I think Heavenly Father wants me to do something I´ve never done and use my head more.

Well, this week was good. Still struggling here. We have had a total of 8 investigator lessons in the last 2 weeks I think. It´s just been hard lately. I keep setting up appointments with people and then they aren´t at home. Then I call and they don´t answer. I have become a super ¨Pesado¨ missionary. I can´t think of a word in English close to pesado. Pesado is a word that describes a kid that asks ¨Are we there yet?¨ over and over again. Kind of like irritating but it just means that you just keep doing something very heavily I guess haha. I will knock on someone´s door 5 times before I leave and then I will call them 3 times at least haha. I just want a Yes or a No! haha. I hate these ¨Oh, I´m busy¨ or ¨Oooh, the soccer game is on¨. I have just gotten to the point where I will get a yes or a no! So I´m not wasting my time going to people who aren´t interested but won´t tell me. But everything is good! :)


I think Heavenly Father wants me to do something I´ve never done and use my head more. So I was thinking about what we can do here that´s never been done. We have a goal to receive 25 references in a week. We sat down and created a lesson plan and we are focusing this whole week on references. It really is the only way I think that this area will grow again. And it´s how missionary work SHOULD be done. References from members. We are making plans to have Family Home Evenings in member´s homes and having them invite friends and I am super excited to see what we can do here. :) Hoping, praying, and working hard so that it works :) We got 4 references in one lesson last night! :) So I am pumped for this week!


Today, I didn´t want to do anything too crazy for my Birthday :). I just wanted to get the district together and all go eat somewhere and hang out. So that´s what we did, and I got a Birthday Haircut! :) haha. I love haircuts now! It´s turned out to be a pretty good day :) I hope to find mail in the mailbox when I get home! :) haha!


We had Stake Conference this week and Málaga is in our stake so I got to see Elder Cowley and a ton of missionary friends and all the members from Malaga came too! :) It was so much fun to see everyone and hug everyone :). Also, LORENZO GOT THE MELCHIZEDEK PRIESTHOOD!!! :) I was SOO HAPPY! :) I can´t believe it´s been like 7 months since his baptism and that he´s progressed so far! A few more months and they can go get sealed in the temple!


Yesterday, a member invited me over to their house for dinner and they had made me a birthday dinner and a cake and everything! They are from Chile and I love Chile food! :) We took pictures so we will send them soon :) When I get my SD card situation worked out.


Another great, full of new experiences, week and another one coming this week! :) The mission is great! :) Love you guys! Thanks for the Birthday wishes! :) And the love!


Love,


Elder Marchant

New Companion!

New transfer!


It´s been a pretty rough week. I don´t know what happened but ever since Elder Oldroyd left, no one is home, and no one answers the phone. I feel like we have been walking the streets for a week. Pretty frustrating but there´s gotta be a reason. We´ve been finding more people and are looking forward to new things here.


Our whole district is tearing it up here though! We ALL have baptismal dates and are SUPER excited! We are doing SOOO GOOD right now! I hope to be doing baptismal interviews every week this transfer!!


I miss Elder Oldroyd so much! He was such an awesome companion!


My new comp is from Peru. His name is Elder Pomazón. He is 27 years old. He´s a good guy! He´s fun and has a good attitude and cooks good :) haha. He constantly quotes the Bible to people and that´s kinda weird, especially because it´s like the same 5 scriptures and they usually don´t apply to what we are talking about haha. But whatever floats his boat :) haha. We will do good though :)


Last P-day me, Elder Oldroyd, and the Hermanas bought hippie pants and after District meeting right before Halloween we dressed up in our hippie pants and wore mustaches and took pictures haha :) I will make sure they get to you :) (Camera still is broken)


Looking forward to lots of miracles this week though :) Thanks for being involved in the missionary work! Keep it up!!! Because the Church of Jesus Christ IS TRUE!!! I see it more and more every single day :)


I love you guys :)


Elder Marchant

To answer your questions


I love Latino food :) Any food from South America is SUPER good! :) Chile, Argentina and Colombia are the best :). I love Spanish salads though :)


It´s getting cold here. There´s snow on the Sierra Nevada but not here. It gets real chilly at night though.


We eat all over the place. I almost never know where we are going to be eating on any given day :)



We had family night with a member the week before Alicia´s baptism and took Alicia there. We had 5 countries at one table! haha. The member and her daughter are from Colombia, her husband and his son are from Spain, Alicia is from Ecuador, there were 2 French foreign exchange students staying there and me and elder Oldroyd from USA!!! We had to take a picture :) 

Busiest, funnest, and most successful weeks of the mission I think :)

So this week was the busiest, funnest, and most successful weeks of the mission I think :)

So last week we had a goal as a mission to find 888 New Investigators in one week. I don´t know if that is a lot outside of Europe but here, it is a lot! We ended the week with 897! :) Elder Oldroyd and I were super happy that we got as many News as we did to help with the goal. We got 10. The goal for each companionship was 9. So we were super happy to have hit the goal because all week we were trying to prepare a couple people for baptism and didn´t have as much finding time as we wanted. But the Lord definitely blessed us with some miracles and we found some great people! And have a few more baptismal dates! :)

So Saturday we baptized Alicia! :) What an awesome experience! :) She is so awesome! She lived in the US for a few years but can´t speak english almost at all but she tells us ¨You boys are my sons¨ all the time :) haha. I was so happy to have ended Elder Oldroyd´s mission with a baptism. I also got to go interview a woman for baptism for another companionship in our district and that was a really neat experience. It´s awesome to get that personal with someone and ask to hear their testimony about their experience up to baptism and she shared it with me and it was so neat :). So they were baptized on the same day. I got to conduct the service AND play the piano!!!! I have been practicing the piano a lot and I´m gettin GOOD, MOM!!!!! Elder Oldroyd usually plays during sacrament meeting because there is no one here that can. So the bishop said that I´LL start playing! I can´t wait to tell mom THAT! :) hahaha!

So Elder Oldroyd baptized Alicia and I confirmed her on Sunday :).

I also went on Splits with the Elder in my District that are in Motril. That was fun to go help out over there and get to know their investigators and members.

So I am getting a new companion this week. His name is Elder Pomazón. He is from Peru I think. I´ve met him before but don´t know him too well. So I´m pretty excited to keep groing in spanish! :) haha.

I am super gonna miss Elder Oldroyd though. He has been an AWESOME companion! We have worked real hard and gotten along very well :). He has taught me so much as well :) I am very grateful that he worked hard until the end :).

I can´t think of much else :) We went and played soccer this morning with a Less Active kid in the ward that we are working with. His name is Sebastian and he is a riot :) Progressing well too :) I´ll have to tell you guys about him sometime :)



Have a great week! :) Love all of you! Give references to the missionaries ! :) haha

Elder Marchant

Have a great week! See if you can beat MINE! :) haha.

What´s up everybody!!! :) I got all your guys´ letters this morning! Thanks a ton! I wasn´t expecting letters from so many people! It´s always a huge push for a missionary when they get letters :)


Well this week has been crazy. Me and Elder Oldroyd are NEVER home haha. We have been able to keep track of how long we are home by how many songs have played haha. We only sleep there! It´s like living in a hotel :) We have been going crazy with the schedule to try to accomodate people and we are exhausted! :) But it is a great feeling! We are really tearin´ it up here in Granada! :)


We pretty much have 1 for sure baptism this weekend! Maybe 2! :) Alicia is gonna get baptized on Saturday! I am so happy to be having a baptism the last weekend of Elder Oldroyd´s mission. The members have been so involved with Alicia. We have been having family home evenings in the houses of members and taking members to lessons and having members call to ask her how church was and if she is planning on coming again and if she is excited to be baptized. By far the most I have worked with members in the mission. And it works!!! :) Alicia can feel the love and support from everyone and it´s so easy to see how great it is to be in the true and living church of God! :)


Manny, the guy who we are helping to quit smoking, is doing super good! The box that we made him worked so well but it really was his faith and the spirit that we helped him feel that helped him. He is american so we got to listen to Elder Holland talks in English with him and I think that helped him so much! :)


This week also is the week of finding. We have a mission goal to find 888 new investigators in 1 week! It´s gonna be hard! But if we do all we can, it is achievable! We are so excited to bring more souls to Christ! :) Keep the mission in your prayers! :)


Elder Oldroyd is an AWESOME companion! We get along so good and he just keeps teaching me with his example. I´m super sad to see him leave next week. But excited to use what he has taught me to teach my next companion :). I´m going on splits to other areas in the district this week to help them out and to get to know some Elders in the district. It´ll be another AWESOME week! I´ll be sure to take my camera everywhere, Mom :).


Well I love you guys and am excited to go home and read all the letters tonight :) Have a great week! See if you can beat MINE! :) haha.


Elder Marchant

Well it´s been an AWESOME week!

Sorry for not emailing yesterday! Spain has a bit of a problem with taking a day off of work every time a saint was born so yesterday all the locutorios that we could find were closed. haha


Well it´s been an AWESOME week!


I think I told you guys about Alicia. She is the Ecuatorian lady that made lunch for our district a few weeks ago. Well this week we had a lesson with her and were talking about the Great Apostasy and we were using like the pyramid of cups and showing that when Christ and the Apostles died that the authority was taken and all the things of Christ´s church were lost. And the pyramid crashes down. Well one of the cups said tithing. And at the end of the lesson we asked her if she had any questions and she said ¨I wanna know about tithing.¨ And me and Elder Oldroyd were like CRAP!! haha why did we put that on a cup! Because tithing is a huge doubt for investigators. Well I explained to her what it was and she says ¨I know what it is. How do you do it in your church? Do you pass the plate?¨ I said that we put it in an envelope and gave it to the bishop and she said ¨okay! So I just gotta go ask the Bishop for an envelope on Sunday!¨ We were thinking WHAT THE HECK!! And she said ¨Well because I´m going to your guys´ church now, I wanna pay my tithing at your church. I know that tithing is a commandment and I don´t wanna rob God.¨ I was flipping out! haha. I said ¨Alicia, we see that you have a huge testimony and strong desires to follow Christ and his Commandments. Will you follow his example and live his commandment and be baptized?¨ And she just said ¨Of course!¨ She will be baptized on the 25th of October. RIght before Elder Oldroyd goes home :). Since then she has come to church every sunday, came to conference, came to a ward activity and has been over to member´s houses to eat with them after church. She is SUPER accepted here and we are SO excited for her!!!!


Last week we had a Ward activity of the Party of the Nations. We have 10 different countries in our ward so we all did a presentation of our countries and brought food to share from our country. We had Argentina, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Chile, Spain, United States, Venezuela, Nigeria, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Alicia came to represent Ecuador and brought food and everything. She had so much fun and everyone got to know her. Ali came too but he´s super shy haha. I made Rice Krispie Treats to represent america and everyone LOVED them haha. I wore my Knuckle Ball Jersey too :). Elder Oldroyd has pictures and I´ll send them soon.


We have a member in our ward who was really strong in the church but has since started smoking again. It´s devastating him and he wants to be worthy of his priesthood again. We have been working with him a lot. This last week we made him a kit to quit! haha. His wife, who also smokes but doesn´t want to quit, left for the week so during this week He is quitting. We are visiting him every day and I downloaded conference and lent him my pindrive for the week so he could watch them on the TV. He is doing good so far and we are super excited for him as well! :)


We are seeing some great things here in Granada! I love it! I´m super happy with what we are doing here and how hard we are working!! I can´t believe I have a year out this week! There´s so much more to do still!! :)


Love you guys! THIS CHURCH IS TRUE!!! I LOVE IT! :)


Elder Marchant

Layouts from some of last weeks pictures.

pics, pics and more pics.

Alrighty everybody,


Now that all the pictures are out, I feel a little safer emailing :) I´m sure my emails from home will be a lot more loving..... ;)


What an awesome week!


Our investigator, Ali has a baptismal date for the 25th of October! He has been super prepared by the Lord. He needs to quit smoking before but he has come to church and he came to watch Priesthood session of conference with us and enjoyed it :). He is super great. We walked up with him to the Alhambra the other day because he lives really close and had a lesson up there with him. He is great!


Last Thursday there was a HUGE storm! There were huge rivers going down the street and golf ball sized hail falling down! It was nuts! Luckily we had just gone into Hanni´s house. She is the girl from Israel. It all came down! So we talked with her and she made us some food haha. It was crazy to watch!


We have another great investigator named Alicia and she is from Ecuador. Last week she came to the church after district meeting and made all the missionaries an Ecuatorian lunch :) We had a lot of fun and she feels super comfortable with all of us. She came to conference too :)


Elder Oldroyd is an AWESOME companion! He is going home in 3 weeks but he is the hardest working companion I´ve had and he has taught me a ton!! We get along really good and have a lot of fun together! We always talk about Torremolinos and all the crazy people and friends there :) I like him a lot!


Conference was super cool! We missed a few talks because we are always busy and doing stuff but I´m looking forward to reading them!


This week we are having a Party of the Nations in the ward. We have people from 13 different countries in our ward and we are gonna have presentations and frood from all the countries. We are doing the United States haha. Some countries are doing dances.... so we are thinking about doing some dumb American Dance move (there´s a new silly one every year in the states) or Thriller hahaha! But we will see!


I´m loving this area! We are getting great work done, I love the city and just everything so far!


I know that everything that was said this weekend in conference was the word straight from our Lord to help us. I hope you all take the things you learned and apply them NOW!


Have a great week! Love you guys! :) Enjoy the pictures! :)

Elder Marchant

Angeles and her crazy dog

 Picasso

Chas and Tong, my English students haha

 Mark

 Symbas Family

P-day sightseeing, RHONDA.

Plaza de Toros in Ronda! 

 What I would have given to have a sword in there!

Nico and Julie

Big clothes fashion show!

  I got me AND Elder Cowley into my suit! hahaha

 Inma and Lorenzo

 The Lugones :)

Nice little reunion with Elder Medina!

GRANADA! This is my area!!!

Elder Oldroyd´s Birthday Lunch

 Elder Oldroyd

 Foo Foo (Nigerian Food)

We walked up to the Alhambra with Ali and had a lesson in the forest.

I LOVE GRANADA!!!

I shall start off with an apology and and explanation.... we use really crappy computers for emailing and a lot of the time the SD card slot doesnt work. So that is why there have not been pictures. I havent tried the one here yet but I will try! If it doesnt work I will do everything I can to find one next week. Super sorry haha. I DO have some dang awesome pictures from the last few weeks so I really am sorry that you havent been able to receive them.

Next, I LOVE this city! Granada is by far one of the most beautiful places ever!!!

This week we found some really cool investigators! We found one from a country in Africa called Mauritania. He is awesome! He has super good intentions and he came to church yesterday and really liked it! We are hoping great things from him! We also are teaching a girl named Hanni who is from Israel. She is studying in the university here and is jewish but not super "with" the jewish religion. She seems super great! I am really loving this place.

We also had a Tri Zone conference in Malaga the other day so I got to go see Elder Cowley and my friends from back in Malaga so that was great!!!

Well crap! There's no SD thing in this computer!!! I WILL send pictures super soon!!!! I am so sorry!!

Well I don't have a whole ton to say this week and don't have a ton of time. But Everything is going great! I love you guys! Have a great week!



Elder Marchant! 

Pictures posted by Mom so you can all see what Granada looks like until Derick sends some.