January 2, 2013


¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

I hope you had an awesome New Year´s and did something fun! It was so awesome to be able to talk to you on Christmas! I´m glad you enjoyed it too. :) 

So something intresting about Spain. They have these firecraker type things they love to set off for about a month surrounding Christmas and New Year´s. They aren´t fireworks because there´s no light or anything, they just make an incredibly loud sound, like a bomb going off. So basically Madrid sounds like a war zone during the holiday season. It´s super fun.

So things have been pretty busy as usual here. I´m still getting used to having a native companion. I love him, he´s a great guy, but sometimes he drives me nuts. Sometimes we just don´t understand each other either, not because of the language, but because we just think differently. For the most part though I really like having Elder Berthon as my companion. 

This week has been pretty rough. We don´t have hardly anyone to teach anymore. We have Ambar who we only get to meet with once a week. She is a great person, but it takes a while for her to build trust in people, so she´s progressing pretty slowly. She hasn´t been to church still, but I´m learning patience. Other than her we met with Bea and Kancho yesterday. It has been about 2 or 3 weeks since we´ve meet with them and I was kind of losing hope. But last night was really good. Beatriz is still realy strong, but they haven´t made any changes. I think we figured out that we really need to focus on Kancho because I don´t feel like he has a testimony still. But now we know that and can really work on him. We are going to do a temple tour with them tomorrow and fast today for them. I have a strong feeling that tomorrow in the temple (we can take them in the reception and waiting room) can be where Kancho receives an anwser, where he gains a testimony. I´m going to pray really hard during my fast today. 

The rest of the time we´ve been in the street and visting members. Being in the street this week was no fun. It´s super cold and nobody wants to listen because it´s the holidays. Luckily the members here are amazing! We´ve been welcomed in to so many homes (and eaten a bunch of good food). It makes a huge difference to have their support. The young single adults are especially impressive. They have come out to so many lessons with us and helped us with whatever we need. I feel a little bad because most of those lessons have been no-shows on the part of the investigator. But they just shrug it off and keep coming. It´s awesome. 

I´ve really been noticing this week how everything we do is about people and how I need to focus on them more. We don´t have many investigators, but that doesn´t really matter because each person is worth all of my effort. It may sound weird but I´m trying to work on loving people more. My companion, our investigators, the people here in general. I was looking back over letters from you guys and from my friends and they were about how important it is to love the people and I realized that I need to more. And it´s making a difference. I don´t mind so much that we don´t have many lessons because I remember how grateful I am to have Ambar and the opportunitly to help and bless her. 

Mom, I need to thank you for your advice a while back to remember the improtance of planting seeds. It has really helped the last couple weeks. The other day my companion was super down because we had been fired from every lesson and gotten almost no contacts. He said he was losing faith that things would ever get better. I was worried about him all day and then when we talked about it at night, I remembered what you had written. I was able to share it with him and explain that every person we talk to, every contact we do is planting a seed. That person now knows a little more about the chruch, a little more about who we are, and if we do it with the spirit, has felt something different. I explained maybe we may never see the fruit ourselves, but that the important thing is that people come to Christ and that takes time. Every member we talk with says that took at least a year to be baptized. It takes time, but everytime we talk with them, they are little closer. As long as they come with time it doesn´t matter if we baptize them or not. The important thing is the people. As long as we are doing the work and doing it with the spirit, we are bringing people to Christ. It was powerful for me and it helped him a lot, so thank you.

Well that´s what´s going on with me. I am keeping my journal, but I´ve been worse about it this transfer. I need to get back on it. I know how important it is. Did Dad keep a good journal in his mission?

I think that is so awesome that you and Dad are going to the temple. It is such a blessing. As missionary I am learning so much about the gospel and temples are one of the things that I didn´t realize how great a blessing they are. Also being here I´ve learned how blessed we are to be so close to the temple. There are still people who travel 11 hours or farther to visit the temple. The mission has also given me desires to do family history work. I really want to learn about our family and do the work that they need. I think that´s wonderful that you are working on it as well. Just leave some for me ok? :) 

Well, I had better go, but thank you such much for your letter. It means so much to hear how the spirit is touching you guys as well. I love you! (And I wish I had some woodland sugar cookies to eat)

Elder Cousins