Hello family!!!!!
I loved the pictures! It looks like a ton of fun! So to answer some questions. Here in Spain they celebrate Halloween, not dia de los muertos. They really don´t do much, it´s just normal. From what I´ve heard it´s a pretty new tradition. Ten years ago nobody did anything for Halloween, but now they do. But the kids dress up and go around asking for candy. Just like normal. But it´s way cooler in the states. I miss haunted houses! You have to go to Castle of Chaos in Orem for me and let me know how it is. I dare you to get the light up necklaces :) But I think I got all the differences. The crocodile ate Savannah, the clown with the gun stopped smoking (must have met the missionaries :) ) The Anti Nefi Lehi changed his ways and buried his weapons of war deep into the earth. The Zombie decided to try out for the Thriller video and started dancing, Soccer man decided with the World Cup coming up it was time to start practicing. The wizard turned out to be a squib and forgot how to hold his wand. The old lady turned herself into the wicked witch to go get Snow White. And the nerd, that was a hard one, but I think she decided to keep her most precious orange pen to herself, for when she studies instead of letting everyone else see it. But that´s what I saw were the differences :) I´m glad you had a good time at the Halloween party. It´s weird to think that next year half of our missionary cousins are going to be back. AJ comes back in 6 months!?!?!?! Crazy weird. And then 6 months later I get back. WEIRD! But it´s all good. I´ve just realized how fast life really goes. ANd how much we need to use the time we have. This week was a good one to remind me of that. That even though things are hard, the work has to be done and we really don´t that long to do it. We were walking in the rain and the cold all week, but we knew that we were doing the work of the Lord and he was walking with us. I´m so grateful for the Gospel. I testify that our Savior lives. That he loves us. He really is watching out for us at all times. I´m so grateful for him and for all of you. You are amazing examples to me. I wish I had more time to write you, but the honest truth is that I have no money so I can´t be on any longer, because I wouldn´t be able to pay it :/ That´s the problem with lots of travel haha. But thank you so much for everything. Hopefully the chickens will be happy in heaven and those mean dogs will suffer the wrath of the Lord :) Thanks for the recipe, now we´re just missing Zuchini bread ( I´ve learned to be super pesado here in the mission, Dad can tell you what that means.) Thanks for everything and think of me when you eat all your candy and I have none :( Oh but mom, guess what! There is a super mercado here called Carrefour. Right now until Christmasish they have boxes and boxes full of Lindor truffles. There are like 15 different flavors and you can buy them one by one. They´re super expensive, but super good. I´ll try to send you a picture because it´s impressive with all of them there. But thought you would appreciate that :) I love you all so much. Keep going strong!
Love,
Elder Charlie Flint
Hola familia!
Well how goes it? Sounds like things are pretty great. You saw In The Heights!!!! Lucky! Did you film it illegally for me? I sure hope so :) Thank you for the recipes. I do have two requests though. Zuchini bread, and red pepper dip. Hook me up, por favor! I can´t believe you basically did the whole driveway by yourselves! That´s crazy cool. And you´re getting a new car! Very sweet. You´re keeping the van and the sonata though, right? You know, if you ever want to get rid of one of the three, I know a missionary that will be coming back in a year, and would definitely not mind having a car to go to school :) Just keep him in mind. Things here are going well. This last week was a pretty normal one. Nothing too exciting. Did have a disappointing little bit though. One of our investigators that is doing well, didn´t come to church. Well that´s fairly normal, but the hard thing is that this week he is going to quit smoking and I knew that he would need the extra strength from the capilla to do it. And he chose not to, so now I´m not sure what will happen. My faith in the Lord and his work is unshakeable right now, but my faith in people is dwindling. Is that bad? Is it bad to doubt people and their decisions? I suppose in a way it is. But it´s just so hard! I mean, I´ve spent my whole life being a pretty optimistic person. Thinking that things are going to go well, hoping that people could be more than others think they can be. But after being failed so often, it´s hard to keep up that optimism. But I´m going to keep trying! The Lord knows us, and our capacity to do good. We each have so much potential, and although we don´t always reach our FULL potential, we can always do more than we believed we could at first. I truly believe that. That no matter what our difficulties, weaknesses, anything that stands in our way, we can become more than we believe we can become. And more than others believe too. But the only way to do it is the Lord´s way. He gives us the guide, we just have to do it. We have to set high goals, plan, and then reach them. Our branch president told us about something that Elder Ballard said in a conference for bishops and branch presidents in Madrid and few months ago. He said that so called "realism" is really just a lack of faith. I mean, of course we aren´t going to be ridiculous in our goals, but optimism is really just a synonym for faith. If we believe that the Lord can help us do something, than he can. He has no limit, we limit him when we don´t believe. Or better said, we close the door to the help that we need when we don´t believe. So I suppose, al final, is that I just need to keep going. We all do. The Lord is fighting the fight with us. He is on our right hand and our left and his angels are round about us bearing us up. I love you all. I´m so greatful to have you in my life. Thank you so much for your wonderful examples!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Charlie Flint
Oh
and PS: I will be singing. We are basically doing our own version of
the musical with the same music and basic story. My part is Jesus, but I
have other singing parts too. Love ya! And tell me more about in the
Heights! And maybe just a touch about what the heck is happening in the
States, I´m hearing a lot of things and I´m not sure what to believe.
LOVE YOU!
the bridge Paul walked across
Ruins of an old Roman fortress that was taken over and changed by the Islams
The Roman chariot racetrack. Ben Hur style
Me and Elder Pomazon by the bridge
Me outside some kind of old building. Sweet.
Ruins of an old Roman house.
My favorite part: The old Roman Theater!
The Roman theater again. It is amazing!
Old Roman art from Mérida (aka Augustus Emeritas)
All the Badajoz missionaries getting ready to fight to the death against Satan!
My wonderful family!
I am so sorry for not emailing you! I wanted to I promise, but the situation did not allow me to. I apologize. But you shall be getting some wonderful pictures of the adventure I did have in Mérida. There are some super wicked awesome Roman ruins there. There´s an old Roman theater that is amazing! Speaking of theater, yes, we are still going to do the show. I have been cast as Jesus. Big shoes to fill :) It will show the end of November, hopefully in Mérida. Not in the Roman theater, but in the plaza. But things are going really well. So there were a lot of questions from you all about food. So I thought I would respond. My favorite Spanish food is probably paella. I mean it is just plain amazing. I also love the spanish tortilla and a normal spanish salad (which consists of lettuce, tomato, tuna, corn, vineager, olive oil, and salt) Other than that, they have some other good stuff too. Chorizo here is awesome. They also have something called morcilla, which is blood sausage. It´s not too bad, but not my favorite. Also they have Jamon. Jamon is awesome and here in Extremadura they have the best jamon in spain (supposedly) Basically it´s just a pig´s leg that is soaked in salt for years. Pretty great. But other than Spanish food, I´m coming to love peruvian food. It´s super good! There is this stuff called seviche that is fish that sits in lemon juice for a few hours and gets cooked that way. It´s delicious! And also this stuff called lomo saltado. It´s basically steak mixed with french fries and cooked with peppers and delicious seasoning. Heavenly :) But I´ve been surviving mostly on rice and pasta :) We only eat well when we eat with members. But that´s okay. I also want some help from you guys with food. You each have an assignment (well other than Skyler because he read my mind :) ) You each need to send me a recipe of something delicious. In addition I want the recipe for Clam chowder, grandma´s rolls, and roasted red pepper dip. Those are my demands, take em or leave em :) You guys are the best. Really though.
So what did you think about conference? I LOVED it. Really it felt so good to be able to hear the modern day prophets that we tell so many people about speak the words of the Lord. I know that the Lord was directing the conference, no doubt in my mind. I especially loved Pres. Uchtdorf´s talk about coming back, and Pres Monson´s talks. There is so much power behind there words. I took notes a little differently this time. Instead of just writing down what I heard, I wrote what I felt. I thought, well I´ll have another chance to study the words again, this time I need to just get down what I feel. So I did. It was amazing. I found a lot of things that I needed to hear and a lot of questions where answered. I´m so grateful for modern day revelation! I love you all so much. Tell me something you learned in conference! And send me some pics of recents dates, dances, driveway destructions and everything else you can think of that starts with a D or any other letter :) I love you all so much! Thanks for everything (especially the recipe, Skyler :) ).
Con amor,
Elder Charlie Flint
