Curtis, Alex

Hasn't actually been that long since I wrote yall, but I'm definitely ready for P-day again. Zone conference in Bilbao was great, I got to see tons of people I know in the Vitoria zone and we had some cool trainings. President Eastland led a huge discussion on the organization of the priesthood and how that applies to the power and authority of our calling as missionaries. We gave our training on the baptismal covenant, which went really well. We threw in some clips from VeggieTales to keep everyone awake, and I don't think anyone's going to forget that the key to enduring to the end is knowing that "our God is a God of second chances. Beacuse truthfully, He is. When someone is baptized, they have two choices: 1. Be perfect forever so that you don't ruin the remission of sins that baptism brings 2. Repent daily and take the sacrament weekly, remaining active in the Christ's church to continue growing in your discipleship of Him I like option 2 a lot better,...

Pears! Title first-  Denisa and her family are from Romania, and live in our city, Avilés. Unfortunately the church is in Gijon so its a half hour on a bus every single week. She also has two kids, ages 4 and 2. Needless to say it's a sacrifice to come to church but she does it. The tricky thing is that once we arrive in Gijon, the second bus to get closer to the chapel passes every ten minutes, and usually leaves about thirty seconds after the big one arrives. The quickest members usually catch it and don't have to wait, but with two kids Denisa and her mother in law don't since they need to unload their stroller. We stick with them when this happens, since an extra 10 minutes waiting at a bus stop isn't the end of the world but it's not ideal. This Sunday though, 4-year-old Ronaldo noticed that shade tree next to the bus was filled with pears and we spent the ten minute wait picking free fruit. It was awesome and exactly what we needed that day. Ronaldo was so hap...

This place just got a lot less Dominican. On Elder Tapia's last day in the area we took some chances and tried to teach some lessons in the the morning before our 1 o'clock bus. Went awesome, we're working really hard with a brother and sister who are recent converts, and had a really cool chat with a lady named Milagros (literally 'miracles') about why we need the Book of Mormon. That last one only ended because we met literally inside the bus station and had to stop the bus from pulling away without us. It was a great lesson though and I'm pumped to teach her again soon. We headed up to Madrid, and I dropped off Elder Tapia with all the other condemned missionaries on their way home. We lost 15 great ones this transfer, tons of leaders, hard workers, trainers, and friends. Hard to imagine the mission without them. Future looks bright though. The new crop is slightly bigger than the group we lost. Of my previous companions, 2 remain on the mission and both are ...

Transfer news-  Elder Tapia's time has come, so we're going to Madrid this week to drop him off. He's not happy because he has to go back to his home and get released as a missionary in Pamplona during the Fiesta de San Fermin, where they do the Running of the Bulls and everyone gets drunk and the city erupts in "riotous living". It's basically the Golden Calf incident from Exodus except people use a Catholic Saint as an excuse to do it once a year. While he's busy doing that I'll pick up my new comp, Elder Johnson, and head back up to the promised land. We had a pretty good last week, went on exchanges with the distinct leader in Ourense, and got to use the absolute best tool in the missionary toolbox: "my companion's leaving, can we come say goodbye?" People we haven't been able to meet with in a month suddenly have free time. We've even got a few more to squeeze in before we leave on Wednesday. I'm not sure if I've ment...

This week went by pretty quick. Highlights: We had zone conference in A Coruña, the big city on the other side of our zone. We worked with the STLs and APs to do a big walkthough of the ideal day as a missionary, and how we should be finding, teaching, planning, contacting, studying, and everything else. It was also awesome because the A Coruña stake invited all their youth and YSA to attend or watch over Zoom, so we got to give them a taste of what being a missionary was like. We had a lot of technical difficulties but it mostly worked out and we had a great conference. We heard quite a few departing missionary testimonies since quite a few members of our zone are in their last transfer, and some cool ones from the YSA as well. Then afterwards, instead of taking a bus back to our area, the APs took us in their car so we could have an exchange. Road trip! Elder Baird is my old district leader from my training and Elder Janish was my ZL back on the islands so it was great to see them ag...