October 17, 2012

¡Hola, Madre! Y todos. ¿Comó estáis?

Man, I have so much to write about today! It´s insane how much happens in one week in the mission. Let´s get right to it. 

The most exciting thing is that we have a baptismal date! Holler! I´m super excited! It´s with Kancho for the 27th of this month. We visited them again on Friday, I think, and asked if they had made any decisions about the separation. Turns out Beatriz had already bought a ticket to Paris (I guess she has a job opportunity there) for the 22nd. So we committed Kancho to that Saturday. They are both so ready for this next step of baptism and I´m so excited I get to be a part of it! They are both incredible and so ready to be full members of God´s church and enjoy His blessings. I pray that they will go through with it and in time take the next step of temple marriage. They deserve it. It was an awesome lesson. Also, Kancho brought chocolate and churros for us to eat, which is the most amazing thing you´ve ever tasted. Believe me. 

Second story. Earlier the same day we had a lesson fall through or something, I don´t remember, but for whatever reason we were left with nothing to do for an hour (this happens often, by the way). Normally we go street contacting, but we wanted to shake it up a bit. We had been talking that morning in the piso about early missionaries in the church and the Book of Mormon and the incredible success they had, and we were like why can´t we do that? So we decided to pull a ¨Dan Jones¨ in the Metro. Dan Jones was one of the very first missionaries of the Church and he baptized something like 2000 people on his first mission. There is a picture of him in Preach My Gospel standing on a box and preaching to a crowd. So that´s what we did in the Metro. We stood in the middle of the car and held up the Book of Mormon and testified to everyone. We only did it a couple times, but it was pretty thrilling to just declare like that. Everybody just looked at us like we were crazy, but we did place one Book of Mormon. We decided it isn´t the most effective way to contact, but it felt awesome!

Something fun for the family. Elder Rigtrup was telling me a story about his dad´s mission in Korea and he was saying something about one the guys he served with Gordon Flake, and I went ¨stop! I´m related to him!¨ Turns out it really is the same Gordon Flake and he knows the family and everything (he is from D.C.). Pretty cool, eh? 

I think that about covers all the cool things from the last week. P-day we went and played soccer with some other missionaries and today we played basket-ball (blech!) and we don´t have anything else planned, because Elder Rigtrup has no money left. We had zone conference yesterday, which was good. We ate in the temple afterword. And that´s about it. So on to my reply.

No worries about the 2 e-mails. Sorry,  I should write the girls more, it´s just hard to have enough time still. I´d don´t get other e-mails, but I do get letters from several of my friends and I finally got one back my from friends at school so I´m happy. :) 

I haven´t gotten my package yet, but thank you so much for putting recipes in it! I am in desperate need! My companion cooks pretty well, but he hasn´t really shown me how to make anything or what I need to buy. And I´ve learned I´m a disaster in the kitchen. I´m getting by and I´ll learn with time. 

Elder Rigtrup says there are Spanish nativities, but they take up a lot of space. Small figures, but a lot of them. I´ll keep asking around and keep an eye out. 

I honestly didn´t notice the game [France vs. Spain World Cup Qualifier in Madrid], but it is a big city. Really big.

Well, I´ve got to run, but I love you all! Thank you for keeping me updated. Thanks for your prayers and letters and love. I couldn´t do this without it.

Elder Cousins