Curtis, Alex

Lots of stuff going on... Many of you will probably get emails from other missionaries explaining this but there's a new edition of Preach My Gospel and they overhauled our planning app to match it. It's red now! A lot of stuff has just been updated for the way missionary work is done nowadays, and it's a cool sign that the work is being hastened and that the Church is being led by a living prophet. Go watch his video explaining the new PMG, it's pretty cool. We had P-day, district council, and exchanges with the elders from Lugo to kicking off last week, and I got to work with Elder Monteiro again. I took him on his first exchange back during his training in the islands and now he's a district leader. During DC he really showed that he knows how to take care of the missionaries he serves with and help them be able to accomplish their purpose, bringing out the best in them the way Christ did. Love that guy. And we had some interesting stretched contacts and lessons,...

... but you can't take the islands out of Elder Curtis. We've been saying this a lot... I'm having a hard time shaking my Canarian slang, and keep calling busses guaguas (wawas). A member somehow had a bag of Canaries-exclusive gofio in his house. (it's like cereal) And we had a lot of canceled appointments this week, which is more like the islands than the normal way things go up here in the north. But we got a lot done this week! Marian and Daniel and their kids run a snack shop but we've been trying to invite then to church. It's been tough since they're getting married pretty soon and they've been busy with that. (last week we didn't even see Daniel because he was on a bachelor party trip) We're getting to know their kids Daniela and Fernando a bit better too. Anyway this week Daniel and Fernando came to church, met a lot of people, and seemed to enjoy it. Progress is progress.  We contacted a few referrals this week. One was a really soft-sp...

Or, the agency of others. We'll get to that in a sec. The Gijon ward (and by extension, my area, Áviles) is supposedly the promised land. I've heard this from most of the missionaries who served here before, including one of my trainers, my first district leader, and another cool guy I had some great exchanges with. One might say it was my destiny to arrive here. And as good as this area is, sometimes there's gonna be that one week. This week we set a ton of appointments and did our best, but had lots of lessons fall through or cancel. I guess that's just missionary work, but it's never fun in the moment. According to Elder Tapia it was an unusually slow week for such a great place. But people have their agency, we're not here to force anything on anyone. All we can do is set the appointments, share what we can, testify when we've got a chance, and invite people to come unto Christ.  Big moments?  We tried like four days in a row to meet with this guy named ...

Áviles, Asturias, Spain. This place is cool. It's not like I never left Arizona as a kid but I never went somewhere with this much GREEN. On our train ride in we just went through tunnels in between mountains without one break in the greeeeeeeen. And to finish explaining the title, I thought that Appletizer was a Canary-Islands-exclusive kind of thing but my new favorite soda is available here in the north. My new comp and I have decided to become the zone Appletizer borrachos, ya saben. And it's GREEN. Oh yeah, I met Elder Tapia on Thursday in Madrid, he's pretty famous in the mission because he's a machine. He's also from the Dominican Republic so I might be losing this Canarian accent pretty soon. We'll see. Let's rewind real quick so I can talk about all the stuff that had to happen for me to get here. We got transfer news on Monday but didn't get travel plans for a few days. On Tuesday we had a mission finding challenge to see how many people we cou...

Dear Brother and Sister Curtis,   It is our pleasure to inform you that we have assigned your son, Elder Curtis, to serve as a Zone Leader in the A Coruña Zone. This is both an honor and a significant responsibility.  We place great trust in our Zone Leaders to fulfill many leadership assignments within the mission.  We expect them to be exemplary missionaries in every aspect of their ministry. They are responsible to train, teach and guide the missionaries in their Zone with love and patience as they strive to become more converted, joy-filled and effective disciples of Jesus Christ and share His Gospel with others. This assignment will provide him many opportunities for learning and growth. He will participate in our Mission Leadership Council, Zone Leader Council and mission-wide training sessions.  He will help plan and carry out our zone conferences. He will go on exchanges with District Leaders and other missionaries in his Zone to help them improve their skill...