Hey there, everybody! :)


What an awesome week! :) I LOVE my new area! It´s so nice to be in a Zone Leader area that has been taken care of by good missionaries for a while. We have a lot of work and taught a ton of lessons. So far we have set 2 baptismal dates just in the last few days here and they seem pretty promising. We also have about 5 investigators that will baptized as soon as they get married. So we are working on that too.


Elder Letts is awesome. We are already really good friends. He has been out 1 transfer more in the mission than me so we are pretty close to the same age in the mission. He has taught me a lot already. He is a great kid. We also have had so many funny things happen to us in just a few days together. We are always laughing! :) haha. He wrestled and he´s from Layton. So we always have ton to talk about and we have a lot in common.


It´s super fun being in a car! We eat really healthy so that we don´t gain weight and we walk fast when we aren´t in the car. I love being able to listen to music all the time! :) It is the best!! :) I am super tired all the time though! And it´s super hard to learn the area when we are driving everywhere. Everything just passes by so fast that I am not learning where to go ever. We have a ton of little towns that we work in so we are always traveling. But it´s super great to be able to pick up members to come with us to citas.


Saying goodbye in Granada was rough. I said goodbye to a ton of people. I went over to see Sebastian and Susana every day for at least a few minutes. And before I left on Wednesday morning they had me come over to eat ¨American Breakfast¨. We made bacon and eggs and had orange juice :) haha. They were the fastest goodbye because we all knew that we would be crying if we kept talking and saying thanks and stuff. I miss them a ton. The first goodbye in the mission where I have almost cried. We pass through Granada every month to go to Concilio (Mission Leadership Council) so I hope to be able to see them sometimes.


Well, I think that´s about everything. Today we went to Murcia to play soccer with all the missionaries there and I got to meet some new missionaries so that was fun :).


I hope you guys have an awesome week! :) I love you guys! :)


ADIOS!


Elder Marchant

Derick's Mom:

We had a special treat this past week and were able to have one of Derick's companions over for dinner.  Elder Oldroyd brought a couple of painting that Derick had purchased.  It was so much fun to visit with him and to hear what Derick has been doing.

Derick's reply to our visit:

I´m so glad you guys got to meet Elder Oldroyd. I LOVE him! :)


I bet you guys are super Derick Trunky from all the talking you guys did about me. :) I know mom is with her ¨Only 8 fast sundays left!¨ haha. That makes it seem like I have NO time left! I am so glad I still have time left in the mission! I haven´t done all that I want to do yet! :)


The SD card slot doesn´t work. I will send pictures next week :). I even just took a selfie of me and Elder Letts because I said ¨Hey, my mom is gonna kill me if I don´t send a picture of us to her.¨ and he said ¨okay....but only if you send it to my mom too.¨ haha :)


Next week! :)


Love you guys!

Bye to Granada!

Well, I´m super sad to be leaving Granada. I´ve made so many great friends here with the missionaries and with the members and investigators. I have grown SO MUCH. I am proud to say that I have left the area and the district better than I found it. :) But it is a sad thing. I hate saying goodbye to everyone and packing is the worst haha :) But I am excited for my new area.


I am headed to a place called Molina. My companion´s name is Elder Letts. We are the zone leaders of the Murcia Zone :). I am super pumped :). It feels a little weird because half of the zone is older than me. But I am ready and super excited :). I have good friends in the zone and I hear that the area is AWESOME! We have a car...that scares me. I don´t wanna put on weight again hahaha. I´m just gonna have to be real good at working out in the morning still. It will be awesome though because every month we will drive through Granada and Torremolinos on our way to Málaga for Mission Leadership Council :). Maybe I can go visit some people :). I am super excited and super blessed. It will be awesome to see old friends and other Zone Leaders every month and to have more responsibilites and everything. It´s gonna be an awesome experience :).


This week in the Granada zone we had a goal to set 25 baptismal dates in one week. We ended the week with 21 in total and 15 of them were from my district :). I´m super proud of them!!! :) We set 4. So hopefully Elder Pomazon keeps on them and gets them baptized after I leave! :) We found tons of new investigators this week and ended the week very well.


I´ve been taking tons of pictures so this week and next week you guys will get lots :).


I don´t have a ton of time today so I´m just gonna leave you guys with that. I will talk to you guys next week from Molina! Have a great week!!! I love all you guys! Thanks for your love and prayers :) They keep me going and I know I am the missionary I am because of all you guys and from the help of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I love him.


Elder Marchant

Me and Elder Pomazón

 Los Jardines de Triunfo

Ambrosio. Investigator, father of a member :) Super cool!

 Luz Mila, Luis, Jonaton, Rocío and Santiago they are investigators. They made us the Snails and the Guinea Pig

 JUST BEIN ME!!!

Saying BYE to Granada!

 Vicente

Dani and Karen

 Esteban and Karen

Maria José and Duna

Ruben

  Flor

 Carolina and Juana

Dani Melgarejo

  Dario and Veronica

B-)

B-)

I need to find a new starting line to my emails. I feel like they say ¨What a great week¨ or something like that every week :)


..........What a great week! :)


We FINALLY have a baptismal date!! :) We set one last night! :) We also found 5 investigators and taught lots of lessons this week. Even though it was a holiday. We are seeing lots of miracles and blessings now :). The hard work, patience, and obedience is paying off! haha. And now that everything is going great I am leaving! :( Well...probably. I have been with my comp for 2 transfers already so one of us has to leave and I´ve been here longer. I don´t wanna leave!!! I LOVE Granada!


On Tuesday night we went to Susana and Sebastian´s house to eat Roscón de Reyes. It´s a cake that they eat in Spain on the King´s Day. The one who gets the bean that´s hidden in the cake has to pay for the cake and whoever gets the king in the cake gets to wear the crown and be king for the day :). Since only 4 of us shared the cake, we got more than one piece and I got the bean AND the king! :) I think Sebastian put all the pictures on Facebook so you can see the pictures there. He told me that the kings always get a special prize and he smashed my face into the cake haha. It was a super fun night :).


One of the companionships in my district has really been struggling and they have been really low on energy and drive. So I had splits with them for a day and Elder Fife came here with me. We got a ton done and contacted a lot of people. I tried really hard just to show him how to always be happy outside working. So happy that the people can see it all the time. I taught him how important it is to have fun while you´re working too: balancing on the curb, singing songs, playing soccer with the little kids and stuff. :) He asked me, ¨Hey how do you start talking to someone in the street? I never know how to start.¨ I told him to watch and the next person that walked passed I said ¨Hey! What is this street called?¨ Which got them to stop and talk for a sec, then I asked where they were from. From Bolivia they were! So I talked with them about the food I ate with Elder Antezana and then got their information. Elder Fife thought it was interesting that I didn´t just start with ¨Hello we are missionaries...¨ So I hope he starts using things like that in his area :). I really enjoyed our split.


I taught Elders Quorum yesterday. That was pretty fun :). I talked about Elder Ballard´s talk about ¨Following up¨. It was really good and I really enjoyed it. Also, at zone conference I was asked to give a lesson about ¨What to do when we are effected by Anti-mormonism or when our testimonies are shaken¨. I talked about what happened in Sevilla my last weekend and stuff. It turned out well. I love teaching :)


Yesterday a family from Bolivia that we are teaching was gonna come to church with a member but when we got there, only their 5 year old son was there :) haha. He is SUPER cute! So he just sat with me during sacrament meeting and drew pictures and then went off to primary and he loved it! :) So we are hoping that because he loves it, the whole family comes next week! :)


I will let you guys know next week about transfers. I will find out this weekend. I´m super nervous! I don´t want to leave :). But ¨I will go and do!¨ haha

I love you guys! Have a great week! :) Everyone do 5 push ups right now.




Elder Marchant

Churros con Chocolate :)

Nacho Libre-ing Elder Adamson

What a great week :)


We didn´t teach hardly anyone, haha. But we went on a contacting frenzy and found a ton of new people that seem really good! :) So we are really excited.


It´s hard to find people at home during all these holidays. And in Spain they Celebrate ¨The Christmas Season¨ all the way until tomorrow. Tomorrow is ¨Day of the Kings¨. In Spain, the 3 Wise men/Kings bring the kids gifts also, not just Santa Claus. So it´s been nice to have another 2 weeks of Christmas music and lights :) haha. But it will be even nicer to be able to teach after all of the holidays are over.


For New Years eve we went to a family´s house from Colombia and ate with them. Me and the Zone Leaders brought our Books of Mormon too so we could finish the last chapter right before midnight :). That was nice. To have read it in 100 days in Spanish. It is true in ANY language :).


In Spain, at midnight there are 12 tolls from the clock tower in Madrid and on every toll you put a grape in your mouth. So we all yell HAPPY NEW YEAR with a mouth full of 12 grapes :) I wanna bring that tradition home :).


I played the piano in sacrament meeting AGAIN yesterday! :) It´s kinda fun but super stressful. And no one sings loud here so everyone can hear if you mess up.


I teach an advanced English class every Friday at the Church and this week we translated Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson for class :) It was super fun and they made me sing the songs and try to dance like Michael Jackson :) hahaha! I love teaching English class.


Last P-day all the district went to a members house to eat and then I taught everyone how to play poker :). That was fun :). It´s also nice to learn new words in Spanish. I had never explained how to play poker in Spanish so it was a good learning opportunity for me as well :). Now if I ever serve in a Spanish ward or branch, I can do a good young men´s activity ;)


Everything is great :). I am really happy and animated this week. I don´t wanna leava Granada and that´s coming up soon probably. But I will do whatever I gotta do. I DID mention to President that I REALLY wanna stay though... :) We will see, I guess.


Love you guys! Have a great week! :) Honk at the missionaries when you drive pass :).


Elder Marchant

Derick LOVES his district!!!

 Argentinian BBQ.

 Elder Oldroyd came to visit with his family.

 Derick had that exact stocking when he was little!!!!