May 27, 2013

Dear Family and Everyone,

Hello again! How´s everyone doing?

Whoa, weird I didn´t even realize it was memorial day. I hope you enjoy it and have good weather.

So, news from the week. Tuesday morning we dropped Elder Winkelkotter off at the bus station in Madrid, and I drove us back in our car which was. . . interesting. I´ve been the designated driver ever since (funny story about that later) and at first it was a little rough, but I´m a pro now. :) Tuesday was a really long, stressful day. We drove all over Madrid to meet various missionaries for various reasons. Driving in Madrid is insane! The streets don´t make any sense, we got lost a million times, but we´re alive and we didn´t hit anything, so it´s all good. I was exhausted at the end of the day, though. Stressful. That night we had a noche de hogar with Marcos and Maria and their 8 year old son "Markito" (I don´t remember if I´ve written about them before). His parents are less active, but they have come to church 2 weeks in a row now! Markito is the greatest little kid. He is always helping out his mom with the baby, and he loves listening to us teach. He wants to be baptized and on Tuesday we set a date for him. It doesn´t count as a baptism for us, but that´s OK. It´ll help the ward and it´s so cool to see his parents start to get involved with the church again after so many years.

On Wednesday we had a lesson with Mayte, the first time in a while. I don´t understand her. She is golden! She comes to church and young women´s every week, by herself. She reads everyday. She´s going to EFY for heaven´s sake! But she doesn´t want to get baptized. I don´t know what to do for her. It´s hard to know what to teach, too. This week we´re going to try to really talk with her and understand. That night we ate with Aurelio, this cool old Spanish guy who teaches Gospel Principles. He´s the only guy I´ve ever visited with his own house. It´s cause he lives a good way outside of Madrid. It´s a beautiful drive, though. 

On Saturday I did exchanges in Alcalá again. It was good, I love Alcalá, but we only had a couple of lessons. We taught another young girl who is in a hard spot. Her parents are Muslim and against her getting baptized, but she is so ready and wants to be baptized so badly. It was really sad to see this terrible situation she is in. We talked about trusting the Lord and that He will provide the way. 

On Sunday we finally saw Belén again, at church. She told us she doesn´t have to work for a few days so we are going to teach her a lot and get her progressing. We have a lesson tonight and we are going to set a fecha with her for the 15th. 

Elder Stephens and I have the goal of leaving the office at 6 every night, even if we have no lessons, which is awesome. So we´ve gotten some contacting in, which is good. We desperately need to find people to teach. We really only have Belén right now. So we are looking and we´ll find, it just takes time. But we really have a focus on the missionary work, which is how it should be. 

Elder Stephens is awesome! He is such a great companion. He is the nicest, humblest guy ever. He is from Spanish Fork. He´s got about a year and 4 or 5 months. He´s taken over in office without any trouble and works hard and effectively. He really has a love for the people too. There is a real power and spirit when we teach. It´s awesome! 

So, things are going pretty good here. We don´t have much work, but are working to get more and with time we´ll get it. I´m happy and working hard, which is good.

Thanks for the pictures you sent! That´s what I was looking for. It´s too bad that now that I´m in Spain I can´t have the Spanish look :P Haha! Thanks so much for all you do! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! I love you all sooooooooooo much! :D 

Elder Cousins