A Horse and an Octopus...

April 21, 2014

Elder Nickerl's Birthday Party

Octopus or "Pulpo"

Guillermo helped us cook it!

Yum!

Helllllllloooo!!!

Well this week has been good but crazy. In most hispanic cultures, before the Easter holiday, they celebrate a week of holidays called the Semana Santa. Many people leave for vacations and here in El Ferrol, there were many parties and parades in the cities main square. They usually start after we get home so they didn't affect us too much but many of our investigators were out of town or plainly did not want to meet with us during this week.  We made the best of it though.  No sign of egg hunts or bunnies or anything over here! 

On Monday we had a lesson with Jose, who has a baptismal date for the 10th of May, in a park and it went really well! He is such a great kid and has a lot of desires to get baptized. After we headed to Armando's as usual and had a great time there. They are so nice and are always so grateful for what we do. Oh sorry if my english is bad this week; we only spoke spanish this last week and it went really great but sometimes I get confused on my english rules and such.

Tuesday we had a toonn of people bail on us haha. Like everyone actually. But we had some octopus or pulpo during medio dia with Wendy and Guillermo and it was Elder Nickerl's birthday so we threw a party in the chapel and invited a ton of people. It turned out well because a ton of the hermanas took over the planning and made it fun. Elder Nickerl gave the speech of his life and it was awesome.

Wendesday we had district meeting which went really well! I think I'm getting better at it haha. After we had intercambios and the zone leader, Elder Fausett, came with me. We had a great time and found a few lessons in the street.  That night we had a noche de hogar with Amanda and Julio and watched some of the videos from General Conference which was great and I could feel the spirit really strongly.

Thursday morning was heeectic. I didn't know that it was a festival day and that the bus schedules had changed and so switching back was hard. We went to the bus stop in the morning. The bus never came. So we headed to the bus stop and Elder Nickerl left from Lugo to come to El Ferrol. We met up with Emiel, a cuban member, and Elder Fausett left for Lugo later on. We were waiting for Elder Nickerl to get there and his bus didn't come... So we had to wait another hour in the bus station and he had managed to catch another bus that arrived later. In the end it all worked out but I was stressing. After that, we planned the week and then met up with Andrew to help him prepare for a lesson he had to teach in church. After we had english class which went really well. We have a family of 3 who are coming right now and they seem pretty interested! Hopefully we can meet up with them and get them to church! They are really nice.

Friday was awesome and we had a little miracle go down. In the afternoon we had a few people cancel on us so we went out to contact people in the street. There was like no one so we went to knock some buildings. After 3 or 4 doors of nothing, someone let us in. We went up to the apartment and a man opens the door and is super friendly! He explains that his name is Walter and that he's from Argentina. He lets us in the door and we have a lesson right then on his couch! It has been a while since that has happened and he was soo open to everything so it really made my week. We ended the night at the Calderon's and had a great time with them like always.

Saturday was decent. We had a lot of people bail on us as well but we managed to find a few lessons. At the very end of the day we met up with Zorkan finally after like months of nothing and he seems like he's still a bit interested so we will see where that goes. He really wants to learn english too so we'll see!

Sunday was a good day. We had a lot of members in church which was great and Luciano and Jose came as well. We taught the second hour and helped Andrew teach the third hour so we didn't have much time to relax and listen to others haha. The talks during church were so inspired though and I felt the Spirit really strongly. It doesn't matter where you are, it always just feels great. We had two solid set set set set set set set set lessons cancel on us that afternoon too which was a bummer but we visited some members and grew our relationships with them. Last night Hermana Dolly, Wendy's mom, fed us hamburgers and french fries which was awesome even though it reminded me of home a little haha.

All in all I think it was a great week. We worked hard and I am really excited to start teaching Walter. Miracles are everywhere. We've just got to look.

Love you all!

Elder Franklyn