Pics

Lleida (Week 9)

Fam im in the mission field now!!  i arrived to barcelona on wednesday at 11:30 with elders fica and prieto and hermana rejón and we went around the city a little bit with Pres and Sis Hinckley, then after that we ate lunch with them and had interviews.  Then we went straight out to the field!  we were all put with a companionship that live around barcelona and went working with them for the first night and then we slept over at their piso.  thursday morning we went to the leadership meeting with all the leaders of the mission and we met our trainers!  my trainer is Elder Pericle!!!  all of the elders told me about a thousand times that i was getting the best elder in the mission.  everyone loves him.  he really is an amazing companion.  he grew up in Virginia and he´s been out for a little over a year.  he´s always smiling and he works very hard and has a ton of love for the people here.  we were sent to serve in Lleida!!  Elder Pericle has been here for 2 transfers i think and he´s the District Leader for our district.  it´s about an hour and a half train ride north from barcelona and its SO hot and humid here.  that was the first difference i noticed when i got to barcelona... its so much more humid than madrid.  but i love it.  it feels good to sweat so much haha.  We live in a 4 person piso with Elder Rasmussen and Elder Tirado!!  if you dont remember, Elder Tirado was my travel companion from the provo MTC to spain.  its a ton of fun.

im being attacked right now by 2 little kids who are trying to talk to me but i have no idea what theyre saying haha.  i still have a ton to learn with spanish but its coming slowly.  i love lleida so far and i love the people here.  there´s tons of africans and south americans here.  this morning we did service with this member family from bolivia and we helped them move from their piso into another piso.  it took about 6 hours!  but it feels so good to help others in need.

I dont have much time but just letting everyone know that im here in lleida and im loving it.  i´m still meeting all of our investigadors so i´ll tell you more about the work on monday.  monday is our preparation day.  our address here is:

C/ Mossen Reig. 4.3.1.

Lleida 25008

España

Love you all family.  until monday!  chao!

Elder Reeves

Week 8 - last week in the CCM!

thanks for all the birthday wishes fam!  Elder hardiman had his birthday on monday and then mine was the next day.  both of the days they came out with huge cakes after lunch.  everyone sang happy birthday and we blew out the candles.  it was cool.  other than that it was pretty much a normal day haha i love it.  its crazy to think that i only have one birthday left in the mission field.  this mission is already going too fast.  and i go out to the field in 6 days!!!!  ahhh im so excited to get out to barcelona!!  the missionaries who are going to madrid leave tuesday night, those going to malaga leave at 6:30 am wednesday morning and then the rest of us leave to barcelona at 7:30 am on wednesday.  it takes about 3 hours on the train to get to barcelona.  It will be me, Elders Prieto and Fica, and Hermana Rejón.  so nobody send me anything in the mail until i get to barcelona because it takes about a week for letters to get here and i´ll already be gone!  I´ll write as soon as i can with my new address.

This past weekend at the park was awesome as always.  Elder Fica and i were put together and we talked to a lot of people.  i dont know why the teachers think im good at spanish because they keep putting me with an english speaking companion haha but i like it better than being with a spanish speaker because i have to talk.  and it was elder fica´s first time at the park so i had to help him out but he did way good.  this weekend will be the last time we go to the park which is sad but it will be good.  Pres Earl said that in the barcelona mission they have the new elders do street contacting right when we get to barcelona which im way excited for

We had a member of the area 70 come to visit the CCM on sunday, Elder Lopez.  he talked about his conversion back in the early 1970´s and he showed a ton of pictures of different missionaries that helped him during that time of his conversion.  i knew that Uncle Robert served in the early 70´s so i went up to Elder Lopez after the devotional and asked him if he knew an Elder Reeves from the 70´s and he said he did!  so he wants to email uncle robert.  mom and dad if you could forward this email to Uncle Robert that would be awesome.  Elder Lopez´s email is: lopezfa@ldschurch.org.  i dont know if you remember him Uncle Robert but he said he wanted to talk to you.

Mom and dad i cant believe your back in the house in bountiful.  its weird to think of you guys living in utah.  im so used to being with you in california but im glad your back.  you´ll have to tell me how your first sunday back in the ward is because every time i would go back to the ward, i would barely get out of the church alive.  everyone would be asking me about you two in the mission and everyone would be wanting to talk to me haha it was insane.  oh and can you find out where jon yates is going for his mission??  he told me he would write me when he got his call but of course he didnt haha.  anyways, i love you fam.  i´ll write you when i get to barcelona!!

Elder Reeves

Fotos with commentary from Elder Reeves

The Trio

Funny picture of us laughing (yes Mom, I know my hair was getting long so...)

.....I got it cut!  First haircut in España.  One of the French teachers cut it and said he would leave it long enough to be able to do something with it but it pretty much just turned into a buzz

Left to right: Elder Gosselin, Elder Prieto, Elder Fica.  Elder Gosselin wanted to buy a fan so they got this picture with him haha

I forgot to tell you that we got 7 new missionaries on tuesday this week: 5 Sisters and 2 Elders!  6 of them are from the Provo MTC and one of the Sisters is from Mexico.  Elder Fica (from my district in Provo) was in the group so its cool to have him here.  Elder Fica, Elder Wright, Sister Sypherd, and Sister Cook are in my district now.  Our little CCM is growing!

Elder Reeves

Week 7

i only have a week and a half left in the CCM... its insane!  i dont feel nearly close enough to being ready to get out to the field.  but at the same time i cant wait to get out to barcelona and be with the people and actually start teaching.  I love the people of spain.  how´s jessica doing?  are you better?  mom and dad thats so cool youve been having such a good time with everyone.  tell parker bronson to email me.  i dont remember his email.  oh and i forgot to tell you that i see President and Sister Moore in the temple all the time.  Today i told them that you say hi and Sister Moore said, "they better say hello!"  haha theyre such happy people.  And thank you so MUCH for the box of candy!  i almost cried i was so excited to have real candy.  You know me too well mom.  Im so glad that i´ll actually be old enough to be on a mission next week because everyone always make fun of me for being the district leader and being younger than everyone.  Elder Hardiman´s birthday is August 1 and he´ll be turning 20 so we´re going to have a little fiesta for our birthdays next week here in the CCM.

 Val, thats hilarious about Sister Martin and Emilcy.  It wasnt Rocky they told me i looked like, it was the Russian boxer that fights Rocky (3rd movie i think).  I said to them, "its because im so buff right?"  They just laughed and walked away.  Obviously they didnt think it was because of that haha but its funny because all of my friends tell me that eric looks like the Russian guy.  i guess its just in our blood to be ridiculously good looking.  haha just kidding.

 This past weekend at the park was the most amazing experience ive had so far.  Everyone was in a companionship with a fluent Spanish speaker except for me and Elder Winkelcotter, we were the only companionship that didnt have a spaniard with us.  But we had faith and we knew the Lord would help us have success.  The first lady we talked to in the metro was way nice and she took a book of mormon.  The first guy we talked to in the park, Oliver, was from France but he spoke perfect english so we talked to him in english.  He said he was an atheist but he´s always been interested about the bible and he had been to Utah before and heard about the church.  We didnt ask him if he would like a book of mormon, he was the one that asked us if he could have one.  He said he had one before but he never read it.  We had an english book of mormon and he said, "i promise you two that i will read this book."  We promised him blessings and told him how happy it would make his life.  After Oliver, people were seriously coming up to Elder Winkelcotter and i asking us if we could take pictures for them.  We talked to 7 different people (3 different groups) just from them coming up to us and asking for a picture.  It was insane.  We found another guy sitting on a bench who was from Brazil but he comes to Spain a lot for his work.  He took a book of mormon in Spanish and seemed really interested in it.  The very last guy we talked to had heard about the church and we gave him a Joseph Smith pamphlet and i shared the virst vision with him.  The Spirit was so strong and i know he felt it.  I dont know why the Lord blessed Elder Winkelcotter and i so much that day but it was amazing to see His hand in the work.  There is no way those people we met were just coincedences.  I know the Lord prepares people for us to teach.  Without His help and the help of the Spirit, we could do nothing.

 This work gets better every single day.  Elder Moss (my friend from bountiful, serving in Chile) once said that this work is the hardest thing he´s ever done but he is the happiest he´s ever been in his life.  I totally agree with that.  And i havent even been out to the field yet.  I know its going to get a whole lot harder but the joy that ive felt so far just from talking to people in the park and having the chance to maybe change their lives and bring them to Christ is undescribable. I love it.  Thank you for all the birthday wishes and for all of your prayers!  I definitely need all the help from prayers i can get.  Love you all.  Talk to you all next week!  Adios

Elder Reeves

Week 6

Hola familia!  How´s everyone doing?  I´m so glad jessica is finally getting better.  You´re still in my prayers.  So yesterday 5 new Elders came and 3 new sisters, all from Spain.  My new companion is Elder Prieto!  There were supposed to be 6 Elders but one of the Elders got hit by a car on his bike about a week ago i think so he´s in the hospital in pretty bad shape.  It´s crazy how many people who are about to leave on missions get hurt.  This Elder was supposed to be Elder Hardiman´s new companion so now we´re in a trio with Elder Prieto.  Elder Prieto is from Vera Cruz, Mexico but he and his family moved here to España 2 years ago.  He´s been studying at a university here to become a mechanical engineer.  And he´s awesome at futbol.  He knows english but we told him we only want to talk in Spanish because we need all the help we can get. 

 This morning, my companions and i had to run to the store really quick to buy some things and we started talking to this old guy who was sitting on the bench across the street from the store.  We talked to him for about 10 minutes and he was talking for probably 9 and a half of those minutes (Spaniards LOVE to talk.  Its a miracle if you can get more than 5 words in).  So we just gave him a pass-along card and then left because he wasnt listening to anything we were trying to say.  Elder Hardiman and i realized that we couldnt understand anything the guy said.  Thats when we decided we really need to pick it up because we only have 3 more weeks left in the CCM haha.  So we´re going to try to be talking spanish all the time now.

 That´s sweet that Valerie´s going to be a trainer!  There were 2 French sisters that left to your mission on tuesday, Val, but one of the French teachers found out that they werent put with you.  But look for Seour Martin and Emilcy (i think thats what their names were).  Since those 2 sisters left on tuesday, we went a day of just having 8 of us missionaries here in the whole CCM haha.  It´s cool to have such a small group because we get a lot more time with the teachers on our own and we learn a lot faster and better.  Now we have 15 of us and there´s supposed to be more coming on monday!  So we´re going to have a big group once they come.

 Mom and dad, it sounds like youre loving visiting everyone.  You´ll have to send me some pictures.  That´s awesome that youre still doing missionary work every day.  We watched a talk by Elder Holland yesterday about being missionaries and he said "never come home from your mission... When you got the call, it was for forever."  It´s so true how we need to be missionaries our whole lives because we have the only true Gospel on the earth.  It would be completely selfish of us not to do everything we can to give it to others.

 Alright I dont have much time left and i dont have any new pictures for today.  I´ll try to send more next week.  Love you all

Elder Reeves

Fotos in Madrid

A delicious meal at the CCM - and this is a smaller meal

Elder Reeves in front of the Madrid Post Office (crazy!)

Elder Hardiman and Elder Reeves found a baby's head outside a museum...it didn't seem too interested in their message

Con El Toro Loco