Week 2

This week has been so much better everyone thank you for all your prayers!
I hope everyone read email, this week I want to go into more of my
experiences here instead of what my day to day life is here.
This last week we started learning Spanish grammar and it’s been
tough, even with my background in Spanish I’m still struggling to fit
all these new things into my head, they teach one topic and then the
next day it’s a new topic, lots of studying the language lately!
So every Saturday we have this thing called TRC which is basically
they give you a scenario and say you have to teach this person (
teacher playing the role of an investigator) in one hour, get a lesson
together and go do it. It is so stressful  I never feel fully prepared
but we do it each week, it’s a good learning experience. This last
week it was a woman who was inactive who wants to quit smoking so we
had to plan a lesson for that. Generally I take lead on lessons but
this time I gave it to my companion to start the lessons and we get
into the lesson and we say hi and before even getting to know this
woman, side note my companion has struggled to say much in lessons
whenever he gets into a lesson he chokes up and never knows what to
say even tho he knows as much Spanish as me, he goes and asks her
right away so we heard you wanted to stop smoking...... like oh my
gosh elder what have you done..... so then the lesson went downhill
all from there and just failed. He’s been struggling to speak here in
Spanish he has a serious mental block, please everyone pray for my
companion cause it’s taking a toll on both of us. It’s not bad I still
like the guy but he kinda reminds me of my younger brother Josh a lot,
so our heads butt and our personalities clash sometimes.
The park this last week was great we went with new companions this
time they Just jumbled up the elders and matched us with someone new
and I went with elder Dixon from the other district this time. This is
is literally a genius he’s so smart and his Spanish knowledge is so
good it’s like he has another year on me. He’s a great missionary he
will literally talk to anyone and everyone and when people say no
thanks and try leaving he’s like can we at least practice our Spanish
with you and they will say fine and he will get out the message then
hahaha he’s so smart. It was a great example for me because I
sometimes look to find that one person who will be prepared to hear
the gospel and he made me realize that we need to look harder. We
wanted to give out 2 Book of Mormons at the park this week and we were
having zero success so we stopped on the sidewalk said a quick prayer
and find a person who would be curious enough to take a Book of
Mormon. We turned around and saw two people a man and a woman who were
sitting on a bench, we went to talk to them and they were super nice,
both from South America and they had this kid with this and elder
Dixon goes is this your child together to the man and he said I hope
so hahahaha. Then we talked more the man wasn’t so interested but his
wife or girlfriend took a Book of Mormon, it was awesome and later
that day elder Dixon gave out another Book of Mormon so we were able
to fulfill our goal.
Saturday also was the champions league soccer final and Madrid was in
the final and won, every time they scored and after they won there
were fireworks going off and people screaming, it was so cool to see
and also a hard night to fall asleep hahaha.
Every day we have investigator lessons with a mock investigator who is
our teacher playing the role of an investigator. The lessons were
going ok but went kinda stale not worse but not progressing as much,
the teacher talked to me and my companion and I had just a sudden
thought with him that what we’ve been trying to teach and make sure
the investigator knew everything but that’s not our job. Our job is to
come and teach the lesson and testify and let the Spirit teach and
testify and do its part, the spirit is the real teacher not me if
that makes sense to you guys. When I realize this the lessons went so
much better and when the last lesson came we ended on a high note.
Today Is pday and we’re going to temple like every Thursday and then
going to some plaza in Madrid. Last week we went to the Puerta de Sol
which is like the busiest street in Madrid and it was so cool, this city
is like old as snot it’s so cool to see all these things that usually
most people will only be able to see pictures of, we tried churros and
chocolate that day and oh my goodness I was in heaven. I think my
heart turned to chocolate I ate so much that day. Then we went to a
big store and the elders I’m my district including me bought matching
shirts that say España on it with the Spanish flag they’re pretty
cool.
I don’t have much else to talk about really, thank you guys for your
prayers and emails I read all the emails and can feel your prayers.
Please pray for my companion and keep praying for me, the spirit is
strong here and I can see myself working with the spirit more and more
each day and the language is coming with it. Please continue to email
me I’ll try to reply to as many as I can. Viva españa!!
-Elder Keith

I don’t have many pictures except these 

This last email I forgot to say a few things, first I’m getting used to the food my stomach has been feeling so much better even with some weird new stuff this week. We had paella which was so freaking good. We had this salmon which was the best fish I’ve ever had it was so good. Many other things I can’t think of but it’s been better. I got a haircut this week and it was so sketchy. Keep in mind this only cost me 4 euros. He had these clippers and was doing my sides and got halfway around my head and they shut off, completely burned out so he had to free hand the rest of the haircut...... I had to keep still the entire time and to be honest he didn’t do bad but I definitely got what I paid for. He missed this big patch of hair on my next and elder Taylor in my district took my electric razor with the attachment to trim sideburns to finish off the edge on the back of my next.... oh well I guess. It wasn’t too bad. I feel everyone’s prayers my ability to work with the spirit has growled so much and my ability to speak and learn the language is growing exponentially, I’m literally gonna be one of those people who forgets English on his mission. There are some words like god that I just instinctively say dios now it’s crazy, my companion and other elders laugh at me a lot about it. Love you all I have to go now but when I get time later I’ll try and reply to what you guys send. Elder Keith

May 24, 2018

Here are some pics with my district, companion, and others.

Abinadi District.  Spanish learners.  May 15th - Jun 25th 2018

Flat Trina's first appearance in Spain!

Week 1 1/2 in the Mission (CCM)

May 24, 2018
Man an email about a week and a half of all new stuff to me is so hard to write but I hope to say everything I need to.

So being awake for almost 24 hours because of lots of back to back flights was not fun. I am still getting used to the time zone, I have tons of jet lag, but the flights weren’t bad. The 9 hour flight had like a million free movies and they gave me earphones too so sorry everyone I’m not perfect I broke the mission rules and watched like 5 movies, I couldn’t sleep on the plane.

So our schedules are packed I should include a picture of it but we literally have 16 hour days in the mission with almost no breaks. I arrived Tuesday and all I did was get my name tags and my companion. My companions name is elder fryer he is from Brigham Utah were the same age but he’s a little younger in maturity to me as I’m starting to figure out. We know about the same amount of Spanish too we’re actually ahead of most the missionaries. Also I met my district, side note this mtc is small it can only house less than 100 missionaries and right now there are only 12 of us here altogether. There are six of us in my district, I was called as district leader, Hermanas Holland and kennington and then elder fryer, me, Taylor, and Jacobson. We are all Spanish learners me and fryer and way ahead. Hermana Holland and kennington are like 2 year Spanish learners and elder Jacobson the same. Elder Taylor knows nothing about Spanish he hasn’t learned a lick of Spanish except when he got here so he’s struggling but improving exponentially. Also side note no one can say elder Jacobson’s last name so we have tons of nicknames for him from all the times people have messed up his name like yacobson, Jenkinson, Hijo de Jacob and tons more. 

Our a schedule the first week was different than all the other weeks to come because it’s all so new but it generally goes like this: we wake up at 6:30 every day and get ready and be at breakfast by 7:00 and 7:30-8:00 we have daily planning which is pretty self explanatory. From 8-9 we have personal study with anything we want to study mostly it’s becomes language study or lesson planning because we are so packed. Literally our schedules are so packed most days we can maybe 10 minutes to actually sit down and read the Book of Mormon each day. From 9-1:00 we have classes that range from grammar classes, preach my gospel lessons classes, or other things like workshop style classes. That set of classes is with one teacher. Then from 1:00-2:00 we have lunch. Lunch is like dinner in the states, it’s the big meal of the day. I guess it’s a good time to talk about the food, the food is good I like most of what they serve. But it’s very different from the states they have these food combinations that we would never put together but it works out here. Like a baked potato that’s peeled and then put on top of a piece of lettuce with like a cream gravy sauce. It’d weird but not bad. We have had shrimp some fish, breakfast is like a desert usually it’s really good. Ummm we have a lot of American dishes too surprisingly like pork chops and broccoli which I was all over. All the food is not like cafeteria food also it’s like home cooked meals. The thing about all this is it’s good but they feed us a ton, and my stomach does not like any of it. I have been in the bathroom more this week than I have ever been in one month because I am not handling any of it. It’s a pain but I’m starting to adjust more. 

(They only give us an hour today to write emails so sorry if I don’t answer everyone but I don’t have time. Pdays are not really pdays like you would think, I still have to wear missionary clothes all day, some stupid mtc rule, I still tons of things like study hours and stuff like that. Not really a break day in my opinion)

Getting back to classes after lunch from 2:00- 5:00 which is with a different teacher than the one you had classes with the first block. The classes at this time are just like the classes the first block. Then from 5:00 to 6:30 we have sports and exercise time and then shower and get back in missionary clothes. This is the best time of the day, I get to dress normally and get a somewhat of a break. But also we end up showering twice a day and I do laundry twice as much as before because of it. And I don’t have almost any time to do laundry too. We have dinner at 6:45-7:30. And then after that we have more classes from 7:30-9:00 with another set of new teachers. That our schedules for every day pretty much besides Thursday which is our pday, Saturday, and Sunday. Thursday we start off the day with going to the temple which they do special for the missionaries so it’s all in English, thank goodness. The mtc is right next to the temple. And then later Thursday after lunch we go on tours around Madrid, today we’re going to some place called sol something, it’s a popular place to tour in Madrid I guess so that will be cool. Saturday’s we go to the park there’s this huge park in Madrid idk what it’s called just look it up on a map I guess.  But what they do is they assign companionship’s and you go out and proselyte for like 2:30 like we were in the field. They wants us to give out Book of Mormons and talk to every one. Even this last week with not much Spanish teaching we went to the park so it wasn’t the most successful day for lots of us but with all 12 of us combined we placed like 14 Book of Mormons, 12 referrals for the local missionaries. Sunday is like the most pday like day of the week we have devotionals and church and actually get an hour for nap it’s awesome. One thing I didn’t touch on is this week they started us doing like mock investigator lessons every day. So we teach one of the teachers with them as a mock investigator and we’ve done 3 lessons so far, also everything the classes and lessons and stuff is all in Spanish. Our first lesson was a train wreck and the next two were great Like really good lessons. 

I only have 5 minutes to finish my thoughts, I haven’t even scratched the surface of my experiences here yet and sorry but I won’t have time to email anyone back. It’s not my fault blame the mtc. But I have loved the mtc so far, I can feel everyone’s prayers and blessings have been rained on my like having more of the spirit and having the gift of tongues fill my mouth with words I could have never put together is mind blowing. It has been hard too I’ve had a couple nights this where I broke down crying not knowing how I, gonna do all this but I’ve worked through it all so far. Please email me I can read emails every night and I enjoy hearing from you all. I love you all please keep praying for me. Until next Thursday , Elder Keith ( also they gave me this iPad to email cause I guess I’m not Buying a phone til the field so it takes forever to email)

These are photos from the view of my room.

I'm Alive

May 15, 2018
I arrived safe in Madrid after all those long flights. My flights weren't that bad I made it. My pdays are on Thursdays but I won't be able to email till next Thursday. Thank you for your prayers!  Love -<Elder Keith