Week 37 - Sabadell

Well hello everyone!  This week has been fantastic!  It has been a bit of an adjusting week just because we don't know our area at all....so we now know that we have a university in our area and two big cities that have a large population of the students that attend that university...It will be really fun talking to a bunch of people my age!  The ward here in my new area of Sabadell is incredible!!  Sabadell is about an hour outside of Barcelona in train and is still a part of Catalunya.  So everyone speaks Catalán.  There are a bunch more people here and stores!!!!  Last week was full of paper work but we still saw miracles so this week out on the street is going to be stupendous! 

Funny story from the week, I get to my piso the second night and guess who is there.  That's right the one Elder from my stake in this mission, ELDER SKOUSEN!!!!!  I get to talk to him all the time and he is such a stud!  The four Missionaries in this ward here are going to kill it!!!  I'm pumped!!!  This week I read something neat in the scriptures.  I was in the Book of Mormon and found one of my favorite scriptures, that reads, "O be wise, what can I say more?"  So people.  BE WISE this week!  Keep the commandments and follow the will of the Lord and everything will work out just fine!

 

Have a great week!

PS My Dad is the best he ordered me a Sabadell FC Jersey and Tie online last week right after finding out I got transferred here and I feel like a boss wearing them.
--

Con Amor,

Elder Jonson

Letters and Packages:

C/Calatrava 10-12 Bajos

Barcelona 08017

España

Week 36 - Transfers

Well that's it after 7 months there I am leaving the islands.  I'm getting transferred to Sabadell.  It is a little bit north of Barcelona and it has a WARD!!!!  I'm very excited and I get to use the word bishop for the first time in my mission!  Menorca is a fantastic island and I would recommend that everyone goes there during the summer!!  It is so pretty!  However that being said I am so excited to be here near Barcelona!  We are technically whitewashing because this is a new area for my companion as well even though he knows the members already.  Also I gave ELDER SKOUSEN A HUG today!!!  I saw him in the office today for transfers!!!   (Parker Shousen was assigned to Sabadell as well.  He and his companion are living in the same apartment as Tikal)

 

We had zone conference and it was amazing I love the islands so much!  Basically I love the mission and we have such great leaders and missionaries here!  Well no time as always!  Love you all and Pray, Read and Go to Church!!!

Con Amor,

Elder Jonson

Letters and Packages:

C/Calatrava 10-12 Bajos

Barcelona 08017

España

Week 35 - Fiestas not Siestas here in Menorca

Well this week has been fun!  Got a package from home!!  Good stuff, thanks Mom and Dad!  Also we got to go to Palma for two days for Enfoque and for Zone Conference.  We got to go on splits with the missionaries there and I got to work in my old district for an evening!  I got to talk with a ton of the members there that I knew and at this point in my mission I could actually talk to them!!!  It was a blast!!

 

However the crazy part of the week started yesterday....Sunday was the official start of the Fiestas de Maó to end the summer!  They have a tradition dancing horse parade that goes around the entire city and they have all kinds of carnivals and crazy stuff.  A.K.A. Good luck Elders... Last night we went out to work it was so packed that we just spent our time trying to get back to our apartment...interesting stuff!  I don't think I've seen so many drunk people!  So wish me luck and we'll see if we can pick up some new investigators from this!!

The pictures attached are from sunday night and the morning gathering not even the show!

Also as a Mission and all the members in the area are starting the Book of Mormon from the beginning and reading 2-3 chapters a day so that we can finish by the end of the year!  I would like to invite all of you to do the same and focus on the testimonies, lessons, and attributes of Christ!  I promise you'll recieve many insights by doing this!

Con Amor,

 

Elder Jonson

Fiestas de Maó

You can see the dancing horses in the background

 

Fiestas de Maó at Night

Manuel's Car Once it was Finished - Not bad for a couple of Elders

Week 34 A concert, spray painting cars and a game of Risk - Missionary work?

Hi everyone!  This week has been great!!  To start, last Preparation day we got to hear a concert from the balcony of our apartment of some pretty famous guy here in Spain.  There was no avoiding it so we weren't being disobedient... ;)

To finish off the previous story of Manuel's car, we sanded down the putty and SPRAY PAINTED over it...with a different color....he was totally fine with it and is very content.  

I got to work with the one and only Elder Dailey again this week as he flew out for an intercambio[splits].  He's so great!!  And then also we got to see great miracles in regard to Missionary work!  One happened with teaching a new investigator.  

A couple months ago my companion and I got contacted by a less active member who had just moved to Menorca with her Spanish boyfriend.  She gave us her number and we tried calling but she never answered...fairly standard...but we were walking down the street and we passed a new clothing store and saw her in there so we went in!  Turns out she and her boyfriend own the store and so we set up a visit with them for Sunday!  We got to have the visit and it went super well!!  He's a neat guy and loves American things so we played Risk after the visit...we are far from finishing!!  

The other miracle is that a less active member will be able to come to church for the first time in about 6 months!!!  Her name is Macarena and she's incredible!! Basically things are improving here as always!!!  

Remember to always smile and things will get better, just be patient!!

Have a great week!  Cuídense! [Take care]

Con Amor,

Elder Jonson

Manuel's car repair

 

Here's the work of the missionary auto body repair shop.  Any takers?

Exerpt from Tikal's companion's blog, Elder Dixon

This week was pretty good here in Menorca.   We are having a pretty great time, and seeing miracles.  One that was pretty neat happened Tuesday actually. We were going to go visit a lady named Maria, who really hasn't been progressing.  She wouldn't ever read the Book of Mormon, and she really likes all the saints that she has, so this visit was planned as a possible last, if she wasn't reading the Book of Mormon. Well, we went, and to start with, we were just talking, and I noticed that all of her saint statues, which are usually on the top shelf in a corner, had all been moved to the bottom shelf, which was surprising.  So, it was even more surprising when she let us know that she had been reading, every night, and was in chapter 4 of first Nephi. She told us that she had had the book for so long, at least for 3 years, maybe more, and she hadn't ever taken the time to even open it, until one day last week, she decided to just try a bit, and she got hooked. So, she started at the title page, and read through the whole introduction, all the testimonies, and everything.  It's really great, and so we have a visit with her set up tomorrow.  Then on top of that story, we went to another investigators house, and it was planned to be the same kind of lesson, and we again were surprised that she has read a bit.  Not very much, but she committed to read every single day, at least one verse, so we will see how it goes. We are finally coming out of summer, and people seem to have a bit more time.

 

So, to end here is a fun story.  We were in a lesson, and explaining to some tiny kids why we call each other brother or sister in the church, since we're all children of God, and so on.  Well..Elder Jonson was trying to give an example of who we call people "hermano so and so, or hermana so and so" only problem? he said "so and so" in English, and we were teaching Bolivians, where apparently, that's what they say to mean dumb, or stupid. We had a pretty good laugh over that one, once he saw the confused looks on all their faces:)

Week 33 Fixing Stuff

Aug. 25th 2014

This week has been fun!  We got to see two different lighthouses on the island and a bunch of other fun stuff for our Preparation days!  This week has been fun!  I've been learning all kinds of stuff!  This week we got to serve one of the recent converts here in the branch!  We went and worked on cleaning up Manuel's (the member) field.  And we got to fill in some scrapes on his car with putty...fun stuff!! [See picture]  Great experiences!!  Honestly the people here in Menorca who come regularly are some of the strongest members in the world!!!

 

I'm so thankful to be here and hope you all come visit this island someday and enjoy it as much as I have!  

 

This week I have been studying Alma 5 and it is a great chapter for all the members and non members of the church.  I invite you all to study it and apply it to your lives.  Have a great week!  

Goats & girls

 

This picture comes from the road coming back from a lighthouse, there was a sign on a gate that wasn't closed that said, "Close the gate, there's goats." And sure enough a little ways down the road that is barely big enough for one car to pull over to let the other pass by on, some hikers didn't want to try to pass the goat as the car was....The island is quite dry during the summer and up on the north side of the island looks almost like a flat southern Utah. Surrounded by perfect blue ocean water, of course.