This Transfer Flew By

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 mentioned Luminita's family by name yet, but we've been working on them all transfer. They're from Romania, but have been here in Spain forever. Who knew Spanish and Romanian were in any way related? I didn't, turns out they're brother languages like with Portuguese and Italian. Luminita's a mostly active member, her adult son Nikolas was baptized as a kid, his wife has a ton of interest in the church, and their kids (4 and 2) keep lessons from being boring. So we're focused on fully activating them all, getting Nikolas the priesthood, and having him baptize Denisa. They also always have people coming in and out of their backyard so we always make new friends. Yesterday they got up to greet someone and got crazy excited. "She's baptized with the Mormons too, come say hi!" And just like that we found someone else who was baptized as a kid, drifted away, and started a family. 


There's honestly a ton of work here. There have been like 20 baptisms in the last year but a ton of the recent converts need help to get active, shore up their testimonies, and receive the blessings of the gospel. Luckily we share the ward- and therefore the recent converts- with the Gijon hermanas. That's going to be a focus of ours next transfer. 


Food adventures-
Ate cachopo, which is a fried pork fillet stuffed with Spanish ham and cheese, several times, including on exchanges. 


Spaniards like tuna too much. They put it in salads and empanadas and scrambled eggs and basically pretend it doesn't taste like fish so they can use it however they want. Anyway in an attempt to set things right or at least stick to my principles I made tuna salad the other day, the American way. I'm clearly not very good at it because I got sick for a whole day and we could barely leave the apartment, and I blame the tuna. 


A few times this week, like when we were talking to Nikolas about the blessings of the priesthood for his family, or when Elder Tapia gave me a blessing the day I was sick, I thought a lot about the reality of the priesthood. The new Preach My Gospel edition puts more focus on this in the Restoration lesson, because the power and authority that leads the Lord's church today allows a father to bless his family, and was restored though a living prophet by heavenly messengers, sent from our Father in Heaven to bless the lives of all His children. That is a truth that I try to share every day.


Watch where you put tuna,
Elder Curtis


Pics
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RBSnbomskWKZ7pUXA
Exchanges and cachopo
Elder Tapia says que lo que (klk) all the time and he found grafiti of it
View we're looking at today
Fire pic on a bridge 
"Did you really just *not answer* the video call?"








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