Week 11: Adrenaline Rush #1

Hola familia y seres quieridos,

Well, another week in the books aqui in Córdoba! I hope everyone had a fun, healthy Halloween! Only 1 Halloween left on the mish! Here in Spain they don't really consider Halloween as a holiday. Today is a holiday for them but to be totally honest I'm not really sure why. People still dressed up and went trick or treating on Saturday but other than that it isn't too big here!

As you can tell by the subject of this email, I had my first adrenaline rush this week!! First time since I left! It's a pretty funny story but my emotions weren't exactly funny during the time it was happening.

So, on Tuesday we went to Sevilla for our weekly visit. Our train was late so we had time to go to Costco. Unfortunately, they didn't have regular Mountain Dew so I settled for some Reese's and muffins. When we got home we changed our clothes and went right to work. We had a lesson with Marcos, the Ecuadorian who was supposed to be baptized last week but never came to church. He lives in a pretty sketchy area but we go over there all the time and nothing bad has ever happened. We got done teaching him and we were going to a place where we had been once or twice to try and find some people. We were walking and there was this group of 7-8 kids who were maybe 16 or 17 years old. They asked us who we were and we said missionaries and 2 of the girls screamed and ran away. It was really weird haha. But there were like 3 kids who were actually interested in our message. Once the girls that ran away realized we were normal and saw these guys talking to us, they came back and started listening. We showed them the restoration pamphlets and gave all of them one. Then this car pulls us and tells all of us to come over to it. My companion didn't even hesitate to go over. As we were walking over, I said had this feeling that "Something's gonna happen”. Sure enough, both of the guys in the car were drunk and smoking weed. I pulled out a restoration pamphlet from my iPad case and gave it to him but he insisted I give him my iPad. I tried telling him it was a Book of Mormon but he didn’t buy it. So after telling me a million times that he wouldn't take it and me saying no it's mine, he tells one of the kids I'm standing next to to grab it from me. "Sneakily" the kid walked behind me but I brought it in front of me where he couldn't get it. The drunk dude wasn't gonna give up though. He gets out of his car, and starts trying to tell me to give it to him. After like 40 times of him saying he wouldn't take it and he just wanted to hold it, I figured the only way he's gonna give up is if he gets what he wants. For the record..I had about 30 pounds and 3 inches on him and he would have had to try walk around me to get to his car. So, I let him have it. He started like bringing it closer to his body and wrapped it up tight and he told me to get in the trunk of his car! I told him no and asked if I could have it back. He said no and started trying to get back to his car! I had to grab my iPad out of his hands and forcefully rip it out of his hands. I had to sort of throw my shoulder into him to get it out of his hands. He got really angry when I got it away from him and so he threw his cigarette/doobie at me and threw his hands up like he wanted to fight! I waited to see if he was gonna do something to me and he tried to grab my tie and my tie clip but I wasn't gonna let that happen so I moved out of the way and told him to get in his car. When they were leaving he blew me a kiss so it's okay! :) Tt was kinda scary while it was happening but looking back it's hard not to laugh hahaha! Other than that, our week was pretty normal!

This weekend was a fun one! On Friday we tried to get with Jose Javier again but he's always so busy with his family. He found a job so that was a blessing! He doesn't work weekends so those are the times we will have to meet with him. There's a recent covert in our ward that was baptized in March. We had a lesson with her a couple of weeks ago and she told us how bad she wanted her dad to accept our message. We told her we would talk to him if we got the chance. Her mom is a member as well so he knows all about the church and everything but I guess he's never had anyone reach out to him! The opportunity came last week. We had a solid lesson with him and he had a lot of questions about why he's here and everything. This Saturday we set up another lesson with him and we had all his answers. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and it was SUCH A GOOD LESSON!! The Spirit was so strong! He started crying and so did his daughter! It was so cool to see the difference between him before our first lesson with him and after the second. We committed him to baptism too!! His daughter, Michelle was so happy when he said that he would!! He's

getting baptized the 21st of November!! He came to church with us yesterday as well and he payed attention and was so interested the whole 3 hours!! After church, everyone stayed after and we had a little Fast Sunday medio dia lunch thing with everyone who wanted to stay! They made this paella (rice and chicken) and it was so good. Jorge stayed and loved it as well!!

Today we went to the Mezquita and FINALLY got in!! We had tried 4 different times before this and they were closed all 4 times. I guess the 5th times the charm. It was so cool! There were so many arches everywhere haha. The best part was that it was so empty and it was free! We had to go early in the morning to get in for free and that's when no one is there so it was cool! :) I took lots of pictures

Teaching by the Spirit is key. It's impossible for the investigators to feel the Spirit and accept it if it's not taught by the Spirit. Having the Spirit as my constant companion has been my favorite part of my mission. I love all the people here in Spain and I'm so excited for Jorge and to watch his experience and go through it with him. I’ll do my best to give as much detail so that you guys at home can do your best to experience it with him as well!

Thank you guys for the love and support you've sent me. I feel your prayers and I'm so lucky to be blessed with the best!! I love you all and hope you have a great week! :)

Love,
Elder Hammond