Day 391

Well, I can't seem to download the picture correctly to see the one with his face but you can play --- which Elder is Brad. We had a great time Skyping with him. We had a few technical difficulties but we were able to finally get it going to have a conversation. We could see and hear him, he could see us and not hear us so we called on the phone and we kind of circumvented the problem. We had a great conversation and he was able to see Ryker who was 6 months old when he left and Cache who was not even born. Of course, he saw Abby -- who has changed the most of his siblings. It was just fun to see his face and hear his voice. How thankful we were that the church let their missionaries use the technology of today and we could see our sweet, sweet boy.


merry christmas! i hope that it was just what you expected! haha i was hoping that the presents wouldve been opened at midnight spain time.. we opened them it was great haha i loved it. Sacrament meeting was really good a typical christmas party BUT... we had all 3 wards combined so that was interesting haha they like remixed the christmas songs but it was really really good. our investigator manuel really loved it and the stake president talked about coming and seeing. when the apostles asked him where he was going and stuff he just said come and see. So manuel loved that. he turned to me and was like i want him to baptize me so i turned to him and said after we will ask. so we went up to him and asked if he would be willing to baptize him and he said he´d love to but the problem is that he is going to the temple this week with the jovenes haha to have their temple activity and wont be back in time so he said he would do the confirmation. which was good enough .. then we went to the elders quorum leader and he asked him to do it and he accepted so we are good. ALL good. we just have to get the program together and we have to get through the interview . which wont be a problem he is super prepared. lets see . other than that it was really fun talking with you all. it was kind of weird looking at you because all of you have changed so much. every one is getting so big and stuff i just cant believe it haha. ummm i cant think right now still haha. after we got done talking we went to the other elders piso and just kind of talked the rest of the night. my comp got little rc remote control cars so we raced those around it was pretty fun .. the things you do when you are bored. so today we are just going to kick it the herms wanted to play soccer .. doubt that we will really play cause the other elders are in pros clothes but we wanted to make smores today. thatll happen haha im pretty excited.
so thanks for everything this christmas has been fun we are excited for this week and dont really have much else going on. i hope your new years is going to be fun as well next year we will do some spanish traditions ok? deal. ANyways thanks for everything it was really good to see you all and meet those of you who i still dont know ... aka the nephews haha miss you!

Day 384

Okay so just for your info. we will be talking to Brad while our ward is having Sacrament Meeting but we had already planned to go with Portia and Lance later in the day.

Merry Christmas to all! Thanks for supporting Brad!

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ok so here is the deal. i dont have much time cause i dont have much money to be on here longer i made a skype and i am 90 percent sure i added carson .. aka carseycars. haha it just sounded like here. soooooo next sunday 5 my time??? i dont know what your schedule for church would be butttttt i dont care because you didnt tell me and we have to make decisions. so i will be on here at 5 pm spain time .. which should be about 9 your time if i did my math right ... im hoping so but if not figure it out. im so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha ummm lets see. its cold here now. humid cold which means im sick. cause i dont know what will keep me warm hahahaha. ummm im just trying to get important information out because i dont have much time. im doing good. im excited for christmas! ill be opening presents early!!! haha next year you will all be reminded of how it has been haha anyways life is good im happy we are getting along . nothing is happening here still. so i dont have any cool stories. but the new elder is pretty cool he just loves everyone. we will see how long that lasts haha jk he saw that that is why i put it . so reminders. Carsey cars. aDD ME AS A FRIEND .. or accept it or whatever. and then sunday 5 my time. we will be talking haha love you!! and if there is complications we will be in touch throughout the week . ok love you!!!!! bye!!!!!

Day 377

hola todos.
this week was agood week. we still have nothing going on. no one is really letting us in no one is really accepting anything and plus we are starting to go into the holiday season. and whoever knows anything about the white bible where it says sundays and holidays are the best to go looking for people. welllll... its not even the holidays and we have been contacting every single day. haha no one wants anything from us. yeah the families are more together and they are off of school and what not but that doesnt mean that they want to americans knocking on their door. haha its kind of frustrating but its what it is. i dont know what else we can do. so lets see. why was this week a good week still? well. our only investigator that we have that we were about to drop, accepted baptism for the 30th of this month. haha so there is something to go off of. he is a mexican and he speaks almost perfect english . its actually really hard because he wants us to give him the lessons in english and i cant pray in english anymore. it takes too much brain power. so that is a little hard. i fumble the words more in english than i do in spanish ahha. but its only one investigator so thats not too bad and really there are a lot of people that speak english in the neck of the woods. life is good. i guess. we will see how this transfer goes. my good friend elder phillips is leaving this wednesday. so i wont have my go to buddy haha when we need to talk and stuff but we will see how it goes. life is good though really we are having fun.

they gave us our christmas schedule . it seems pretty good. nothing too crazy. we can skype though. the only problem is we are looking for a place to be able to do it on the 25th . none of the locutorios are going to be open that we know of so we are looking for members that have the stuff the ones that we thought would have it werent at church yesterday so ill let you know more the next week. just so that we can be on the same page. ummmmmmmmm lets see here. if we cant find any place to skype i will give you the code and our number and we can talk about when you guys can call me ok :D haha but im sure we will find something.

this week was good this week that is coming should be alright im happy so dont worry about me hope everything is going well.. love you all!!!!

Day 370

There is a nicer one on the mission blog but I couldn't get it to download to my computer. Spainmalagamission.blogspot.com


hahaha today is going to be a good day. we are going to ride bikes around cartgagena and i guess just not be in proselyting clothes. haha dont worry. i will be taking a break from it when i get home just for a bit im hoping that not having to wear these clothes EVERY DAY will help out with that haha anyways we arent here to talk about this right now i still have a year left. anyways this week was good we lost a lot of investigators haha and then we won some back and we are having our trials but life is life and we are moving forward. haha we have been singing christmas songs since dec. 1st!!! im pretty sure my comp hates me and hates christmas but its ok ... he will learn hahaha its hard not to like christmas around me i mean cmon. opening presents at midnight?!?! im sure you guys cant wait to do that again haha. funny times. anyways life is good. im happy still so that works i guess thats the important thing here in this life. anyways i am trying to think. there was a baptism this last week. ward 3 the other elders baptized a girl. my first baptismal interview and that was crazy. haha then.... lets see pres. came to our district meeting and we talked about the moronis promise. and the importance of all three verses because so many times we just worry about verse 4 but we need to know about verse 3 to lead way to verse four and how it sets the frame of mind to be grateful for the mercies of the lord in our lives and in the world in order to pray and be grateful to recieve an answer whether its the book of mormon or which street to knock or anything really haha and as we ponder what we are learning and what we are meditating in our life is key to recieiving an answer to the book of mormon and that answer only comes through reading while we are reading. but im happy and well and i dont have much to say now .. i hope the preperations for your christmas parties are going great!!!!

ONE YEAR down ONE YEAR TO GO!

Just a little explanation. As I was raking leaves this week, I asked Carson to help with the bagging and she was complaining about the hard work it was. Her comment was "Wow, I guess Brad did do some work around here because I never have had to bag leaves before."

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I just wanted to start off this weeks email saying THANK YOU!!!!! i know it would take a while but im glad im finally getting some appreciation for the things i did at home... hahahahaha i honestly laughed at that comment that carson made that wow brad actually did stuff while he was here. haha just one of the things or maybe its jsut that im so tired right now that ... haha ummm yeah its just funny cause im tired. but i dont think thats why.
ummmm i hope the holidays were good for you guys. i was talking to an elder in my district that has the same age as me in the field and we were just saying how much better thanksgiving will be next year because spain doesnt beleive in ANYTHING american. really. like no turkey no stuffing no pie no nothing . we can get the stores mashed potatoes but it doesnt even taste like mashed potatoes it just tastes like waterry .... nothingness haha i cant even describe it. but. its come and gone so there is no need to worry about it anymore. ummm im just trying to think . i complete a year this thursday. which is kind of intense. i got a call last week from our mission president and he asked me to change my district meeting from tuesday to thursday so that he can be there. thats not pressure at all. i dont know what im going to teach. last week i had a story about a missionary in his first day of the field that got rocks thrown at him .. he threw a rock at the telephone pole so that it didnt cause problems cause he was angry and then the people started having competitions with him to throw rocks at the telephone pole. well we all have rocks in our lives it could be our companions it could be our families it could be our job or our calling in the church but as we focus on giving the "rocks" to the "telephone pole" or christ then our focus changes and we help others put their focus on him as well.
something to think about.
this week i was thinking about talking about the converting power of the book of mormon but we will see. and yes it often feels like im just a babysitter here as a district leader haha and some of the things that happen in the companionships just make me laugh. they really get mad at eachother cause one wants to go contact and one doesnt... anyways its the life. and i love it. im happy and time is just going by so fast right now its insane. but we have made it a year and we have less than that to go which is weird. anyways keep smiling and keep being happy you are doing awesome!

Day 360

so becasue we are missionaries and what not we are celebrating thanksgiving day today. SOOOOOOOO

Thanks to everyone who has been supporting me out here.
Thanks for all the family and friends that have been praying for me.
Thanks to mom, dad, Portia, Kelsey, Carson, Abby and their families.
Thanks to Everyone else in the family.
Thanks for the people that listen to the gospel.
Thanks for the people that give us their friends to listen to the Gospel.
Thanks for the Book of Mormon and all its teachings.
Thanks for the gifts of the spirit.
Thanks for all the good memories,
Thanks for all the good weeks and good days,
Thanks for the chance i have to sleep and to study and to teach.
Thanks for the people that have been changed by my testimony.
Thanks for all the emails and letters ive recieved,
Thanks for the gospel in my life.

i could go on and on and on and on. but you are all amazing and i am more and more and more grateful every day to be supported out here.

The area is going well. its just been hard to get started cause the last elders didnt do anything .. im learning to hate irresponsiblity. so we are starting from nothing and working our way up. its been a long week this last week. we had 4 dates for baptism that we have set with amazing people who cant go on with it because of family members and stuff. soooooo we have no investigaters or antying really right now. ... but that doesnt mean there isnt good things happening .. we are happy and healthy. and working ... its harder in a big area cause there is a lot of time for travelling from place to place and trying to be on time and everything but the work is moving along. we are celebrating thanksgiving today and then there are some other people doing it on thursday that we might go by and visit haha. its nice having power to decide what to do. ANYWAYS.
live is good we are happy i missy ou all and i hope you guys enjoy the holidays with out me .. haha have a great week!

Day 353 Happy 20th Birthday Week

Here is the picture that I got this week from a mom in the ward in Cartegena. I guess I have to be careful what I ask for. Thanks to Sis. Richardson who was so accommodating to my son.

Of course, he turns 20 tomorrow. Happy Birthday Brad!
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wellllllll, this will be the last time you talk to me as a teenager. know what that means? good ... cause i dont. all i know is that im so tired. and that i am so exhausted. i dont think i have ever been so tired in my life! haha lets see what happened this last week . . . we walked a lot. i contacted a lot of peoploe (my comp doesnt like it so he doesnt do it) and we passed by a lot of people. well someone contacted us in the street. we went over a different day and we ended up putting fechas with them . a mom and her two daughters. THEY EVEN CAME TO CHUIRCH!!!! haha wellll apart from that we found out that the mom might not be married... our curse. no one is married. it sucks to be a missionary in that situation. sooo now we have to tell her to marry the guy or leave him. which sucks butttttt its not as bad as it has been in the past. sheeee has 2 daughters and they can still be baptized soo 2 still.. they should be on the blog in a couple of weeks. but dont stress ill keep it on the update.

im trying to think i dont know what we are going to do today we are just going to go eat at 2 as a district and then we might go see a castle or a roman museum or something that sparks the interest at the time... did you know the first submarine ever made was in cartagena? thats what i hear. but i dont know how good my spanish is in cartagena (every area has a completely different accent so its like starting all over again with the learning process of a language) haha

ummm my birthday tomorrow :D thanks for all of the love and support i know its hard with me here in spain but... what can i do haha im glad you like the picture that family is from england and the mom reminds me a lot of ours. just no excuses go to mutual. haha good thing i was on her goodside :D haha ummm life is ok we are progressing. we are getting in the direction we need to go so i cant complain elder anderson has been sheltered his whole mission which sucks so i am just giving him responsablities i dont know how much he likes it but oh well i dont care anymore he is older than me he should learn to grow up. but for the most part we get along alright he is ... different but i dont have a problem with him we are just getting him to do the work. thats the most frustrating part. but we are getting better so im happy.
District leader is alright just some more responsablity and keeping track of the missionaries doing what they need to but there arent major problems here so im happy haha anyways life is good im happy im a teenager and we are going to ball it up out there i hope you are all happy and doing great thanks again for all the love!

Day 346-- New ADDRESS!

Just an FYI _- The Mission Home has asked that we send packages to their home address. The mail system has been holding packages that are sent to the mission home address and making them pay to get them. SO if you are so inclined, please send them to this new address.
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Mom i thought i said this last week but it must have not gotten past this thought. Yes i got my package from sister dixon while i was in valdepenas ... please tell her thank you for the letters and for the updates on life and for the peanut butter! haha also let her know that i will send a letter when i can sit down and write one back .. thanks!

dad. no we cant go back to any other area that we have been in just for a baptism. it sucks but we cant do it. and yeah mom we dont believe in partying in our mission so we go strait from area to area haha .. naw we just go cause its so much cheaper to go from place to place instead of all the way back to the mission home.

Cartagena ... is Beautiful!!!! i love it! there is a lot of work to be done and it has rained a ton and i havent eaten anything but spaghetti since ive been here.... we didnt have anything in piso except for pasta so that was breakfast and dinner and the members feed us here and every single member has made us spaghetti. i didnt know i could get so sick of it so fast. haha oh man . the youth are amazing i was asking why they dont come out with us... on sunday i talked with all of them every single day they are going to have a youth come out on splits with us so it should help us with out work.

my address.
Elder B-Rad
Plaza tenor mario cruz 4, 5A
30320 Cartagena (murcia)
spain

so send me whatever you want and ill be able to get it. anyways im happy the area is great the ward is great and we are just going about doing the work . there is no where else to go from where we are but up. im super tired its been none stop running around since ive been here but thats what i get it helps the time go by really fast haha
its insane i dont have much to say life is good everyone is happy and we are just going to enjoy our day. i love you all!!!!

Day 339 Happy Halloween

First off, we got a letter from his companion's family this week. They live in the Canary Islands and in the letter they talked about the pictures and videos that they have seen of Brad. We continue to get nothing. So I had to rub that in a little. He asked for memories this week and apparently we all have the same ones. But the Timmy the tooth one is hilarious. We had a video when the kids were little and it was about this tooth that was animated. Anyways, the kids loved it. It was one of those videos that got played over and over and over. Well, I happened to have a pair of white sweats and so Brad puts them on and pulls them up over his shoulders and sings the song. So that is that memory. The Arthur memory is a funny childhood one also. Whenever we heard this made up song that went "I love Arthur, I love Arthur" We knew that Brad was in the bathroom and he would be there for a while.




first of all mom. i cant do jack diddly with my camera right now just take pictures and stuff. haha but its ok. its easier to send picturse and videos with a memory card when your family lives not on the other side of the world haha ....... just sayin. anyways ive been trying to work on it but when you dont have the luxuries of the places to print off pictures its hard because i wouldnt get any emails sent if i sent pictures through email its too hard. ok moving on.


SANTIAGO GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it was a really special experience and super powerful and pretty much everyone that had doubts about it after was like i want this and so now there are people that are more open to the gospel. haha its funny how things like that work but some people (members) are still having their doubrts which is frustrating i mean its liek you ahve seen all of these miracles in your life why are you trying to hide it?!?! or you were such a good missionary back in your day you brag about it so much why dont you help us?? but its jsut the trials of the work.

on sunday we had an area 70 come to a branch conference and he was talking about the promsie of a stake with this district and how the members just need to get into shape. haha it was funny. but it was good and super spiritual. we loved it and had a blast!

and if that isnt enough news to take in im leaving Valdepeñas. i leave on wednesday at 1145 and i wont get to my new area til thursday morning. haha lots of travelling. so you might be thinking why is he trav elling all day where could he be going? well im going to a ward in Cartagena its on the beach and im pretty excited im just really scared and nervous because i have been called as the district leader. :/ but i know that through my example and the examples i have and wit hthe lord it will be possible. we are exctied for it all an d people have already started crying for me to leave the members and investigators but its part of the process just accept all the invitations on facebook haha.

as for that thats about all the news that we have right now we are pretty excited over here its about time for a little bit of change life is going really well we conquered challenges in valdepenas and got the rama to a beytter place than it was. Just keep being who you guys are and .. p,.s. i like the creativity in the stories hahaha they were ALL about the timmy the tooth arthur an d the window with kenny hahahhaha super funny yes but hahaha thank you. anyways we are going to play som soccer and then have district meeting and then its pretty much packing and peacing out of this joint. the church is true and im almost outta here!!!!!!

Day 332

haha ok so just so that you know. we have water again. but now the water heater isnt working or something. we dont know but all i know is that the showers are like the coldest i have ever had in my life!!!! haha but we are showering so everyone who was worried about our hygiene ... no need to stress haha. We.. have a baptism this friday!!!! Santiago asked me to do it and he asked Tripi to do the confirmation. so we are pretty excited Valdepeñas FINALLY has stuff comin their way we also have 2 more that will be coming up after in november so thats really nice. ummm. im trying to think of whats been going on, that i am able to say haha they say not to be negative in emails and stuff so there obviously isnt things that i can say about how some people dont understand how to support when people want to get baptized haha. its jsut one of those things but no need to stress its happening and the only person that will stop it on earth is santi in his interview tomorrow but we arent worried. ummm life is going good. we are happy its the last week of the transfer so next email will be news about if there are changes or not. we are expecting changes, so just in case if you have stuff to send to me send it to the mission office so i can still get it.

Everyone sounds healthy and happy from what i hear which is really good, im glad everyone is enjoying the vacations and the times together tell everyone i say hi and that i miss them and then i will be back sooner than later hahaha. its amazing how time is flying by right now. it doesnt feel like it should be practically november already. and just thinking back on the last year since this process started its just craziness. haha ok well its rainging and its cold here. which means jackets and stuff to cover up the white shirts and ties which means the contacts are going to become better, that people wont avoid us intentionally as much anymore because we wont be as recognized. its more of the "cameflouge season" where we mix in a little more with our surroundings.

ok so this is what we are going to do everyone send me an email for next week about your favorite memory with me. just to mix things up haha alright love you all keep it up with all the good work and keep smiling!

Day 325

Santiago is still going strong he is doing really well there are just some challenges like always when there is a baptism. No need to worry!!!!!! but we dont have water in all of Valdapeñas haha i dont want it to sound like a joke but i think its kind of funny no one can shower but i have never seen so many people getting water ourt of the fountains in front of the cathedral of the catholic church here. might be some of the few times they actually go to church. But if it gets to the extent that we need to get water to wash up ill take some pictures. i think its funny as well cause my mentality is CAMPING!!! haha and Elder triana has only gone like 2 days on a real camping adventure. i just think of all the stuff i did. with the youth and stuff some of my favorite times was when we didnt have very much haha it just brings the creativity out. haha but no need to worry if it gets really bad we have the church and stuff we can get taken care of i dont even know what happened i think a water line broke or something.. when we get into details with people i cant understand the terminoligy and triana cant translate it into english haha. its been quite a fun adventure with all of that with him.

Anyways im trying to think, we played soccer with the jovenes on saturday. its a rare activity around here because people live so far away but they think of the typical missionary and dont think of a good soccer player. haha well we showed them up we owned them and they were really impressed and it was really a lot of fun, anyways
like i said life is really good im living things up and doing things i never really imagined i would be doing at my age. its pretty cool.

side note. Elder triana´s step dad is from england and he wants to write you guys so i gave him our address so you should be expecting something this week. love you all and keep on being who you are!

Day 325

Santiago is still going strong he is doing really well there are just some challenges like always when there is a baptism. No need to worry!!!!!! but we dont have water in all of Valdapeñas haha i dont want it to sound like a joke but i think its kind of funny no one can shower but i have never seen so many people getting water ourt of the fountains in front of the cathedral of the catholic church here. might be some of the few times they actually go to church. But if it gets to the extent that we need to get water to wash up ill take some pictures. i think its funny as well cause my mentality is CAMPING!!! haha and Elder triana has only gone like 2 days on a real camping adventure. i just think of all the stuff i did. with the youth and stuff some of my favorite times was when we didnt have very much haha it just brings the creativity out. haha but no need to worry if it gets really bad we have the church and stuff we can get taken care of i dont even know what happened i think a water line broke or something.. when we get into details with people i cant understand the terminoligy and triana cant translate it into english haha. its been quite a fun adventure with all of that with him.

Anyways im trying to think, we played soccer with the jovenes on saturday. its a rare activity around here because people live so far away but they think of the typical missionary and dont think of a good soccer player. haha well we showed them up we owned them and they were really impressed and it was really a lot of fun, anyways
like i said life is really good im living things up and doing things i never really imagined i would be doing at my age. its pretty cool.

side note. Elder triana´s step dad is from england and he wants to write you guys so i gave him our address so you should be expecting something this week. love you all and keep on being who you are!

Day 318

i just want to say that nothing can stop us but ourselves. kind of like what dad was saying in his email that the people make the decisions harder than they need to be. president clegg was telling us in our bullitin this week that God doesnt use magic to save us just our obedience to his commandments. how true that is. how true that is. ok ok ok . so lets talk about this week. We had a greatweek we focused on finding people.so we hit the streets a lot. we had an amazing week pepole listened alittle bit. not quite as much to the actual lessons but we got a lot of call backs. so that was fun to see. from the people that emailed me everyone sounds happy which is really good. haha im so glad time is just cruising right now we basically have no time to even write in our journals. but dont stress i still havent missed a day! ballin! ok so im trying to put off the miracle story that happened this week. so ill start just because i can. ummmmm. i came to valdepeñas in may. you dont see elders stay in an area longer than 6months which means come nov 2 im 90% sure im out of here. i havent seen a baptism here at all. in fact the elder i was with when i got here hadnt either. its just a really hard area. well i wasnt expecting one. yesterday there is this kid that we have been teaching who at an activity that we FINALLY were able to get done and planned and carried out this kid name santiago who we have been focusing on the last 3 months came up to us and said im still teaching you on thursday right? (we are trying new things our investigators teach us hahahaha) we said yes and he said ok i have a suprise for you. haha we were just thinking he was going to show us how to make some more colombian food or something we didntthink to much of it. but 10 minutes later hermana clegg (not the presidents wife) came and called me and elder triana we went to one of the classrooms and started talking and she turned to santi and asked ... well what do you think? and he said i want to get baptized on the 28th of october. WHAT?!?! haha it was SO CRAZY! and then he went and told all of the members of the branch. haha it was SO INSANE. we were all basically crying. so many fasts and so many prayers are being answered. haha. and the happiness it brings to bring someone to christ is like nothing i have ever felt in my life. we also had another kid 21 years old who accepted a date as well but he is still super not sure with it. we will see how that one goes but both are possible i know for sure santi but alberto can do it. haha anyways i dont think i have ever worked this hard in my life. haha im doing things that i never imagined i would do in my life. but when you learn to have the desire to do something and the faith increases its amazing what you can do. you guys are all amazing and i miss you lots and lots but we are almost at the hump. and im livin my last month as a teenager!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha elder triana is laughing at me because im just so young. he is my favorite. but we are going to make some delicious food (dont worry when i come home ill cook for a month the food is amazing!)
the church is true im doing great so stop worryin. send some love. i miss it haha and remember who you are! :D love you!!!!

Day 311

We completed successfully 10 months in the mission.
Conference was super spiritual and i loved it all i learned the most in the sunday morning session and i just felt the testimonies of all of the speakers and how firm and bold they were in all that they did. how powerful! we aredoing really well here this week our focus will be on finding people ... that means lots of contacts.... but i am really excited for it. things are moving in the right direction. im super tired. but life is really good. this is always the fastest hour of the week. which is probably annoying because i want it to be the slowest cause it feels like i jsut have so much to say! we learned this week that Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. that was a pretty profound thing. also that its kind of fun to do the impossible. just to everyone who thinks you cant do it. just going out and proving them wrong. The members are gaining a testimony of missionary work here and its not easy but if they get this testimony the work will seriously just explode here in valdepeñas. Im excited for all the temples!!! and i love that they are going to put a temple right there in provo again.

there is only one place that success comes before work and it is in the dictionary... in conference there were a lot of talks about how we need to do our part. keep the commandments, service, prayer and repentenance. something that President clegg says to us alot is if there is something that you need to change. just fix it. its SO MUCH EASIER TO DO IT NOW! ummm. Triana and i are excited for this week. it probably will be a long week but we are already half way through this transfer which means about 3 weeks more and i feel like im leaving but of course we dont know that yet. anyways. you are all in my prayers you are all doing wonder ful things and im so grateful for everyone! keep smiling and keep working!

Day 304

Wow, Brad passes his 10 month mark this week. We are so excited for him. He is doing such great work.

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Alright i saw the pictures everyone seems healthy and happy! Feliz cumplea隳s abster! i hope the day is amazing! haha im sick right now i didnt sleep very good at all last night haha so its been kind of frustrating this morning to do anything. I sent a present for abbs on friday. so it should come this week. expect it. ummm. im trying to think. People have been asking about the investigators ... they are being dumb and not doing the commitments we are leaving and not coming to church and just frustrations. so this week our goal is just to find new people. haha we are pretty much dropping everyone. and ... i dont understand whats wrong with marriage. so many people that we are finding that are ready arent married. and the process for latinos to get married in spain is kind of a long process.. so its frustrating. haha anyways. other than that we are happy ... working on being healthy. just running around. i kind of feel like its the end of a soccer season haha with all the work and school and soccer its just too much for the body with so little rest. haha i mean 8 hours is enough to get through the day barely. but i mean you all know me. its just i need sleep. haha there might be a p day activity called 究iesta系oday. we will see. haha ummm. but yeah we are just running around we average about 15 lessons a week here. we had 35 lessons planned this last week we got 22 so we got failed a lot. which is always frustrating. but we are working on it. Im glad you were able to go to the farewell that jake had. i miss that kid!!!!!!! but the mission is so rewarding. im learning so much out here its so amazing all that im learning! anyways. life is chugging im guessing that im leaving valdep鎙s on the 2nd of november. so about a month left here. but tons has happened its amazing. haha anyways enjoy conference. and remember with revelation if you ask specific questions you get specific answers. this should be a special time of year!!!! enjoy it!

Day 290

Sorry about not getting the email til today. its we had specialized training and we didnt have p day until today so yeah. just keep chugging we are here working hard and having so much fun! haha. ummm i dont really know where to start but we just had an amazing week! things are slowly slowly slowly coming through. slowly, haha its just incredible how slow i mean i have had pancakes with more syrup than how fast things are pulling through now. but they are pulling through. and thats what we want.
Well, we started off the week getting a new phone because we had lost ours. that helped a lot, then... we found a girl named monica who we had met before but kind of forgot about her, she told us she has been waiting but we have gone by a couple of other times, we will see if she progresses, as well we found another girl. named isabel, we found her on saturday and she came to church on sunday and she just loved it.. a lot. so we are going by today and it was just so incredible having people come to church!!! haha the other thing is that our branch president told us that we would have hardly anyone at church we didnt have 7-8 of the actual members there but we still had 23 poeople at church i think that is the most i have seen here we could have had 30 people almost all of the seats were taken! haha super crazy. then yesterday we have a yhouth we are teaching named santiago, he has kind of been always there his parents cant get baptized yet but he can, we had a fecha but lost it then last night we went over and he told us that he decided to read and pray and that he asked if the church was true and if god existed and he felt good afterwards, he also said that he feels like we actually care about him, like the other elders have been there but like with us its different. so we could be seeing some amazingness coming up here soon in our area.
yesterday we had specialized training and pres. clegg was with Elder bednar he told us that elder bednar stood up and for his lesson or whatever its called in english (spanish- taller) he just said ok whats your questions and talked for 3 hours on just the questions that the mission presidents have had. haha its been incredible. butwe are working hard, the days are meshing together like crazy i think i ask 5 or so times a day what day it is, haha and lately i have been writing in my journal a couple of times a day thinking that i needed to start still haha anyways funny moments, im trying to think of what else i can say.
OK well because of time those are the stories you get. things are going great, the final thought that i have comes from yesterday when Hna clegg was talking to us she said, Everytime we share our testimony the Lord is telling us he loves us too. so just because baptisms arent coming in valdepeñasright now or the last 4 months all the testimonies have been the love for me and it goes for you guys as well so give those testimonies!!! haha miss you all! and love you alll!!!! have a great weekª!

Day 283

Happy Labor Day! Hope everyone is enjoying Brad's letters. We are! We love to see his growth and his attitude. What a great guy!

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ok,
im super tired right now, haha its jsut so much happening and getting done. this last week was one that was testing our patience but its something we all could work on. we lost our phone almost lost our keys to our apartment. haha just to start off. then trying to do thw work with out a phone is nearly impossible. but its still possible just a little more grampa rands in the stride. then. its a festival of vino here in valdepeñas they are known for their wine here. haha so a week and a half of that. but the thing is all the people are out all night and sleeping all day and are practiacallly drunk the whole time. but its their party. so its been crazy. haha just running around trying to get everything that we needed to . haha but we got everything done and we are still alive. and kicking and screaming.
Elder Triana is a beast still. we are having so much fun, we have the same mentality and my spanish is getting better. and we can see where valdepañas can go we just need to wait for the people to see it too. once they have that vision this place will blow up. haha. we are working hard and having fun. this last week went by fast even though it had its trials. i think every day something had to be changed 180 degrees haha just the luck of the draw. but this week we are excited . its weird that its already september 5th the days are meshing together i dont think that i knew p day was today this morning haha. but dont worry im not completely insane yet. haha.

We were teaching a kid this week. about our age and he was asking about opposition. well lets just remember satan doesnt want this to be happening and the days that are the hardest probably are the days most productive. just remember those examples we have in our lives.
thanks to EVERYONE who is supporting me with prayers and love and whatever else they are doing. tell everyone thanks (mom you know who specifially) and spread my love to everyone. i miss you all and im doing well. this week was a week of learning haha. this week will be better. i hope it is for you as well! dont forget to read and pray the lord is ready waiting for us to do our part!

Day 275

ok almost 9 months?!?! crazyness!!! i still cant believe it. anyways this week has probably been my favorite week of them all we are just having so much fun over here. Elder Triana and i are just laughing and doing it big. its just a thing of attitude. and we had a lesson in priesthood yesterday from the talk from presdent uchtdorf your potential your privelege and it talks about the priesthood but i want to change it from the priesthood to life. because the girls can apply to this as well. one of the things i was thinking about is choosing to be happy no matter how hard it is. you cant change the circumstances really that are around you, the thing that makes the party fun or the activity fun is if you say man this is SO MUCH FUN! i mean thinking back and all the youth activities we did a lot of them were fun because we decided to make them fun. it was this decision. Well i was thinking about this a little bit. why do some people think that life is amazing and others think its horrible? living here in spain i mean my eyes are opening up more but really... its not that different we are all humans a lot of us believe in God. and are into the same music and books and movies. whats the difference? are we looking at the glass half empty or half full? we worry about what we dont have when the things we have equal out in the end. so i was thinking and this came to mind.

Life begins when we choose to utilize our agency.

lets think about this this week how this can help us be happier and more loving. Also read the talk tongue of angels by elder holland. The language that we use could be some of the most important things we do in our lives for good. we dont need to worry about bad because when we have an attitude that is positive we dont want to do the bad. so we wont focus on that. Elder Triana and i are doing our best. things are starting to spring up here in Valdepeñas we are happy and working hard.
The reason this week was on of my favorites is because it just worked out everything we planned worked out. we dont know why or how we got it to be that way but we just felt unstoppable. it seemed like every person we stopped and talked to gave us their information and a return date to go back . we jsut seemed to be flying high on faith. thats really what it was we have just been leaving every day knowing that something crazy is going to happen.
just know i miss you all and i love you all. keep being those examples that you need to be. haha like mom always says remember who you are! haha i hope all is going well with the family with the newbies and whatnot . port, congrats on the kid. like i said before he will take after me and be a BALLER!! haha anyways i gotta go sorry its short this week. short but profound. i love you!

Day 268

ok yall listen up....
we are just kickin it real big up here in V town. Elder Triana is a maniac. haha its so much fun with him. we are just having the time of our lives. ummm its hard to say what really ishappening because we are trying to figure out what to focuson. its been a rollercaoster week with its ups and downs like always but we are havign so much fun. he is from venezuela but grew up in the canary islands and he is learning english... i think he speaks pretty good but its nice to have a nativecomp finally. it just forcesme to speakspanish more. ok mom sorry about my punctuation... I HATE SPANISHCOMPUTERS! they never work well. and its frustrating me right now.. so our district leader elder hatch asked me how he could improve his scripture study habits to enjoy it more. i thought it was a perfectly great question to ask. seeing as we can all improve in that area and this is what i noticed this last week ... i have been doing the christlike attributes this week from preach my gospel. it has helped me find fun scripture that apply in my life on a daily basis. so if anyof you are wondering what can help you a little more.try that. i mean preach my gospel really is the way to go but if you dont then just think of attributes christ had and look up scriptures that go along. it should help. weare doing good trying to help the rama and it seems to be ... well i dont know if things are getting better or not everyone is on vacations andso its hard to do a lot of stuff plus its so flipping hot that people get mad that we are out in the stereets hha i think its funny.
so i am gladt o hear that everything isgoing goodwith cache money. dad sent me a pic he looks like a g master. i am super excited to meet him. haha he will be a maniac imsure i mean look at all the other boys in the family ... i think if thereweremore boys in our family we would have taken over the world already. haha anyways i dont have much time we are having a district p day and going to play some basketball. ill try and send som pictures next weeek. love you all watch yourselves!

Day 261

First off, We were able to email Brad late last night that Portia was in the process of having a baby. She just at about 11:00 Utah time had her baby. Cache Kelly Ames. We are so proud of her.

Brad is training and here is his excitement over that. Apparently a native speaker which will be good for him.


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ok ok... just take it easy over there.
Elder Triana is a sick Elder. haha He is originally form Venezuela was raised up in colombia and the last 8 years of his life was in the Canary islands. ummm he obviously knows spanish like super perfectly and mine is already getting better haha. umm he is just so cool and we are having so much fun!!!
so lets start of with what happened with his very first cita here in valdepeñas haha . we went over to an investigators house and she wasnt there but we have a good relationship with her husband. ha or so i thought. i never have had a problem with him so we have to call up to the window to get his attention because the timbre doesnt work on their house ha so he hears us and has a glass of beer in his hand and throws it on the ground!!! like super fuerte haha it was intense and we were just like woah. he comes to the balcony and starts yelling at us. of course we can see that he is drunk but he starts yelling and saying how he isnt christian. his wife isnt christian and how we cant even say that we are christian. haha needless to say Triana was getting scared. The investigators cousin was there and he comes to the window and was like wait wait wait ill come down.. haha so he comes down and we walk into the little hallway before the stairs that go up to their door and he is saying how they are having marital problems and that he is drunk and stuff and so we are like yeah we know we dont want to start problems we will come back later. Right then The investigator comes to the stairs and was like well what are you waiting for youre here come on up. so we look at eachother and didnt want to make him any more mad and we didnt feel horrible about it so we went up and listened to him vent for 40 minutes. we tried sharing some scriptures and stuff but when they are drunk its really hard. haha they offered to make us food and then when we said we had to go back to piso cause of curfew he got upset again. Dont worry nothing bad happened ha it was just quite a first impression for my little hijo.
haha
Other than that the work is going really good we are just doing what we can and chugging along. i dont really have much to say except we are thinking about starting up mutual. we dont know why there isnt one right now but thats the plan. we are starting with the youth and then we will work our way up to the adults. trying new things here in valdepeñas haha.
oh the other thing . we decided to touch doors on this one street and it took us 4 hours to do just one street haha it was so much fun though! haha anyways i think that is all.
just the thought this week that elder triana and i are working on...
WHAT DOES YOUR FAITH SAY THAT YOU CAN DO? just know there is areason that is the first principle and ordinance of the gospel. i love you all! be safe and keep your heads up!



N

Day 254

ok so life is going great over here. i just want to share the great news!!! lets see kelsey has a kid that is over 1. Portia is Pregnant and he will be born in September. well i would like to say that the succession is still in progress. i beat carson. Im pregnant. im expecting and the due date is August 10th ... aka IM TRAINING! haha its pretty intense of a feeling to know that i will be with a kid that seems like i was right where he is yesterday but im not scared we are going to have so much fun!
ummm i made the blog that was really cool!!! i hope you saw me in all of the photos that we had and that you enjoyed the brad classics of picture taking. dont worry the gespacho state of being is over and lots of people have seen the video but im definitely not the first to throw up. but if you are thinking you can im going to be bringing the recipe home and we will have a show down to see if you can really do it! its not as easy as it seems!!!

haha ... ummm im trying to get important things out. Zone conference was SUCH A BLAST i learned things that i never knew existed in the scriptures it just blows my mind. plus we had to teach presidente and hermana clegg in front of everyone hence the matching ties. we had to do it... we just had to . so i was in malaga and i passed by some of the homies down there i was on splits with Elder Hales from the MTC it was really really fun! and i got to see a lot of the friends from the mission. La mancha is the best district though haha we were going so crazy at Zone conference and now it seems like even though no one knows where it is everyone wants to be in la mancha haha and it is hard to be here becasue of the way the people are but im glad i am here. our district is the best.

ummm i think thats about all i have to share today just keep working hard. when you arent thinking of your self you are happier! its better that way too and the time goes by faster haha i love you all!!!

Day 247

Subject: ké ponokekioakua

ok cool story email i guess. 8months down 1/3 of the way done and going strong!!!!
first off. you are probably wondering what the subject says at all haha its not a spanish word. so take a breather there when i was in the mtc in provo in my zone there we had elder kunahi parker. from hawaii. haha he was way cool and he gave me this name "ke´ponokekioakua" which in english translates to righteous child of God. i dont know if that has been mentioned before but i was reminded of it when i took out my beautiful blanket aunt kristi made for me for my companions so that we can plan where elder rencher will sign it. We are both feeling like he will be leaving on the tenth which means we will find out this thursday or so. Just a fun little get to know elder bradley experience. and yes. you will all call me that someday. hahaha
next so that you all stop worrying my foot is good. the mission nurse says its something i will probably jsut deal with the rest of my life but only when i exert a lot of energy in my feet. so it will be off and on throughout my mission. as for now it doesnt hurt and we are good.
on to other health issues. I am not a spaniard. i cannot lie and say that i am. want to know the story??? ok well here in spain the make all their food. there isnt really much known as fast food restaurants. of course that doesnt mean there isnt mcdonalds and stuff becasue there is but they usually go to restaurants bars or just make their own food. soo, on sundays after church we go to a menos activos house and share a message and then the mother gives us food. they have this thing here in spain called "Gespacho" which the best way i can explain it to you is a weird v-8 juice thats like vegetables and stuff. as those of you who know me texture stuff is not elder bradley in any way shape or form and to add to the fun they put hard boiled egg chunks into it. now most of you are probably thinking not too bad, i mean i had worse on my mission. and i remember before the mission everyone was saying get used to eating weird things on the mission. NOTHING i repeat, NOTHING PREPARES YOU FOR GESPACHO! haha. so A BLESSING for this experience starts at the beginning. we dont eat the food at their house. we take it back to our piso and eat it there. Elder rencher can eat anything. he bet me 10 euros if i drank the rest of it. so i accepted. i mean 10 euros. why not? i poured the first cup and as all my sisters know i dont have the strongest stomach in the world in fact they are laughing right now reading this because i have probably the weakest one in the world. i BARELY TOOK A SIP and i threw all my food up. it felt so good to throw up,... (it didnt taste as good as the french toast i threw up in Bishop reeces driveway) and now that i think about it i think that was the last time i threw up its been a while but it was horrible and im just glad that we were in our own piso becaue i just couldnt handle it.

alright now on to some other stories,
all of you should know emlio by now. the man who was never happy who wouldnt accept a book of mormon from us and it was just trying so hard to get anything out of him, it was like each time trying to convince him that life was fun and it took the whole time and all of our energy to do it. well we were doing an english class activity on pronunciation of words. well one of the only things we have in english is a liahona so we had given him one to practice with. one day we wanted to do it again so elder rencher left to look for one in our chapel. i proceeded to talk to emelio about life, how his day was going and so on. I asked him why he thinks life is always so bad. it couldnt be. so a little bit back and forth and we found the problem. part of it is the poor in the world, another he misses his mother who died a while ago and finally he compares himself to everyone. So i proceeded to tell him how elder rencher and i are different, we came from different backgrounds and so on. he tried to say how we know eachother before becasue we are both missionaries. i explained how the process works. he was surprised to know that he knows elder rencher longer than i have. well we finally got him to admit a couple things.. HE IS HAPPY! he ADMITTED HE IS HAPPY, he also TOOK A BOOK OF MORMON! he finally accepted one! AND the final one is he wants to meet with us more than just thursdays and saturdays during english class so we will start going on tuesdays too. i have invited him to baptism more than 3 times already but he hasnt accepted yet haha and the other thing, he doesnt know what he is getting into over here. it might take some time but i think we can get him baptized haha he is just a funny man.

Thank you family for the package. starbursts and sourpatch kids are AMAZING!!! they dont have candy that compares to american candy over here. haha starbursts just have the flavor in your mouth even 10 minutes after your done eating 1 here the flavor of the candies are gone before you swallow them haha. but i have to be honest, i didnt recognize ryker at all. HE IS SO BIG!!!! and i am so happy he blew me some kisses! haha that was so cool!!!! definitely a good thing to see, thank you :)

anyways life is going good i get to go back to malaga this weekend to have a zone conference and we will be doing exchanges down there for a little bit while we wait for the train and what not so i am hoping that i get to see some of the people that i was able to teach down there and see some of the homies. anyways other than that everything is going really well i miss you all keep doing good!


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So seriously we were laughing because he can't even clean out the center part of a pumpkin so it was just a matter of time. We sent him a new camera and put pictures of home and a home movie of his nephew Ryker. Fun times!

Day 240

Here is the latest from Brad!! The Jake mentioned in the email is his friend, Jake Snelton from Orem.

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alright,
well this week was good we met a black guy from boston haha he was the first guy we saw and he was like are you guys american? and i was like yeah and he was like what part? and i was like im from utah he is from washington and then he was like im from boston. and i tried to get more out of him so we talked. and then i was like can we get your direction and he was like yeah so he gave it to us and then he was like if you guys ever need a drink.... of water or anything yeah you got a house there!! man I LOVE AMERICA hahahaha oh man ... it was so funny so we passed by again on sunday and saw him sitting on a bench and we gave him a book of mormon and taught him about it and he was like wait you are from utah right? and i was like yeah he was like i used to like your team down there and we started talking jazz. and we were talking about karl malone john stockton jeff hornaseck and all of that ... elder rencher had NO idea what we were talking about haha elder rencher isnt big on sports he doesnt really know ANYTHING about anything so yeah it was funny and then elder rencher and i last night were talking about the superbowl and the only one he knew was seattle and pittburg when pittsburg killed them haha and he was surprised i knew.. it was so funny. he thinks its a waste of time.
anyways this week was a good week. my foot is getting better kind of haha i mean i guess im just getting used to how it hurts cause it hurts but still... i dont know and i have hamstrings that are bad haha i dont know... its all these trials its just so amazing i love them and the reason i do... i am going to give you guys some homework . Elder Paul V Johnson more than conquerors through him that loved us. MY FAVORITE TALK.. read it. spare time if you are busy. JAKE GOT HIS MISSION CALL TO ARGENTINA!!!!! he sent me an email that was pretty exciting news. haha but other than that things are still going here nothing much to report this week .. i am excited for the camera and all of that jazz thanks so much for everything you do! love you!!!!! let me know if there is anything i can do to help!

Day 233

Here is his email for the week! Always excitement wherever he goes!

Thank you for your emails!!
haha you guys are so funny and mom... why are you trying to ruin my tom sawyerness.. i just read the blog. haha super funny and yes so true. but they dont need to know that haha. umm things are good here. so i have had another "trial" now dont get worked up.. i have nothing more to lose haha i didnt come with much our here. buttt. i had to call the mission nurse. i was walking down the street and i just wasnt able to walk anymore. we dont know what happened but we sat down on the bench and gave the mission nurse a call up and he was like what??? haha he didnt know what happened. so he gave me some stuff to do for my foot. ibuprofin and ice yada yada. well.. he said its he thinks its an enflamed tendon or something in my foot. i am good now we just had to do a lot of wobbling down the streets this week. haha it has been a funny week. something as well that we started doing were tender mercies journals and we right down all the good things that happened in the week which has been a blessing. its starting to help me be just more positive in all the days. even if it feels like the worst day ever. haha its been a blessing thats for sure. always looking at the little good things and not the bad things at all.
alright we are going to pause the story. we are right now in the youth center here at valdepeñas and we dont konw what happened but elder rencher just lost his camera. ......... uhhhh i am sick of this place right now, they are calling the police right now. haha its such a hassle. the lady saw that he had it in his hands and so they are calling the police and they are probably going to come and then its going to be a mess with everyone. haha oh the stories of the mission.
oh man. anyways. things are just a trial right now. for dads questions. its just a branch there are only like 10 people that come to church and its vacation times so thats how many are at chuch counting us. the president works crazy hours so its hard to do anything . the elders quorum consists of just us as the missionaries and like one or 2 others. all the active members that we have live in a pueblo that is 30 min away by bus. so its hard to get them to come and do anything with us. its not that we cant and they dont want to its just the way the circumstances are. and we cant do any stake activities because thats an hour and a half away and people here dont have cars. so its just a lot of thngs going backwards and stuff.
ok update. the police arent really doing anything . they just showed up and they are just kind of acting like .. well your out of luck. but they are searching people now. so i dont know .... this is one of the things i dont like about spain right now. but i love it sometimes. just dumb people.
ok well i dont have a whole lot of time. just know that i am doing well and that things are going. oh and we think elder rencher is leaving this transfer because he has been here for like 5 and a half months its about just his time. oh man ... ok well the way this week is starting it might be really interesting haha everyone is yelling now.. i love it!! alright. have a great week!!!

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Email #2

ok well i dont konw what to do as far as pictures go.
i can look for a camara here or whatever, i just dont know how much money i have on my personal card
ummmm let me know? ha or whatever you have in mind so that i can do it and get it done. ok i love you!
keep being the best mom!


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Alright already. I will send you a camera -- Are you impatient or what?

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Email #3

they just found the camera in the bathroom and they are yelling at the 2 kids haha YES I LOVE THE POLICE when they get mad at the kids areound here but its found haha no worries. life is better now! hhaha ok for reals now love you!





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Day 226

Funny Story -- I was talking to someone this week and I said that Brad was having a struggle in the area that is in because he probably isn't able to just smile and get people to do things the way he could here at home. From this letter apparently I am wrong again. But I am glad that he is using his skills to get the job done. And by the way-- he has NEVER read "Tom Sawyer" as many times as I have tried to get him too. So that is just a hilarious reference. Happy Days!

hola todos.
i hope your holidays are awesome. here. they have holidays it seems other week. and its summer vacations so every thing is REALLY SLOW!. haha umm we are doing good we had presidente and hermana clegg this last week as you coul see on the blog. we had to teach them and we had our interviews. afterwards we talked and elder rencher and i are thinking that he will be leaving on august 10th. but we will see. there is no absolute there of course but this is his 4th transfer here so we will see how that goes. umm this week was another hard one. not many people could visit with us so it was a great big week of looking for people and trying to get the little members we have excited to help us. haha. umm we are still doing everything we can. i think. i mean it might be something little that we arent doing haha but yesterday it was funny elder Hatch our district leader i was giving him our numbers and we were talking about whats going on in our area and he was just like "This is a great learning opportunity i mean you will be looking back on this area when you have 3 kids and your wife is sick and you have financial problems and be like man Valdepeñas was worse i can get through this" i know as a leader he is inspired over us as missionaries but i really dont want him prophesying things like that hahahaha it was obviously done in a little bit of a joking matter. anyways you are all awesome keep living the life. enjoy it all keep reading your scriptures and praying and all of the stuff you need to. life in spain is going. its kind of actually going really fast ohhh... and quick side note the guy lastweek that smiled for 7 minutes striaght HE SAID HIS OWN PRAYER!!! haha i dont know how iwas able to get him to do that but i did. it was amazing!!
oh and the compliment of the week. Elder rencher told me that i remind him of tom sawyer. haha which. i take as I AM VERY SMART!!! haha he says he is baffled at how i get people to do things for me and everything like that haha. i think its an art. haha but a secret for those out there who look to me as an example. if you make it SOUND better than it is people will think its more FUN than it us and its all a mental game out here. for example dont call it contacting. call it go out and make a new friend or meet people. dont call it planning call it getting ready for tomorrow .. dont call it praying call it having a conversation with someone who cares. dont call it bring a friend to the capilla call it be an angel and help give miracles in other peoples lives .. dont call it painting a fence call it THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE!!!!!!! and then share it! haha :) love you!

Day 219

I'm not sure what he is thinking but I am not mad. He just needs to learn these life lessons and I am sooo thankful that he is learning them. He is a great kid-- always has been and this will just make him better.

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buenos dias
espero que el dia este bien. y que esteis disfrutando las fiestas! haha life is going over here. there are miracles happening left and right. not the miracles we exactly want but who will say no to a miracle. yes i am sure you have heard mom say "oh my gosh im going to kill him" or mumble under her breath "what is he thinking" but yes i can admit i was the biggest idiot and lost my camera with all my pictures that i have taken so far. but life goes on. we cant dwell on the past. SOOOO....
lets talk miracles
1. emelio is a man who hates life doesnt like it pretty much doesnt wanna be here anymore. he... SMILED for 7 minutes straight. the reason i think he stopped was cause his cheeks hurt a little bit. haha it was SO AMAZING. he comes to english class and i changed things up. it was my lesson but you knwo how i get bored with books andeverything so i decided we are here why not. lets sing songs. but what are the ONLY songs missionaries can sing? so we went to the piano opened a hymn book. (sister stiman thanks for teaching me what you did on the piano sorry i didnt learn more) but we picked out a song and wen with it . i am achild of god first in spanish next in english . the spirit was so strong. then we said THANK YOU!! kind of like the one lepor. thanky ou emelio for changing my life and being the example i need. oh my gosh. its amazing how something so small and simple changes peoples perspectives in an instant.
2. we spent an hour talking about pre earth life with a family. so stressful but to see that the family realized that they knew eachother before this life and that they had the opportunity to be together forever brought SMILES to their faces.
3. we went with a member who to a lesson and the lady at the timbre said she had to shower we waited 15 minutes and then she shut the door in our face saying come back later. cause she couldnt do it. he was like holy cow i dont know how they do it i was a little upset with it because that was wasted time but the Elders had big SMILES on their faces. what an amazing testimony.

i just want to say this. even though we have trials in out lives. car accidents, arguements, not recieving emails from the family, or losing a camera. its ok. if you look for the littler things and PUT A SMILE on your face. you will see SO many more miracles in your lives. keep doing the things you need to .. i miss you all!!! havea great week!

Day 212

alright i dont have a whole lot of time becauase we are at a different locutorio so i cant go over a little bit so this week will be short and sweet haha sorry!!!!!! ummm lets just say it was a good week it was a solid week.. im super tired because we have been working hard but man.. im just tired haha my zone leader told me that that is a good sign .. which i wont argue with it jsut sucks haha. umm we taught a lot i got a romanian investigator who thinks his heart isnt clean enough to pray so i just did what i was taught.. repeat after me. and he did it .. TWICE .. its so funny causeill say gracias por el Evangelio and he will say .. eso es ingles haha its super funny. another guy doesnt want another book to read so what we do is open to a verse and he will read it and ill say do you understand or what do you think or how do you feel.. he usually says yeah it makes sense i dont feel anything i dont want to think so ill just say keep reading haha elder rencher and i thought it was funny i dont know why i was just like keep going. haha umm the most frustrating part of the week as always... the dreaded sunday. NO ONE COMES TO CHURCH so we are working on new things to do. and yeah we are just fun and happy and excited to keep going. sorry its short its hot and i need to go buy my food for this week. i miss you all tell everyone i say hi. tell jackie she has to write me a 3 page handwritten letter. by august first. haha anyways ill write you all next week. this is always the fastest hour. haha send me pictures and letters!!!!! i want to see you guys more!!!

Day 205

Sorry this is going up late but he didn't get it to us until later today! Usually it is in my inbox by about 4:30am but today it was 11:40.





ok well this week was really good. im glad you all see that you can believe me when i say im doing good that i am doing good. but if you need to see the sick pictures of me with elder esponja .. thats ok too hahahaha. ummm lets see.. we had a great week i dont really know what to tell you we just taught and walked. a ton .. my legs hurt my ankle is dead haha but im fine. i promise, THANKS FOR THE PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha i forgot the feeling that peanut butter has of sticking to the top of your mouth! i missed it! haha umm oh the other thing.. we walked into piso yesterday and there were flies EVERYWHERE it was super nasty .. but dont fret we took care of it. since we get home and 10:15 anyways. lets see.. haha Portia.. thank you for your flashlight haha because i want to explain what we did. we have 2 rolls of tape. we put the tape on top of eachother with the holes in the middle and stood the flashlight up shining towards the ceiling ... we got a glass bowl and filled it with water and went to bed hoping that the flies would be attracted to the light and die in the water. IT WORKED. all the flies that were on the roof and stuff in the morning were all in the water. the reason i explained so well is because i forgot my camera chord so i cant send the pictures we took haha shame shame. anyways if you have fly problems it works. haha. ummm
im glad life is going good the days are totally mixing together i kind of dont know what to say to you guys its hard to keep track of what has happened. we are trying to work with the members but its hard when they live so far away.. they life in membrilla which is another pueblo we can only make it there as missionaries one time a week. um to give you an i dea its like driving from home to moms school away. haha so yeah its kind of hard to work with the members but we are doing the best that we can.
we were in ciudad real today for p day and went to this .. i dont even know what its called a random lake in the middle of no where but its like a tourist spot .. again the chord to my camera.. but it was way cool and im way glad we did it. umm other than that we need to get out working soon so im going to wrap up. thanks for all you guys are doing to support me out here. im having fun and the stories are amazing. let me know if i can do anything for you guys. haha its just hot out here thats my biggest problem is keeping the energy that i need to keep going. but its coming i might send a letter to my mission president to ask if we can go UPS status and just wear short dress pants haha we will see how that goes. anyways. other than that i dont have a whole lot to say just a lot of work to be done and a lot of trying to get in the doors. haha its nice though if you ask people for water they let you in and then you sit down get to know them and then start teaching but yeah my time is like out .. i love you all!!!!!!!!

Day 198

Yes they listen to black music

hola todos.
espero que estéis bien. this week was a rougher week. but no need to fear haha im still happy. its just frustrating. thats all. and dad that was a cool story. but... i was just thinking about the walk and talk idea. great idea. but there is no where around here where people can just gather around kind of a thing like that. plus we would need the members and all of them live in manzanares which is a 25 minute bus ride away from here. so yeah. but mostly there isnt like a nice place like grass.. i havent really seen grass since ive been im spain. haha it doenst exist except on the futbol fields. which is ok. haha anyways we will continue working.





Lady making hankerchief
ummm.
lets see. this week was probably the worst of my mission. no one wanted to listen to us. haha but the funny thing is elder rencher and i just went crazy. its funny how when you have a goal to get done and it seems like life or death to get done (teaching 20 lessons) so that people dont call you (like the ap or president) and think that you are just screwing around. but haha you just find any way to teach a lesson. its amazing the ways you can get people to listen to you. haha. we see peopleup in their windows standing on their balconys and we just start talking to them. and if they say they arent interested ... oh well we start with the first lesson right there. .. so far no success doing that . but its part of the life haha . so the moral of the story .. keep your head up in the hard times cause you dont know who will be higher than you can see that needs the help still. if that makes sense.


Elder Esponja
umm.
im just trying to think of things we have been doing. thats out of the norm. i cant really think of anything too crazy yet. we kind of just go out and try talking to everyone that wants to listen its pretty much if we can get in the door we usually get an invite back. its just getting in the door. and finding the times that they can do it. haha
just keep doing what your supposed to be doing. keep working hard with all the stuff but dont forget to have fun. .. for example as a missionary. im sure all the returned missionaries know. but the others might not. contacting is THE BEST. usually you wouldnt think so. i love contacting in the street because you can make it SO MUCH FUN. and you get to talk to some crazies. all the bums in the street love it when we walk by. they always say hi to us and have a smile on their faces haha its cool. or this other time i was talking to this lady and she had like a 2 year old girl in a stroller and I was trying to get a choca.. or a high five and she wouldnt do it so we were just laughing and then she gave me one of her chips. haha when you have fun with something or if you make something that you dont like doing fun then man. its the best ever haha
anyways life is good. time is flying its weird. haha
anyways i love you all!!!

Day 191

well this is fun. we had an interesting week. first of so everyone is on the same page. a pueblo is just a little town. i dont know what to compare it too. but its like 20'000 people which is a handful but its still not that many. we walk from all sides of the pueblo every day at least 3 times a day it takes about 20 minutes to get from one side to the other. we kind of give uup on saying we are the missionaries and try just saying hi to people so that we can at least talk to the mabout something. many dont want anything to do with us but if we dont bring up gospel things then they talk to us more. so having the advantage i just talk about futbol. and yesi know that spain beat usa 4-0. and that nadal beat federer in the tournament. the only things that are ever open around here are bars and they always have the games on so we just poke our heads in and ask them haha. so its nice lets see what else. Elder rencher and i argue like every day but in reality it brings spice into our lives here. we have a timbre so if anyone ever wants to get in they have to push our button kind of a thing ... WELL... our piso is pretty cool we have a camara so we can see who is down there. well this device has a power button. so i can turn it on from my piso. one day for spanish study i figured i would talk to the people at the bottom. it forces me to use spanish and they actually talk to me. So i turned it on and turned on the sound. but i thought i would have some fun with it. SO.... i see the guy opening the door with his key and i say "hola señor como está" and he says he is good and i say .. look i have a problem. i seemed to have lost my keys. are they down there? and he looks around and goes on to say no. so i say well are they on the ground? (dont forget i see everything he does on the camara) haha and he says no. so i say its really important that i get my keys. (i see on the camara this lady walking by) so i say look my sister is coming will you at least open the door for her? so he says ok. haha and i say she is wearing a red shirt and her name is maria. so he talks to that lady and she has no idea what he is talking about and keeps walking so i thank him for his time and let him go.
it was the best spanish study i have had in valdepeñas. haha but dont worry. we are still working hard too.
elder hamilton is my zone leader and he was giving us aride home ontuesday from district meeting. and he ended up putting the wrong gas in the car. so we got home late that night and on friday nobody of our 5 set citas could do it and nobody that we passed by could do it. so its been a great week. we are just continuing on growing as a companionship and trying to figure our what this place needs.
our rama has 5 solid families. 3 of which are just couples. haha there are about 20 members in our rama (counting us as missionaries) i think yesterday we had 11 people at church which was a lot. haha it seemse like. but yeah anyways we are just chugging . im always tired i didnt know i would have my legs hurt from walking around all day. haha anyways i hope all is oging well!!! love you all!

Hola in Espanol - 6 months

It is hard to believe that it has been 6 months! but officially on June 1st he will have been gone that long. Sometimes it feels like it has been forever and sometimes it is like where has the time gone. I'm just glad that he is learning things.

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ok well im going to start off with the exciting fun story of my life this last week and if i have time move on to the other stuff. So. this week was hard. all we do is contact and just try to get in with some people. its amazing the things that you do when you have abolutely nothing. "Hey! Lady! have you heard the news?? there is a living prophet today on the earth! would you like to hear more?" ha yeah that was me doing a contact and yes i did say that. haha. so anyways i thought i would have some fun. Elder rencher and i had absolutly no money. we were breaking into our emergency funds so that we could buy our food. and we have a dishwasher in our piso here. we ran out of dishsoap for the dishwasher but we had the palmolive style of hand soap so i said lets put that in the dishwasher. i wanted bubbles EVERYWHERE. because that would just be so exciting and yeah. i dont know. so i filled it up with some soap and he started freaking out about how i was going to make a mess and i was just so excited. so we started it on the intense mode to get some love going for us. it went through the whole cycle and no bubbles. ON THE OUTSIDE haha so we just took that as a bummer it worked .. it actually cleaned the dishes and yeah. what a bummer. it went how it was supposed to and didnt give us a cool story at all. then we opened it and there were bubbles on the bottom. there were more than we expected haha but still not exactly what i was imagineing(with the whole kitchen full of bubbles) so it had worked a little bit but wasnt a mess that i was looking for.
Umm. We had a couple completely different experiences in one day (yesterday) we went to this guys house and he let us in and we taught him lesson 0 which is just introducing everything and then he said to come back. we went to this other ladies house and she was finally home and we were just saying how we wanted to share our message with them and her husband was like why. i like what i have and he said i know what all the religions have to offer and i said do you know what ours has to offer? haha he said no. what a surprise. so then i said what we have will bless your family and he said will you be giving us money and i said look we dont have money and he shut the door in our face. ha. it was pretty interesting.
anyways as far as that goes. im calling this portion of my mission the learning face becasue the most im getting out of this area is studying. so maybe thats what it is. cause im not seeing much else. anways i hope all is well keep doing what you are supposed to. keep reading keep praying keep being who you are. because your example is what people see not the words you say.! love you all!!

Day 177

Got an email today.

This is what it said.

Hey sorry it's late:

c/seis de junio 44, 3'B
13300 Valdepenas (Cuidad Real)
Espana

is my new piso, FYI

Sorry that its been a while. we had the travelling ap´s with us and so we didnt have a p day this week. so we are taking it this week. my new comp is SO MUCH better than my last. we have a good relationship. he just wants to be a missionary which is really good. its just hard because he always has to be doing somethign but he never makes the decisions. technically im the senior comp but i dont know the area and he is always like well what do we do now? i have no idea so we go and contact and stuff. he is really excited to do the work. but he runs like everywhere. even on p day. haha we had a talk today. i said Elder. we are going to enjoy valdepeñas the one day that we can and we are going to walk slow and do what we want to do becasue all the other times its different. he has a hard time with walking slow. he worries about all the little things in life ha its funny and it just reminds me of when i started with elder west. ha we are really really good friends we have already opened up and shared a lot about life. we just have different views on missionary work. so we are learning. its just once something comes up we have to do it right then and stuff and i feel like we are annoying a lot of the investigators that we have so we are slowing down a littl and just working with what we got. eating the food we have on the plate and when that is to a pace that is controlled go for seconds. if that makes sense. i love elder rencher (my new comp.) its just the travelling ap´s and myself think that he needs to relax a little bit and it will start coming together. he is a good example to me. i just... this is the hardest thing i have ever done. this last week all i have been doing is contacts. thats it .. i only taught one lesson the whole week. and in the contacts we are contacting people we have already contacted. haha its kind of funny but its just they dont want anything ... NOTHING.. from us. and its frustrating. we go out and serve them and ways i never would have thought of because when you have nothing to do then you start getting really creative. its still not working. im having a hard time but i think im learnign a lot too. ummm.. im trying to think of what else. the earthquake we found out by reading a newspaper on the bus but i didnt feel anything. life is good . im in a little pueblo the members that are active are strong. thats good. but we dont have much going on. i dont think my legs have ever hurt this much in my life. even with soccer . ha i think its funny. but i gained a little wait in malaga and ive already lost what i gained there here. we walk EVERYWHERE and the members that are active live in a different pueblo. so we dont eat with the members here so we cook our own food. pretty much it has just consisted of peanut butter and marmalada sandwhiches. which im already sick of.
in all seriousness im doing good. just tired a lot and what not. frustrated but elder rencher is a good missionary. thats all he wants to do and i get caught up a lot. man i just want to be brad still. haha im still working hard its jsut yeah haha anyways im doing good really. dont worry too much
keep doing what you need to. keep spoiling the girls .. cause thats all thats ever happened haha and then spoil me when i come home. i have been talking to my comps about my dream man cave. you know we have a lot of time to talk about a lot of things seeing as we are always together. so i have some pretty specific details i want for that .. anyways love you all!!!


Well, I guess the good news is that he didn't make a wrong turn and end up in France.
At least I can stop having the worry in the back of my mind. He successfully transferred. This is coming from a mom who on her mission drove to the mission home and exchanged companions, every time I transferred. I checked out his apartment on google map and it looks like a typical Spanish town. It looks a little poorer to me than Malaga but I think that he is having a great time.

Happy Days, he is safe.

Day 174

NO EMAIL TODAY. I hope that I do not have to wait until next week.

Day 167

Well, I tried to post earlier in the week but blogspot was being weird. We got this email from the Mission on Thursday. I didn't even know that there was an earthquake but was thankful all were safe.

To the concerned families of our dear missionaries,



As you may or may not be aware, two earthquakes struck southeast Spain Wednesday causing significant damage to buildings, injuring many and killing at least 10 unfortunate victims. The epicenter of the quakes – with magnitudes of 4.4 and 5.2 – was close to the town of Lorca which is approximately 50km (31 miles) southwest of Murcia, Spain.



Richard Clegg, President of the Spain Malaga Mission, has reported that members and missionaries are all safe. Miraculously, the two young missionary Elders assigned to the Lorca area had planned days in advance to work in a town outside of the affected zone and received no injury. The mission president is currently in Murcia at a conference with all missionaries in the surrounding areas.









Here is his email for the week:

man
this week has been the hardest week of my life. do you know how hard it is to babysit a 20 year old kid. its not easy. but dont worry about that because my hardest week of my life is coming to an end. i wont go into very much detail because it just pisses me off thinking about it. BUT.. something that helped is transfers are coming up AND IM LEAVING!!!!!! im going to my second area its called VALEPEÑAS .. its up by madrid im leaving andalucia and they will be speaking better spanish so i will be able to understand them better. haha so thats good news. This really has been the hardest thing that i have ever done. i dont know if i have been more exhausted doing emails or not. just always trying to get him to work and stuff is just not working out. but soon it wont be my problem.

im excited to leave but at the same time its hard to say by to my family that i have made here. i love them. My investigators that i found didnt want me to leave. The crazy ladies are what we call them and they pretty much gauranteed their baptsim. but just so you know i am not here for the numbers of baptisms because thats just not me. if i baptize them i mean thats cool but id rather have the relationship with them maybe thats why im leaving because other people care more about the numbers and stuff.

uhmmmm im still chugging life is crazy right now. i cant think very straight cause everything is changing. if there is anything that you need to send me send it to the mission office and then ill email you my new mailing address for my new piso in the week that is coming. just know that im still happy its just hard when the mission is the hardest thing i have done and i have to be with people that are making it even more harder than it needs to be. anyways i dont have much time we are having an american breakfast today with some members.

ill update more next week i love you all your in my prayers. keep your heads up. the lord works in mysterious ways i still am trying to figure out why i had these last 3 weeks the way i did.