Week 51 in Spain! (3rd week in Leganes)

11/10/14

Well, I survived yet another week of opening in Leganes. It was just as hard as last week. We had our leadership meeting this Tuesday at the President's house. Elder Shwenke and Franson and HermanaCostagliola and I all went together super early by Renfe (Spain’s train system) (definitely not my favorite). But we got there and everything was really good. It was really fun seeing other missionaries from my last area again like Hermana Shill, Elder Gentry and Elder Giforos. We finally got a phone at my leadership meeting, so now we can at least call people. We are just lost all the time because we don’t have a map and everyone fails on us. Opening is hard, but I know that you just need to work hard, stick it out, and blessings will come. We are laying a ground work so this area can be ready for those golden investigators. We do have one that is from Bulgaria. His name is Angel and he doesn’t speak very much Spanish or understand everything. He loves coming to church and hasn't failed on us once. We also got him a Book of Mormon in his language and is already in 2 Nephi. The spirit is crazy! I don't know how we are teaching him, but he's progressing. We'll see what happens there.

We were practicing singing one day in our elevator and I really just wanted to rock out, so I was singing this song super loud in the elevator and the door suddenly opens and this girl is just standing there. I get embarrassed and walk out of the elevator thinking it is the right floor, but nope! We're on the wrong floor so again I get embarrassed and get BACK IN the elevator. It was the longest ride down. Hermana Clements was just chuckling. Then we got out of the elevator and outside. Hermana Clements is laughing like a crazy and I'm just upset when all of the sudden this guy stops us and asks if we're missionaries. His name is Victor and apparently he was getting lessons in Malaga, but he just moved. He was being taught by Elder Nyland who was in my MTC group! Crazy! It's weird how small the world seems on the mission. I'm going to e-mail Elder Nyland to find out some more information about him. He seems really great though and he came to our culture activity. He said he always went to all the activities at the church, he just never came to church....he was playing Futbol. That’s going to change! I hear that all the time!

Our activity was so much fun at the church. It was another nations night. So Hermana Clements and I made brownies. Everyone loves brownies here! It’s crazy. The first thing people ask when you tell them you are from Utah is, "So are you going to make brownies sometime?" They also ask if Hermana Clements and I could sing for the talent show. So our district leader was like "You should sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Hermana Brumble can play the ukulele. Do I look like someone who plays the ukulele? Well anyways I made a quick phone call to my zone leader Elder Schwenke (also from Utah) and asked if we could borrow his ukulele, I learned Somewhere Over the Rainbow in one day and played it with Hermana Clements at the talent show. Everybody thinks I'm Polynesian. It was super cool, we took videos of everyone dancing. Columbia is my favorite.

Something really funny happened to us this week. We were sitting on this park bench making phone calls when this band of Gypsy children walk up to us and shout all at once, "This is our bench you need to move!" We played along and moved to a different bench. Then 15 seconds later they come up to us otra vez, "this is our bench you need to move!" And so the war begins. I was not going to move for anything! There was no way I was going to let them win. There were four of them just bugging us. All in our faces jumping on the bench asking us questions eating and spitting sunflower seeds everywhere (I'm never eating sunflower seeds ever again). Finally they calm down and just start calling us guapa and asking why we were dressed like old women. SO Hermana Clements gets annoyed and starts calling Elder Parkinson to see if talking in English will bug them and they'll go away, but they just stared at her and mimicked what she said, so she gave the phone to me and I start talking to him and he's telling me to tell them we're going to call the cops, but I'm not going to do that. So Hermana Clements pulls the (we have really important things to do and if you're not going to leave us alone I guess we'll just leave) and it works because they get all sad and say, "No its ok, we'll leave we're sorry!”Haha, it took forever but we one! So we hurried and finished our calls and waited till they were gone to leave. It was crazy, but I felt satisfied that we won.

Church is great. It is a ward and they are just cute and wonderful. The bishop is this super crazy tiny Spanish man. He is always joking around, but he scares me because I can never tell when he's serious.

Other than that this week was just contacting and trying to crecer our area. Opening is hard work, but I feel like I'm growing and hopefully I'll be here long enough to see some success.

I love you and pray for all of you every day! If there is anything you need let me know!

Love ya! Hermana Brumble