This place is definitely not Tenerife. haha. But I'm reallyenjoying my new area! I'm glad I finally made it up here. All it took was a 90 minute bus ride, 25 minutes on the tran via, 3 hour flight, 30 minute metro ride, 3-1/2 hour train ride, then another 4 hours on a different train, and then another bus ride, which got me to a town called Oviedo around midnight, where I spent the night with the elders there. Then the next morning, I took one more long bus ride to finally arrive in Gijón. So yeah, it was a painfully long trip, but hey I made it alive! I had to travel alone too which was honestly really nice.
This will be a cool place to end my mission. It's a lot like Galicia. It's really rainy and it gets pretty chilly, but it's a beautiful area. It's really green. It's a really big change from Tenerife. I went from a desert in the middle of the ocean to a rain forest. But I live right by the beach again! So that's really nice! Today it's a bit overcast, so I think we're gonna go play frisbee on the beach. But yeah I'm super excited for this area. The members are really good people! There are quite a few YSA which is awesome. We play futbol with them on Saturdays.
The people here are definitely Spanish haha. It's been a really long time since I've taught Spaniards, which is quite ironic since I'm in Spain. Madrid is like 90% Latinos, and Tenerife is full of Europeans. So really the last time I saw so many Spaniards was in Santiago last year. Gijón is part of a province called Asturias. So the people here are called Asturianos. And they've got the strangest accents. I feel like every time I get transferred I have to relearn Spanish since there are so many dialects and accents in this country. Latinos speak different from Spaniards, and
Spaniards are way different from Canarians. So this will be a fun adventure understanding Asturianos. They've got some thick accents. I feel like serving in areas where the Spanish is different has really helped me improve my ability to speak it though. I'm always hearing different things, so my vocab and such has increased a ton. So that's
cool. But yeah it's so interesting how diverse this country is. It's such a small country, but there are so many different cultures. This is my 6th area. All 6 of my areas have been so different from each other. Torrejon was African central, Santiago has Galicians that speak Gallego and eat weird food, Madrid is all Latinos, Canarians are
kind of a mix of everything, and Asturias is straight up Spaniard. The mission has definitely been quite the cultural experience!
Yesterday, my first Sunday in Gijón, was pretty exhausting. We had district conference in León. So our branch rented a bus to take all of the members down there. It's like a 3 hour bus ride. The conference was really good! They fed us lunch there, and then we took the bus all the way back to Gijón. We finally got back around 8 pm. So
yesterday was a super long day. But it was really fun getting to know the members on the bus! There's about 40 active members in the branch. They're awesome people! I sat with the YSA on the bus and we all told funny stories. They're cool people.
My new companion is basically Court Lake. It's pretty hilarious actually. His name is Elder Goodman. He's from Utah. He has been in the mission about a year. So this should be a fun transfer together.
Anyway, this week was really good! It's been really long and exhausting, but we're working hard out here. We're really excited to teach some people we found in the street this week. The streets here are full of people. There are a ton of parks full of families too which is awesome!
This week during my scripture study, I came across a super cool verse in the Book of Mormon. "Yea, and he looketh down upon all the children of men; and he knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart; for by his hand were they all created from the beginning." (Alma 18:32) I love this story of Ammon teaching King Lamoni. He boldly testifies of a simple truth that God knows each of his children personally. There are billions of people in the world. But I, like Ammon, know that God is real and that he is always watching us and is anxious to bless each and every one of us, and that every single soul on this earth has worth in His sight. He created us. We are His children and He loves us.
I hope you all have a great week over in sunny AZ!
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