Letter from 5/5/2014

Hey!!!

She is not allowed to go out with boys!!!!!!!  It´s just not allowed.

Well I think the first part of your letter mad me crack up pretty hard. Every one here in the locutorio is looking at me like I am an idiot. That definitely made my p day. As usual it sounds like everyone is really busy with sports and school. I can´t believe all the stuff Kenzie is doing especially next year. She is going to be really busy. Sounds crazy. I hope Brenley can play soccer soon with here back jacked up. 

Sometimes I wish I was there to see the things that Bria says just so I could laugh at that moment but it is just as good as reading it here on the computer. 

It has been fairly warm here too but because we are in the North and on the coast it is still a little cooler but I think I am going to get transferred this next week so I might be going somewhere really hot down south. I will die of sweat. There will probably be a puddle of sweat on the pavement with my tiea and chapa so that people will know who melted. 

Wow the amount of lessons we had this last week with less active members is crazy. We had 12 lessons with them. We are working so hard on the less active list. There is one family from Peru right now that we are working with. The Monago family. They have a son who is 17 who is fairly active but the rest of them I have never seen in my life and they have been very difficult to get into their house. The dad served a mission and everything but I guess things happen to people. they have a daughter who is 10 and we are trying to baptize here but the dad is a little difficult. I think they are coming around little by little. The dad opens up a little bit more every time to us and the girl wants to be baptized but she needs to go to church and we have to teach her still. We now have to teach lesson 5 before baptism instead of after. If you read preach my gospel you will know the lessons. The first one is the restoration the second is the plan of salvation and the third is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The 4 is commandments which aren't all taught at the same time and the fifth is things like temple work and missionary work and there are a couple other things but they get taught in the same manner as the commandments. 

Well everything here is good and I am really excited to skype you guys this Sunday. I think we are skyping from a members house. and he is easily one of my favorite members. He happens to be from Mexico. I think I will be skyping at 6 to 7 Spain time when my companion is done skyping. 

anyways love you

Elder Blake Billingsley 

Letter to Mom

Hey mom,

I know I am supper excited too. I can´t wait and no this week is going to go by super slow and on top of that we get to know the transfer information the night before we skype and I have to give a talk in sacrament on Sunday. ahhh! 

Yep I got the package from Tracy and Scott I need to send them a letter. 

Yeah it sounds like kenzie and them had a good expereince she wrote me and told me a little bit about it. Sounds like it was good. 

Well the work here is going great. We had a 12 less active lessons this past week and the big push in the mission is to reactivate and reactivate and reactivate, which has been really good because we find lots of people to teach whether it is there family members or friends. 

We are working with one family right know who has a 17 year old son that is active and we really want him to sevre a mision because he is awesome but the rest of his family I have never seen until this last week. We finally got into there house and the dad is a returned missionary and is very difficult to deal with but I think he opend up to us. We met with them twice this last week. They have a 10 year old daughter who has not been baptized and we want to reactivate them and baptize her. It would be awesome but we have to take it little by little. the dad is just kind of difficult to deal with but really good in the lessons. 

well I hope you have a good Mother's Day.

I will be able to start skyping between 6 and7 pm here in Spain time so I don´t remember what time that is there but I get to skype after my companion. Maybe a little earlier depending on if our member that we will be with has a second computer when we are there. Can´t wait.

Love you 

Elder Blake Billingsley

Letter from 4/28/2014

Sounds like you are all really busy and doing good. I know how the rain goes I am in a place where it has rained all week and it is exactly like home with all the rain I have had in the last 4 months. Pero es lo que hay. Wow I miss doing yard work and seeing the grass and peoples yards. You don´t even come close to seeing that even if they have a house. 

Wow that is a good stroy about all that stuff that went down there in Ukraine. I just knew that some conflict was happening and that President Paces son might be coming home early by a few months because of it. The crazy thing is, is that we have a fairly large Russian population her in the area where I am. 

What she went to another Mormon Prom. Not cool, she needs to stay away from boys. And of course cole will make the team and be able to play both teams he is a beast. Everyone sounds good and Bria sounda like a handful.

 

Well the work here is rolling along. We had to start meeting a little less with some investigators because they just arn´t keeping commitments but we are having some success with a lot of meons activos and there is one family that has a 10 year old daughter that isn´t baptized. They have a son who is 17 who is pretty active but we are working towards the rest of the family. They were married in the temple and the dad is a returned missionary but sometimes i guess people just loose sight of what is important in their lives. But we might see her get baptized. I think that I am going to end up getting transferred here in two weeks but when we Skype I will know where I am going to go. Kind of cool that way, right before the transfer. The day after we find out I get to skype on Mother's Day on the 11 so hopefully you are at home and it might be during church we will find out and I will let you all know next week what time. 

Anyways love you all,

Elder Blake Billingsley 

Letter to Mom

Hey, 

I know, I am super excited to Skype. I will email next week the time I will be on skype and there is a possibility it might be during church because we are going to a members house.  I will know next week. 

Everything is good here. We aren't teaching some of the normals right know we kind of had to rest them because they just aren´t keeping commitments but I think we have a visit with Silvia this week. We are working with a lot of minos activos right now and last night we had a lesson with a kid who is 18. Wow I say kid but he is my age. Anyway he hasn't been to church in like 3 years and is super into partying and drinking and smoking and he actually let us in last night and we had a great lesson on the Book of Mormon and who Christ was. I think we finally got him to open up to us a little bit. 

Well I guess I can tell you guys a little bit about what happened when we are skyping with the story but it is kind of weird. 

Send me a picture if you have one of Kenzie going to Mormon Prom.  I want to see who she went with.

You will do great in the race, but how long do you have to run for?  That sounds like a long race. 

Just don´t give up. 

Love You can´t wait to see everyone on Mother's Day!

Elder Billingsley

 

Letter from 4/21/2014

Hey, 

Easter has definitely been different around here in a country that is mostly Catholic or people that claim they are. They have holy week and I think every day they have processions with floats of Christ and drum lines and bands but it isn´t like a parade, it is super weird. They have people dressed up like the KKK and it is super dark and creepy they burn incense and have horns going and drums. Then the last night it is like one of the longest processions ever. It's interesting but really weird. I wasn't paying attention and my companion goes hey its the KKK in Spain.

I think we are doing better here this last week we found 6 new investigators and hopefully we can get most of them to stay as investigators. 

Sounds like Cole really wants this long board. What a stud. I guess when he gets the long board we will see how much longer he keeps working like that. 

I can´t wait to hear about Garrett putting in papers and getting the mission call. I'm freaking proud of him. The mission is the best. 

Still working hard. One day we had seven lessons and we just sat down with these two girls like at an outside restaurant so it kind of looked weird but we just taught the restoration and it was awesome. They just excepted everything we said and they happened to be from Brasil. haha  But we had 7 lessons that day. It was freaking awesome. 

Guess I don´t have much more to say except we get to skype in a few weeks! Can´t wait. 

Love Elder Blake Billingsley 

Letters from 4/14/2014

Hey, 

Sounds like you guys had a crazy fun time out in Oregon. Sounds like fun! I was here just working away in the rain and in the sun. I think it is kind of  bi polar here like Washington. Cole sounds like he is helping out a lot and turning into a beast. Are you sure he doesn´t want more money? Wish I could have gone out to Bend and Smith Rock sounds like it was fun. And of course Cole wasn´t to happy after lossing at golf,  he dosn´t like to lose anything. 

Well I am loving it here in Santander. I honestly think that when I leave this place I am going to cry or at least be a little bit sad. The members here are great, the investigatores are great and well of course they would be better if they would just be baptized but I guess we will work with them a little longer. And it is freaking gorgeous here. Four transfers left  this week and I will probably leave here then in four weeks, but if I am lucky I will have 2 more transfers here. Well I don´t know what to say really I just love it here and I hope my Spanish is improving. 

We had to go to Bilboa twice last week because we had a some meeting and entrevistas with president and it was a long hard week.

Hope everyone is have a good week and had a good spring break. 

Love Elder Blake Billingsley

 

 

Letter to Mom

 

Yep I can´t wait till Mother's Day either. It feels like it has been a long time since I have seen you all last, well 4 months ago. Actually it has gone pretty fast on my end. I think I have to give a talk in church this Sunday and on Easter Sunday oh what fun that will be. We have started having good weather around here but still a lot of rain. It is pretty much the same as it is there at home. I think today we are going out to a light house to do a little exploring. 

Well after conference you would think that we could ditch the jackets but no we have to wait till May first and then we can get rid of them. Well at least hang them up in the closet for Sundays and meetings. The talk I really liked was one by Pres. Uchtdorf about sleeping during the restoration and it has kind of become a talk that are president uses to tell us not to sleep during are mission. 

Wow I can´t believe that Nicole is done with a year of college already. Time flies! I even have 7 months in the mission crazy. I keep looking at it, in 2 and a half transfers I will have a year on the mission. well, when this transfer ends. 

Well everything is going good here and don´t worry about sending me anything I'm good, but I should send some letters out. As far as sleep I have been getting even less sleep lately. Sometimes I just stay up at night and think about my investigators and what I can do but we never know until we are there with them. Well our investigators are dificlut so not making much headway with them but  we are paraying and fasting all time. 

Can´t wait to skype and see you. Love you!

Love Elder Blake Billingsley

Letter from 4/7/2014

Hey,

What is this family vacation without the son who packs the car for you! Not fair! Oh wait, that´s right I´m in spain right now. Sounds like some cool stuff out there in Bend. Wish I was there with you guys.

Yeah, general confernce was great! Of course we watched it in english because the ward I go to has a problem when they hook the computers up to the system, so we just watched it in Spanish. It is definitely true about needing to be tough and be an example. I think there are people that are really lazy and that is the reason for a lot, especially in the church I have noticed. As a missionary our favorite members tend to be the ones who are a little more strict with the rules. Don´t know why that is but I have just realized that over the past month or so. 

Wow that is soo cool that Kinlyn is getting the oportuninty to be baptized. When I was in Barcelona we had to give a nine year old the charlas with her family and it was an awesome experience. And I think we are going to do it again here in Santander with a Peruvian family. 

Well the work is actually picking up for us. In the past couple months when I have said we have been wroking hard I meant I was wroking hard to get my trunkie butt companion to work but he went home last month and my new companion is a little  trunkie too cause he leaves in June but we are picking the work up. His name is Elder Daines and lives in Roy Utah. We actually have a pretty good base of investigators and a couple of native Spaniards which is not normal. We are teaching this Spanish guy right now who just called us one day and we don´t remember talking to him ever. He says that he is just unhappy with his life and he is looking for something. Crazy because it is my first time I have ever heard that. We gave him the first lesson and he was like, so all I have to do is read this book ask God if it is true and go to church...sounds easy. We were like yeah it is. He understands everything we teach and it is awesome. Wish they where all that easy.