Highlights from Logrono

Anyone know how to get the curly thing over the n?

First thing, I love it here. Wow it is SO much better in the field than the MTC. But that was a very important part of my training. It looks like the AF knew what they were talking about when they tested my ability to learn a language cause I am apparently doing very well. Everybody complements me on my Spanish and says that they can´t believe I am in my first area and didn´t speak before the mission. It is great and fun because I could just jump into the work. But I still have much to learn. There is a word- atender- and it means to attend to or entertain. So when we knock on doors they say No puedo atenderlo, and it sounds like no puedo entenderlo. So I was like, "they can´t understand me?" So then I would say the same thing over but much slower. Then they wouldn´t answer. It was great until I was told of this new word. Haha. But yeah, I was pretty scared the first night to do any contacting, but since then I have been doing it a lot. I even have started ringing the houses, which is hard because they all live in apartments so we just buzz each door until someone lets us in and then knock on doors all the way down the building. Then we go to the next one. It is crazy because we don`t have a whole lot of success with stuff like this. Apparently when my trainer Elder Zirkle got here 4 weeks ago the pool was dead. So for 4 weeks he has been working his butt off trying to get investigators and stuff. So when I got here we had a few. It is crazy because we set up visits all the time on the street and then when we go to them the person is not there or it´s a fake address. But we just start knocking their neighborhood. The city Logroño is a modern city, not big but tons of people. But it is crazy how many people we run into again and again. There is a great rama(branch) here but we don´t know many of the people in it yet so we are focusing on visiting the members a bit to get their support. It´s funny, in Spain eating in members homes is not very popular. We mostly have to cook for ourselves. It is weird, we have a little breakfast-cereal mostly- then at 2 we go back for mediodía and eat a big meal. Then we go work and come back at 9:30, plan, try to wind down and maybe eat a small sandwich or something, then we go to bed. So it´s really different, but so great. I like it cause we only have to cook once a day.lol. And we take turns cooking for the others. Four of us Elders share a piso(apartment) and there are also 2 Hermanas(sister missionaries) in the city with us. I can´t really describe everything so much, but it is really cool to be on a mission. A good feeling is at night when you finally finish and lay down in bed. It feels so good, because you know that if you had laid down earlier in the day you would feel guilty for wasting time, but at night it is so awesome. I really like going to bed knowing that I have worked really hard all day long. I hope I can keep that after my mission.lol. So, now just random stuff:I learned a good tool from ROTC of keeping my eyes "caged" because, yeah, there are things you shouldn´t look at everywhere. Billboards, stores, metro stops, inside any store except the grocery. It is a good skill to have and also you can focus on the people coming towards you and making contacts.Contacts are fun, but sometimes really funny. Last night we were going back to the piso and I was like, okay I will make the last contact of the night. So I tried to stop a couple passing by me, and they just said "tenemos prisa" which means, I´m in a hurry. And My companion was like, okay, I will do the last one of the night and we got excited and he tried to stop a lady and she didn´t say a word to him, just kept on walking. It doesn´t sound funny now, but it was hilarious then. We were trying to end the night well and it just fell.lol.So There are a ton of muslims here. A ton. And they are so cool. However we are not allowed to teach them because their families will have legal rights to kill them if they are baptized. It´s really sad, because we tracted into tons of them last night and its kind of awkward to get out of the contact. I feel bad every time not trying to teach them. But rules are rules. But they are so cool and so nice. We talked to one man for a long time. This month is Ramadan and they don´t eat as long as the sun is out so we were tracting into them right when they were eating after a long hungry day, so we felt bad. But they are always really nice.One motivation we have for contacting people well is so that we can have a lesson and sit down instead of walking around the city all day, which hurts. I was pretty sore the first few days and am still bad, but I am getting used to it. Also, it´s funny how we get pumped up to talk to people. Elder Zirkle will just go, hey, this man looks really interested, or- I bet this family really wants to hear how they can be together forever. It really does get us excited and remind us of our purpose. Our investigator are all really nice people, and it´s sad when they don´t come to church or read from the Book of Mormon.So I am really excited and happy to be here and we have seen already a small miracle with a man we contacted, and I expect good things from this area. President Duvall said that he really likes Elder Zirkle and he expects me to be one of the best missionaries in the mission after Elder Zirkle trains me. We talked yesterday about making this the best companionship we can and something we will remember for a long time. So we are both really excited and happy and we will try our hardest to make this city a better place. I love all of you and love this Gospel. -Elder Brett Anderson