Cheap soldering gun

¿Que tal mi familia y mis amigos?

This week has been a weird one!

So naturally, as missionaries sometimes you need to burn things...
Unfortunately we only had a soldering gun, but as I went to plug it
in, the wire blew up right in my hand! You guys have no idea how hard
it is to write with one hand!!........ Hahaha just kidding I'm fine,
thankfully the layer of sweat and dirt protected my hand from any
danger.

This week we finally had the opportunity to serve our community. We translated

the chinos(Chinese restaurant) menu into English.

We also got a free meal out of it! Chinos here are run by families.

From birth to death you are pretty much working there. There 4 year

old sun does the deliveries!...... Just kidding.

So there is a sweet lady named Pilar in our ward that feeds us every week. She is a

super good cook and will be cooking us Thanksgiving this year. She loves when

the missionaries help her learn new foods so we ate tacos with her.

She asked me to make the guacamole for her so I did just that. But even know

it was just classic guac, she absolutely loved it! So we ate tacos at the bishops

house yesterday and of course Pilar called the bishops wife and told her to have me make

the guac. I don't know why but it for Spaniards it goes God then family

then food here in this beautiful country.

The number one excuse for not getting baptized here is really a lot of things.

Mostly because they don't want to change. Sex and drinking are a big

thing here. On the streets it's usually "tango prisa" or "I'm in a hurry" because

people don't want to be rude they just keep repeating that until we end the conversation.

Another big thing here is that nobody actually wants to read. A lot of people

can't even read here. It's super surprising.

As I was growing up trying new foods I always wanted to eat everything

because I new on my mission I would have to eat weird things. But that is not even

close to the case. I eat amazing meals every day. Never have I eaten something that I

wouldn't want to eat again. It's super great!

Well lately I have been studying the life of Jesus Christ. I have been studying

3 Nephi the New Testament and Jesus the Christ. I can only read a page of Jesus the Christ

in 30 min because of all insane words but I am amazed at what I come to learn every day. I know if

we strive to be more like Christ every aspect of our lives will change. I am so thankful

for his example I love him so much!

Love
Elder Owens 

Q and A

Dear friends and family!

It has been a great week for the Malaga Spain mission. It is my first
transfer week and I'm still with my companion, so that's good. Elder
Ward, who was in the picture with me from the last email, is from
Gilbert and is the AP. He is going home in a few weeks so he is
training the new AP.

So in answering a few questions...
We are fed by members a lot. The meals change according to the season
which is pretty cool!
A lot of soups this time of year.

We have around 10 investigators. None of them go to church. We are
working on that.

Our piso is pretty ugly. Just imagine two teenage boys furnishing a
small apartment. Plus, it's dirty all the time because we spend our
p-days driving and emailing, not in our piso.

It's still pretty warm here. I wear short sleeve shirts still and am fine.

There are around 100 members and 30 attend.

We don't spend a ton of time teaching inactive people but we do some.
Sometimes people will leave the church because the missionaries don't
visit them every day.

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving giving here...But a member is fixing
Thanksgiving food for us and we are having dinner with them.

All the laws here are pretty much the same. Not much change on that one.

My Spanish is improving every day its not something that is super tough for me.

I love being here in Spain! I love serving the lord! I love the people
of Spain!
I hope you all are doing great!

Love
Elder Owens

Halloween

Hello friends and family!

I can't believe it! This is already the last week of my first transfer! Because of Christmas the next two transfers are changed. One transfer is 4 weeks and the next is 8... So that will be interesting.
I will most likely get a new companion after this next 4 week transfer, which I am not looking forward too because there is no one better than Elder Wagner.

So Halloween was this week! They celebrate kind of similarly here but there are two factions.
Half the people here hate Halloween because it's just another reason to party(which never stops here) and the other love it because it's  another reason to party! They play super loud music and dress up like here and trick or treat. The adults drink all night. But it's super fun for missionaries because all the doors are open that would normally need permission to enter. I love the look on the people's faces when they expect to give out candy to some children but really just end up receiving the greatest message in the world. Hahahaha

This week we did service for the first time. The reason being because no one likes to be served here. There is a guy in our ward who is deaf and by using only charades we helped him move his washer to another piso. It was a little rough going down 5 flights of stairs with a washer, but we managed.

I miss strong solid wards! We have around 30 members in our ward and it's hard. For example there is a man in our ward and his calling is to clean the church. He absolutely loves the missionaries and wants to do things for them all the time. But he is super poor and doesn't have the money to do so. So the bishop, who thinks we are tourists and the only missionaries in the world that actually work are South American missionaries, told us to stop this whole thing with this man. So doing as we are told we stopped letting him spend money on us and he got so angry he turned in his key and is going to the Elche ward instead of the Crevillente ward. That is just one example...

Other than that things are going great! I love teaching lessons, I am learning new things every day and the Malaga Spain mission is the greatest mission in the world!

Today I want to talk about change. I have had a lot of time on my mission to ponder a lot of things. I have started to ponder the atonement and realized very quickly that I would have to ponder it for the rest of my life and still I would never fully understand it. But for now I would like to share with you what little knowledge I have of the atonement. Change... It is ultimately the outcome or result of the process of repentance. In my opinion change is one of the hardest things to do. But how necessary it is! Change is the only thing stopping so many people from excepting the gospel. Some people are just not willing to change and that is so unfortunate. It is so important for each and every one of us to daily, yes daily, pray to our Heavenly Father and plead with him to forgive us for our shortcomings and our imperfections. I found this very hard, it is not natural for us to find our mistakes and realize that we need tochange. That is why it is so important to follow the example of the savior. I invite all of you to read and study about the lord or redeemer. He is truly perfect amazing older brother with an infinite love for us and our Father. Whenever I hear the saying "just be yourself" I get very confused and frustrated, because that saying only applies to Jesus Christ. If you are not him you need to change. Plain and simple, everyone needs to change.

I love you all

Elder Owens