As the title states, we finally have hot water!!! You have no idea how great it is to take a hot shower now, and to have heating in our piso. At night before bed, I can finally sit and write in my jounal in shorts and a t-shirt instead of sweats, a jacket, and a hat. But there are still some pretty big holes in the walls. I have no idea when they're gonna fix it either. But I'm just soooo happy that we got hot water and heat again. So, there's that little update.
This past week was awesome. We had Zone Conference in Bilbao which was amazing. I learned so much from that and motivated myself to work even harder if I could. I loved this conference. And at every conference we get food, usually pizza. And they had enough pizzas for every missionary to have their own whole pizza. So of course I grabbed my own. That was the first time I've had pizza in months and it was sooo good. After Zone Conference we normally would have hopped on a bus and headed back to Pamplona but I found out that I had to go back to Madrid! I traveled with another Elder, Elder Thompson, because we had to pick up our Residency Card. It was the longest train ride ever. We didn't get to take the bullet train so it took five hours to get from Bilbao to Madrid. We just sat there, ate some food that we brought, read scriptures or church magazines, and talked. But we finally got there around 2:00 on Wednesday and went back to the MTC. I'll admit that I was pretty excited to see people there again. So we got there and apparently they weren't expecting us, haha. We got there and they were all surprised and asked what we were doing there. But it was great to see our teachers again and the President and his wife. We only got to be there for a total of about an hour since we had to travel to get our stuff and then catch our train back that night but it was still nice to see them all. I got back to Pamplona and went back to work and we had a great week.
There was a pretty funny experience, yet again this past week on the street. We were contacting this one woman and then our phone rang. So my companion told me to answer it since it was one of the office secretaries and so I walked a few feet away and all they wanted was my Residency card number. After I hung up this girl came up behind me and asked if we were Mormons. I said yes....why? haha. By then my companion had finished the contact and came over and we started talking to her and one of her friends. She said that she had lived in Utah, in Layton actually, for a summer with a Mormon family for a study thing. And apparently she lived not even ten minutes away from Elder Southwick's home. It was pretty sweet. But the funny part happened when the rest of her friends came out of the little store that we were by. They couldn't pronounce his name so he said that they could say "Elder Sandwich" if it was easier. And then this one girl said, "¿Eres rico?" which means, "Do you taste good?" hahaha it was so funny because of the context. It was a little awkward but it was funny just because he said his name was Elder Sandwich. But that's that funny story.
We had to go shopping late this week for food because we had Zone Conference and everything so we went this past Thursday and we got everything and we were about to check out when I realized I forgot my wallet! So we had to put our stuff down behind the register and go alll the way back to our piso, grab my wallet, and come back. I felt pretty stupid right then. And to make it worse, when we got back the line was hugeeee. So we ended up waiting another 15 minutes or so. I just hope I never forget that again.
My companion is sitting right next to me filling out his BYU application. Before his mission he went to a college in Iowa and he said that he had a pretty neat experience and decided to go to BYU because that's where he felt he needed to go. So he's been asking me for all this help with his essays and everything. It's been kinda funny to see him freak out about it all. We've revised his essays and everything and so he's gonna submit his stuff today. I might even be with him still when he finds out if he got in or not. I just think it's funny to see him going through this whole process right now.
The work is still going amazing out here. We've found so many people that have been prepared for this gospel. So many miracles happen everyday. We found this one woman on the street with her little girl and she was a member! She said she's been trying to call the church and find out when we met on Sundays but no one ever answered. Her husband isn't a member and they came to church yesterday and we're teaching him now. They're a great family and it was a neat little miracle that we found her.
Thanks for the prayers and support from back home. I miss you all and love you lots.
