Still running...

Happy Saturday!

Well, another week come and gone in the office. We started off the week thinking it would be our calmest yet, but all of that has managed to turn completely around and I think we're going to have the busiest weekend of all time. We're getting ready for new missionaries on Tuesday, 3 zone conferences this week (they invited us along this time! yay!), and our 3rd transfer in 6 weeks. So Mr. travel and hotels (that's me) is getting pretty busy. And I love it!

Last night we had our ward Christmas party. It was AWESOME! There were 170+ people there. I have never seen so much arroz con pollo in my life and they cut an entire jamón leg. It was a serious feast! Valerie came and got to meet a lot of the members. Sister Deere came to a lesson we had with her this week and she is helping us tons. We had a few other investigators there as well - a new member in the ward brought his friend Elly (from Brazil) who we have been teaching and tons of other members brought friends and family and it was great to meet them. The primary did a great nativity scene and everything. The Fuengirola ward is seriously the best ever!

So, besides that, we have just been running around getting things done here and trying to teach in any free moment we have. Life is good! Sorry this is so short this week but we have to get to a wedding in about 15 minutes for some of the APs investigators and then back to work on zone conference and transfers. Being in the office is great!

The Church is true! Christ is our Savior and redeemer and was born for us 2,000 years ago in a humble manger in Bethlehem.

Oh, come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant
Oh, come ye, oh come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold him
Born the King of angels;
Oh, come, let us adore him;
Oh, come, let us adore him;
Oh, come, let us adore him,
Christ, the Lord.

Love you!

Elder Mockler

Crazy Week Photo Album

Well, here we are. We survived the week! I have quite a few pictures I want to send, so I'll put them in and write a bit about how the week went.

So, on Monday and Tuesday we had Zone Leader concilio. On my way to the office on Monday, I spied a pink tie in a bush by our piso and snagged it. I'm wearing it in a lot of my pictures this week. After concilio, (we ate Hawaiian Haystacks, by the way, mmmmm) departing missionaries started trickling in to have their exit interviews. And they kept coming all day Wednesday. Amongst all the craziness of missionaries coming, we saved the Cadiz Sisters from getting lost in their new area and quite a few missionaries who missed their buses for transfers. Finally on Wednesday night after taking up 3 van loads of missionaries to the mission home, we start loading up all their luggage.

 
 There was quite a bit. We got the van and the cars all ready and headed off to buy some snacks for Thursday morning to keep us awake. Little did we know that we'd run into a REAL ARCTIC OWL in a small food store down the street...

After our owl-y adventure, we got to bed and set our alarms for...drum roll...2 AM!! Which came all too fast. But, we got dressed and grabbed the van to head up to meet the bus and the missionaries. It was Constitution Day here, which means everyone was still out at 2:00 partying...and the police were out to breathalyze a few choice cars in the roundabouts. And wouldn't you know it...they stopped Elder Manning and I! Luckily the police saw nothing suspicious about a large white van full from top to bottom with luggage and just gave Elder Manning the test and let us go on our merry way. We got to the spot we had picked to meet the bus and started unloading luggage and shuttling missionaries down. This next picture pretty well sums up that experience:

So we got everyone and their bags onto the bus and headed to the airport. Good ol' Finance Secretary Elder Berrett dropped a few Euros to pay for everyone's extra bag (a process that takes about 400 times longer here than in the States) and we sent them off to the good ol' USA! After trying to get the seats back into the van and a few other things, it was already 7:00 and we went up to Benalmádena to watch the sunrise for a little bit.

We came home and crashed and woke up quite a few hours later than I ever expected I would as a missionary...but such is life in the office. We sent Elder Nally and Elder Manning off and things got suddenly very quiet around here...finally!...until the APs got a flat tire yesterday and we had to help them fix it. Never a normal day around here...

Amongst all the craziness, we've been able to do a surprising amount of missionary work. Valerie, our Slovakian investigator, is doing well, and we were able to teach her on Tuesday evening. She is reading the Book of Mormon in English but doesn't understand it well and we're trying to find SOME language that she understands a little better. She is progressing, though, and feeling better and better every day. We were finally able to meet with Emili, our new Spanish investigator, as well. He is awesome and super excited to start reading the Book of Mormon. He is going through really hard times right now but I know if he keeps going he will find great blessings in the Gospel. I'm so grateful to be a missionary here in the office! It is an awesome experience and a great blessing. The Church is true and gives us so much if we will just choose to serve God and keep his commandments.

I love you all! Have a great week!!

Elder Mockler

P.S. It's that time of year again, the holidays, and you know what that means....

And here are a few pictures taken from the Spain Málaga mission blog

http://thespainmalagamission.blogspot.com/

Concilio December 4, 2012 

At the bus waiting to take the 21 returning missionaries to the airport

December!

It's December! Christmas month! Hooray!

So this week we have prepared a lot for next week, which will probably be the craziest week of my entire life. Why? Well, on Monday we have Zone Leader Concilio until Tuesday morning when the departing missionaries begin to come in for exit interviews, which go until Wednesday night when we start loading luggage and preparing for 4:00am Thursday morning when we meet the bus to head off to the aiport to send off 20 missionaries. Couple that with transfers all around the mission on Wednesday and you have the readers digest version of the week. It should be interesting! I've been mastering the Spanish public transportation system this week making travel plans and I'll start buying tickets tomorrow. It's been a big puzzle but it has been really fun to figure it all out. As crazy as it all is (and that's without the day-of emergencies), I'm really actually looking forward to it all and know it will be a great time. And that Thursday morning and night I'm going to get the best sleep of my entire life.

This morning we decided to go watch the sunrise over the ocean and climbed up to the Fuengirola castle. It was awesome! I didn't take my camera but you can see the area pretty well on google maps if you search for fuengirola sohail castle. I'm so lucky to be here! It was great to get up there and just relax and talk for a bit. It is starting to get REALLY cold here (we got the heater out this week), but it was still a good little walk.

Well, I can't think of anything else new and exciting so I'm going to wrap this up. We are going to get going to play mini golf round II in a few minutes. I'm so grateful for a Havenly Father that loves us and to be able to feel His Spirit. I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon which brings that Spirit into our lives.

Have an awesome week!

Elder Mockler

I PUT UP THE OFFICE CHRISTMAS TREE JUST NOW!

Happy 2 days after Thanksgiving! Why is that so awesome? Well, because it means it is CHRISTMAS TIME! In Spain they always put big street lights up for Feria and Christmas and all the Christmas lights are up. We're waiting anxiously for them to turn on.

So, another good week here in the office. Things were a lot calmer for me, but it is just the calm before the storm that'll come in a week and a half since we're doing a little mid-transfer transfer since a huge group goes home on December 6th. Elder Berrett is getting the hang of things little by little...it is really great to have him around again! On Thursday we had a training in Málaga and an amazing Thanksgiving feast. Everyone pitched something in and we ended up having Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, and PIE!! Everything you need for a real American Thanksgiving. It was grand.

We took another good ol' office field trip today and drove up to Ronda for P-Day. It was awesome! It is a really traditional Spanish village split down the middle by a big waterfall. The bridge built over the waterfall is INCREDIBLE! It was really beautiful out there and a great trip. We also got to hear an excellent pan flute/harp version of that "some say love" song that is in Napoleon Dynamite. haha. Have I ever said I live in the most beautiful place in the world? On the way home we drove through the mountains and then down across the costa del sol. Amazing!

The other night Elder Berrett and I actually got a chance to go out and proselyte for a few hours (hooray!) and had a really great experience. We were trying to find the house of a less-active member and, since neither of us know our way around Fuengirola yet, I took a wrong turn and led us to the wrong apartment. We went half way up the stairs before we realized it, and decided we would knock just the first door. When that guy shut the door on us, we felt like we should go up and do just one more. That's when Emili, a Spanish guy from Barcelona, opened the door. Elder Berrett bore an awesome testimony to him, and he told us about how he has been really depressed lately and has only been here in Fuengirola a few weeks. He is a great guy and knows a lot about the Bible and is very excited to meet with us. Hopefully things will go well with him! Our other few investigators are doing well. Valerie, the Slovakian is doing better and better as well as Pilar, a Bolivian lady who committed to live the Word of Wisdom this week. Isn't missionary work awesome?! I'm so grateful to be a missionary, especially in Spain. I'm grateful for the Spirit that leads us, comforts us, and tells us all things as they really are and as they really will be. I know that God lives and that Christ is our Savior. Their work is progressing!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Mockler

What time is it?

Hello!

They sell pancake batter in a spray can at Mercadona now. Weird, but cool.

Another week come and gone! Time feels even weirder in the office. We're just so busy all the time. This week we have a group of 11 go home, so Monday through Thursday was pretty well filled up with taking care of them. The scary part is that it was almost like a test run for the group of 21 that go home on December 6th. Anyway, they all came in on Tuesday evening and we bought mountains of pizza for them to eat here in the office before they went up to sleep in the mission home. It was weird to see Elder Lignell and Elder Pallas go home as well as lots of other really good friends I've made here. On Tuesday we also took Elder Hunt down to the bus station in Málaga and picked Elder Berrett up. My first transfer day came and went without too much craziness, luckily. Those travel days are always the Secretary's nightmare. The only hick-up was when a missionary couldn't find his new companion when he was supposed to get there....but in the end it turned out that they just couldn't see each other in the train station. duh.

Anyway, on Wednesday we did the last few things to get the departing missionaries ready, packed their luggage into the van, and headed to bed so we could wake up at 3:30 to take them to the airport (yes, that will be a regular occurrence. Fantastic.). Now, we should have known that something would go wrong since everything had gone so smoothly before that, but we didn't see it coming until we all woke up to Elder Manning saying "Hey President..." I almost yelled "What time is it?!" and when Elder Nally answered back "4:12" we all literally started sprinting around getting ready. I had a pretty impressive jump from the top bunk, haha. Anyway, we got ready in record time and met President and all the missionaries in front of our piso and zoomed off to the airport. We made really good time (we followed Elder Manning....he drives a bit fast sometimes) and made it to the airport only 10 minutes after we had planned. So, not too disastrous a mistake, but we'll still never hear the end of it around here in the office.

So, besides that, office work has been pretty normal. Lots of residency (I got my new DNI (Spanish Residency) card this week! Yayyyy...) and travel and whatnot. We haven't had too much time to proselyte, but we have been able to start teaching a Slovakian lady that the APs found a while back and keep up with our other investigators. Elder Berrett and I went and worked quite a bit in Marbella the other day which was really neat. Spain is beautiful!

This video came out this week and I would just like to share it:
For God So Loved the World
I hope that as we enter the Christmas season this week we can remember Him whom we celebrate and honor. I am so grateful for Christ and for His influence in my life.

Love you so much! Have an awesome week!
Elder Mockler

Here is a photo from the mission blog celebrating reaching the 2012 goal of 404 baptisms for the mission.

The Spain Malaga Mission

What a crazy week!

Hello!

Wow...what a week. At moments I feel like this has been the longest week ever...and in the next moment I can't believe so much has happened in so little time. I'll see how much I can fit in here before we run out of time.

It all started last weekend because President called us and told us that a missionary from our mission had decided to go home early so we had to pick him up from the train station, get his travel ready, and take him to the airport. He got here Saturday night and Sunday morning we drove to the airport at 3:00 am to get him in for his flight which left at 6:30. The only problem was that we didn't realize the church travel office had accidentally booked his flight from Madrid instead of Málaga until we had already arrived and waited in line. So, at 4:00am I rang the church travel office emergency line in Utah and had a nice 30 minute conversation to try to rebook the flight. Nothing was going out on Sunday so....we repeated it all on Monday morning (well, except the phone call to Utah). It was totally insane. After a good nap for a few hours we came into the office and got some things started before going to Zone Leader Concilio Monday evening and Tuesday morning. It was really good to see all the zone leaders and be back at concilio! I translated the whole time, which ended up being really fun, but we all felt like zombies by the time Tuesday ended.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty normal days without too much office madness, which was a much needed break. Yesterday, though, we started all the fun of transfer time! I spent the day making travel plans and buying lots of train tickets for our training meetings next week and the transfer on Tuesday. We'll keep working on all of that until Wednesday when Elder Hunt leaves and I get to start knocking out all of the post-transfer residency work...woohoo! I don't want to make it sound like my whole life is just drudgery, though, because it is anything but that. I really don't think I've had more fun in my entire life!

Today President told us to find something fun to do for P-Day, and as we helped a member move we saw a Miniature Golf course and decided to go. It was awesome! It was probably the most intense Mini-Golf I've ever played. I almost won, but barely missed the hole-in-one on the bonus hole which really ruined my score. 3rd place works too, I guess.

And missionary work? Things are looking really good here. I've met tons of British people here...and people from about every other part of Europe. We found a new investigator this week named Johnny who is from Norway. He first met missionaries about 20 years ago and knows quite a bit about the church already. We're excited to keep meeting with him. Despite having a lot of our proselyting time taken up by office work we still get lots of chances to teach and find new people. It is a great blessing.

Oh yeah! There is so much to say I keep forgetting important things. So like I said, transfers are this week and Elder Hunt is leaving. We found out that Elder Nally is going to start training his replacement this week, who is none other than....wait for it....Elder Berrett! We couldn't believe it! I'll be back with my hijo here in the office haha. I'm super excited to be back with him again. I will probably be with him until at least March which is pretty wild. I can't wait.

This church is SO true! There is no other organization like it in the world. I see that more and more here in the office. I am so grateful to be part of this great work in the last days. It is humbling to know that Heavenly Father put such circumstances in my life to lead me to be here. I am grateful for all I am learning. I'm also grateful for Jesus Christ, who is our living Savior, brother, and friend. I wish to grow closer to Him everyday and hope I can help others along the way, too.

Have a great week! I love you all so much!!

Elder Mockler

Random, unexpected fishy dinner with some investigators 

(fish eyes are actually quite good...have I mentioned that before?)

Mini Golf. I'm still sour about that last hole-in-one. So close....

The following photos are from the Spain Málaga mission blog

and were taken at Zone Leader Conference.

Royal Blood

Hello!

So, this week I was exploring our family tree and decided to see how far back I could go when I ran into none other than King Henry III of England! In that same line are Henry II and Henry I, a king of Jerusalem from the Crusade era, a few Scandinavian kings, lots of dukes of Normandy, and one man who was known as "the fart" (one of the other missionaries here in the office is also related to him...but comes from one of his other concubines). Anyway, I'll have to go claim my throne in England in a few years.

It has been awfully rainy here all week. Just my luck...I get transferred to the "costa del sol" and it rains all week. That's just winter in Spain, though. And I can't complain compared to what the East Coast has had this week. And we stay mighty dry here in the office every morning. The office is going good - we mostly just do a lot of residency paperwork and buy people tickets when they need to do a lot of travel. I am also in charge of translating President Deere's weekly bulletin and doing some numbers stuff for our weekly meetings. It isn't too hard and I'm getting the hang of it. Elder Hunt, who is training me, will be leaving in a week and a half and then I'll be all on my own. Ah! Right now we are in a trio together. Elder Hunt is from Virginia (although he has also lived in Japan and Germany) and Elder Nally comes from a big Arizona family. They are great guys and we're having a great time together.

President and Hermana Deere had to go to some meetings in Madrid all week and left Annie and Justin, their kids, at home. They asked us to take them out one day so they wouldn't get too bored and so we went on a hike on Thursday to a place called "La Concha" near Marbella. It was an incredible hike up to the peak of a mountain. It took us a little longer than we expected (8 hours....yikes), but it was totally awesome. I'll send a few pictures. From the top we could see to Málaga on one side and to Gibraltar on the other. Luckily we went on the one sunny day this week and we all managed to get a little sunburned too! haha.

Well, that's about it for this week I think. Being a missionary is AWESOME! I have 6 months left and I know they are going to be the best 6 yet. I know Heavenly Father cares for us and that He has a plan for every one of us. He wants the best and has everything lined up so that we can progress and be happy. The scriptures are true and bring a special spirit of peace and happiness when we read them. The Gospel is true and is amazing!! I love it!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Mockler

This photograph is taken from the Spain Malaga mission blog and shows Andy at 

a baptism before he left his last area in Alcazar.  He looks so happy!