Crazy Baptism Moment

Hey Everyone!

So crazy week this week here in Lleida! We had our Christmas Zone Conference which went really well! We have been running around for the past two weeks to make this Christmas Zone conference special for everyone, and it ended up going really well! The food was a hit! We served Half of a chicken, Patatas Bravas (Typical Spainish Food), A really nice salad, followed up by some amazing sugar cookies!  I think it is the best I have ever eaten in a Zone Conference! haha It will definately be one to remember! 

We also had a baptism here in Lleida this week! Im not sure if you guys remember me writing about Lina and Angela awhile back. Elder Weiss and I contacted Lina on the street a couple of weeks ago! She is the Lady that reminds me of Rosy ODonald! haha Well she got baptized this week! It was great! Elder Weiss and his companion are still teaching Angela, but she will soon follow! :)

Well anyway, The baptismal service was a little nuts! I have never seen so much chaos in such little time! Elder Wright and I showed up to the church about an hour before the baptism was supossed to start and eveyone was running around everywhere! haha So we continue to walk toward the font, and there is Elder Weiss with the bishop. It turns out that the big gate white gate in front of the font wouldnt open. The remotes bateries had died. The bishop was sitting in front of the gate with a box of like 100 keys trying every single one to see which one would open the gate! haha So I finally asked them why they didnt just simply go to a watch shop and change the little battaries. Well they thought it was a good idea so Elder Weiss took of with a member. So then I look through the gate and realize that some of the water had drained and they would probably want more in the font... So we needed to turn the water heater on so we could finish filling the font with hot water... Only problem, Elder Weiss had the key to the water heater room in his pocket... Yeah, but then all of the sudden the church phone rings... I answer the phone and it ends up being some man from Canada asking if this was the mormon church. I said yes and he continued to explain to me that he was a member who had come here for vacation and ended up having an alergic reaction to something he ate! He told me that he was ok and everything was fine, but in all of this he had lost his wallet and needed to buy a train ticket to Madrid so he could catch his flight home the next day! haha I itold him that we were in the middle of a baptism and asked if maybe he could wait, He told me that if he didnt catch the train that left in an hour and a half, it would be impossible to make his flight... Well, so me and the bishop took of to pick this guy up from the hospital and take him to the train station while the others stayed behinding waiting for the key to open the gate.... 

Well, I guess the end of the story is this... . Elder Weiss showed up with the remote and the gate was opened! Lina got baptized, a little later than expected, but baptized! The man caught his train and we havent heard from him again, so I am assuming that he got home AND he gave me all his information in Canada and said I could Canada whenever I wanted! Road trip anyone??? haha

So thats the highlight for the week! Other than that it was a pretty average week! We knocked a lot of doors and are finding people! We find lots of potentials, but they all are so busy with the holiday season, that they always tell us they dont have time... We are going to hang in there and keep working hard! We know the Lord will bless us for our efforts! 

Well I love you all tons! Hope you all have a great week before Christmas!! 

Duces! 

Elder Carrigan

Andorra!

Bon Nadal a tots! (Catalan for Merry Christmas Everyone) 

So the Christmas season has started here in Lleida! This past week we set everything up in piso and now we are ready! It sounds like you guys set up the stuff at home as well. I hope my Caga Tio made it into the mix somewhere in all the decorating! haha Who knows, maybe he will poop you out some Catalan suprises this year! So with the Christmas spirit also came the cold this week! Lleida, is freezing! I am telling you. Its not the temperature but its the humidity! It kills me! Its insaine! Here in Lleida, it is foggy everyday! Like a San Fransisco Fog! Its pretty nuts. All the members have been telling us that it is the Lleida Fog that tells them every year when winter really starts, because once it comes. No one ever knows when it will go away! It is a pretty thick fog as well! Kinda creeping! As we were walking to church yesterday we litlerly were walking though a cloud! haha I will take some pics and send them next week! 

This week I did have the chance to go up to Andorra for an intercambio! It was actually a city just outside of Andorra called La Seu. It is a beautiful place! (See Pic) It was really green, BUT for the fist time in a year and a half, I saw snow!!!!!!! It was awesome! It was up in the mountains, but hey I saw it! :) The bus ride up there reminded me so much of home, up and down through the canyons. We passed by a beautiful lake as well! Iwas incredible, but freezing! haha I froze for 3 days up there. The Elders Heaters are broken so they have just these tiny radiators that do nothing! haha I froze for 3 days! haha I came home and drank one of those hot chocolates you sent me and then jumped in a hot shower! Best shower ever! haha But anyway, La Seu reminded me a lot of Park City. Just a small but beautiful city. The thought came to me while I was there, wow, the only thing I am missing is my snowboard! Would have been great but we had work to do! :)

Anyway, the work is going well here in Lleida. This week kinda threw us for a swing because it was the first real cold week. There werent as many people in the streets and so we have started knocking lots of doors again. knocking always brings such fun experiences, but is also a different type of missionary work, I feel. It takes jsut a bit of adjustung and a different mindset. I am sure we will be knocking lots of doors these next couple of weeks! :) Any suggestions? 

We have lots of potential investigators, like always, we are still just continuing the constant prosess of weeding out those who are going to progress and thore who arent. The hard part is now getting them to church due to the cold! Bottom linem the elect will come no matter how far or how cold. We are also working a lot with menos activo families. We are hoping that with the spirit of Christmas in the air we can use this to our advantage and get a couple families back into church. We are excited!

Well thats about it! Until next week!

Elder Carrigan

I was able to steal a pic from my comp of the fog! This is a better day…

Christmas Season!

Hey Everyone

So I dont have much time so this week I attached the letter I wrote to President Pace... Enjoy! haha

All is well here in Lleida! Elder Write and I are enjoying our time together. Unfortunately this week was a little tough because we both caught the 24 hour flu that is going around the mission, but other than that it was great! We are working hard to find new investigators by using the area book a lot. I have found to love the area book! It always gives me a purpose in where I am going! I never need to say, where are we going to go from 5 to 7. We simply find the registros that are close to the area and let the area book guide us,always contacting along the way. When we arrive to the building, we look for the old investigator. If they dont live there anymore we simply knock the whole building! 

We are having a great time together and we have seen many miracles! This week we placed some fetchas and found some great potential investigators! 

We placed a fetcha with Chidi for this coming week. He is from Nigeria. Unfortinately, I dont feel like he is really reading the Book of Mormon so we will see how it goes. We still need to teach the commandmetns and resolve some doubts he has, but I know that if he doesnt get baptized this week, it will be in the near future! 

We also set a fetcha with Berta. She is from Bolivia. She showed up to church with a friend (another iinvestigator) and we are beginning to teach her now! She has a daughter that is 7 years old that turns 8 on the 21st of December. Just so turns out that she also has her baptismal date on the 21st of december. We are excited to teach them both. 

Overall, we are working hard and we know that as we continue to work hard through this holiday season, we will see many miracles! 

Love you all

Elder

Carrigan

Transfer Week

Hey guys!

 

So this week was transfer week and guess what... I was transfered.... Yeap! Im gone! I will be headed to Lleida! haha The transfer was kind of interesting, but yes I did get transfered... Kinda... I am still here in Lleida but I am working in a different part of the city with another companion... I am still the ZL but I am also the DL... Its kinda weird! haha I guess when all the new missioanries came president put a bunch of missionaries everywhere and it kinda messed things up. There are so many missionaries trainning now that some have to take on more responsibilities. There are even some missionaries that are Zls, DLs, and Trainning. Lots of work! haha

 

So my new companions name is Elder Wright. He is from West Virginia. He is a pretty sweet kid. We both arrived here to Lleida together and have been living together for 6 weeks already and we get along well so I cant really complain. Elder Weiss will be staying in the old area and will be recieving a new companion. We had a good time together and worked really hard. The area is on a real uprise right now so it was hard to say goodbye. the good news is that if all the investigators still keep progressing, luckily I will still be here in Lleida to see them be baptized.

 

Lots of our/their investigators are progressing well. Lina and Angela continue to progress really well. They came to church on Sunday and they both absolutely loved it! Lina at one point did get a little tripped out at one point though. During the sacrament she leaned over to me and said are they baptizing someone right now??? I said what?? She thought that under the table cloth there was a person and while the 2 priests were preparing the bread, they were preparing this "person" for baptism or some sort of sacrifice... haha At the end we both just ended up laughing! Honestly, she is the greatest lady in the world! We are always just laughing together! I am bummed I wont be able to continue teaching them both!

 

On Saturday we had a culture night here in Lleida, like we did in Barcelona. It went really well! The members really enjoyed it and they also brought some friends! In the US table, I made like 6 liters of Koolaid. It was the hit of the party! haha It was a fun night! I always love trying all the food from all over the world. All of it is SO good! I will definately need to travel some more when I get home!

 

Well anyway... So thats about it for the week! All is well here in Lleida!

 

Love you all lots! Talk to you all in less than 30 days! :)

 

Elder Carrigan

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Hey Everyone!

 

Lots of rain here in Lleida this week! Winter is starting and its freezing outside! haha

 

This week was a good week! Lleida had stake conference this week and we saw lots of miracles and... WE ARE FINDING!!!!

 

I am telling you that the blessings come when we stay out every night and work to the very end. The other night we were out working and we had finish our lessons for the day and it was just time to go to the street and find some new people to teach, so we began to contact and we were litterally talking with everyone! Well we had been contacting for quite sometime and it was getting late, so we started heading back to piso. I will be honest, we were tired, wet, and cold and we hadnt seen too much success with our contacts, but we knew that we could find somebody! Anybody! Well, on our way back, we made a couple more contacts, but I kid you not. The last 5 contacts of the night not only said yes to listen to us another day, but they all invited us to their homes! Within the next couple days! It was incredible! We have visited with some of them and have also found family members that live with them! We placed fechas and they are now preparing to be baptized! we will be visiting the rest within the next couple days! It is amazing to see the miracles that come from the Lord when we strive to be diligent and obedient!

 

Right now some of the people we are teaching are

 

Eva... She is an older spanish lady that has 12 cats that live with her! :) haha She is incredible!

 

Lina and Angela... They are from Columbia! Lina is Angelas mom. We found Lina that night. We had a lesson last night and invited them to be baptized! They both said of course! Still a long path a head but they are great! Lina reminds me of Rossy ODonald! She is crazy hiper! haha Its great!

 

Angi and her mom... Another contact from that night. They are from Peru. Angi accepted a fecha. We are still working with the mom. Long road ahead but they are progressing well!

 

Josefina, Victor and family... They are a family from Camaroon! They were a reference from a member! They are really good! Victor has like some crazy thought about Revelations and the bible but we are working with them little by little!

 

Paul Brown... My boy from Ghana! Unfortunately he didnt come to church this week so we will have to replace the fecha this week, but we gave him a big BoM this week with giant letters so now he can start to read it! :)

 

It has been amazing to see the work boom this week!

 

This week Lleida also had zone conferece. We had to go to Sabadell for the conference. It is a city close to Barc. A 70 came and talked to us. He is from northern Spain. He cracked down hard on missionary work, and for part of his lesson he had us teach the Restoration to the whole stake, I have never been so nervous to teach the Restoration in my life! haha I dont know why I always get so nervous when I am up there!  At least I didnt call anyone a girl over the pulpit this time! haha After the conference we slept in the mission office and Hermana Pace made us Breakfast in the morning. It was the best breakfast I have eaten in a long time! haha Man I miss moms cooking! ;)

 

Well thats about it! Hope you all have a good week! LOVE YOU ALL!

 

James

 

1459 Me and Elder Weiss... Just a little wet

1456 The Day in the life of a missionary... haha Dont worry! Im happy! :) haha

Zarragoza!

Hey Fam!

So this week was great! I was able to go on an intercambio with Elder Wiscombe in his area. I think I forgot to tell you that both Elder Wiscombe and Elder Garcia (The Elders I trained) are in our Zone. They are our District Leaders! haha It ahs been fun! So anyway, this week I went on an intercambio with Elder Wiscombe is Zaragoza! We had a great time and he is doing WORK! This past weekend he baptized a family of 4 and has 2 more baptismal dates for the end of this month! He is such a stud, I am really proud of him! He is working in a city named Zaragoza, which is a city that is outside of Catalunya. It was my first time out of Catalunya in a year and three months! haha Crazy! I found out that I have the habit of speaking some Catalan in my contacts because everytime I had to say goodbye to someone I said Adeu and they would always get mad at me! haha Such an intesting thing! It was good to be able to work with Elder Wiscombe again! We had a good time. They have an investigator that is trying to quit smoking and President Pace told us an interesting story of how some missionaries burned a package of cigarettes infront of the investigator and after they we done burning all that was left was ash and a bunch of tar. We thought that it could work. Im not going to say that President gave us permission, but I am also not going to say that he told us we couldnt do it... haha we tried burning a pack, but it didnt really work and it just made us smell like we had smoked a pack of cigarretes! haha Anyway, it was a story for the books!

But this past week we found a man named Paul Brown from Ghana! He is the man! We had a lesson with him and he accepted to be baptized on the 30th! He has talked to the missionaries before in Madrid. He told us that he has been here for awhile and he started wanting to go back to church. Well, the moment he started thinking about how he wanted to go back to church, we contacted him. Miracles! I love this work! The Lord truly does guide our footsteps! We are seeing him again this next week and I am really excited for him! He is super humble and super prepared!

Other than that, it continued to be a pretty average week. We are still cleaning out hthe area book and we are startign to work more with the ward list to see if we can find some less active part member families. Lleida has turned out to be a little harder of area than I thought it was going to be, but we are still ont he rise! We just need to make Lleida the area that we want it to be. As soon as we put our heads down, Satan won and we lost. We are working hard and I think my feet are going to fall off! haha Naw just joking!

Dad, I got the small package you sent me with my card and the treats! It got here really fast! I wasnt expecting it that fast! Thank you so much! I dont know if it is activated or if you were waitign for me to tell you I got it. If you were waiting, well you can activate it now. :) The big sales are coming up and its the last sale that I will be in Spain for. I plan to buy myself a couple of Christmas and Birthday gifts! ;) All I can tell you all is that I will be looking fly! haha

Well I love you all lots! Hope you have a good week!

Love James

Looking, Looking, Looking

Hey Fam,

Hope it has been a good week at home... Sounds like it was pretty exciting with Jonnys baptism! Congrats Buddy! 

Here in Lleida it was a pretty average week as well. We continue to look, look, and look! We cleaned out our area book, unfortunately it didnt bring too many results... We found some investigators but they are still unable to progress due to some problems or they really just dont keep commitments. We also continue to talk to as many peopel as we can! This week we were able to fast as a mission, I know that with our continued effort and with the help from this fast, the Lord will bless us! Anyway, we talked to the bishop and ward mission leader this week and we are going to start cleaning up the ward list. We did it while I was in Barcelona and we found lots of less actives that wanted to come back to church and also many part member families. We are hoping that though this we will be able to find some people to teach. Lleida is a great ward and we are also trying hard to visit as many members as we can and win the confidence in us.

We are finding lots of people that tell us that we can come by and teach them, but whenever we pass by, they arent there... Weird right? Usually this never happens! haha On Saturday we set up visits with 7 new investigators! Friday night I called all of them and confirmed the visits! We were pumped! Come Saturday... Only one showed up to the visit... haha Usually after a day like that we would just go get some icecream or something to eat, but the worst thing was that it was FAST SUNDAY!!!! haha Blessings... Thats all I have to say! haha

But hey the work moves forward! :) 

This week was also filled with some great experiences! haha On Saturday the one visit we did have was with a lady here from Spain. We taught here in here store (I hate store visits) Well anyway her store is kinda in a sketchy part of town! haha We were teaching her and then all of a sudden a man, totally high, walked into her store and just asks Fumáis puros? haha Or in english, do you guys smoke weed? haha We all just started laughing! He then tried to sell it to us like 6 times! He had like a tiny bag and he kept saying come on! Its cheap! Its cheap! haha So I can proudly say that the first time anyone has tried to sell me weed was on my mission! haha There is a first for everything right? haha Well anyway... We set up another lesson with the lady, but I think next time we will be teachign her in the church! haha Maybe a better setting! :) 

But thats the story for the week! haha 

Well I love all you guys! Talk to you guys next week! 

James

P.S. Dad Happy Birthday this week! Im pretty sure its the 8th haha! If not well then happy early brithday! Hope its a good one! :)