Week 10: Miracles, Travel and an Evil Bed!

Hello :)

Well another week has come and gone. Again. Time is going by so fast!! Our week was filled with travel and miracles!!

On Tuesday, we took our weekly trip to Sevilla for our district meeting. Usually we don't have time to go eat with the other Elders in our district but this time we did. We went to this Bolivian food restaurant and I got this HUGE plate of potatoes and tomatoes and onions and peppers and steak and hot dog. You name it! I know most of you are like “Whatever! Tanner would never eat that stuff”! You used to be right! I ate all of it. I just thought of it as some carne asada fries from Betos!

That night we got a call from the hermanas in our district and they said they had two people that needed to be interviewed for their baptism..(My companion is the district leader). So on Thursday, we went back to Sevilla and did the interviews. We got their super early and we had some time to kill so we went to the Plaza de España! It was freaking huge and so cool! It's where one of the 9000 Star Wars was filmed. I saw Luke Skywalker and so I told him that I was his father. He didn't believe me. Anyways, after that we went to the church and I just played basketball the whole time while he did the interviews for 3 hours. The ward in Sevilla has 400 people in it. We have 30 here in Córdoba. Maybe. That night we stayed with the other Elders in our district. Worst nights rest I've ever gotten. I slept on their couch that had a metal rod that new exactly where my back was and wherever I went, it followed.

On Friday night we had a lesson with the Romanian family and of course she fed us! We said we had another cita soon but she made us call the guy and change the time so we could eat with them! She was legit angry that we weren't going to eat with them haha! She always laughs at me and thinks I'm super funny and she says she's gonna miss me when I leave. :) They are so nice! Dad- Juan, Mom- Palistine, 15 year old daughter- Venecia, 9 year old son- Jesus, 8 year old son- Jobi. They have a nanny who's name is Rosario too. Mom, I'll be sure to tell Palistine that you’re so grateful for her feeding and taking care of me. She'll love to hear that. She always asks "if we came to America one day would your mom invite us for dinner?" And I'm like yeah and she always is like "what if we saw you one day and you invited us to dinner and your mom said no?” Haha I'm like my mom wouldn't say no and they just ask "well what if?”

Later that night after we ate with them we went to our next lesson with a new investigator named Jose Javier. He's a 45+ ish guy from Ecuador. He has 3 kids and no job and he told us that he wanted a change in his life. He called the right people ;) We started the lesson and we just got to know him. Then we started talking about the Book of Mormon and we asked him if he had seen the love of God in his life. He said yes and he told us a story about when he was with his friends and they were all super drunk and the cops came and he hid all the illegal stuff and he said a prayer in his mind and said "God, help me. Don't let the police bust me”! I was a little confused and thought that maybe I heard something wrong or just got some Spanish words mixed up. Nope. I was right! Still confused but that's alright :). We kept talking about the Book of Mormon and I showed him the little drawing that dad's companion drew for him on his mission and told him that these were the 3 steps for him to find out if this book and the gospel were true. We gave him 2 Nephi: 32 to read and he said he would do it. He has such a strong testimony and he said that he wants to strengthen it even more and know all about our church! The Spirit was so strong during the entire lesson. At the end, we asked if WHEN he knew if these things are true if he would be baptized and he said yes without any hesitation!! I got the chills throughout my entire body! It was the coolest thing ever :)!

Sunday we were supposed to have Jose Javier and the Romanian family come to church with us, but Jose Javier had to take care of his kids and one of the sons was sick so the Romanians didn't come either!! We usually get about 30-35 people in church every week so that's good!

Today we got on a 6:30 AM train to go to Sevilla because we had interviews with President Andersen. Mine went good! He thinks it’s super cool how dad and I served in the same mission and he said it would be so cool if I met people he knew. I couldn't agree more!! Hopefully my next area is somewhere you served. The interviews took forever so we were late and missed our train home so we had to wait for the next one to come. So we didn't really get much of a P-Day except we went and shopped and played a little bit of basketball with Jesus and Jobi! (Romanian kids).

Ponderize for the week: Proverbs 3:5-6 and it talks about having trust in the Lord :)

Time is going by so fast and I'm enjoying my time here in Córdoba! I’m so grateful for you guys and I love you all so much :) Thanks for all your love and support and I hope you have a great week and a great Halloween!!

Love,
Elder Hammond :)