Dear Family,

Don´t worry I can get some sweet ties for him! Is it fine if I only send like two home and then bring the others? (Apparently, ties come in pretty sweet designs and cost very little. There were a couple requests here at home.)

EFY turned out great!!! We had the nephew of the branch president (whose parents are members but not him) go to EFY and he showed up at church yesterday and got up to bare his testimony... He said the while he was there he knew that he needed to get baptised!!! He´s going to wait for his dad to start coming to church again so that he can baptise him! I hope his dad comes back quickly! We can´t wait for too long on this one!

We haven´t seen Norma all week long because she got a job and hasn´t been able to meet with us! :( We are not giving up on her though!!!

Elder Pratt is doing great and yes the humidity has leveled out a bit! We´ve spent all week in the hospital visiting a lady but I dón´t see her going anywhere...soon. She is a phycologist and so the lessons are more of phylosophy classes than religioun. oh well!

I don´t have a ton of time today but thanks for the support you give me! I hope everything goes well there! And I can´t wait to see my two "sobrinos" in 8 1/2 months!!! Love you all!

Elder Heywood

Happy Pioneer Day!

Dear Family,

Yes we did make another trip down to Malaga! :P But it was once again worth the trip! There is a cool story that goes along with the busses though! Normally we buy our tickets with a machine but this time it wasn´t working. So we went to the window and bought them the old fashioned way... You know, where you actually have to talk to someone! ;) The lady there sold us the tickets in a wierd way though, but everything was fine... or so we thought! She gave us tickets to Granada and then to Jaen. My tickets came out all right. But Elder Pratt´s were all messed up. We got on the bus to Granada and got there fine! Those tickets were correct. But then we tried to get on the bus to Jaen... they stopped us because Elder Pratt´s ticket was for the 5:00 bus and not the 8:00 bus. the Lady had given us two separate tickets and now we were in between a wall and a hard spot! They aren´t allowed to let you on is you don´t have the correct ticket... well, I tried to explain that the lady messed up and that we had nothing to do with it. I asked if we needed to go change it but he just told us to wait a little bit. He came back and decided that since there were so few people on that bus that he would let us on and just not tell anyone! He was way kind to do that for us because I´ve seen, quite a few times, when they go and get security and make them go buy another ticket! On the bus I took a pass-along card, wrote a little thank you note, and invited him to call for a Finding Faith in Christ DVD. I may never know in this life where that goes but I felt good about it!

The ties were an idea the ZL´s came up with. A lot of times companionships will get matching ties to wear to zone conference or to interviews and they decided to take it up one notch! so we went to a gift shop where they sell fake stuff... and a ton of sweet ties and baught us some matching ties! They sell all their ties for 4€ and I´ve now bought about 6 ties there! They are pretty decent ties and they look nice as well so, why not?

Last monday we taught for the first time who might be our next baptism. She stopped us the previous friday and asked if we were JW´s. We kindly respinded that we are from a different religion and started explaining a bit. She is a Catholic and is living with a JW at the moment. She goes to their meetings occasionally because she enjoys their meetings. We invted her to our church but she said she wants us to come by and talk with her at her house first... we were totally fine with that. When we got there on Monday there was need for us to even know what we were doing. She led the lesson almost and everything went perfectly. We left her with the Book of Mormon and set citas for every monday, wednesday, and friday and the commitment to come to church this next week. (She already had family birthday plans for yesterday). We have another lesson with her in 45 minutes and plan to set a fecha with her today. She truly is golden!

We spent this morning in hospitals... we were not the patients!!! ;) There were a few people that wanted us to visit so we had a member take us around to the different hospitals to visit them. We got a couple potentially great investigators from it. It took forever to find people but we finally found them all! The youth are at EFY this week! We have two strong members, two inactive members, and two non-members attending! I hope they all enjoy it and come to learn that... there really are other youth in the church. Here in Jaen they are kind of sparse! haha EFY here is a church-sponsored, week-long youth camp. They will enjoy it I´m sure!

Apart from that the week has been normal! haha It was a great week! We are working hard and sweating tons! It´s way hot out here but I still think it´s hotter in Mesa! :P It is a tiny bit more humid here though!

Well, I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

Elder Austin Heywood

New missionaries arrive!

Elders Talbot, Stowell, Pratt, and Masterson finally arrive in Fuengirola after visa waiting, distant travels, and an inadvertent layover in Malaga.

Dear Family,

I am well aware that I did not remember to write in the address. He wasn´t sure at the moment so I was going to get back to it and then didn´t... And now there´s not going to be time to do so. I am already back in Jaén! HOME SWEET HOME!!! The misionaries got here a little sooner than expected. So we caught a bus to Jaén on thursday and arrived after a looooonnnnnngggggg bus ride that stopped in every single little town along the way. I now know not to catch the 3:00 bus from Malaga to Jaen! Elder PRATT is from American Fork, Utah, is 19, will be a great missionary and understands quite a bit for coming straight from the Provo MTC. Where in the world did you get the idea of this other Elder? I hate to tell you that if he is a real person coming to this mission... he´s still not here! Sorry!

We just made up a missionary and lots of things about him, "guessing" that was Austin's new companion. haha

Elders Heywood, Langston, Bullen, and Wiehe are at the mission home for a training meeting and to find out who their new companions will be.

We didn´t find out who our companions were going to be until wednesday night when we were all in the mission home together. That´s a new interesting routine that the mission is doing. It was fun! It was just a long walk back to the different stations and to get home because his suit cases are dying! that was fun!!! :P I´m glad I got the luggage I got... but I will need new wheels on the largest one when I get home because I just packed everything into it for the Algeciras adventure and it weighed a little bit... 66 lbs. :S They´ll last for the rest of the mission but I´ll be replacing them when I get home.

I never did get down to Gibraltar because I was going to do that today... well, that isn´t really possible anymore... Maybe I´ll get sent there after Jaen. You never know! But I also wouldn´t mind going to one of the new areas of the mission!

Anyway, Santy and President Castro are the ones that ended up going to the investigators´ houses. They actually only made it to A´s house because they were busy on wedensday and couldn´t make it to A and P´s house. A came to church this week!!! :) Now she only has to come the next two weeks in a row to get cookies! They did well it seemed like! They were looking forward to their visit this week too!

Elder Pratt´s mom´s email address is... should I give it to you this time? ;) ... He is doing great! He will probably progress faster than I did at the begining just because he is willing to talk a lot more than I was! He does great and it´s now that I really realize that I have relaxed on a few tiny things! He follows the rules and I´m going to do my best not to corrupt him! We´re getting along great! I am happy to be training and glad that we do well together.

We were told in the training meeting that we should be discontent... not the worldly search for "more" but a divine discontent. Always striving to be better... missionaries, people, companions, speakers of spanish, etc. There are many skills that we should acquire and we are supposed to be "divinely discontent!"

Even though the missionaries can't get in the pool, they want their picture taken next to it. This is at a New Missionary training meeting, with the 7 missionaries that have come to the mission in the past 2 weeks and the 4 trainers coming to pick up their greenies. The 5 others? Pres and Sis Clegg, and perhaps the office elders or APs??

No, Elders, don't do it!! Whew. . . they landed on the deck, not in the pool!

I think the funnest thing this week was getting together with a lot of the missionaries that were in the mission home and just enjoying time with them. The worst part was the two busses that were indirect (stop everywhere) and then lugging the broken bags around! The best part was the lesson we had with A! She is doing great! I hope her mom gets a little more accepting of the church!

I think that the biggest problem between me and Elder Pratt is that he LOVES cheese! Which really isn´t a huge problem! :) Well, This week has been great and I look forward to a great time with him here!

How did the move go? It sounds like everything went well!

The move hasn't gone, and I think he's just fishing. . .

Jacob, You are just amazing at making Kayla smile! :D Keep that up and keep working on the recuperation so we can play a little basketball when I get home!!! I look forward to it. Happy Birthday!!!

Grammy, I am way happy that you have taught me the ways of pie making! I find it quite useful here in the misison! You have been a great example of prioritizing! You always were busy doing things and cooking or cleaning up after us ;) but you still took the time to create good memories with the kids! Thank You!!! Happy Birthday!!!

Jay, I have always looked up to you! You love learning and then sharing that knowledge in a way that makes people want to follow you! You´re a great leader! Keep it up man! Happy Birthday!!!

Brady, GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG... that translates to... You are a cute little munchkin and if you want there are about 4 people here in jaen that want me to arrange a marriage for you and their little daughters! haha I won´t sign anything!!! Happy Birthday!!!

Well, it´s about time to go shopping and cooking! Good ole lonesome jaen p-days!!! :D

Have a great week!

Con Mucho Amor,
Elder Austin Heywood

ps. remember that when you actually move I just want a letter with pictures from the new house!!! ;)

Yep, proof that he was just fishing.