April 21, 2014 - Letter to Dad - Week 33

Hey Dad!!!

Sounds like a pretty good week!  Kara forgot to write but Justin told me all about how Austin got called to Salt Lake!  That´s fun!  Really close to where Kara will be!!  Haha I wonder if he will get to speak a lot of spanish up there??  We´ll see I suppose.  Gah I speak funny in English now.  But my spanish is great!  Well at least sometimes it's great and sometimes I can´t get a fluid sentence out of my mouth, but I´ll speak for a litle bit to you guys on Mothers day!  I'm excited!  But umm when is Mothers day in the United States?  It´s different in Mexico and Spain I think and I'm not sure when in the US... I think second sunday!  That´s sad about Brother Dohm... how is Sister Dohm doing?  Hopefully well.   

So I saw our house last night.  We were eating dinner with some investigator friends and the lady googled our houses... I think it's recent but I have no clue.  Micah's car was out front and the tree was bare and it was weird seeing the house!  But fun stuff. 

It has been a decent week of work.  We ended up finding a new guy that is in a rough spot right now living in an abandoned house and looking for food and work during the days, but he likes listening to us so we taught him a couple times and then he ended up coming to church for a little while yesterday!  And we found a family who disappeaed and they invited us over like right away to eat and teach them,!  It´s a cool difference about culture here!  It´s like not even weird to be fed the first time you meet someone!  Doesn´t happen a TON but it´s a south american thing... 

Martincoit... I remember working there with you like 8 years ago putting in floors for the Plantiers I think?  Or someone like that and we would alwas drive by a house and you told me it was Bruce Bochy's - coach of the padres!  Not sure how I remember that but I do!   

Well hope you have a great week and get better from being sick!  Love you dad!

Nathan

April 21, 2014 - Letter to Mom

Hey Momma!!!

Happy Easter!!  Sadly nothing has arrived yet, and I´m kind of bummed and discouraged about the lame address, but I'm being positive and I hope it comes this week!!  If not maybe we should just start sending stuff to madrid and I´ll get it sooner or later!  But thank you for sending me a package!! I love you!!!  

Sounds like you guys had a good relaxing Easter too!!  Oh has nana´s letter come yet??  Ok side note I had to rewrite that last sentence like two or three times no joke!  I can´t get the whole possession thing in english correct now a days I always want to say like"has the letter of nana arrived yet??"  It sounds so funny haha but apostrophes don't exist in my mind anymore! Pero bueno!!!  

It was a pretty good week!  But like they don't do Easter here, we just do the "semana santa" or the holy week, because well I'm not sure why but everyone doesn't really work this week and yet they don't want to talk to misisonaries about Jesus either... Makes quite a bit of sense! haha No but the big day was this past friday, when they celebrate the crucifixion and there are parades and people reenacting it and I wasn't really a huge fan of it but that is the culture of the other churches here!  

Oh we met a cool guy and ended up talkin to him for like 3 hours.  He is a catholic theoligist philosopher guy and speaks english and spanish, so that was nice at least.  He basically had the initial intention of telling us all about why we are going to hell and why we are wrong but after correcting a couple crazy assumptions he kind of likes what we believe, even though he says he won't change for anything haha But it´s fun!  

The members have been so nice this week!!  We were fed a couple times and this sweet lady named Hermana León told me that she would sew up and fix like all my pants and we were like thank you so much and we can stop by and pick them up whenever you want so she said ok come by Wednesday and we will have a meal and everything :) They have the coolest family!  6 kids and the two parents so they make up like a decent chunk of the branch, but its fun :)  They all came to ping pong night this past week and with some youth and their friends we ended up having like 15 people there!  It was fun!!  I need to play with Justin after haha cuz he says he plays all the time too!! 

Well hmmm what else do I have to share this week!  We went on a hunt for this refeence that was like wayyyy up in the mountains and we finally found the street after a while, and this house was something like number 340 and we were at number 2.... So we were debating if we waned to climb all the way up and we were like ok why not, well about 45 minutes later we made it!!  And on the way up we found the mom of a family we had been teaching before and they went to tenerife and we lost track of them, but they are back!!  And then we found this guy up in the hills and on the way back down we found a couple more people and had an amazing view of the island!!  God makes us climb mountains, at least he gave us a nice view and some nice people to meet along the way!!  

Soo hey question!!!  Do you know where our ancestos are from in spain?? I think it would be cool to know!  Elder Lopez says his family way back is from Galicia and the area from the north!  And with the name Reyes we are guessing our family is from Madrid, but just wondering!!  I'm not sure if that would be hard to find out or not!! 

My talk is the week that is coming gahhhh badly frased, it's next week!!!  But when I finish I´ll type it up and send it to you and then maybe Sister Harrison or someone can translate parts of it for you!!  It´s cool!!  

So wanna hear about my weird piso find of the week!!  It´s proabably more interesting for Kendal but I´ll write it to you!!  I was down south in vecindario and I found a bunch of old OLDDD book of mormons in different languages on a shelf, and I found like THE original first edition of the BoM in Kendal´s language from like 1980!!  And I found some cool spanish ones and a french one too so I have been teaching myself french this past week!  It isnt too rough, just some weird words and I dont really have time to study it in depth haha I think I'd rather learn Italian or Portuguese next anyway!  They are both super close to spanish and wouldn´t take too much time!  

In a members house the other day they had some movie on when we walked in and I understood some words but I thought my spanish was struggling, then they tell me it´s Italian!  So hey I know a little!  Everyone here like in Euope knows a few languages!  Well not everyone but lots of people. They usually know french or german in the islands, and some english too! But ya everyone laughs and says its only americans that dont know more than one language!  But my spanish is getting good!!  I really understand just about everything and everyone on a day to day basis, and Elder Lopez says I can speak WAYYYY better than before!  It was funny the other day we were talking about something and I said something, and he was just like ... dude, that was deep haha I guess im learning to use all those like little parts of the language that sometimes you don't learn just as a missionary living here!  I'm so lucky to have had natives for pretty much the majority of my mission!!  Fun stuff :)  

Well hmmm not sure if I answered all of your questions!  Ya house hunting was fun :) Until the office shot us down and said we can't move :(  We found a better house for less money and it has a DRYER!!!!  But they said no :(  So we dont really house hunt anymore haha 

We are headed up to Santa Brigida today!!  I think that was Tara´s old area so you should tell her!!!  But that is where the old mission presidents home of her mission was, but now it's where th Buhlers live!  They go home in like less than a week, so we are having a farewell party!  Barbecue, sports, and I'm super excited!!!  I have only had one good barbeque since leaving the US, but I bet this will be good too!!!  

That is so exciting about your job!!!  Congrats mom!!!  What exactly are you doing at the new job??  Is it better than the job at maredy??  That´s so awesome!!   An nope i haven't yet made the mexican stew, because there are like 2 ingredients I still need to find here, but look up Mojo, its pretty much my favorite sauce I've ever had and a lad gave me her recipe last week! hah!!!  I´m starting to get recipes from people here so my book is like part englisha and part spanish now!!  And I was so close to making muchies the other week but our oven is broken so that foiled that plan!  But its ok!!  

Things are good here and I'm happy!!  Super nervous for my talk but it can't go that bad I guess!  I just want to be able to like look up and talk naturally but I'm sure I´ll be reading a decent amount too!  We´ll see!  

Well I gotta go!  We need to run by mecadona and with the little money we have buy enough chorizo and tortillas for the week!!!  How am I ever going to live without chorizo in california and utah... Sad thought... Well hope you have a great week mother!! I love you!  And I'm super excited to see you on mothers day coming up!!!!!  If i missed anything write big questions next week with what you wanna know!!  Ok hasta luegito!!!!

Nathan

April 14, 2014 - Letter to Dad - Week 32

Hola!!!

Sorry you had a hard week being sick!!  I hate being sick!  The one time I was sick back in Madrid I was so miserable!  They made me drink nasty lemon orange drink mixes to get better and a member said that if my voice wasn´t better by the next time she was going to give me leche con ajo which sounds like the nastiest thing ever to me, but everyone says it works!  Oh by the way leche con ajo is Hot milk mixed with Garlic... bleh!   

No not too much soccer or ping pong but this week we have a tournament for ping pong and like all the youth have invited all their friends from high school, so it should be a good activity!  And we are taking the bus up to las palmas in an hour or two to play some soccer with the elders up north!  No I love the islands, I don't get island sickness or need for a mainland, just that my area is really hard.  From what I've heard it is THE hardest in the Canary Islands.  But bueno we are rocking it and working on finding people.  We did the hard stuff this week and kind of dropped all the people who really didn't want much so we have been hitting the streets talking with the people and finding.  Had some decent success and I´m hoping week 3 will be more successful.   

Yaaaa i have heard the Celtics suck, and the Padres sounds like the same old story, but the Celtics are going to have a bad first two years with the new head coach and young players I imagine, then right when I get back they will be great again!  Planned that one pretty well huh hah 

Ya Justin told me about baseball and he sounds pretty excited!  That would be pretty cool if he could go to the early recruitment up at BYU during the summer!!  But I bet he already has a pretty busy summer.   

That´s good that work has been picking up!  Are you working solo or do you have Justin or Micah every once in a while??  I kind of miss doing a little physical work every once in a while.   By the way we had a random conversation with some guy the other day about floor finish haha it´s called acobado here in españa!  Which makes sense because that pretty much means finish!  Oh and my comp said you can put floors in his house in mexico one day!  So you have a international job coming up one day perhaps haha 

That´s cool that mom is trying to get a new job?  Does it pay better or is it just that her hours are better?? That´s aweosme.   

Well hmm let me think if I have any other good stories from this week.  Nope I don't think I have anything special or different sorry.  On first contact people think I'm from the islands all my life and then I say I'm from the United States and they flip out!  And then I get to listen to their best attempt at english for a few minutes and then back to spanish haha Its a daily thing pretty much. 

Well I hope you guys have a great week!  If you have any other questions or anything that I havent answered just ask me!  Love you!

Nate

April 14, 2014 - Cooking and Haircut

Look at your son whipping up some delicious mashed potatoes!(not pictured marinating chicken behind me!)

Oh and i tried out cutting my hair last week!  Not too bad for the first time,although ill admit elder lopez helped out with theback!!

April 14, 2014 - Letter to Mom

Hey Mom!!

Thanks for the recipe!!  Not sure what buttermilk is in spanish, or corn syrup, and butter doesn´t come in sticks but maybe with a little research I can figure it out! haha I made some sweet food this week and I´ll definitely send pictures so you can be impressed for a minute!  I made a full meal for some investigators last night!  Well I made a salad, and then soy sauce chicken and white rice and the dad made torijadas which are basically like a spanish version of french toast that is a million times better than fench toast (i´ll try and learn it, i need to get spanis tortilla down first!) Oh but I made Mashed Potatoes for the first time in my life, like no recipe no nada just trying to remember how you made them and I didn't have butter so I used cream cheese but it turned out super good!  My companion pretty much loves my cooking haha I´m learning!  Too bad our stupid oven is broken... Hmm bueno, 

Have I had anything thrown at me... Good question, I usually forget the bad things people say or do, but nothing super lame I don't think...  A bottle, trash, and I think one time someone tried spitting at us but I can't remember... Definitely have leaned a lot of patience in my 7 months or so serving a mission.  I had to laugh at Kendal´s email this week where she said that she had a door slammed on her by someone saying they are catholic... Just cuz like that happens to me with 90 of every 100 people I talk to :)  

And yes that's good that you said Spain!  Add Spain to the bottom of the address I forgot to say that!!  Blah if they don't arrive maybe we can just start sending stuff to madrid even though it's more lame!  I haven't gotten  anything in my 8 weeks here yet, but I'm hoping for something!!! 

Sounds like you all had a good spring break!  Bummer you couldn't go to Colorado or anywhere this summer!  The married couple here serving are from Colorado and I told them we went to Pagosa like every year practically before and they thought that was super cool!!  Sister Buhler is so nice!  We don´t see them much since we are in the lonely bubble in the middle of the island, but she and her husband drove out to our piso at 10pm to give us the best chicken salad and lemon tarts ever!  Well the best I've had in Spain at least.  

Oh wana hear my other hobby during free time this week!  Not like we are allowed to do much during mediodia, so we have been looking at all the pisos and chalets(houses) for rent near us!  Our piso is pretty nice, but I heard that if we can find something cheaper or the same, the office will let us switch locations if there is a good reason haha Sadly broken oven isn't a good enough reason, but I found a small chalet near the church with a monthly rent cheaper than our piso!!  Like a house!  That would be so cool!  It was something like 350 euros haha I´m a dork finding entertainment looking at houses haha 

Well we found this really cool guy named Augustin this week!  Kind of reminds me of tata!  We found him in a park near la iglesia sanjuan and talked for a longg time!  He loves reading so we were like uhh bueno here's a book you can read!  He said he would read the whole BoM this weekend and meet with us this Tuesday to say what he thought of it!  We´ll see what happens with that! I'm excited!  I really liked those conference talks too!!  I was watching the your four minutes one in spanish, but I still got all that out of it too!! So hey proof that I understood!!! yay!!  And ya elder lopez and I noticed the young womens necklace in the picture of the girl at the olympics!!  I think Torah Bright wears one too but I don't remember.  It's been like forever since I watched snowboarding! ha Hmmm what else.  

I had the coolest idea for my talk in a few weeks but then I shared it with my comp and he said they shared the same story in stake conference here before I got here, but I'm still tempted to share it again!!  I like it a lot, it's the one I shared in my farewell about the I found my friend thing... I´ll be sure to send you te talk after I write it up and you can have Sister Harrison translate it o something!! haha Well I think I gotta go!  Hope you have a great week and good luck with your interview!!!  I´m sure you´ll get the job!  You're awesome! haha Love you Mom :)  Really, you´re the best mom ever, we dont say that enough to you!

Love,

Nate

April 7, 2014 - Letter to Dad - Week 31

Hola!!!

How´s it going??  It has been a pretty good week!  Work HERE still hasn´t picked up where I want it but that´s good that your work is pickig up!!  Part of the reason it was a slow week I guess numbers wise is that we had 8 hours waching conference, so that takes away some work time, but it was great!!  I focus way better now and was able to sit through and enjoy all 10 hours worth of conference.  I watched one in spanish, because we were with the stake president and his family and an investigator, and then the rest in english, except for like here and there when my video would freeze so I listened to Elder Lopez´in spanish until it worked again!   

Blah taxes do not sound fun.  I don´t even know how taxes work still!!  Not gonna be fun... Is it just extra hard because of like the business you have?  Seems like a load of papers.  Oh well it happens.  Idk about taxes here but the lottery is soooo big in the islands.  Like a member was telling us how almost everyone buys for the lottery every day and its always millions of euros and he has several friends who have won haha It's super weird but like we walk down the sreet and pass 15 people or so selling the tickets. Interesting culture haha 

Well the weather has warmed up here this week and that is awesome!  I am finally starting to be less white and people think I'm a native Canarian sometimes when we talk, until I mess up with my spanish and then they are like uhh where are you from? SO ya, which was yor favorite talk??  I liked a lot of them, and I think I liked Elder Bednar´s a lot but it was in spanish so it wasn´t like 100% understood, i needed to ask my comp what the word for truck was and stuff, but his stories were good.   

We ran this morning and I'm all exhausted here writing, but I hope you have a great week!  Love you!!

Nate

April 7, 2014 - Letter to Mom

Mamá!!!!

Hola como esta??  He escrito mis ultimos dos caras en español pero creo qur tengo que cambiar para escribirte :)  A menos que prefiera tranducir todo lo que digo!! Pero google translate es un poco raro con español a veces... vamos a ver!  

Sounds like you guys had a great week!!  Justin got to play(even though he hasn't written me for two weeks now :( and Kara got into Jamba!! How cool :)  

It has been a lot of the same here, with transfers last week we got two new elders in the district so that is fun!  One of them is from Orange County right up the state!  How cool is that?  His name is Elder Gentry, and he's never heard of Poway haha but it's ok!  And then another native elder fom argentina, who I met back in Madrid and is super good at fútbol.  

We met some new cool people this week, a young dominican guy and then a family of four who lives kind of far away but it's worth the walk/bus/taxi... I was attempting to explain to my companion all yesterday about what munchies are and how I was bummed cuz I thought you guys would be having them during conference, but ok guess not!!  And no cinnamon rolls either how weird... I left and all happy food left with me haha Although french toast sounds good!!  I stole a pancake recipe from the other elders piso so I have made  those a couple times, but they just aren't as good without syrup or something.  Is that homemadesyrup recipe hard??  Btw can you send me more recipes??  Stuff that I don't need cream of chicken or mushroom haha because the only place they sell those is in an american store on the northern coast of the island, which isn't exactly worth the trip just for soup aha although I have tried some new food this week!  I decided when I eat out I want to actually eat spanish food, since I only have not too long to enjoy it here, even though it's a little more pricey... And I had some really good mariscos one day and chorizo y papas tambien!  Mariscos is seafood, just like an overbranching name for seafood and we found this tapa near our house it's like mussels with this sauce and it's super good and only a few euros! So ya yum! haha And man you dont know how bummed I am for when I go back to the states and they don't have so much amazing chorizo!  Like every kind of it, there is a whole section of stuff and we always buy it every week in lunch slices and like a log of it like peperoni or something as well!  Super good!  Anyways i think im just talking about food a lot because we went out running and I forgot breakfast so now im starving, other topics...

Well conference was like super great!!  I can't really pick a favorite talk or anything, but I loved Hollands as well.  He is one of my favorite speakers, I feel bad for all the spanish speakers who listen to a translator and not his voice, so like passionate about what he is speaking.  Oh and cool fun fact!  There are like two apostles who speak spanish pretty well, so before the conference they record their talk themselves in spanish so I forget who but we actually got to listen to like Richard G Scott and someone else speaking to us :)  That's fun!!  And then ya!  We had an investigator watch Sunday morning with us (which is at 5pm btw)  The said they liked it a lot and the lady like set up he own appointment after haha like hey we are meeting this Tuesday and we can talk about the conference! haha We were like uhhh OK! It was funny watching the conferencewith like 5 kids there between 7 and 15 and remember how I was super unfocused and bored at their age!  But some of them were way better like taking notes and stuff!  8 year old!  Craziness!  

Well the rama treats us pretty well i guess.. maybe it doesn't seem like it because I went from 150 members who would have some awesome families to take care of us, and now 20-30 members with like 2 or 3 families here, but they all like us and feed us and help us when they are able to!  

That's gonna be sad when Kara leaves!  Hopefully she can move down to Utah soon and we can all visit each other in utah and california!!!  Oh how cool she liked the video!  I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but awesome!  Hey random favor to ask!  Idk why I have had so much free time at nights, so I have been able to write some more letters that hopefully I can send soon!!  And I thought of a couple people I wanted to send notes too but I don't have their addresses... could you forward them to me this week, or maybe today I could stop by and look real quick later!! Ok I think I need these!

Sister Baird:  Cuz she´s awesome and I thought she would want a letter haha

Sister Winspear:  Listening to the music yesterday I thought i should send a little note to say thanks for the song she sang at my farewell!  

And Grandma Poulson:  Are they still in Palmyra or have they finished??

Well that would be awesome!  I hope Nana gets here letter sometime this week that would be awesome!!  I sent one to Aunt Kathie too cuz she wrote me a letter like forever ago and I was lame and forgot to respond, but I remembered!!!  

Well hmm any other cool stories to share this week...  Ping Pong!!  hhaa We play ping pong!  And have been using it to get a 16 year old guy here to the chapel.  And we set up an acivity so the other youth are gonna come and befriend him hopefully and we´ll all play and be friends and try to weave him into the group!  Hope it works out! 

Elder Lopez and I woke up early so we could run and we ran to the church and played ping pong for like a half hour hah idk why its so fun!  I guess the ward used to have pingpong night every Thursday for like 10 years before the table broke, but I found some epoxy which from dad I learned is like the strongest thing ever(kinda) And with a bit of that we fixed the table up all nice! haha Hmm what else... Chinese buffet for district meeting that was good, although for an island I'm not too impressed with their susi so far... I cant wait fo RB Sushi!!!  One day in the distant future! ha I guess I might just be too poor to buy nice sushi here :) 

Hmm what else, that's awesome that you guys are taking care of the missionaries!  Between talking to Kendal and other missionary friends, everyone has like one or two families that they love because they will feed them and care for them and when you need someone to help you out you can rely on them!  From a missionary perspective, I bet they are grateful more than you can imagine every time you invite them to eat or have an FHE or whatever!  

Good stuff!!  Well I think I definitely will pass by a bit later because I want to send some fotos! And I forgot my camera!  I got a sweet new bag from my grandpapa in the mission... They have like this weird thing where they say like your trainer is your "dad" and so on with family relations, entonces the trainer of my trainer used to be in my district, and he goes home super soon, so this awesome guy gives me like a little ralph lauren polo bag that I use to carry my scriptures around now!  People are so nice!  Oh I thought of one of the quotes I liked in conference about family!!  I dont remember who, but they said something like, When your family has the basics like scriptures and prayer and has love in their home, whatever problems come, things just tend to turn out well.  And its true, problems are tempoary and part of life, but when you have the basics and an awesome family, things just tend to turn out great :)  Im happy to have both!  I love you!!  Hope you have an amazing week!!! 

Nate