¡Huércal-Overa!

¡Hola familia!

Well, here I am in Huércal-Overa! It is a little desert town in basically the middle of nowhere. It took me 12 hours to get here from Algeciras...sitting on a bus for that long is not very fun. It was good to get to see a lot of Spanish cities on the way, though. We drove through Almuñecar which is absolutely beautiful. I get to do it again tomorrow to go to Cádiz and pick up my ID card that inconveniently enough wasn't ready until about 5 days after I got here. And then I come home on Wednesday. So I'll have a lot of time sitting on the bus this week. Should be interesting. 

So my new address is:

Elder Andy Mockler

C\ Silvestre Martinez de Haro 21, 2ºB

Huércal-Overa 04600 (Almeria)

España

The mail here works great so feel free to send me anything :). I think I'll probably be here until at least January.

Huércal is a really small pueblo. It is definitely a lot easier to get from investigator to investigator here - the longest walk from one side of the town to the other is probably 20 minutes max. And there are no hills, which is a nice break after Algeciras. We are teaching a lot and my companion - Elder Ferguson - is a great teacher. He has been out for almost a year and a half, so together we are just about "one whole missionary." We are pretty different but we make a really good combo. The branch here was opened the week I went into the MTC, so it is very young, but it is growing super fast. We have already outgrown the capilla they have here and after our next baptism we'll probably be petitioning a building. It is a great area to be in!

I hope all of you are doing well! The Lord knows us and his plan for us - he is always thinking and caring for us. It is up to us to pick his path and enjoy what he has prepared for us. The cliché is "everything in the Lord's time," but it is true - He knows the best for us, not just with an immediate perspective but rather with an eternal perspective. I'm grateful for that knowledge and the peace and comfort I have in my life knowing my purpose and the blessings I am and will receive.

¡Os quiero! ¡Que tengais una buena semana!

Elder Mockler

Transfers....¡Me Voy!

 ¡Hola familia!

Well, the big news for this week is that the transfer is over...and I'm leaving Algeciras! I'm headed to a little pueblo called Huércal-Overa right on the Western edge of Andalucía. It'll be a long bus ride and a big change!! I'm sad to leave Algeciras, but excited to get to work somewhere completely different! 

This week has been really crazy, as we haven't had a normal day the entire week! On Monday and Tuesday we had the Zone Leaders here to do splits with us, and on Thursday we left here to stay with them, do splits with them and the Elders in Chiclana, and then go to Specialized training and Stake Conference in Cádiz. The weirdest part was being out of Algeciras for 3 whole days. It was a ton of fun and great to be able to work super hard together with all the missionaries in our district.

We are still teaching a lot of Africans here. They speak English pretty well, but they speak "Pidgeon English" even better. It is a dialect based on English...and completely impossible to understand. For example, to say "what time is it?" you would say "what time you talk?", but in the heaviest African accent you can imagine. It is fun learning phrases from our investigators! As for teaching them, we challenged them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it right before we left on Thursday evening and they said they would study it a lot for the days we were gone so they could know when we got back. We are super excited to go see how they are today!

While I was in San Fernando we focused a lot on talking to people about Christ and baptism. On Saturday night, I felt testified to me countless times that this church is truly the Church of Jesus Christ: He leads us and guides us through his living prophet. The blessings of baptism are incredible and are real. We just have to have faith in him and take the steps - slowly and surely - that he asks us to. If we do that, one day we will have eternal life - either in this life or the next. I can't think of a better promise than that, and it only seems better the more I understand. The Gospel is true! We just have to live it to know.

I love you all! Thank you so much for your support!

Elder Mockler

Below are photos from a training conference for the San Fernando Zone.  The captions are from the Spain Málaga mission blog that is updated weekly by the mission president and his wife.

 

Presidente told everyone where they were going for transfers. Hmm, I wonder what will happen to Elder Lignell and his companion Elder Mockler. Elder Banbury is there to comfort all. 

Come on Presidente, tell us please!

 We are singing the mission song all over the mission. San Fernando Zone is ready to go.

Can you find all 14 missionaries in this picture? You'll have to look closely to find Elder Marchello and a few others. 

 Here's a better picture of all of us. We are on fire in San Fernando. They had 36 investigators in the Stake Conference general session. Great work!

Lots of English in Spain...

¡Hola familia!

Well, believe it or not, we probably spoke more English than Spanish this week. We have found a lot of investigators that speak English and we also have a family from Canada that just got back from vacation. Talking to the Canadians is especially fun because they speak real English! We can get together and talk about all the American comforts we miss here, haha. We had a dinner cita with them this week and had tacos. It was awesome. It is hard to teach them, though...I'm already forgetting some words in English that we use a lot when we teach. It is weird!!!

As for our other English speaking investigators, they are from Africa, so their English is pretty distinct. Pretty hard to understand sometimes. We have to change the way we speak, too, so they understand. Basically you just can't use past tense because that always throws them off. Same with African Spanish...and conjugating for different subjects is always optional. Believe it or not, we have started teaching Spanish classes to a few who don't speak Spanish yet. I would say we're pretty uncanny candidates for that, but it has been a lot of fun and has helped them out a lot. 

One of the Africans is from Ghana and got here about 2 months ago and is only 17 years old. He told us his story the other day and it is pretty wild. He paid about 1,000€ to get here. First he travelled from Ghana to Morocco, where he had to wait for 5 months for everything to be just right. During those 5 months, him and about 50 other people lived in the forest, having to find their own food and everything. Finally, the leader of their little group said everything was just right and they all packed into a little boat and set off from Morocco in the middle of the night. I think he said they had to pay off the police, as well, to get over here. And if the Spanish navy had found them on the way, they all would have been sent back. It is crazy! But he is here now and working on getting legal. Hopefully he can do that soon. I can't imagine having to go through all of that.

Well, that is about it. The mission is still working hard to meet our goal and things are going really great. I think that our mission fast last week really helped because all over the mission things have really taken off. I'm so glad to be here in Spain! I have thought a lot about the temple this week and how peaceful of a place it is. The Spirit of the Lord really does dwell there. Every time we teach a lesson about the temple I can feel the Spirit testify of how special of a place it is. The temple is the crowning jewel of the Restored Gospel and I know it is a place inspired of God. I just want to share with all of you that I know this church is the true church of God on the earth! As we study the scriptures and work to gain and maintain our testimony, we can receive unbelievable blessings that God has prepared specifically for every one of us. 

I love you all so much! Have an awesome week!

Elder Mockler 

We'll get 300!!!

Hola familia!

Well, another great week here in Algeciras! As always :)

First, a funny story from the streets of Spain. On Friday we were walking towards home and we saw a drunk guy that is always sitting on the street below our piso. On Friday I guess he decided to have a good night, though, and was practicing his Matador skills....with his t'shirt and all the cars driving by! It was insane. Luckily we saw him this morning (and not splattered on the road). As funny as it was, it is sad seeing people like that....they are all over here. Just completely out of their minds, really, and always drunk.

So this week the whole mission has been focusing on recommitting to reach our baptism goal for the year. We have all been working hard and exercising faith to be sure we reach it...and surpass it! Yesterday we all fasted for the goal and that we could find people to teach. After mediodia, Elder Lignell and I were just absolutely dead. I honestly don't think I've ever been so tired in my entire life. We started heading for an investigator's house to try to find him. His name is Artemio - he is from Paraguay and lives with his wife, his son and daughter-in-law, and his 2 grandsons. After finally making it to his house, we were able to teach not just him, but the entire family! It was a great lesson. It was just an example to me of how we have adversity in our lives, but if we can push through it there is always a reward at the end. We talk to a lot of people with a lot of trials, but like it says in Doctrine and Covenants, all these trials will be but a short moment and then we will receive all that the Father has and we will see that they are all for our good. 

I love you all! The church is true! Read the Book of Mormon!!!!

Elder Mockler