Before i even start thinking about writing the big stuff (which is pretty dumb to say since writing that there i was thinking about it (and even moreso now)) i will answer questions.
Wards in Madrid? There are 8 wards in the actual city, but if you go out about 45 minutes there are a lot more. Mostly branches out there though.
Where do they meet? There are 4 chapels shared by the 8 wards spead out in the four corners.
Where is the Stake Center? It is on the temple lot.
Where is the mission home? It is about 40 minutes from the center of madrid by bus, in car it is much much less, It is in a really nice area.
Okay, enough of the funny business. You need to hear about what happened. I have never in my life even dreamed of ever thinking about being near imagining what went down on sunday night. Epic. The entire day there was an inexcapable buzz in the air. Even at church you could tell that peoples thoughts were on the game. Honestly, had they discovered the cure for cancer on sunday, nobody would have heard anything about it until today. When the game started, the city died. The only people on the streets were the people who either left the bar to take a smoke or to throw up, both because of the nerves of it all. It was impossible to do anything. Nobody would accept visits. Nobody would stop to talk unless it was solely to yell a swear word about the game and follow it immediately with a chest bump. It was incredible. Every bar was filled to capacity. The streets were lined with big screens and shoulder to shoulder crowds. In the center i heard that on one single street there were more than 300000 people watching. So of course, with every living spaniard worshiping their false god in full dedication, we found ourselves standing outside the window of a bar watching the game. Luckily, it only caught us for about 10 minutes because then we had to go inside to do weekly number calls. We started getting things ready, still listening out the window for the sounds of the game, as was explained last week. Then it happened. Something that cannot be scaled on the missionary sound classifications. The explotion of noise, the silence, the gasp, and then the absolute loss of all reason. Fireworks exploding right out the window, people rioting through the streets, jumping into the fountains, climbing on passerby cars, and to top it all off, a huge beetle flew in through the window and landed on my face and really freaked me out. Even the bugs were celebrating! As you can imagine, calls didnt really happen. Too much noise and when the goal was scored the entire system locked up. It was a pretty noisy night, day, and following night. At least one thing is for certain: the work will proceed a great deal because now the spaniards believe in God. I hear the cathedrals saw record crowds for the sunday morning mass.
Now, to abruptly change the subject, we had zone conference yesterday. It was way fun. They asigned us a one hour training where we had a specific theme for the first thirty minutes and then our own thang for the last 30. It was way fun. We bought a rope and played a game then talked about it. The assistants, who are in our zone, along with Hermana Watkins said they were supposed to go around and listen to all the different workshops but they stayed in ours the whole hour because they didnt want to miss anything. That got the pride canteen all filled up as normal. Then to make good things great, Hermana Watkins singled me out in her talk. She spoke on unity and said, "Dont worry about being similar, just be united - if we all had to be like each other, Elder Carr would never survive."
Now for another radical change of topic. This last week we started teaching... wow, there is a kid that just snuck up behind me and started screaming at the top of his lungs. It really freaked me out. I looked at him and just started sreaming with him and he stopped. Okay back to business, wait, getting a call..... Done, now we can start. This last week we started teaching a girl named Paula. She is from Barcelona and is a really cool girl. Incredible life. I dont want to lest it off just for her sake, but suffice it to say it climaxes at a failed suicide attempt. The poor girl was just searching for something. When we met with her we had some really humbling lessons. Stuff that just leaves you speachless. We did feel very strongly that she could get a clear answer if she really searched, and that is what we promised her. We gave her asignments and she read them all and more. She would pray every chance she got, just pleading for something to help her know that she had not gone through all that she had for no reason. When we met with her she just said that there was nothing. It was hard for us. Times like that are tough because it is so far out of our control. But we knew what we had felt with her, we knew we had done our very best to leave our hearts on the table as always so we left her in the Lords hands. She came to the baptism on saturday and said it was interesting but still nothing. She came to church and went through all the classes and still had received nothing. Then we got to the last hour which is sacrament for us. She said that during the passing of the sacrament she felt really calm so she decided to give it one more try. She started to pray and said that she plead like she had never plead before. Then she just let her heart pour out and told God that if he would let her feel that He was there then she would be baptized and do whatever she needed to, but she just wanted to feel it. And in that very moment she said that the most overwhelming feeling of joy she has ever felt came over her. So much that she almost couldnt breath and just started to cry. We talked to her that night and when she told us about it we cried with her. I felt really strongly that she need to set the date then so we told her that we would help her fufill her promise and i said the first date that came to mind which was the 14th of august. As soon as the date was out of my mouth i felt the strongest feeling of "no, she has waited long enough, she deserves it now." She had agreed gladly with the first and i thought it might not be good to take the moment, but it was a really strong feeling and when i looked at my companion i was obvious he was feeling the same thing. So we invited her again and she accepted even more gladly. She said she didnt care, she would do what was necessary. On monday when we met with her she had already borken up with her boyfriend and had him move out and gone shopping with her aunt for more modest clothes. We still hadnt even finished teaching the restoration. It is super humbling to realize how little we do, but how much our very best effort is needed.
That is it for me. Talk to you later.
Hugs and kisses,
Elder Sky
P.s. The people in the pictures are Jazmin, who was baptized this last saturday, and her family. She is 9, her sister is a reactivated girl and her mom is working on getting baptized this coming month.
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