Well I don't have much for this week. It's terribly hot here.... hot and sticky. I will have a perfectly white collar when I start the day and at the end it's nasty dirty! I don't know how! I wash my neck daily!! My clothes just stick to my body....yucky. I've been trying to survive that. Friday was my birthday and we also had zone meeting which was nice! They sang happy birthday to me and what not! I also got a package from home that day! That was great. My companion later that day dropped our phone in a bucket of water so that was awesome....I bought a new suit this week...it was a present and its crazy sale time so it only made sense to snatch one. It's so hot. I remember in the beginning of my mission complaining about the cold....oh how I miss the cold. I got
a haircut this week and it's really short... so mom you will like it. I don't. Haha
I hope all is well!!! Love you all!!
Elder Rex

The sisters decorated my door for my bday!

7/13/15

Monday: we went airsofting with part of the zone in Jarez, it was pretty fun! It's sad though, the place we went used to be super huge, a 4 story building with different layouts on each floor. But 3 days before we went, someone threw a Molotov Cocktail in their window and lit the place on fire.. it destroyed almost everything they had... I thought I was in Spain not Russia! 

Tuesday: We has english class and once of our investigators came. Everyone has difficultly with the pronunciation of English words and it's hard to teach that!! Haha

Wednesday: Like always I don't remember Wednesday....

Thursday: we had lunch at a members house, we had lentils, salad and bread. It was pretty good! I was still hungry afterwards....

Friday: we had district meeting on Friday. It was also the birthday of Hermana Stradling, one of the sister missionaries here in puerto. We celebrated a little. The Guffey's (senior missionary couple that live by us) made us waffles, eggs and sausage after district meeting for lunch so that was awesome to have! They always cook something semi American for us! 

Saturday: We went to a town like 30 minutes away to be part of a "harvest" (sounds kinda weird...I feel like it's something aliens would do to humans)  anyways it's where every missionary was placed with a member of the branch over there and we went out on the streets and talked to people and harvested them... aka: asked if they wanted to listen to our message. I was with a guy named Thomas, nice guys, he told me he served his mission in Madrid in 91'. I told him I was in heaven in 91' he thought that was really funny. Haha afterwards I ate the worst kebab I've eaten here In Spain so it was a disappointment for me.

Sunday: same old same old. We ate with Jorge, a recent convert to the church. He's an awesome dude, funny and has a strong testimony. We gave the sacrament to this Romanian lady like we do every week and she feed us some really strong cheese....it was powerful....it might have been from the prehistoric times. 

Cristobal Colon, so I see this name occasionally, enough to make me wonder who this dude is and why he has a plaza and stuff but Christopher Columbus doesn't... but I'm pretty dang sure they are the same guy. Hahah these English name translations just getting me all confused! 

7/07/15

Monday: we didn't do much, we played soccer with some elders from a different area, bought food, and emailed. And when I say bought food it was rice and tuna because it was the end of the month and everyone was poor, so we ate that with two other elders in our district. We got money the next day so we could buy more food Tuesday.

Tuesday: just a normal day, nothing special sorry :/

Wednesday: same as Tuesday....we had a good lesson with a investigator of ours named Enrique. We had a recent convert come with us and he was awesome. He pretty much taught and me and my comp sat there haha it was sweet. 

Thursday: we usually eat at a members house Thursday after planning so we did that. It's getting really really hot...like its bad.

Friday: we went to Sevilla to meet our new mission president! The Andersen's from Blackfoot, Idaho. Pretty sure the name was Blackfoot, I was thinking about that name and I feel like the name derives from frost bitten feet of Idaho. Early settlers who just froze in good ole Idaho. Idk. Anyways, they seem like great people, I'm excited to get to know them. The first thing president said to me was "I like your smile Elder Rex, I bet you just convert people without talking" so pretty good first impression I think! It was super hot in Sevilla, I heard it got to like 122 there last week.... I'm glad I'm not there! But there is one perk of Sevilla, the American Dream, aka: Costco. Pretty much the same as American Costco from what I've heard. 1.50 for a hot dog and drink even! 

Saturday: Fourth of July! We played soccer in the blazing heat in the morning, it was terribly fun. After that we had a Fourth of July party with some people from our zone! I motivated everyone to have the party, I was determined to celebrate America!! Haha it was a good time! I also got a 2lb jar of extra crunchy peanut butter... so you could say that was just the American stamp of approval for the day. 

Sunday: so hot....my pants had sweat marks on them...you could see wet patches on my knees...don't ask me why, but my knees sweat a ton I guess! Gave a blessing to a lady in the ward and then we sweated some more! So yeah...

6/15/15

This week was pretty normal-ish for a missionary. I played soccer on Monday in a San Lucar with some other elders and their members. We took a bus there and I had never been there and my comp never got off the bus so we drove right through the town, didn't get off at both stops in the town...we made it to a different town and bought a different bus ticket to go back to the town we just drove through...so yeah that was interesting. 

Tuesday we had district meeting, it was pretty normal. We have a missionary couple who live on the military base near us and they cook for us after every district meeting so that's very nice of them! We had sloppy joes and salad. And American soda like root beer, dr. Pepper and cream soda. You can't buy those here. And ranch dressing which was nice! While we were eating a kept hearing a bird tweeting somewhere and we figured out it was in the ceiling...being the good person I am I tried my best to save it but I'm afraid I failed. I took off the air conditioning vent so it had a way to get out but I think it just didn't wanna move...so I sealed it back up. 

Wednesday and Thursday I was in Jarez because my comp had a district leader training he went to at the mission home. So I was with an Elder Bean in his area working. Just normal days.

Friday I don't remember....

Saturday we played soccer in the morning like we do every Saturday, I like to think I'm getting better but I'm not so sure about that. Give me a year and a half and I should be a little better.  Met some guy named Francisco, the guy is really smart. Like he knew a ton of history and a ton about the NBA, dates, scores and players. Pretty interesting old dude. 

And Sunday was Sunday. Church and what not. As my comp says "Mi hermano!!! domingo es el mejor día del semana!!!! So yeah....

Today we played soccer and I did pretty decent, im known for being a good defender. And putting effort in because I don't like to lose at things...my zone leader said he's going to start calling me Taz because I'm like the Tasmanian Devil out there, I'm just everywhere. Really all I do is put forth effort. I'm pretty exhausted from it though...putting forth effort is tiring. We are also out of butane which gives us hot water...so my showers are frigid....like ocean in the winter frigid. I hop in the water, hop out, soap up so I only have to hop back in the water one more time. I tried to think that it's like the ocean but then I said to myself "if the ocean was this cold I wouldn't be in it without a wetsuit" So yeah that's interesting. 

That's been my week! Hope all is well! You are in my prayers! 

Love, 

Elder Rex

Part of our zone after soccer

6/08/15

Hey there family and friends! I hope everything is well back home. Things are going fine here in El Puerto de Santa Maria. Not much to update you guys on...

I bought some soccer shoes this week since we play soccer every Saturday with members, recent converts and investigators. I'm pretty much a pro now since I have some soccer shoes...or at least that's how I thought it would work! But I'm still pretty bad...shoes just help a little. 

One guy thought I was from Spain this week so that was pretty cool...I want to be able to trick people by the end of my mission in to thinking I'm from Spain, I think that would be funny. But I also got told I look like Timmy Turner and Jimmy Nuetron (cartoon characters) and the grinch...so I got that going for me....

It's hot here...and my comp always turns off the a/c and I'm not sure why. I haven't slept with a sheet or blanket on me since I've gotten here...and he likes to shut our door to our room so it's terribly stuffy and stagnant in our room at night. But it's all good, it could be worse I guess

To answer your questions things are different here. the people, the climate. Im melting like a frosty the snowman in an oven. I wasn't born to live in the heat when I cant swim...my body doesn't like it one bit. I just die daily and apparently its just spring time....scary. I don't know how I will function in the summer time. I'm by the coast so we get a breeze but humidity too. its just wonderful weather to be walking outside all day. trust me. you all should try it, but wear dark pants and a constricting collar. ¡QUE BUENO!

The people here are know to be just a nice carefree people. In Andalusia they are also know for their terrible accent....great for the kid who can barely understand someone with a normal accent!!!

The worst thing is the heat. my body... I feel like a super hot grape...like microwave a grape and thats me. Thats what came to my head... I'm not sure why.

El Puerto de Santa Maria

Well hey there family and friends! I am in my new area now, El Puerto de Santa Maria. A pueblo of Cadiz. Everything is going good! It was a much needed change for me...in all aspects so I'm pretty content! Also pretty sweaty... all my friends know that I don't sweat, or at least Chase knows that and here I sweat. More than Chase at homecoming and that's a lot! Hahaha I probably should take a shower morning, afternoon and night but I don't have enough G's for that! I would have to do wash like twice a week or put sweaty G's back on and I can't bring myself to do that...I tried. 

But all is well, my comp is a good guy! Elder Pomazon de Peru! He is 27 years old!! He's a funny dude. I think I will grow a lot these next two transfers with him. That's another thing, I will be doing the honor of killing him, that means that he will be finishing his mission with me, I will "kill" him off He has one transfer after this one. He tells weird jokes sometimes which I just laugh at so he's not laughing by himself..today he told me "what did the boy dog say to the girl dog?" ..... "wow" and he busted out laughing... so I just kinda chuckled and hope he didn't tell another. He's a nice guy... But they are all so nice in the beginning... hahaha we'll see

Well I don't know much about Puerto as of now. Our area is bigger than my previous  one in Lorca and it's like a maze here. I'll get the hang of it, I pride myself on my sense of direction. I'm not sure if that sentence makes sense... can you say "I pride myself" I think so... anyways it's on the coast and it's pretty toasty but there is a nice ocean breeze a lot so that helps. I don't really know very many members yet but there is one kid named Marcello and I feel like I know the kid.. I don't know why but he reminds me of someone or something. It's been bugging me all day!! We have the one investigator who is super buff.... like super. I'll send a pic sometime, his name is Wilson. There are four missionaries here in puerto, me and my comp and two hermanas. Also my zone leader is the same zone leader I had in Lorca so I will have the same zone leader for almost ten months! But that's good because he is a good guy! 

So I went to Cadiz Friday, I took a boat there since it's just down the coast a little so that's new for me...I'm used to the buses! It was fun walking around there because I'm pretty sure Uncle Jay served there and it was fun to look at the old buildings and think that he saw the same ones. BUT why did we go to Cadiz, well because I am now writing this email on my iPad..so yeah that's weird. I have an iPad now! Well kinda like half an iPad.... The church locked downs these things hard. If we do anything we are supposed to with them our president gets a notification of what we are doing. We have a list of websites and apps we are allowed to use. And if you try to bypass the software the iPad pretty much self destructs, or so they say... I'll let you guys know if it's true ;) 

Church was good, everyone loves my gray suit. Haha but I don't really know what to say when people compliment me...do I compliment them back?! Or will they just thing I throwing out compliments because they complimented me?! Talk about stress... So usually I just say gracias... I just get stressed when people compliment me. I've had multiple people compliment me on my Spanish and say I speak very well for how little I've been out...I speak like a drunk man half the time! But maybe everyone is just used to drunken speech here in Spain since everyone drinks like there life depends on it, here not so much but in Lorca! Im just a pretty big deal out here in Spain okay? You Americans just don't understand ;) haha just kidding I'm pretty much nothing, the lord is nice enough to bless me with some stuff to work with so I don't die over here hahaha. 

I guess I'm close to an American military base and there is a senior missionary couple who lives on it and they can obtain American products if I ask so that's pretty sweet! Pretty much I want refried beans and peanut butter, go America!!!!  There also is an English speaking ward after my ward so I want to try to attend that one time and speak the good ole English with some people. The ward mission leader here is pretty cool, I think he got back from his mission not to long ago and I'm pretty sure he works at the CCM (MTC) sometimes. 

Oh I heard that Elder L. Tom Perry died... How sad. But he is in a far better place with far better people. He was suffering from cancer and he was old. I've been reading all the teachings of the prophets and it's quite cool. All these guys and how they became who they are. I'm trying to obtain as much wisdom as I can out here. 

Not much else to say, things are fine out here! I just wish it wasn't so hot... that's all for now folks! I'm going to have to find out how to send photos from my camera since I just email on here now...

Love Elder Rex

So I'm being transferred! I will now being serving in El Puerto de Santa Maria! It's over by Cadiz for anyone who knows southern Spain. It's 300 miles west of where I am now. I will be serving with another native Spanish speaking companion, Elder Pomazon. He is Peruvian! So we will see how that goes! I'm excited to see a new part of Spain! I will be able to get american food over there I think! There is a senior couple who lives on a american military base and they can buy american food for me if I want!  As expected, I'm a little nervous but excited! I get there on Wednesday so by next week I will be able to tell you more hopefully. I don't like that I have to re pack up everything but I guess I should get used to it! 

This week was pretty good, we kinda had a baptism! We reactivated this lady and her 8 year old daughter got baptized but it doesn't count as a mission baptism because she's 8 and that goes through the ward or branch! But that doesn't matter, it was a sweet thing to watch, afterwards she bore her testimony and she started to say "when I got in to the baptismal font I felt the spirit..." and she just got super emotional and couldn't finish. She really could feel the spirit it was a touching thing to witness. It's weird saying goodbye to people here in Lorca! I have been here for almost 5 months! I finally was getting used to it.. haha oh well. 

It's been warm this week but not too bad. I climbed a hill into a castle! I feel like I could build a pretty good castle on Strongholder now. Also I'm sending some videos that we took home for you guys to watch! They're pretty funny

I hope all is well back home! Love you guys!

Elder Rex

Tugaa. One of my favorite guys

Osazuwa