Tour of Spain

A bit of a wild ride, but it's been a lot of fun! This last Tuesday we had to go to Madrid to renew our residency. I went up with Elder Smith and left my companion in Jerez. We arrived in the afternoon, hit the equivalent of 3 Spanish DMVs and even met some old missionary friends from the MTC and the other mission. All the missionaries that arrived with me to Spain had to renew their papers and so it was a fun reunion. Afterwards we headed to Parla and were able to meet with a couple recent converts and other friends there. It was too bad we weren't able to go to the temple, but it was a lot of fun to spend the evening in Parla again. An Hermana, a few months earlier, had given me a family name asking me to do and I hadn't had the chance.

On Wednesday we boarded our train to head back home, and we found out the train had been canceled due to another crash on the same line. The train that had left our station heading for our same destination an hour before crashed in a large and horrific accident. We took advantage of the situation and were able to go to the temple. By some miracles, the same sister that had given me the name 3 months ago was there in the temple in the same session and was able to witness the baptism. We were told we were to spend the night in Cáceres: my first area in the mission. Somehow, in the last 2 days I was able to visit every area in my mission with the exception of Malaga. That is until leaving the temple, I came across a good friend from Malaga. She had just begun her mission and was arriving to continue her MTC in Madrid. For being there such a short time I was able to see a truly impressive number of friends and family. 

After returning to Sanlúcar on Thursday even nothing too crazy happened, but we enjoyed the few days left of work. We carved pumpkins on Halloween and had to pour beer for someone Best days worst days. 

This past Thursday night we had a family home evening with some members. Unfortunately, while praying one of their phones went off. It was a mild distraction, but her husband was so frustrated and unhappy with the phone of his wife that he became upset and frankly made it uncomfortable to be there. I don't tell this anecdote to judge either one of them, but I thought the childish indignation of the one made the original incident much worse than it needed to be. How easy might it have been to simply ignore it and move on. I have thought about this principle in my own life. Sometime humor, and appropriate venting may alleviate pain, but rarely does anger towards another show your own superiority nor does it better teach the lesson you want. It does in fact not change what already happened. Idk if that was a spiritual principle. Let me know. Have a great week

Elder DougallI