¡Viva España! 🇪🇸🇪🇸

Hey everyone, well it was a kind of crazy week. 

We did two sets of intercambios one here in Badajoz and one up in Cáceres. They both turned out pretty well and I got to spend some time with Elder Mamani which was super awesome. He's one of the best missionaries I have ever met. He has such a great desire to share the gospel and is a great leader teaching by example. 

All of the citas for the day failed so we ended up just going out and contacting. We were out for the whole afternoon, contacted over 50 people and only were able to get one future. It was rough. We learned some good things from the intercambio though. Contacting is not a good finding method for the area and we are going to talk to president about getting the areas reorganized because the way they are set up here in Badajoz is very inefficient. 

Watching General Conference

The intercambios up in Cáceres also were good. Our time was a bit short since we bussed up there arriving at 6 then had to leave at 2 but we made the best of the time we had. The first afternoon I worked with Elder Wilson. We taught an awesome English class up there. A group of 8 college students came and three of them spoke perfect English so I just got to talk with them for a while. It was pretty fun hearing all their stories. They are all here on scholarships from the government studying for their masters. One was from Columbia, one from Argentina and the other from Senegal. 

When the Elders from Sevilla bring you Mac and Cheese from Costco!

At first they were worried that we were going to like force religion on them but we assured them that it was just a free service we offer and that if they had questions they could ask but we wouldn't force it at all. As always about halfway through the questions started coming haha. So basically I ended up teaching the restoration and sharing my testimony. The next morning I worked with Elder Rich and we had a crazy miracle happen. So a guy had called and said he wanted to meet with us. He said"Elders" so we just assumed he was like a member or something but didn't really know. When we showed up to the church he was waiting outside. So when we sat down we kind of just asked him like what we could help him with. He goes "well I met with the missionaries about 20 years ago and I want to be baptized now, so what are the requisites for that, I'll do whatever you need me to." I had to put my hand on my chin to keep my jaw from dropping haha. We're just like, well yeah we can do that for you... and explained the process. We prayed together and set a baptismal date for November 4th. 

The other crazy thing that happened yesterday, President Silva got released. So that was super sad but I mean it was time he's been the branch president for almost 9 years straight now! So now Daniel is the new branch president. He'll be good too he's a really young guy, just turned 27. 

Last of all I don't know how big of news this is over there but its crazy here. So Catalonia, Valencia, and País Basco are all trying to declare independence from Spain right now. So recently everyone has been hanging Spanish flags on their balconies there has been tons of Spanish pride parades and lots of military demonstrations. Its pretty cool cause they've been doing these flybys with the fighter jets like every day super low and fast over the city.   

Well thats about it for the week. Love ya'll have a great day :) 

-Elder Childers