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!



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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!!!