Curtis, Alex

Carabanchel: One of the largest (Latter-Day Saint) chapels in Spain sits in a fairly normal corner of Madrid. Three huge wards (Madrid 3rd, 7th, and 9th) meet there, there are five missionary companionships, and the entire thing is one district that see each other all the time and combine their efforts constantly. The work's been going really well there recently! They're in our zone, and all three elder companionships are trainer+trainee, so Elder Harvath and I decided to go on a string of exchanges to see how we could help out! My son Elder Romrell was first up, so while his son, Elder Simmos, was in Alcorcón with Elder Harvath, I visited him in the Madrid 9th ward on Wednesday. He gave an awesome training to his district council about our finding mentality, and how we should always be looking for opportunities to share our message, with anyone. We also started teaching a new Spanish friend of theirs who really felt like he needed God more in his life, so we talked to him abou...

"Si Dios quiere" means "if God wants". Kinda like saying "God willing". It's a pretty common saying here that I don't like very much because it makes God sound like a puppet master or a Greek pagan god who sits on a cloud and arbitrarily decides how your day is going to go. People use it to soft-commit to things, like planning to meet with their friends in the park if the weather is kinda bad or they don't know their work schedule yet. And for us it's a pretty common, if frustrating and theologically problematic, response to church invites. This week we ran into Angela and Cecilia (two of our awesome Dominican friends) hanging out on a bench with Magally, a member from Venezuela. They're amazing friends of ours, and Dominicans have the amazing life outlook that anything can be funny so we're always laughing and joking around together. Before we left we asked if we'd see them at church. They've both come several times and lov...

The rain mostly stopped! Mostly. It started to come back Saturday night after we played volleyball in the park for NDH and since then it's rained a few nights and constant downpour is supposed to come back this weekend. What a shame that the Bible has full step-by-step instructions, measurements, and material lists to build the tabernacle but the Book of Mormon doesn't do the same for the Jaredite barges.  Alcorcón's still awesome: Harry and his family got baptized a few months ago, and they love the gospel. We wanted to help them do family scripture study consistently so we challenged them to read together every night for 30 days. If they do it we have to find a way to paint cat whiskers on our faces and send them a selfie. The things we do to help people strengthen their faith... We taught Jordan about the Plan of Salvation this week, and he had lots of questions. That's awesome because the people who have no questions, comments, or concerns about anything we're t...

"Madrid forecasts record-breaking rain unseen since 1972 and requests that citizens do not leave their homes" -News headline I saw. Our phones even went off with a PSA siren. Joke's on them, my Spanish residency is expired so I'm not a citizen and Elder Harvath and I have an important message to share. We're heading out whether they like it or not.  I'm getting settled here in Alcorcón! Looked over last week's email and It looks like I didn't say much about what's going on.  We went to San Sebastián de los Reyes (just the part of Madrid where the mission is centered) for MLC early this week, and it was nice to already be in Madrid and not have to travel so much. We had a cool P-day and dinner at the mission home, and MLC was really productive. Back in the area theres a lot to talk about this week- First of all, I feel like I'm living in a snow globe. Not because of the weather or anything (I guess now it's a rain globe) but this area is muc...