Vale, estoy aqui un otra vez. Eso es lo que pasó. Tenemos una lugar para hacer los correos electronicos completamente gratis. Es una centro por juventud y teniamos planes para hacerlo en la mañana, pero estaba cerrado. Y por eso necesitabamos regresar a las doce para hacer correos, pero cerraba otra vez a la una. Y por eso solamente teníamos unos minutos para hacer internet. But now I´m here again and can write a touch more, and send some great picutres. So like I was saying before I was inturupted by the wacky schedule here, we don´t have a lot of the cool things we have in America here. Like cream of chicken soup and brownie mix. We have the basics. We could make any of those things with the things we have but they don´t come pre packaged for us. So me have access to cocoa powder, flour, sugar, milk, eggs, oil, all sorts of things, just not the normal mixes and stuff we would use in the States. So I would love some recipes for just some pretty average things. I would love one for zuchini bread and also for any type of rolls or bread or brownie or cookie or cake or thing like that that I could make. From one of the picutres I´m going to send you will see how creative we can actually get with our food. We make do with what we got, but I´d love to be able to make a few more things. I would love recipes for breakfast foods too, like waffles or pancakes from scratch. Things like that would be great. Because in the States we just have mixes, but here we don´t have that blessing. But yeah that´s all. Recipes, pictures, music, and whatever else you would like. I wish I could send things back there, like some jamón and maybe I will around Christmas time. I heard that it isn´t super expensive from here to the US. E. Butler said he sent one for only about 20 euros. So that´s not too bad. Might try it someday. But yeah, there isn´t a whole lot that I´m craving. Maybe some kind of chips or something, I don´t know. But yeah. And for the photo album, I just want some great pictures of us doing fun things. Maybe some picutres of things I liked to do back home too. Some with sports quizas or theatre or choir or something. Maybe the one picture of me and Amaya in the leaves that one day. I don´t know. People like to see what we did back home and I think it would be fantastic to have something that just kinda describes my favorite things, my family and music and Amaya :) But whatever you think. Oh, just thought of something. Maybe you could send a flash drive. I have one that may be in my room. I think it´s from UVU or something. I don´t know how much memory is on it, but it would be awesome to have to put Mormon messages and stuff on, because a lot of the DVD players here have USB ports. Kinda weird, but that´s how it goes. So maybe that would be good. But I really can´t think of anything else. So work here is awesome. It´s hard. Sometimes I just want to give up, go back to piso and sleep, but I know I can´t and really I don´t want to. It´s worth the effort, always. For the few moments when a 17 year old Holandes boy says he wants to be baptized soon and follow the camino recto, it´s worth it. I love missionary work, and I love you all. I miss you a ton, but I´ll see you soon. Sometimes it feels like it will never come, and other times I stress about it coming too fast. TIme is flying here in Spain. I just hope I make the most of it. Well love you all a ton. Can´t wait to talk to you again next week. Hope everything goes well in classes for you mom. And Dad I almost forgot. You´re going to flippin´ Peru!!! Que guay! That´s super awesome! You´re going to love that. Back to South America for a little while. And thanks for the answer about your mission, I appreciate that. So good luck in Peru and good luck brothas with basketball and stuff. Ammon with the play, Logan with the haircut and basketball, Micah with your last game, and Skyler with basketball and mission preperations. I think about Skyler going to Korea every day and flip out a little. :) It´s so fetchin awesome! I´m so excited for you brotha! Good luck Sophie with school and with everything and good luck Savannah with perfecting your Gagnam style dance :) Love you all!

Elder Flint

                                                       Our ceiling fell in. Oops.

 This is me in my Pday shirt. I found it in the closet when I got here and thought it was super awesome. So now I wear it every night before Pday when I go to bed and every night during Pday. Super good looking, right? 

                                                          Another ceiling picuture

 These are our ayudantes, Elder Valenzuela and Elder Peterson. They are super awesome.

                                            This is a winery. Lots and lots of wine here.

This is something I´ve decided to call Missionary Lasagna. It consists of a layer of hamburger followed by a random mix of noodles, and then a layer of tomato sauce, then corn, the some fryed potatos, another layer of sauce, and some cheese (the fake kind you buy for sandwiches). Delicious, right? It was kinda a combination of everything we could find in our kitchen. It was actually pretty good.

¡Hola mia familia!

¿Como estáis? Espero que todo esta bien por vosotros. Todo aqui es genial. Super guay, realamente. (guay is cool) Ammon, fetch dude. Your hair is insane! I´m going to need some pictures from the show, it sounds awesome! I heard from a little birdie that Skyler´s hair is pretty short right now too. I need a picture of that too. Oh and you can definitely send me pictures, I love to have them. I´m not sure if I´m going to send pictures right now or later, but I will send them today. The place we do email is closing in about half an hour so we´ll see if I have time. I might not even be able to finish my email, but I´ll send what I have before we have to leave. It sounds like you all have had an exciting week. It sounds like the temple was awesome! And you got to see Amaya and Maddy and everyone else in Provo! Sounds like a powerful experience. The temple is one thing that I´ve been missing quite a bit. But no biggie. I´ll get to go a ton when I get back. If Madrid was in our mission we could probably go once every 6 months or something, but since it´s not we don´t get to go at all. But no big deal, I just want to get other people there. Hey so it sounds like all the Flint´s got haircuts this week, because I did too. So funny story with that. We asked a member if she could cut my hair and she said of course, so we had a cita set up with her for the morning, but had to change it for an investigator. So we pushed it back without thinking about the fact that we had to catch a bus an hour later. So I ended up with about half a haircut. It was pretty bad. Like longer on the top and not even on the sides. She said we could come back and touch it up later but we had a zone conference the next day and presidente Deere was coming so I wanted to be looking good, ya dig? So anyways I took E. Butler´s clippers to try and cut just a little on the front and sides and as I did so, I took a big chunk out of the front. Oops. So I ended up just buzzing the top of my head. Not super short, but fairly short. Not really any shorter than it was in the MTC though. I talked to the member and church and she understood, but it was an interesting experience. Not quite as cool as Ammon´s hair though. I´m not sure if Presidente would approve if my hair was like that though. So this week has been full of ups and downs. Downs were that we only had 13 lessons this week. Pretty weak. We could use the excuse of a surprise trip to Málaga that took up two days, but that´s weak too. We just had a lot fall through. So that was kinda a bummer. But on Sunday we had 32 people in church! 32! For you that probably sounds like nothing but for us, it´s awesome. And out of those 32 people 7 were investigators! So sunday was awesome. And the other big up was a boy named Martinus. He is the super tall one in the picutre of us playing futbol. He´s from Holland and he´s awesome, but in the past he has been pretty iffy with our teaching. Like he listens but he always says he´s not sure about it yet and not ready to be baptized. But this week, out of nowhere, but made a complete 360. He really wants to be baptized now and is always talking about followed the camino recto. He came to church and we had a cita with him and the Romanitos last night and he said he wants to come every week from now on. He also asked us all the things he needs to follow to be baptized. So awesome! I´m super excited for him. So to answer your question dad, we work a ton with the ward too. We try to rescue less actives and help the active members too. We are also always trying to find and teach new people. We do a lot of street contacting and quite a bit of tocando puertos also. I love it. It´s hard, super hard sometimes. We are always walking. I´ve been wondering how much I walk in one day. I need a pedometer or something :) But it is definitely worth it in the end. I love missionary work! So I´m not sure how much more I´m going to be able to write right now, but I think I´ll have a little longer later. But just to answer some questions. Yes the food here is good. They don´t have a lot of the same things. That´s why I asked for recipes. They don´t have boxes of brownies or anything like that. I don´t think they even have cream of chicken soup :/ But if you can think of anything that comes from super simple ingredients that´s what I need. We have access to the most simple things. Like sugar and flour and stuff like that. We also have cocoa powder and stuff. Well gotta go. Love you!"

 

Hello Family!

This week has been a good one. We´ve worked hard, like always ;) and have been praying and studying hard tambien. We´ve had some pretty good times this week and some pretty bummer times, but that´s the life of a missionary I suppose. I love hearing all about the things you are doing. Ammon I´m excited to hear all about your play, that sounds awesome! And carrying on the tradition of the See How They Run boxers is a fantastic idea. So awesome! I´m glad Skyler likes Korean food, that would be a bummer if he didn´t. Skyler, you like Kimchi? Well that is very good :) The Lord knew you were supposed to go to Korea because he knew you would like the food there :) And becasue you are going to help all the Koreans there come to Jesus Christ. That´s the best part. There will be people there that you are supposed to meet. Your personalities will just mesh and you will be able to teach them in a way you can´t teach other people. Right now I have an investigator named Pedro. He´s an older guy, probably in his 70s, and he knows a ton about Jesucristo and his life. For some reason I just really really get along with him. I can be more bold with him than others because we have a relationship of trust and love that developed within the first few lessons. He has a baptismal date for the 16 de Marzo right now and I pray that he will be able to continue through with that and become a member of this church. He is an awesome guy. He has a ton of super profound questions about the resurection and stuff like that and it´s so hard not to just sit with him for hours and talk about those things. But we´re missionaries and as such we should teach simple truths in less than 45 minutes and leave the spirit in the room. But I love being a missionary. And Skyler I know you will find those that you are supposed to find there in Korea. The lord is preparing people right now for you to find and teach. And when you do, you may not realize it, but they were prepared to be taught be you specifically, in Korean :) So I was just wondering, Eric Knutson is in South Korea right now. I´m not sure what mission but it could easily be the same as Skyler´s. What if Eric trained Skyler? That would be so awesome! I hope everyone had a wonderful dia de san Valentín. Mine was very normal. We just worked the whole time. I suppose it´s a little different when you don´t even have the option of going on a date or anything like that :) But I like doing missionary work. P-days are also really nice, but working is good. It´s hard. The hardest thing I´ve ever done. But it´s all worth it in the end. I´m super excited to continue on doing the work of the Lord and striving to bring my brothers and sisters unto our Heavenly Father. I´m so excited for the future. This life is great! So full of joy and happiness and it all comes from the gospel. Good stuff :) We are teaching a handful of investigators right now. We have about 6 that are considered progressing (keeping committments and stuff) and a few more others. We had to drop one this week because he wasn´t doing anything. I think that might be the hardest part about missionary work. The Lord said the field is white and ready to harvest. But sometimes the people aren´t quite ripe yet. They aren´t quite ready to accept the responsibility of the gospel and thus we have to leave them for a while and focus on those that are ready. At first it seems like a very cold hearted thing to do, but in reality we are only here for 2 years and we need to find those that the Lord has prepared for us and realize that we are doing some of the preperation at the same time. It´s is just as important to plant the seeds as it is to harvest the crops. And right now, I kinda feel like we´re doing a lot of planting. But that´s okay because the Lord is helping us out. The other day we committed to getting 6 futures in the morning before we went in for mediodia. So we did it. It was hard but we were directed. As we would walk into the plaza I would see someone standing and feel like we needed to talk to them. They just looked ready. So we did. And they were. They allowed us to take their info to meet with them again. The Spirit directs the work. The Lord knows his flock, he knows his lambs, and he tells us where and when to find them. It´s an incredible work and I am so thankful for it. So a few questions. First for mom. We are teaching two Romanian boys. They are both 15 and one just recently got baptized and recieved the Priesthood. My question is this. What was it that kept you going in the church when you were 15 years old. For me the honest answer is you and dad. My family. But Daniel (the converso reciente) doesn´t have that family support. And neither did you really. So what was it. What can I say to help him stay strong? Because right now he could go either way. And one more question. Can you send me some recipes? I´d really like recipes for some easy cheap things to cook and for brownies and treats. The most simple ones you can find that are still delicious. And if you could ask Amaya or her mom for the recipe for churros y chocolate that would be awesome too :) Umm I think that might be all my questions. Oh yeah. Dad, what was your mission? Like what was it called? And did you ever serve in Cali? Just wondering for the members here. Well I think that´s about it. Love you all a whole bunch! Hope everything is going awesome there. Keep me posted about everything and stuff. I´m super excited about everything that´s happening. The work of the Lord is moving forward and no unhallowed hand can stop it! Love you all and miss you!

Con Amor,

Elder Flint

A few fun facts about Spain that I forgot to mention. First there is no carpet here. Like anywhere. All the floors in our piso are wood or tile. Super wierd. And secondly, cars always have to stop for pedestrians in the cross walk. So I don´t have to wait for cars to walk across the street, the have to stop for me. So I hardly even look anymore. Just go for it :) I should probably kick that habit before I get back to the US though. Oh and I ate something pretty strange the other day. We went to our Branch President´s house for dinner and ate pizza. Normal right? Wrong! This pizza consisted of a little tomato sauce, cheese, anchovies, tuna, olives, and a bit of bbq sauce. (they put bbq sauce on like all of their pizzas). Super Spanish pizza! And I also ate some weird seafood and the only name I recognized means octopus. The octopus was really really good though. The others were mediocre but I loved the octopus. Well that is all. I still need to try a paella though. We were going to this wednesday but we just got news of a surprise zone conference so we may or may not be able to go eat paella :( But we shall see. Love you all!

Pictures from Spain

                                                    La Mancha, what more can I say 

                                                           Taco Bell Spaniard style

 Our Romanitos. We bought this soccer ball and popped it in the same day. It was great.

             We had a race to see who could eat a whole box of ice cream first. I came in second. Good times. 

                                          The delicious crema de cacao. Good stuff :)

                                                        Mi compañero, Elder Butler 

                                     A catedral. There are lots of them all over the place.

                                          I´ve been working out pretty hard. Pretty dece.

                                                     Oh yeah. I´m looking good. :) 

Our little chulo Romanito, Raúl. He´s super awesome.

Gangsta. 

                                                   We finished the Jámon. Sad day.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KOREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I´m so fetchin excited right now! I can´t believe you´re going to Korea!!! And Amaya to Cali (I totally called that by the way :) ) That was one of my real guesses, remember Amaya? Anyways, that videos worked and I´m flippin out right now. Ahh! I love missionary work. Get ready for a new world Skyler. Korea is going to be awesome! That´s where Erik Knutson is right now. I think it might even be the same mission! He might train you! Ah crazy stuff. And Amaya, San Jose is where one of my MTC teachers taught and he loved loved loved it! Ah! So excited! And Skyler, holy flippin cow, a week after graduation! That´s so awesome! Ah! I´m so excited! This is a super great day already :) You both will absolutely love it. Just learn to love to work hard. To study hard. And to talk to everyone in a language you hardly know :) It´s an amazing experience. You will see miracles every day if you put your trust completely in the Lord. I´m still super super psyced! This is so amazing! I love missionary work! This is amazing! I can´t wait until you both can get out here and start serving the Lord. It´s hard. Very hard. But it is so worth it! So worth it. Wow. This is great :) So to answer a few questions dad has. The work is awesome. We are teaching quite a few people and look for new people to teach every day. My comp is from Idaho and he´s great. He´s a hard working Idaho farm boy and we have been doin work every day. La gente aqui en España son, pues diferente :) For the most part those that are more open to the gospel are those who have immigrated from South America or other countries. Those from Spain are great. I love the people. If you have a question about where the closest bank is or where you can get a Kebab (I´ll tell you about that later) they are super nice and willing to help. They just don´t have time for religion I suppose. And don´t get me wrong, some of our strongest members are Spaniards. And we have contacted into some very nice open Spaniards. It´s just that for the most part that Spaniards, especially the Pacos y Marias (old people) kinda give us the cold shoulder the second we talk about religion. But the work is moving forward and we hope that someday the people will be more open. The church is only 40 years old here in Spain. When you think about it that way we have a long way to move forward and move up. And I´m confident that we will. The Lord is preparing the people here in Spain. We see it every day. We just need to keep working hard and keep it moving forward. The food here...well to be honest it isn´t that different. There are a few things that are different. The milk can sit out in room temperature for months, that´s kinda neat. I honestly haven´t tried paella yet. It´s expensive to buy in restaurantes and whenever we have eaten with members we have had Colombian food. :) But Colombian food is delicious! I did try a Kebab the other day but that is food from Pakistan. They have a lot of Kebab shops around. A Kebab is basically like a sandwich. It is usually in some kind of pita bread and they have huge chunks of meat in the back and they scrape off pieces of it and put it in a sandwich with veggies and stuff. It´s pretty delicious. Other than that, whenever I´ve eaten out it´s been at Taco Bell. :) Lame right?! But we only eat out when we travel to Málaga and Taco Bell is cheap. But such is life. So they don´t have peanut butter here but they have something that may be even better. Nutella. This week I bought a big think of Nutella, but not just Nutella. Well technically it´s crema de cacao, but it´s  basically Nutella. And this Nutella also was mixed with white chocolate. So I´m not missing peanut butter too much right now :) Other than that food is pretty normal. Well they have a lot less sugar in there dulces, but that´s about it. The food in Korea is going to be a little bit different though :) Get used to that one. And Amaya, get used to Mexican food. It´s super delicious, you´ll love it :) Ah! Good stuff! I´m so excited for you all! Good job on the test too mom! Way to go! And I´m excited to hear all about the play Ammon! And Savannah can Gangum style...nice :) That song is Korean, isn´t it? How appropriate for the moment :) Good stuff! Well love you all. Hope everything is going well! And see you in anotha life brotha! Korea will be awesome! So awesome! Start trying to learn a little Korean right now, it will help I promise. Just get used to the basics and you will cruise along in the MTC. Well love you all! I´m so pumped! 

Elder Flint 

¡MIA FAMILIA!

¿Que tal? Is everyone doing awesome. It´s sounds like you´ve all had an exciting week. Furnaces breaking down, Superbowl parties and Skyler´s birthday. By the way HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!! I was thinking about you on Saturday and I wish I could have been there. I´ve missed 3 family birthdays already. Weird! Time goes fast out here. I still feel like I just entered the MTC last week. But here I am in Spain, working my culo off (ps Dad if that is a swear word in Colombia, I apologize, here it´s okay). The work is awesome. It´s hard, especially because we walk everywhere but it´s super rewarding. One of the coolest things that´s happened in my mission happened the other day. So first off, a few weeks ago, the week before I came here I think, a man walked into church off the street. His name is Jesus. He didn´t really know anybody in the rama, he was just interested so he came to church. Golden, right? So E. Butler and E. Cortes talked to him, but he was in the process of moving and they didn´t really get his info. So the other day we were walking down the street and who do we see, none other than Jesus. So we talked to him and got his number but once again failed to get his dirección. FAIL! But we decided with a movil (cell phone) number we could figure out a lot, so we decided we would call him soon thereafter. So a few days later we were on our way to our first cita with Achmed (remember him from last week?). And we were late. It was my fault. I had left my agenda with Achmed´s address in it in the car of an investigator after a service project that morning. So we were practically runing to Achmed´s house and when we arrived and knocked...nothing. So we were bummed but we decided to knock again, once for their salvation and twice for our´s right? ;) So we knocked again and the door was answered by none other than...Jesus! (If you didn´t know that was the name of our investigator and thought I was talking about the Jesus this story would probably be even mas guay (more cool)). It was insane. I guess he had been living with Achmed for the last week. They hadn´t known eachother before that and neither realized that the other had any contact with the missionaries. It was absolutely insane. So you have to realize that here in Spain the pack people in as tight as they can. They have building after building after building connected and each one has 3-5 floors with 3-5 pisos on each floor. So they are literally thousands upon thousands of pisos in Valdepeñas. What are the chances that he would move into one with a muslim man that we had contacted! It´s near impossible. But the Lord knows his sheep and he likes to keep them close to him. We have had so many tender mercies like that. The Lord is on our side and we see his efforts in the work every day. Know we just have to do the same. This last week we had a big conference with a member of the 70 named Elder Tiexierra. He is from Portugal and we had a 6-7 hour conference with him. It was awesome! One of the things he stressed the most is that we need to repent before we can help our investigators to do so. That sound kinda different right? Asking missionaries to repent? I mean didn´t they have to do that pretty well before they came on the mission? But repenting really is this, a change of our thought, beliefs, and behaviors. Repentence=change. And not just change, complete change. Think about it this way. Our thoughts represent our mind, our beliefs represent our hearts, and our behaviors represent our body. When we change all three. We are changing every single part of us. We cannot fully repent without a change in all three. If we change just our thoughts, then we could think one way, know the things are wrong, but still do them. If we change our behaviors and not thoughts or beliefs, we´ll stop doing the things, but not for the right reasons. I´ve seen examples of both these and so many more as I´ve been out here on the mission. The Lord requires us to change completely when we repent. And it´s hard. It´s always hard to change. As humans we despise change. It´s difficult to the level of being painful at times, but that´s what the Lord asks of us. But he doesn´t expect us to do it alone. That is why we have families. That is why we have the church. And most importatnly that is why we have the Atonement. The use of the Atonement is a simple as this. As Nike and Spencer W Kimball would say, just do it. All it takes is a broken heart and a contrite spirit and a sincere prayer. The Atonement works for every single person on this earth, regardless of whether they use it or not. We just have to do it. We just have to get on our knees and tell our Heavenly Father that we can´t do it alone, and he will help us. I´ve seen that numerous times on my mission. I know that the Atonement is real and that it works for every single one of us. I know that repentence is hard but it is because, as Elder Holland put it, Salvation is not a cheap experience. I know that we all have the ability to do the things the Lord commands us. Now we just need to do as Nephi, and go and do them. I love you all so much. I´m so excited for Skyler´s call! If you can you should try to film it and send it to me through an email. I would love to be a part of it. I´m so proud of you Skyler. The mission will be hard, but es vale la pena, por supuesto. I love you all and miss you a ton. I hope things are going well and that you´re all toasty warm with your new furnace :)

Con Amor

Elder Flint