Some how we were persistent and she finally said yes!!  She was so excited about her baptism and she is such a sweet little girl.  Yeah so Juan stopped smoking and he wanted the Branch President to do the baptizing.  So there is our Branch President and the fat guy is Alba´s Dad.  The branch President is amazing!  There is Beléb and Paqui mom to the left of Paqui the daughter.  They are doing well and I think they are kind of happy that I am staying.  I know I will get them baptized before I leave they just need time and love.  Elder Rojas just wanted to get them baptized.  Beléb said no because she wants to be prepared and get baptized with her mom.  She is doing great though and coming to church with her mom.  Antonia is the one behind Alba wearing the glasses.  She really liked the baptism and there is no doubt that she felt the spirit watching her husband baptize her daughter.  I gave Paqui the Holy Ghost on Sunday and other ward members gave Juan and Albe the Holy Ghost.  Also we gave Blanca's little son a blessing so that he is in the church records.  Elder Rojas blessed little Fermin.  It was an amazing Sacrament Meeting.  I gave a talk as well but it was really short with 4 blessings in the meeting!  Antonio and Ana are still in the process because it turns out that Anonio´s old wife still needs to sign one more paper and then they will get married.  They are still just doing amazing and the Lord will bless them for being faithful.  Miguel and Rocio are getting baptized this Saturday right after conference so I am stoked!!  The Lord is blessing Jaén.  

 

My favorite member cornered me in his kitchen and closed the door and told me that I am a special missionary and that I have the most special spirit; and he said look at the fruit that you planted in Elder Rojas.  He told me that all the members will remember me here in Jaén for forever.  He almost made me cry.  We had previously had a lesson with him, his wife and Antonio and Ana and it was really spiritual.  I have had a really good week.  Rosana and Blanca both got called in the Primary and Relief Society; they are doing great.  Neyera is the Beehive President and Sebastian has memorized 10 articles of faith and has marked off the most out of all the Primary kids haha.  I love my mission-I learn so much!  Shaver is leaving and Elder Estrada is taking his place haha another one of my companions!  I get to hang out with Shaver for like 7 hours tomorrow and Elder Rojas leaves at 7:30 in the morning.  

 

I love you all!
CODES

September 24, 2012 - Family Email

Dear Family,

Training for my new "kid"

So this last Thursday President Deere called me and told me that I will be having a new kid! Yes that is right I will be training all over again.  I must have done something right with my companion right now even though I don´t feel so.  There is only one English speaker and he is from England, I hope he is my companion.  I want to know what it feels like all over again not knowing Spanish and being terrified.  So tomorrow I get to go to Fuengirola all over again for trainers training.  I feel like I have been there every week I am lucky!

So this last week was great we had a lot of success.  We taught a lot of lessons which is unheard of here in Jaén.  We taught 24 lessons! So things are going well but as for baptisms who knows.  I have faith that Paqui, Paqui and Belén will get baptized but they aren´t doing anything to show they want to.  They don´t read at all and don´t understand the importance of the gospel in their lives.  Juan is doing great and is smoking less.  He wants to stop smoking so bad and hopefully he will stop within a couple of days, pray for him.  Oh yeah Paqui is still smoking a lot.  Miguel and Rocio will be getting baptized the next week when the family can all come out and see the baptism.  Alba is doing good and coming to church but she is confused whether so be Catholic or Mormon.  She wants to be the God Mother of her nieces but she has to do some catholic confirmation things to do it.  So she needs help! Antonia is kind of a lost cause right now. She has her problems and doesn´t care to change or get them solved by the Lord.  We have a new investigator named Luis.  He is 11 and lives with his grandparents.  They all came to church and Luis is progressing a lot and has already received an answer.  He does all his reading assignments and came to the church activity this last week.  So hopefully we have 5 baptisms this week; Alba, Juan, Paqui, Paqui and Belén.

Brother and Sister Richards

Elder Richards was amazing and made me cry like a little boy.  He looked into my eyes like 8 times just staring and I knew that Christ was looking at me.  He told us that he is a special witness of Christ and when he said that I just started crying.  He is amazing and knows so much about the gospel.  He even corrected President Deere in his teaching.  The Conference was great.

This week, well yesterday I had an experience I will never forget.  It was one of the most spiritual experiences I have ever had.  So this man from Arizona is biking across the world.  He started in Portugal and yesterday was here in Jaén.  He does it for his job.  He is a motivational speaker and is an amazing man.  He is a member and has been his whole life.  He is very active and goes to church every week.   He came to church and after we walked up to Antonio and Ana´s house to eat.  He asked for a blessing before hand and after eating I gave him one.  I gave it to him in English and I really don´t remember what I was saying but he just started crying and I felt the spirit so strong like never before and I started crying.  After the blessing he

Hanging out with Layne Gnieghting

looked me straight in the eyes, a grown man crying and told me thank you for being worthy.  I will never forget this man.  He had the best spirit about him.  He has 8 children and most of them are in elementary school.  His name is Layne Gnieghting.  Look him up on facebook and write him a message from me telling him thank you for the experience, he changed my life.  He sleeps on the streets or in peoples homes if they invite him.  He took a shower there in the house and stayed the night I am pretty sure.  He is great, look him up on facebook and tell him hello and thanks.  He will be a friend of mine forever.  Here is a photo of him. When I mean bike I mean Road Bike.

That was my week I love you!!
CODES

September 17, 2012 - Family Email

Our new ZONE

Well we didn´t have any baptisms this week but they will be baptized all together on the 29th, so keep your fingers crossed and pray!  I will talk about investigators in a little bit.  So as you already know I went to the mission home this last week!  Haha no it was really funny I was talking to Hermana Deere about the pictures getting up on the blog because I have called her like 3 times about it!  I was like Hermana Deere I don´t really care about me getting on the blog it´s the mother.  Haha so the next day she literally finishes taking the picture of all the District Leaders and sees me running out of the bathroom and starts laughing and giving me crap!  So she took one of my face all close up!  Good times.  District Leader Conference was great.  I got to sleep in Elder Manning´s piso with Elder Rhees Jackson and we slept in a seperate room and we talked for a while I love Elder Jackson.

ME and Elder Jones on the way to DL Conference.  We met some Asians that spoke English haha they loved us

 So this week I got your package on Tuesday morning, I had just missed it when we went to email last week so I had to wait until Tuesday morning to go pick it up!  I love it so much thank you!!!  I love the Book, ha it kinda scares me though, President Kimball makes me feel like a lot of people are damned or not going to live in the Celestial Kingdom.  As President Clegg say´s and I quote "NOBODY STUMBLES INTO THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM" or "THERE WILL BE NO ACCIDENTAL SALVATION".  Those are my two favorite quotes along with others.  Thanks for the face scrub and the candy even though Heather supplied me with candy for a couple of months!  I have been sharing my candy with some of my close friends!  So I was out of town for two days this week and Alba won't be able to go to the temple this week so we are going to teach them and hopefully get Paqui, Paqui, Alba, Belén and Antonia(HOPEFULLY) baptized on the 29th.  They are all Spanish from Jaén.  That is a lot of Spaniards right there!  We also started teaching a guy that is really good.  He is also Spanish and his name is Juan.  He has come to church for the past two weeks and we finally got to teach him and he wants to get baptized!  He told us he wants to stop smoking and he knows he has to before he gets baptized.  So pray for him and Paqui to quit smoking.  Antonia is still there, not really progressing.  She has her problems and we are hoping that when she sees Alba get baptized it will touch her and make her want to change.  Miguel and Rocio are doing great and they will be baptized on the 28th!  We are just teaching them and they are doing great and it´s reactivating the mom Pilar.  She is great and has desires to stop smoking and find someone to get sealed in the temple with.  She really wants to raise her kids in the gospel.  Blanca taught Relief Society yesterday and she loved it she says. 

This is what I EAT pasta always...it´s cheap and good and I make it

 So probably the coolest thing in my mission happened this week.  It was so simple but the best thing in my mission.  So we gave two Books of Mormon to Rosana and Sebastian and told them to write their testimonies in them and we are going to hand them out to their neighbors.  So Rosana is writing hers and finishes and then Sebastian finishes and his mom reads it and starts crying.  Man I  am crying right now.  That was the best experience in my mission.  I know that the best thing a parent can read or hear is the testimony of their child.  It was the best thing in the world.  Well with that I finished my week.  Everything is going great and I am good and things with the companion are good.  I am just learning patience.  The Lord really wants me to grow up and leave the mission knowing how to be an adult and kind of take care of a kid.  I know the church is true and I love my mission.

CODES

September 10, 2012 - Family Email

District Leadership Training in Malaga.

So this week was really good and please don´t worry about me I am fine.  The mission really helps me not to be like depressed or sad or mad.  I feel like I can get through a lot of things now.  Living alone with someone you really don´t get a long with for 3 months is nothing!  So I haven´t gotten the package yet, but my guess is that I will get it today or tomorrow!  Tomorrow I am going to the mission home for District Leader Training so I will get to see some old friends I think.  I think I will see Elder Brown which I miss him a lot.  He was a fun companion.  So I will get a little break tomorrow in the morning for two whole days in the mission home.  I get home on Wednesday night.

Elder Banbury

 

Eating with Elder Estrada and his companion

So this week I had to go back to Sevilla and I finally got my residency card and I am legal in Spain now.  It was a great little trip and I think I have a picture of my venture with Elder Banbury.  We had some extra time in Sevilla so we ended up eating with Elder Estrada and his companion.  It was super fun to be with two of my previous companions.  I love these two kids and they will be friends of mine for forever.  After the trip to Sevilla we had to do a HUGE service project.  Jude if you thought grandma had a lot of garbage in her house you should have seen this ladies home!!  She literally had things stacked to the ceiling.  It has taken over 15 hours to clean out, and the members aren´t even done yet.  I have never been more disgusted in my entire life.  This lady is a hoarder I believe is the word.  After all of that we got to finally teach.  

 

We, as of right now, have 7 baptismal dates.  So cool little story; Alba has been coming to church and the activities and now she wants to get baptized!!  So she will get baptized this weekend we are positive because she wants to go to the temple the next week to do baptisms for the dead.  Also her and Belén are really good friends and now Belén is going to pray to see if she should get baptized with Alba.  So maybe we will have 2 baptisms this week.  We set a baptismal with Antonia, Alba´s mom for the 29th but we will see with her.  She has problems and is one of the most stubborn people I have ever met, but at the same time she is a sweetheart!  So that is what is going on with them.  Paqui and Paqui are doing well.  We had a birthday party for the little Paqui and it went well and a lot of members came.  Rocio and Miguel Ángel are doing good and just waiting to get batized!   So all is going well here in Jaén.  I am running a little short on time because I wrote some other people today.  I love you all and thanks for sending me a package!  Send me some pictures of the deck and the BYU ward.  I love seeing pictures and all that!  

 

Well have a good week and I love you all. 

September 3, 2012 - Family Email

Are you trying to make me fat with all that food????  I might die with all that candy!
 

So this week was unreal!  Really good week.  First we had to go to Málaga for the conference thing we had going on.  That was pretty cool I have some pictures of me and Elder Manning.  I called him and told him he had to wear grey with me so he did so.  So we both have on a grey suit and greys ties for our girl Rachel.  So make sure those get sent to her!!  Sorry, my suit really is grey, just a really dark grey but I tried my hardest.  We still pray and fast for her!  I will continue to do so until the end of my mission!
 

I had a dream about you too mom, and it was a tender mercy. I was talking to you the day after I got home from my mission and we were grocery shopping I will have to tell you the dream when I get home.

So things went really well this week.  I went to Sevilla with Elder Banbury to go do our residency and it wasn't ready; so this week we have to go and travel back!  That kinda sucks but I love Sevilla!  It was a good little break because I was super tired but in the end the traveling made me even more tired.  I have been really tired mentally and a little physically.  I am not going to lie dealing with the problems and Bi-polar attitude of my companion really wears me out, but oh well I just try to have a good and patient attitude.  When I went out to Málaga for the conference I had a really good father and son experience with Elder Shaver.  I really love that kid.  We had to stay the night in Granada to go and catch the bus to Málaga the following morning.  So Elder Shaver came up to me and told me a personal trial that he is going through in his life.  He then asked me for a blessing and he was being really serious and really needed help right then in that moment.  There were a lot of Elder´s there in the piso and he asked me to give the blessing.  So we went in a room and it was kinda late and I gave him a blessing for like 20 minutes.  I really haven´t felt the spirit that strong before in my life.  He was crying and I almost started crying in the middle of the blessing.  Shaver is a really special missionary.  Elder Banbury came searching for us and walked into the room because he didn´t know when we were traveling to Sevilla, he told me that he saw some sort of angel or spirit.  He said when he opened the door the spirit was unreal and he thought he saw something in the room and closed the door.  It was a really amazing experience, the priesthood has the power of the administering of angels. 
 

So the baptism was unreal!!!  It was amazing Blanca (From El Salvador) asked me to baptize her and I felt really privileged.  She is a really special lady and member.  So special that right after she got confirmed on Sunday she got called as a relief society teacher!  We have like 60 active members and she was called!!  When they called her name to sustain her she stood up and was crying!!  She is so good.  The baptism was so spiritual and after she bore her testimony for like 10 minutes; which she shared her conversion story, she said she had found the only true church and she knows it´s true.  So there is some pictures of her and her son!  Her sons name is Fermin and he is 2 years old.  He loves us but is really shy.  We had I think 7 investigators at the baptism and then yesterday we had 8 in church!!!  That has to be a record in Jaén.  The most I have ever had was 10 in Sevilla.  The cool thing is almost every single one of them can get baptized!  So Antonia and Alba came to church.  The wife of our ward mission leader and his daughter.  We taught them this last week with the second counselor in the ward.  It was a great lesson and Alba is going to Málaga this weekend for a church activity.  Paqui, Paqui and Belén came to the baptism and the two daughters are going to Málaga as well this weekend!!  Belén was out of town on Sunday or she would have gone to church with her mom and sister.  Also the two that are getting baptized on the 28th came to church!  Rocio and Miguel Angel.  They are doing well and we are still just teaching them.  Antonio and Ana the two are getting married in October and they are so good!  They go to every activity and all 3 hours of church.  They read the scriptures and Liahona all the time and read together.  Ana asked for a blessing and asked for me to give her one.  She has a lot of health problems but is doing better.  So all is going great!!  I only have 4 more weeks until the transfer is over!  Crazy!  I am excited to get my package with the book.  I love the pictures thanks for all you did for the package!!

 
Elder Cody

August 27, 2012 - Family Email

Happy Birthday Jude I do Love you!!!!!!!

So this last week was unreal.

So remember little Blanca from El Salvador??  And, remember we taught her the Restoration and she began to cry at the end of the lesson?  Well we met with her this last Monday and she told us a little story.  So in that lesson two weeks ago she went home that night and prayed to know if this was the true church.  That night she fell asleep and dreamed the first vision!!!!  She told us she literally felt like she was there with Joseph Smith in the grove of trees.  She started crying when she told us that.  Is that unreal???  The church is true I couldn´t help but get teary eyes when she was telling us.  We met in the house of Rosana and Sebastian and that´s where we teach her now.  So after she told us that dream we of course asked her to be baptized and she said yes.  She told us that when she saw Sebastian and Nerea get baptized she wanted to as well in that exact moment.  So the church is true.  Blanca is getting baptized on Friday the 31rst of August.  We have been teaching her almost everyday and she came to church yesterday and she is doing great. 

So we also have been working with other families.  The less active family with the two kids are going to be baptized on the 29th of September.  They are super excited and they are for sure baptisms.  The mom is named Pilar and she gave us a reference of a family that consists of a mom and two daughters.  The daughter had already been coming to church for a little bit with Nerea because they are friends.  The mom is named Paqui, and then a daughter that is 15 named Belén, and the smallest named Paqui 12 as well.  Paqui the daughter is so good.  She LOVES young women's and is doing the Personal Progress things.  So she will get baptized too, I am positive.  The mom and and Paqui came to church this Sunday as well.  We have taught them I think three times now.  They are progressing little by little. 
 

So we had an activity this last Friday with all the members.  It is like a game night we arranged because the branch here needs to be more close.  So a lot of people came and some non members and we played sports.  Haha everyone thinks I am good at basket ball but I am really not that good I am just American so I played it with my buddies.  We played soccer as well with all the little kids.
So I have another set of investigators that are great.  Antonio is a man that was excommunicated and he has a girl friend named Ana.  They are both Spanish and awesome.  They are getting married in October and they already started the papers.  So they are in good shape.  Ana reads the Book of Mormon like everyday and marked scriptures and everything.  They came to church and the activity.  They are progressing and they want to get married in the temple next year.  So they both need to be baptized and Ana will be a convert.  Antonio used to be a seminary teacher and a counselor in the branch here.  Really smart man and really spiritual.  They both want the church so bad. 
So send the package here to my piso I will be here more than a month.
 

We haven't met with any of the Paraguayans this week.  They are super flaky and really don´t have a lot of desires to know stuff.  My companion knows that but doesn´t want to accept it because they are his people.  The one really good one is on vacation right now so we will talk to her next week or so. 
Well that was my week!  This week I have a lot of traveling.  We go to Málaga for Zone Conference and then I go to Sevilla with Elder Banbury for Residency cards!  I am excited!!
 

I hope you enjoy the BYU ward. I will have to go there with ya´ll because I want to be where ya´ll are at.  Tell the ladies that I love them haha.  I am going to be so weird when I get home..I already feel the awkward returned missionary feel around people I meet that speak English haha. 

 

I love you all.
CODES