Easter in Spain!!

What do they do in Spain for Easter? Well, they all dress up in robes and pointy cone hats that make them look like the KKK (but they´re really called penitentes), and follow statues of Christ or the Virgen (not usually Mary, I´m not sure which virgen it is, but not usually Mary) and they do that 1 or 2 times a day. It´s different in every city you go to, but from what I´ve heard it´s basically the same everywhere, depending on the city it might just be bigger or smaller. We ran into 2 processions this past week, and had to detour around them because they take up the whole street, and there is a band that follows them around, and then a huge crowd of normal people follow them around.

What did we do? Well, basically as we were walking in the streets, I reminded Elder Clark over and over what was happening 2000ish years ago in Jerusalem. But other than that nothing super special. I made Biscuits and Gravy this morning and reorganized the house, that was kind of special.

Special training this past week was different. We went to San Fernando and President Deere taught us a way to ask strong members for "references" more or less. Basically, as missionaries, we have the tendency to visit the strong, active members and ask for references, but since they are strong, they have already talked and tried to share the gospel with family and friends on many occasions, so President suggested that we go and ask them if they know any part member families, less actives, and finally people who have investigated the church or come to an activity in the past. We were able to do that twice this week, and it was really a good, spiritual experience.

I finally gave a talk! It was on missionary work, go figure, and yeah... I shared 2 scriptures that I really liked. One is Alma 1:26-29. I love this scripture and how it teaches us that as we do our duty and teach and care for one another, the church will grow and prosper, and those that have left, will return. The second was Alma 4: 3-4. In these versus, it stood out to me, that in response to being chastised by their Heavenly Father, the people remembered their "duty" and they shared the gospel. And then the church grew.

Our area? Well, we do cover Chipiona, but we have yet to go out there. We have plans to go out there tomorrow with our ward mission leader to contact a reference and find some inactive members. Sanlúcar is really strange, the people here are always looking out for each other (I can´t tell you how many times random people have seen us look lost and helped us find our bus, or let us cut in line at the post office or the ayuntamiento because we missed our turn) and yet they don´t want anything to do with the gospel and they yell at each other and make fun of each other always. There are lots of cobblestone, narrow streets so it gives you a truer feeling of what Spain was like. It also is probably one of the hardest areas to understand what the people are saying. The Cadiz region in general is known for it´s horrible Spanish, but Sanlúcar is, from what I´ve heard, the worst. But you get used to it after a month (with the Lord´s help).

We are working with the husbands of lots of the sisters in the church, and 7 less active members one of which was rescued/reactivated yesterday. We are waiting for callings for 2 of them so they can be considered rescued, and more importantly have another anchor in the gospel.

However the main task, as I have seen it, has been to break the habits that have been taking place here in Sanlúcar over the past 15 years. Mostly habits of not following the rules and spending tons of time in the homes of the members. We´ve got it in the heads of the members that we don´t enter houses if there isn´t a man home, so that´s improvement, so yeah...

The Branch Presidency accepted the Branch Mission Plan we drew up, and now we just need to present it to the rama. Mostly, we just need to make sure we are smiling and happy all the time so everyone else can have the chance to choose to be happy too.

Well, that´s the area and a little bit of the week. 

Love you all and have a great week,

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett made some paella

This is a picture of Africa from Gibraltar 

Transferred to Sanlucar!!

First things first, new address:

Avenida de Todos los Santos 11

11540 Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cadiz

España

Life is good, this place is soooo beautiful. I honestly haven´t seen so much grass for almost a year. Craziness. The feel of this small town is so different than that of Málaga. It is such a laid back feeling and attitude to life which makes it hard to try and have urgency in the work, and it is much more humid here than it was in Málaga and cold humidity has a tendency to stick to the bone. No me gusta. Pero no pasa nada!

These first couple days here have been good. Elder Clark (went to Mountain View with me) has been taking good care of me, and has made me lunch everyday that we haven´t been fed by our member that we live with. Yup, we live with a member.  We actually have our own little mini house out behind her house, but it´s awesome. This will be the only time in the mission that I will be able to have pets. 4 dogs, a pony, a cow and lots of chickens. I love it!

We have witnessed several miracles just these past few days, but one that I would like to share with you is this: We were able to give a blessing to a non member friend of a member while we were in this member´s home. Her name is Rocio. She has never talked with the missionaries before, and after the blessing, she was crying and we explained what the spirit was and she accepted to hear our message. I am so happy for here and hope that we will be meeting with her often to help her come closer to our heavenly father.

Our ward mission leader also lives with us. He lives in a room above the house that our mamita lives in. He is from france and his nickname in highschool was popeye. He is super strong. We helped a member move last week, and this 71 year old frenchman was lifting more weight than just about anyone else without any problems. He´s awesome and his name is Daniel, but we call him Danny.

Welp, that´s all for the week. The church is true, and life is good.

Love you all,

Elder Garrett B Turley

Needs new shoes after working so hard!!

Thanks for the money, I´ll most likely be getting some shoes that are needed. Just in case anyone asks, Croft and Barrow are garbage shoes. I´ll send some pictures of one of the pairs of shoes that I wore for the first 10 months of the mission. Completely destroyed. I´m actually kind of proud of it. My comp tells me I should only wear them when we go to special confereces with President Deere.

Well this week was a little tough, but our labors and more than anything our desires to do good were blessed yesterday.  First off, yesterday we had stake conference. It was very different for several reasons. First, the last 3 stake conferences I have gone to, I have had to take a 2ish hour bus ride to a different city, but this one was here in Málaga. Second off, it was a broadcast from Salt Lake with the main speaker being Elder Ballard. It was super good, but I still don´t like it when they translate for the Quorum of the 12 or the First Presidency just cause it´s not their voices. But it was good nonetheless.

Then that evening, we went by 2 less actives and they are doing so well. They really have desires to come closer to Christ and we were just so excited walking home and planning last night.

First off Sofia. She is from Bolivia, and has 2 daughters who are both members of the church also. She´s been menos activo for a while, but she has started opening up to us in the past couple weeks. Last night, she prayed so sincerely to our Heavenly Father, it was so beautiful.

Then there is David. We have been visiting him on average 2x a week for my whole time here in Málaga (4ish months). He talked to the Bishop yesterday, and then we went over after their talk, and he was soooooo happy. He had been depressed and sad this whole time and with a little talk with the Bishop, he gained hope and told us that he wants our help. We called the Bishop afterward to thank him, and he told us that David told him that he didn´t understand at first why we, the missionaries, kept coming over, but then he realized that it was because we loved him, that´s when he decided to talk with the Bishop, and that just made me super happy.

The Lord has blessed us so much just in the last 24 hours. And I pray to be the missionary he needs to help these two of his children continue to follow him as well as many more.

Love you all, have a great week!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett's birthday dinner

After 10 months of walking

Another Miracle!!

Well, this week was pretty good. We´ve redoubled our efforts as a companionship, and we have set high goals for this week (at the invitation of Pres. Deere) and will be trying to find lots of people to teach.

One miracle that happened this week, is that we finally talked to this homeless man that I have seen probably everyday since I´ve been here in Málaga. His name is Gospower and he is from Nigeria and he is so ready to hear the gospel. He lives in Italy and comes to Málaga regularly for vacation, usually during the summer, but this past summer, someone stole all his documentation and he is stuck here in Málaga until he can get back to Italy to renew his documents. When we contacted him, he was sitting in the street begging for money, and we just went and sat next to him and talked to him for a bit, and then invited him to come to the church building for a lesson. The Lord blessed us with a very cold and windy day the day of that lesson, and I think that was part of what helped him come. Apparently, 2 of the sisters in our ward have invited him to church and to listen to the lessons a ton, but he never accepted. He said that because  we sat down by him (Elder Landinez more so than I) and just talked to him and got to know his story, that helped him feel like he had friends. We gave him the Restoration pamphlet and saw him later the same night, and he said he had read 6 lines and had felt "something" in him. We are excited for him, and I hope that he will choose to let God bless him in this time in his life.

That´s been the biggest miracle this week. One thing that´s kind of weird for me, is that I am focusing on my goals that I have set for this year. As I´ve been reading the Bible (I´m in Leviticus!!!!) It´s been interesting to see how things connect to the New Testament, to the Book of Mormon, to the story of the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, everything. I absolutely love it.

Oh, yeah, and I´m not sick this week. It´s kinda nice. :)

Love you all!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Merry Christmas!!

This week was pretty good. Quick summary of the week. We tried to contact a lot of the people we have talked to in the street the past two weeks, and now we are trying to figure out how to contact people in the street and help them be interested in our message as well as understand that their eternal salvation depends on it. Haven´t got that one quite figured out yet. 

One of the biggest highlights of the week, is that we have a baptism set up with Cristina. She is a 58 year old Romanian woman, who is just so prepared for baptism. We taught her about the Book of Mormon about a month ago, and then she had a dream about it, and knows it´s true. She also had a dream (not sure if it was the same one or not) in which Angel Moroni told her that she needs to get baptized, to which she responded that she can´t get baptized till she has a job, and Moroni promised her a job. Well, she got the job real quickly after that, and she also has seen in a dream Presidente Muñoz (our ward mission leader and Gospel Principles teacher) leading her by the hand into the waters of baptism. We´re pretty sure she´s ready. Now, we´ve just got to finish teaching up the lessons, and we will be helping her take that first major step toward the Celestial Kingdom the 21st if everything goes smoothly. She is so ready. 

Other than that, we had special training on Friday, and it was awesome. It was the first one I have gone to where President Deere has spoken the whole time. He spoke of the importance of the Book of Mormon and how we need to present it as more than just a good book "comparable to the Bible". How we have to say, this is the test, this is the evidence that God has given you in this moment in time to know if this message we are teaching is true. It was powerful. And it was even more powerful because I finished the Book of Mormon this week. It was a great way to end reading the Book of Mormon and start it again.

But, the highlight this week was easily the choir concert in Granada. First off, before I forget, Mom, make sure you tell Brother Coffin that they had a band in the chapel. Trumpets, trombones, percussion, the whole deal. It was legit. We sang three Christmas hymns in English: "Far, Far Away" Joy to the World, and O Come All Ye Faithful. Then, there was a solo by a sister named Hermana Roan, and she sang O Holy Night. It was soooo good. I got her autograph afterward. And then, I was in a group that sang Winter Wonderland in a jazzy sort of way. Then we listened to this band play a couple songs. They played a song entitled Ivanhoe which was crazy-awesome and then another entitled Russian Christmas Music which was pretty good. Then they played Battle Hymn of the Republic and we sang, unfortunately in Spanish (it´s not nearly as good in Spanish in my opinion). The funny thing was, is that when the conductor cued us in, nobody started singing. He didn´t really give us a good cue, but so we just faded in slowly. It was quite funny. I hope there is some kind of video out there that I´ll be able to look up after the mission. And to end it all, we sand White Christmas with the band. It was just so much fun. The best part though is that one of the Senior missionaries, Hermana Castillo, bore her testimony at the beginning and said, "You will touch hearts that will not open up to the spoken word, but they can not keep the music out. That is why we are here."

Well, that´s basically been the week. This week will be another week of finding. The last time we did this, we had a goal of 555 new investigators as a mission, and we found 558. This time around, we are out to find 800 of God´s children to bring into the fold. It´ll be a week full of hard work, but it´ll all be worth it.

Love you all, and Merry Christmas,

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett and his comp.

I´m getting transfered to Málaga!!!

Oct 14

First things first, after 6 months in Lorca, I´m getting transfered to Málaga!!!!!!! I can´t tell you how excited I am. I´ll be companions with an Elder Lopez from El Salvador. He´s been out for a while (I don´t know how much time, but more than double of what I have) and Elder Hooper will be in my District or Ward or both assuming he doesn´t get transfered (He also went to my High School). And Elder Oldroyd, my trainer, Elder Patterson, my old DL, and the AP´s will all be in my Zone, so it´ll be great when we have Zone meetings and activities. I´m excited and scared to be going to the big city after being here in Lorca, which isn´t excatly a small town, but from what I´ve heard it´s nothing like the big cities.

Oct 27

I´M IN MÁLAGA!!!!! It´s so great. My first day, we had a ward English and Spanish classes, FHE, and Branch Council. We had Branch Council!! I had almost forgotten that there were those. Wait, it was a Ward Council. I´m in a Ward, it´s so awesome and different. I won´t say that it´s better in every way shape and form, but it definitely has it´s benefits.

One of those benefits, which is near and dear to my heart, is food. We have been fed so much over the past almost week now. I love it!

Things are a little bit rough in the area, it´s a little bit new (I think it became an area last transfer) and so we are working on building it up, but everything is good. I am so lost in this city, but I hope that will change within this next week.

Nov 4 

Love you guys, everything is going really well with the companionship. We are getting along much better, and joking around  and becoming good friends now. Now we just have to work better together. Our teaching styles are suuuuuper different, but I´m trying to learn from him (since he does have like 3x as much experience as me in the mission). We are starting to do a lot more practicing lessons in the apartment, and the Lord is blessing us a lot. Now the trick is to just stay humble and act on the blessings we are receiving so we can continue to receive them in abundance.

This week has been amazing! 

First off we found 5 new investigators to teach. Well, let´s say the Lord placed 5 of his children in our path to teach. And they are all excited to learn about the gospel.

First off, at the beginning of this week, instead of planning to go and try and visit people who hadn´t been available for the last 2 weeks, we decided to go and knock doors in certain neighborhood in our area so we would be able to plan more effectively every day. My experience in Lorca with knocking doors was horrible, almost nobody accepted us, and we had much more success in the street. However, here in Málaga, we have had little to no success with street contacting. I think in 3 weeks, we have had 3 people give us their contact information, and 2 of them were Nigerians who spoke English (kinda).  In one morning, we found 5 people who said we could come back, and this couple (not married yet) who let us come in and teach them. It might not seem like a whole lot, and it´s definitely not enough to fill our plans in our agendas, but it´s improvement and a blessing from God.

Nov 11

Well, the week´s been good. We are continuing to move forward and the work is picking up a little. We have 2 baptismal dates set and 2 more on the way. The plan is to have 4 baptisms here before the end of the year. I really think we can do it.

Also this week, I was really impressed with Alma chapter 13, and how much it talks about the priesthood. I invite you to read it to think a little bit more about the callings that you have now in life and that you will have in the future. It reminded me a lot of something our ward mission leader said in a sunday school class about the premortal life. He asked why 18, 19 and 20 year old kids can be sent out to preach the gospel to all the world. They didn´t have all that much time in this life to prepare for it, but then he said that we were prepared in the premortal life, and it gave me so much comfort knowing that it doesn´t matter if I feel inadequate, if I rely on the Lord, he will help remind me of things that I already know.

Love you all, and take care!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett's new address is:

C/ Daoiz Nº3 3ºH

29014 Málaga

España

Garrett and his old comp. on a hike

District Leader

Vale,

So this week was good. We had Zone Conference on Tuesday, and it was amazing. We talked about how finding new investigators leads to baptism, and that if we want baptisms, we have to find people to teach. We then proceeded to talk about how we were going to find people to teach. President Deere has also set the goal for us to read the BoM together as a mission starting Oct 7th, and finishing by the end of the year. 85 days in total, which is approximately how many days in total it took Joseph Smith to translate the BoM. I am excited for that, but I am even more excited for...

CONFERENCE!!!

This will be the 2nd General Conference that I will have seen since I have been on a mission, which is the only real proof that I´ve actually been gone for 6 months. It has flown by sooooo fast. I will probably be transfered to a new area in 2 weeks, which is exciting, scary and a little sad all at the same time. But that also means that my address will be changing. I´ll let you know as soon as I can what my new address is, if I actually get transfered.

But, I am so excited for Conference. I´m excited that I get to watch it twice (hopefully), once in Spanish and then again in English. Funny story: I got chastised and basically told I was a "sinner" by the branch president and my companion because we watch conference in the house instead of going to the chapel. But then I found out that they only watch Priesthood, Sat Morning and Sun. Morning in the Chapel. I almost chastised them, but decided not to. It is so weird how different this tiny branch in Spain is compared to our home ward in Mesa. Our ward is soo so awesome!

A little side note: in Zone Conference, I met an Hermana (Hailey?) Flake, and it turns out we´re related. She´s a descendent of William Jordan Flake, and so we are in the process of figuring out exactly how we are related, but who new I´d travel halfway around the world, hang out with a bunch of "Mountain View Punks" and meet a long lost cousin. I also met an Elder Orr from Thatcher who knows the Russels, so that was interesting. He was a little surprised that I knew where Thatcher was though, it was super funny.

I also had the opportunity to go and "pluck" almonds this week. We went out to an Almond/Olive orchard and picked almonds with our branch president. We then went and planted beans on a farm and it was super fun.

One of the Elder´s in Lorca got sick this week, so his companion asked me to go stay with him for a day (cause I speak English and so does the sick Elder) so he and Elder Simon could work in both areas here in Lorca. That was fun. It was quite strange and relaxing to be able to talk in English. 

I am also increasing my skills as a futbolista. Everytime we play (which is twice a week, Saturday Morning and Mondays for Pday) people tell either me or my companion that, and translated directly, "I give them fear". I think it´s so funny, because everyone and their dog can run circles around me. That´s not entirely true, I have a much higher endurance than most anyone I´ve played with, and I´m also bigger than everyone who is playing (which is super weird for me) and I´ve figured out how to stick my foot in front of the ball and then pass it, so I´ve got the basics down. It´s soo fun to play. And, what makes it even better. We are gaining friends and people to teach from playing!

And during all this fun we had, we still found time to teach. We were not able to meet with Yeccy this week, and so she was not baptized, but we will be meeting with her next week, and will help her continue to prepare for baptism. One of our friends from fútbol is named Figo, he is 16 and from Peru. He´s not exactly investigating the church, but is searching for the truth and we invited him to start with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He accepted and said he is coming to General conference. We also had a lesson with Flo, FINALLY!, and she is doing great. Her husband continues to open up, and hopefully soon we will be able to teach her in her home.

Well, that´s about it for the week, plus I´ve got to run. Love you all, and have a great week!

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett and Elder Patterson 

His District