Africa way out there!

Hey there! Sorry I didn't email you guys last week! Well a lot has happened in this last week....Monday we went to Gibraltar! Elder Guffey the senior missionary took us there in his car! Me and my companion with another companionship from our district! It was pretty sweet! The monkeys are alright, they can be pretty ugly, I'm not gunna lie. But it's a pretty sweet place! There are some caves and siege tunnels but they cost extra and nobody wanted to pay to go in so I missed out on that! Haha I brought the onesie monkey pajama suit I have so I could take photos with the monkeys wearing it, everyone thought that was pretty funny! 

Wednesday, transfer day. My companion Elder Pomazon finished his mission, and I picked up my new companion Elder Hall. He is one transfer below me so he has like a month and a half less time out here than I. He's a good kid, I think I will be here with him for only one transfer before I go to a new area! But we started off the transfer good! At English class Thursday we were talking to our investigator Wilson about being baptized because he was supposed to be baptized Saturday but always pushes it back more time! But he said he wanted to Saturday! So on Friday elder shields my district leader came to puerto and had an interview with him so he could be baptized!! He passed. And I baptized him Saturday night, it was great! I'll send pictures! Sorry I don't have a lot of time!!

Baptism!!!

The mayonnaise problem

First things first... the way mayonnaise is used over here concerns me. Greatly. It's like oh, we have some pork? Let's grab the mayonnaise and smother this piece of meat. And some ketchup too! Great!! Look at this chicken, this nice drumstick... I know what will make it better! Let's dip it in mayonnaise! Ooooh we have some white rice.... let's make it mayonnaise with a little bit of rice mixed it. I'm fine with some mayonnaise on a sandwich or in some sort of potato salad type dish...but I'm not about to cover my meat in so much mayonnaise that you can't even see the meat!!! It's not even like it tastes that good! Madre mía!  

Anyways.... now that I've vented all my feelings about condiments we can talk about the mission. 

Last Monday: for the morning I sat on a bus for a long time so my companion could go buy a suit, it was and hour and 20 minute bus ride... and then we were in the mall for like 20 minutes. Then we came back to the church to email and played ping pong. A pretty boring day.

Oh, last Sunday was interesting. One hour before church started the bishop called and asked me to give a talk. I'll admit I wasn't very stoked! I like to prepare and practice! Especially when it's in a different language. The topic/s he gave me were the first members of the church and their legacy, the first member of my family who was a member and the importance of journal keeping.... soooo.... no time to prepare except for the time I had as I walked to church. Hahaha  it was pretty funny, I did some hand motions up at the pulpit trying to describe drooping leaves on plants... over all it was decent. The journal keeping was my strong point I think. 

Man.... I can't remember much about this week... I got a giant bottle of Cholula hot sauce from an American family so that was pretty nice of them! We are steal teaching Wilson the giant buff guy, I downloaded a talk from president Monson for him to watch, that's the one area he's lacking in. A testimony of the prophet today's times. Hopefully he will be baptized on the 15 of August. Then there is Enrique, we are working with him slowly but surely. He has his things he's working through, but I think he will be baptized in my team here in puerto. I think both of the, will be honestly. I hope I get to see that at least! Super good guys, great hearts. It's funny because Wilson is this hugeeee guy but he's such a nice guy, haha I help him with his English. He wants me to record English lessons and the them on a USB drive for him.... I don't know how I would do that so I just told him to look it up on YouTube. You can find everything on YouTube.  Yesterday I learned something interesting, our Sunday school teacher told us that we cant build a temple in France because there is a law. This law says that the police have to be able to enter the building... but the temple is a sacred place for us and you need a recommend saying that your keeping all the commandments and what not... so that's why we don't have a temple in France! Interesting, no? 

I feel like I live inside of a broken record player.... my companion played the same 2 or 3 songs on his guitar and sings everyday... hahaha it's interesting! Oh well! I'm doing well out here! I'm alive so that's gotta count for something! I hope all is well back at home! You guys are all sweet people and I pray for you guys! Send me and email sometime if you have the chance! I don't care if your a stranger or whatever! I wanna hear from you! jordan.rex@myldsmail.net

Keep on keeping on. 

Elder Rex

7/23/15

Well this has been pretty interesting. The last two Sunday's we have
eaten with an American family that live here. So that has been nice!
Last month we had a family home evening in an American family's home!
It was big!! There was a pool...I wanted to get in it so bad. Tuesday
we had a bbq with the American branch priesthood! we played bocce ball
(spell check) it mad me think of the Becketts and the river because
they always play that there! Friday we had a Pioneer Day activity in
another americAns house! I'll try to send some pictures! Yesterday the
Frys gave me a giant bottle of hot sauce so I'm excited for that!
Anyways, I don't have much to say. We are teaching two people as of
now regularly. Wilson who is this HUGE buff guy. Super nice guy! and
Enrique. Enrique came to church yesterday so that was good! He's come
las last few weeks on and off! Hopefully he will be baptized in the
next few weeks!!! anyways, I love all you guys! I really do!

Elder Rex

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