First week in Mazarron

So wow this week has been crazy!! We left the CCM at 5 to go to the train station. At the station we split up from the Barcelona group, it was sad to say bye to Elder Stephenson. Having him at the CCM was like bringing a little piece of home with me. Anyway, so we rode the bullet train for a couple of hours to Malaga. When we arrived, president and the APs (assistants to the president) were waiting for us. We locked up our bags and left them in the station for the night. We all headed to the church

from there. I was surprised when it was just like a little thing on the first floor of an apartment building haha it was weird. So there we received our iPads had interviews with president then where assigned our trainers. Not going to lie when my trainer first walked in I was like uh oh because his hair was died and he was wearing a tuxedo vest with a pocket watch which are all against the mission

rules. Haha anyways he is from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala!!!!!!!!! How crazy is that haha the exact city Victoria just got called to haha when I found out I freaked out lol. So after we ate dinner we went to stay with some missionaries in Malaga for the night, their apartment was so disgusting I almost died haha I'm scared to get a messy companion lucky Elder Maldonado is pretty clean. So next morning take a 9 hour bus ride to Mazarron. Our area is a tiny little town. We are the only missionaries here and the next nearest ones are about 45 minutes away. Since almost everyone here works in the fields the city is like a ghost town during the day anyways because of the culture here in Spain our schedule is different than most missions. I wake up at 7:30, exercise shower and study until about 9 when my comp usually wakes up. (haha, like I said he struggles a little bit with the rules but we are working on it) Then we make breakfast do comp study, some language study and then we go out and usually visit some recent converts who own a store and contact anyone we see in the

street. We return to the piso at 2 and do studies/make lunch until 5, this is the medio dia/ siesta time where everyone here takes naps, after that we go visit recent converts members or investigators if any

are available. On Tuesdays and Thursday's we teach English

classes. Oh my gosh so funny story to tell haha, so on Thursday we were teaching an English class in the church. The church, by the way, is an old bar haha and we live on the second floor. There are only 20 members so it's not even considered a branch, it's

called an extension. Church is only 2 hours long. First Sunday

school/young women's then sacrament meeting. There are no young men and almost

all of them are from Central/ South America. Anyways back to the story, so we are teaching the English class and we were showing themhow say their birthdays so we looked up the word month in the dictionary and I started to read the example then about half way

through I realized what it was saying and I just burst out laughing! haha Here's what it said--   "No quiere ir a nadar porque está con el mes.  — She doesn't want to go swimming because she has her period."

😂😂😂😂 oh man it was so funny/embarrassing everyone started dying

laughing.

Okay so I'll just tell you guys all the other random/weird stuff here. haha

First of all the water heater. The first day I woke up exercised then went to take a shower and it was freezing cold, I was like are you kidding me no hot water haha. Turns out there is a water heater but it

is seriously the sketchiest thing ever. There is a burner like a stove top burner thing outside where the water pipe comes into the piso so you hook a propane tank up to the burner then light it with a

match then the flame from the burner heats up the metal pipe the water

runs through so the water gets a little bit warm haha it's nuts! I expected Spain to be a lot nicer than it is. It reminds me of my time in Cambodia. There is trash everywhere and everything has spray paint on it.

The thing that's killing me the most is my germ phobia. It's so bad the first few days I got so sick just trying to eat the food I had to run to the bathroom ton of times, the kitchen and everything is so nasty

there is mold and dirt and stuff everywhere oh man it's bad. Please pray for me to be able to get over the germs. I didn't realize how bad I was until I start trying to live here. I thought we would at least have like hot water to wash the dishes and stuff with. Speaking of the water, it tastes so bad here, the missionaries call it Mal Agua instead of Malaga because the water is so gross haha. That's going to take a little to get used to.

Anyways yeah so today I got a haircut and the guy did it all with a straight up razor blade it was crazy haha we walk in I sit down and he like sprays some stuff on the blade lights it on fire to clean it then holds it against a comb and combs through my hair!! It was scary and crazy but it worked fine. It was an interesting experience but my hair looks fine so I'm happy. Afterward we hiked up to this Christ statue, it was weird because it was covered in spray paint, like everything else here. No one respects anything. It's weird.

Oh one more thing I can read emails any day of the week that we have wifi and two of the families in the extension have it so we usually go check most days, but I can only reply on personal days but yeah send them throughout the week if you want because I love to read them!!

My Spanish is coming along pretty well. I can understand most of what people are saying it's just hard to find the words to reply.

Anyway, thanks for all the emails and prayers!

I look forward to writing again next week!

Love,  ELDER CHILDERS