Pictures of Blake's group arriving in Barcelona.

Blake had his first Baptisim!! What a way to start the mission off right.

Hey,

 

So this past week has been a roller coaster here. We have been teaching this guy Juan Jesus the one I told you about. We met his father who is part of the head of this Evangelical Church. We were sitting in a park teaching him and his father came with him. As we are teaching him he starts giving this Evangelical prayer just screaming all this stuff in Spanish. He was trying to get rid of our demon spirits apparently. I had such a hard time not laughing at him but we just kept teaching his son who happens to be like 35. Well we had taught him all the main stuff with the exception of the smaller commandments and all week his Dad would make a big deal about it. Anyways I baptized him on Saturday. My first one! I didn´t think it would happen for a while. My companion looks at me while we were planning it and says its your first transfer and first baptism so you get to do it. I said the prayer correct but the first time he kind of fought me so his hand didn´t go under. So I had to do it a second time but at least it worked that time.

I almost forgot Halloween till one night we showed up at the church and got roped into helping set up for a Halloween party. I think it is the first Halloween I have not eaten candy. I kind of miss being at home during fall and going into winter. It is starting to get a little colder here but not much. They say it is suppose to get really cold in about 2 to 3 weeks. That is crazy that basketball is starting and fall sports are over. I feel like I just left and everything just started.

So we aren't allowed to play soccer in our mission because apparently missionaries got hurt all the time. Oh well guess I am here to work anyways. I still have a hard time with language but hopefully I catch on eventually. The other night we had a visit and I just forgot everything in my vocab and could not talk at all.

Love Elder Billingsley

He is learning and having fun. Sounds like he got really sick for the first time and experiencing good ups and downs. Everyone has those mission memories!

Hey Mom 

Everything here is good, it is all just one big blur. Everything is fast paced and I feel like I have been here for almost no time at all and I am coming up on two months already. Yeah we are wearing suits everyday so I think I am going to buy like a couple of sweaters today so I don´t have to wear a suit everyday.  I think I will get my suits dry cleaned this week.  We don´t really get fed a ton by the members because there are six missionaries in our ward but I have been fed like 3 or 4 times now. I have had some good food. Last night was freaking awesome. Church was moved back to 4:30 in the afternoon and then the four Elders in our ward were invited to go eat at a members house. However I had eaten something bad earlier in the day and all through church my stomach was killing me. We got on the metro system to get to their house and had to make several switches to other metros to get to where we were going. On one of the Metros, some people had bought some KFC and I could smell it and it made me so sick. Then the movement of the metro made me dizzy. I looked at my companion and said we got to go back to our piso I'm not feeling so good. As soon as the metro stopped I got out and ran to a garbage can. (This has been edited for viewers.  Blake was a little more graphic! EWWW)  I felt bad for my companion because he didn´t get to go eat at the members house. but I just felt so sick. I'm fine now and doing better but that wasn't fun. 

 

The Spanish is still coming very slowly I barley say anything in the lessons we have when we teach them. It is really hard to get lessons sometimes. We are teaching this Muslim guy though which is kind of crazy. If he progresses anymore Our Mission President has to interview him to make sure it is safe for us and for him to keep teaching. If he were to go back to a Muslim country he could be killed or his family could target us while we are here. 

Some of the things I am missing the most here are gum and candy bars. I don´t know really what I miss. There is a lot of stuff though. I will send pictures next week I forgot to bring my camera to the computer place. Oh yeah we have to pay to use computers. At least it is only like 1.5 euro

Love Elder Billingsley

 

 

Hey Dad everything here is good I think. The Spanish is just coming super slow. My companion is always saying poco a poco. We really don´t have a ton of success here. We only have like 3 investigators. One of them will be baptized eventually but trying to get people to listen is so hard. They are always busy and never want to talk. We try and make street contacts and get what has been called the Spanish finger where they just wave you off before you are even 10 feet from them. We do hang out with the YSA here in our ward a lot and try to get them involved in the work. As far as my Spanish goes I  think I just need to study more and harder. My companion is great for helping me out and so are the other Elders in my piso. Oh yeah so we just found out that we have someone in our piso from every year. The oldest was born in 92 then 93 then 94 then 95. Yep I am the baby.,but everyone we talk to thinks that I am older so that's a good thing I guess. 

My typical day in Barcelona. We will get up at 7:30 or if it was yesterday  you get up a at 6 30 because you forgot that it was daylight savings. I was so mad! Then we  do our studies and all that fun stuff. We leave and go make some contacts and then hopefully we have some appointments set up later or we try to visit with members and get referrals but not very often do we get any. We have noche de hogar every wed and English class every Thursday. It is the funniest thing every to listen to people try and speak English but I know that is what I sound like in Spanish. We do a mix of taking the metro and bus and walking depending on where we are going what we are doing and how much time we have. 

So my first Sunday was interesting. I had no clue what was being taught except for Gospel Principles which was tithes and fast offerings, and I still had no clue what was being said. I have to really focus hard if I want to understand some of what is going on, it is just difficult.

Love Elder Billingsley