Baptism, Transfers, and the Office....

Good day!

Well, here I am in the mission office, having PDay on Saturday. It has been a pretty crazy week (well, 5 day week). But a pretty crazy awesome one at the same time. On Monday we started doing the typical last-week-in-your-area goodbye's and kicked it off well eating a delicious paella with our investigator Daniel. He is from romania but makes some mean Spanish food. I took a picture but forgot my camera in the piso so I'll try to remember to send it next week. He put some really good seafood in it, including some of the biggest shrimp I've ever seen. They almost never pre-peel shrimp here so that has been a valuable new skill that I've developed. Tuesday was pretty similar but in the afternoon we went to visit Leidy, Katerine, and Lizeth and got their baptismal interviews done! Woohoo!! They passed with flying colors and we finished preparing and planning everything for Leidy's baptism that happened on Wednesday. We also visited Regalado on Tuesday evening. He finished reading Doctrine and Covenants this week which was pretty crazy. He's definitely the most studious investigator I've ever had...he is way awesome. Wednesday had all the craziness of a typical baptism day...we ran around all morning trying to get things prepared and fill up the font and got everything prepared just in time to go pick everyone up and start the baptism. The service was really, really awesome and Leidy was super happy. I'll send pictures of the baptism next week, too (sorry!). There was a really sweet spirit there and it was awesome to see how brave Leidy was to set the example for her sisters and follow Jesus Christ the best she could. Wednesday night we had some good Ecuatorian food with a big Ecuatorian family, I finished packing my bags, and slept super well for the last time in La Mancha! I seriously can't believe all my time there has already come and gone. Easily the fastest 5 months (almost) of my life.

So on Thursday we had specialized training and then I caught the AVE one more time in Ciudad Real and came down here to Fuengirola!! It has been raining on and off since I got here but it looks like it is done now and it is really beautiful out. Our area goes almost all the way to Algeciras (we'll probably go to Gibraltar again in a few weeks...how cool is that?!) and includes Estepona, Marbella, Mijas, and lots of other awesome tourist beach towns. It is great to be back in a BIG CITY as well! La Mancha was nice and calm, but I like the pace of the Malaga area a lot more. It reminds me a lot of California around here sometimes and I'm loving it so far. I haven't had too much office work so far since yesterday was the only office day I've had but so far I have been working on a lot of residency and translating a few things for the weekly mission bulletin. As I figure things out I'll let ya know what else I'm doing around here! Haha.

Well, I'm gonna wrap up for this week. I'll probably have lots to talk about next week as well. I'm so glad to be a missionary! It is a great blessing to be here and to be able to grow closer to my Savior. I am thankful for his example and hope we can all follow Him.

Love you!!

Elder Mockler

P.S. The new Bible videos are the bomb! http://www.lds.org/bible-videos/?lang=eng