Week 102 - Feliz Navidad

12/21/15

Just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  Hope everything goes well this Christmas season and that we all remember the true meaning of Christmas.  If you haven't shared the church's Christmas video already, please do.  It is great!  We are seeing miracles from it in the mission.

Feliz Navidad!

Christmas.mormon.org
Navidad.mormon.org
Elder Jonson

Preparing Milanesa for Zone Meeting 


with a Member and Elder Latteier



Cooking Milanesa 



The Finished Product



 Posing before Zone Meeting



Lunch at Zone Meeting



A Funny Spanish Christmas Carol



Ward Christmas Dinner

Week 101 - Caga Tio

12/14/15

Right now we have a good lady from Cameroon who we are teaching.  We would love to have her get baptized around Christmastime as that is such a special time of year.  She is getting really close. In other news one of my favorite companions, Elder Male, is now in our zone so that's fun!

Today we have to set up for our Zone Conference tomorrow.  Most of the time, especially if we have new missionaries in the zone, we have Zone Conference in English. But if there are a lot of natives in our zone we speak in Spanish.  This week we will most likely do the meeting in Spanish. 

That big Elder from last week’s photos is in his second transfer in the field.  I think he weighs close to 300 lbs. He is a big kid.

Picture of Tikal in the Subway

The picture below is of me posing as Caga Tio.  It is a little log with a smiley face wearing a traditional Catalan hat.  The translation is "poo log".  Beginning on the 8th of December, kids cover their caga tio to keep it warm and feed it every night so that on Chrismas Eve it will poop out gifts and treats for the kids. 

 Caga Tio

Tikal Dressed as Caga Tio

Week 100 - Staying in Hospitalet

12/8/15

This week we had transfers. I didn't get transferred, and neither did my companion. So we're going to be together for 4 1/2 months.  I'm really excited to finish my mission here in Hospitalet.  Today we get to take out new missionaries again since they do not receive their trainers until tomorrow, so I've got a short preparation day.

Anyway this week has been ok, we found some good people to teach but we didn't have a whole lot of lessons so that's not too great. But we are really excited to baptize someone this month. Also there are two baptisms in the district this week so it'll be super good!! Also there's a great member who is giving me a ton of clothes, he's such a great person. We're good friends. Hope all goes well this week. 

Please send any packages to c/Pujos 33 2 Hospitalet, España 08904
I will be here for the rest of my mission.

Riding bikes in Barcelona with his district

 Picture of Tikal's district - Wow that one Elder is tall.

Tikal's companion (next to Tikal is 6.0)

 Elders from Tikal's piso

View from in front of Tikal's piso

Week 99 - Tonsillitis & Staying Positive

12/1/15

This week was a little rough.  Last week’s illness turned out to be strep, so that was interesting. I literally slept all Monday, nothing on Monday night, Tuesday all day, a little Tuesday night, and then made an appointment with the doctors, but not until the following Wednesday the 2^nd of December....so the mission just told me to go to the ER.  So I went and complained a little, got in, and got a prescription. I'm kind of half wondering if I could've just gotten the drug over the counter. It only cost me €9,95 - gotta love socialized medicine when you aren't paying any taxes.... ;)

We got close on the goal of baptizing 2 people per week as a zone. We finished the 4 weeks with 5 baptisms. So not too shabby. Our zone average for baptisms per month this year is about 5,1 so that's on track with where we have been.  We are going to do better this month with a goal of a least one baptism per companionship in the Zone. To help motivate our Zone, we are giving out Christmas ornaments to everyone like the ones we got in our last Concilio (see picture below).

Well we had a really good investigator for a little while, and now we are struggling with him.  He has some issues in his life with the law of chastity.   We will continue to work with him to overcome these. 

I am loving the mission!  Right now is such a great time to be here in Barcelona, for some reason I have a ton of energy. I'm sorry I will not be coming home in December as planned. I believe it is the Lord's will for me to stay.  Yes it will be sad not to be home for Christmas, but like we learned in a recent mission conference, we need to think positively. After Sister Dayton's husband was killed in a car accident she went to a counseling class where she was told to take every negative thing that ever happened and say, "That's great!" It's really helped me be positive.

I'm doing super well, we're working on getting more references this week.

 

Gift received at Concilio - They plan to give a similar gift to all the

Zone to motivate them to baptize in December.

 Mission Concilio

 

On P-Day the Elders in Tikal's Piso rode around the Sagrada Familia cathedral on bikes.  Below are some pictures of the cathedral and the Guadi house

 

 

Week 98 - Sick

11/23/15

No letter from Tikal this week.  He was sick on P-Day but he did send the attached video clip.

Week 97 - Training and Progress

11/16/15

My week has been good. This week one of the miracles we saw was with our investigator Yuri. We've been talking to him for a couple weeks off and on and trying to help him understand that he too can believe that Jesus Christ is our savior and the son of God. So on Saturday we saw him working and went to talk to him, and he told us that he wanted to try the "baptism thing." We sat there rather stunned as he explained that he really loves the way he feels in the church and with the members and said he'd like to give it a shot. He wants to know if it is true and he is already showing real intent, so we're going to set a fecha (baptismal date) with him this week. I'm super excited!!! Por fin baptism!
 

Other than that all is swell, hearing a lot about the Paris attacks, but not worried at all, you know how I am. Tomorrow we have Specialized Training then on Wednesday a Special Conference with members of the quorum of the Seventies, so that should be good! Good looking week this week!

Elder Jonson

Tikal with the Elders from his piso

Elders Latteier, Stratton and Tyson

At a ward BBQ

Week 96 - Extending for Eight Additional Weeks

11/10/15

I prayed about extending and I received my answer to stay.  I am super excited about the opportunity to serve a little longer. I'm sorry if it causes problems, but I'm sure there's a bigger thing going on in the Lords plan. I know there's something else I need to do, someone else I need to help. I'll be entirely honest and say I didn't feel comfortable at all with the December date, so I changed it. I'm happy to be serving the Lord as a missionary in Barcelona, Spain. My new release date will be February 3rd, 2016. As for my visa, I've been illegal here in Spain since last January, so I'm not too worried about it, the office should be working on it.

In regards to missionary work, my area is hard, pretty much all Spanish people. The work is slowly starting to improve, we mostly contact in the street, sometime knock doors and now are starting to get a couple references from members every once and awhile.

Well with Maddi Wheadon's companion (Maddi is from our home ward in Lehi.  She served a Spanish speaking mission in Kansas), she's in my ward here in Hospitalet and she asked me where I was from and then asked if I knew Maddi when I said I was from Lehi. Maddi was her trainer.  Work goes on, I'm happy, healthy and loving life. Hope all is well at home. 

Tikal with Maddi's Companion

Tikal found a picture of the Mayan Temple of "Tikal "in an old Liahona magazine