Hala madrid‏

09/09/09

Sorry about the delay, even though your are probably just waking up. Today we cruised up to Madrid and toured the number one religious gathering place in spain: the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home to Real Madrid.

It was amazing. We got to sit in the stands, see the trophy room, walk through the locker room (even saw the toilet where countless legends have, well, you know…), and even sit in the players’ box. When we were down by the field, I even flirted my way into getting a blade of grass from the field, a blade of turf from the players’ box, and a dirt clod (should sell for millions on ebay). At first it proved to be a worthy challenge, seeing as the security guard on duty was a 40 year old Spaniard man. But in the end, victory was achieved, a heart was won, and a blade of grass acquired. I regret nothing.

As always, I took pictures of everything. I will hopefully be getting those off soon.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day. We get a surprise mission tour from Elder Teixeira and then a spiritual cuddle with President Watkins. I will let you know how that goes.

Yesterday was really cool. We taught Michael and of course he was stellar. Earlier in the week we had invited him to pray about things he can do better to stay strong. He told us that he prayed for an answer and then opened the book of mormon. After opening the book, he realized his thumb was pointing to verse 1 of chapter 16 of Alma. He handed it to me to read and told me that it was his answer. It is one of the peace/war chapters. I read it and paused for a moment. I then went ahead and took another moment. Then two or three more moments. Still nothing. I had no idea what he found. But of course, our miracle, Nigerian, bombshell pulled through. He said that he too was at peace right now. More peace than ever before. He then said that he also knew now that he needed to be ready and prepared for when the devil would make his cries of war against him. He did not want to hear even the faintest rumor of war inside of him.

I no longer skim over the boring war history versus straight to the fighting parts… as much.

Day before yesterday was fun. I went on exchanges with a really cool missionary who has been out for a long time. I learned something really cool from him. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I have always read/heard about how we are never supposed to compare ourselves to other missionaries to measure our own personal level of achievement. I had always thought that this meant that we were not supposed to compare ourselves to really successful missionaries so we don’t get depressed. I realized a bit more. Also got to avoid comparing oneself to the poor missionaries. It was sad to see how frustrated he got with people when they wouldn’t listen, even to the point of condemning them. I honestly wasn’t surprised every time he was turned away, I wouldn’t want to talk to someone I could tell didn’t like me. At the end of the day I was feeling pretty good about myself and how far I had come, but then I realized that I still had a long way to go. I don’t want to put myself on a scale with missionaries like that. It was sad, but educational.

Day before the aforementioned day was really sweet. We were walking out of the train station after arriving in one of our pueblos and a bus pulled up. It is a bus we don’t usually take and actually takes us in the opposite direction of the person we were planning to visit. I didn’t know why at the time, but it seemed perfect, so we jumped on. About a minute after jumping on I realized I had no idea what I was doing on this bus. It was clearly my fault. My companion is a trainee, he can push old ladies into bushes and it would be my fault. About a minute after this realization the phone rang. It was one of our members asking us if we could pass by the hospital in one of the far away pueblos. Her niece was there and needed a blessing. The pueblo she needed us to pass by was actually the pueblo we were in at that very moment. The hospital where her niece was was actually at the end of the bus line we were on. Very cool experience. We ended up going in, singing a hymn for her, and giving her a blessing. Yep, I sang for someone. Yes, it was to put her out of her misery. Didn’t work though, so we just gave her a blessing and left.

Well, time is spent.

Loves and kisses,

Sky