I absolutely love teaching the people out here

wearing Dominican Tuvis that a member gave to us

This week's been pretty fun. We haven't done all that much finding because I've been showing the area around to my new companion Elder Judd so he can meet everyone. He seems like a super cool guy. He's from the south side of Washington, and is super into cars. Matter of fact, I've only been with him for about a week now, but I already feel like an expert on cars just cause we've talked about them so much. He's loving Puerto Rico so far though. He was out here for about three months before the hurricane hit, but had been in Utah ever since. He says he missed Puerto Rico so much. I'm super excited to be able to work with him.

In front of a cool school out here

Right now though, Puerto Rico is getting ready for the holidays. I really hope I stay out here in San Juan for Christmas because I heard they go crazy out here. Everyone's already started putting up lights, and the malls and stores are already decked out with Christmas decorations. The only thing different is it's still like 90 degrees out here. The funny thing is people still drink hot chocolate. We'll be sitting outside already sweating, and people will give us hot chocolate, end we end up just dripping in sweat it gets so hot. Halloween was pretty fun as well. We went to get some free ice cream from 31 flavors, and then we had to come back to the house early. So we headed back and set some decorations up. Then we just played a bunch of Brisca and Dominoes with the other Elders while stuffing ourselves with candy to finish off the night.

As far as people we've been teaching recently, we found an awesome family about two weeks ago. We've been working with them a lot recently, and they are THE BEST. The mom listens to everything we say, and loves learning. They love when we come by, and we plan on inviting them to be baptized tonight so we'll see how that goes. Everyone else seems to be doing awesome as well. I absolutely love teaching the people out here.

Maria and Eddy (A family we're teaching)

Carla and her daughters (Another family we're teaching)

Beach view

I caught my first iguana this week

Catching an iguana

I don't think I could have had a better week to finish off my time out here with Elder Shah in San Juan. We got transfer calls last night, and we found out that he's going to be leaving. I'll still be staying, and I will be getting Elder Judd who is currently serving in Utah right now. He was here before Hurricane Maria, but is just now coming back.

Anyways... I don't even know where to start this week was so sick. We tried to visit everyone that we've been working with a bunch just in case anyone left. On Tuesday, we had an amazing dinner with a gringo member who lives out here. He's Toyota's lawyer for Puerto Rico, and has SUCH a nice place out by the beach up here. It was cool to be able to spend some time with him. He talked a bunch about his mission in Chile. He's heading back there this weekend, and is super excited. He was sharing stories of emails he's getting years later with people that are now baptized with completely changed lives that he only talked to like once. It's crazy to think that just one contact with someone can have on their entire life. It definitely motivates me to want to work hard.

We also tried something pretty cool to find. We headed out to one of the beaches out here, and drew the Plan of Salvation out on the sidewalk in chalk. As people walked by and asked what we were doing we just started talking about it and setting up some other time to visit them. It was super fun, and we actually found some really cool people. I also think I saw the most gorgeous sunset of my life that evening. Puerto Rico is such an awesome place.

I legit don't think we had a single bad moment. I also caught my first Iguana this week. There aren't all that many iguanas out here in the city, so when we saw a couple, Elder Shah and I had to go after them. Iguanas are the funniest looking things ever when they run. If you haven't seen one run before, I would highly advise looking up a video of it.

Then I finished off the week on Sunday, by giving a talk during church and giving a baptismal interview which was a super cool experience. After which, we headed home to find out our house wasn't yellow anymore. It was blue. In just a couple hours, without us even knowing, they painted our entire house from yellow to blue.

By the beach

If there is one word I could use to describe this week it would be RUNNING

Flashback with Scott & Kash Kunz just before mission

This week absolutely flew by. I do not want to leave San Juan at all. The people here are so amazing, and I love working here so much! It's the most fun thing riding around on the bus to all of our appointments and just talking with everyone we see.

If there is one word I could use to describe this week it would be RUNNING. As fun as it is to catch the bus and just be out on the streets talking to everybody, we actually have to catch the bus. And the bus system is terrible here. So we'll get out of a lesson and realize we're a couple miles from the bus stop and only have like 20 minutes to get there. So we just have to take off running otherwise we'll miss the bus. I never imagined I'd have to run this much on my mission.

Funny story we had while riding the buses the other day. We were catching the bus back to a lesson close to our house and we were already wayyy late. However, we were having a super good conversation with this one guy as we were on the way over. Such a good conversation that I completely stopped paying attention to where we were or how long we had been on the bus. I finally looked up and did not recognize where we were at all. I just looked over to my comp and was like SHOOT! So we ran off the bus and then asked someone where we were. Turns out we got off way too early. With our appointment in 2 minutes and the next bus coming in like an hour, we just started running. After about five minutes, we ran past a different bus and just hopped on having no idea where it was going. It ended up dropping us off literally right next to where we were going, and we ended up arriving way earlier than we would have if we stayed on the other bus. I don't know how things end up working out so perfectly, but they always do.

We've also been working with someone named Edward recently. He's 23 years old, super smart, and way interested in the gospel. It's been way awesome to be able to help him along and make decisions about where he wants to go in life.

Serving with comp

There is nothing I would rather be doing now than strengthening the families and sharing the glad tidings of the gospel with the people out here in Puerto Rico.

Yet another absolutely amazing week. It was definitely interesting as well. On Sunday, I wouldn't be surprised if more tourists showed up to church than actual members that live here. The entire back rows of the chapel were just filled with gringos that were visiting.

With Zone at Zone Conference

Highlight of the week would definitely have to be our Old San Juan day. So normally we don't go out to Old San Juan cause there's not too much work to do out there (it's where all the tourists are). But we met a couple people that lived out there so we decided to make the trip, and did not regret it at all. We met so many cool people. We also got to check out a neighborhood called La Perla that's super famous out here. It's where they shot the music video for Despacito. It get's even better though. On our way back to the bus stop, two American couples visiting from Utah drove by. About five minutes later, they drove by again and pulled over to invite us out to dinner. We ended up eating the most fancy and amazing tasting Mofongo I've ever had out in Old San Juan while telling them all about Puerto Rico.

Walking along coast with companion in lead

La Perla Puerto Rico

We also got one of the most intense soccer games going in the mud with a bunch of little kids out in a cacerio out here. It was so fun, and we didn't even have as much fun as the kids. That game probably made their entire week. They were so happy after. Right after we went to one of our appointments right next to the game we had, and the person we were working with said it was so cool to see everyone having fun out there with us.

The gospel is honestly the roadmap of how to be happy here in this life, and in the life to come. Us as missionaries not only get to have fun with the kids and people out here every once in a while, but we get to share the joy and the happiness that living the gospel brings literally every single day. There is nothing I would rather be doing now than strengthening the families and sharing the glad tidings of the gospel with the people out here in Puerto Rico.

The colored houses of Puerto Rico

Welcome sign to La Perla

I absolutely love working with the people out here!

Zone Conference at El Moro

We had an awesome week, followed up with an awesome zone activity at El Moro! I also don't think I've ever eaten so much in my life. I have been full from the start of the week all the way up until the end of the week. There was one day where we were fed five separate times in the evening. We were going from one dinner appointment to the next. I can't really complain about that though, cause it's a heck of a lot better than being hungry.

The work out here is going so great though, and it is honestly such a blast. I absolutely love working with the people out here. I've met some of the nicest people and coolest families. We have this one lady in our ward from Mexico that makes us a big Mexican dinner every Sunday, and it's like the best thing ever. We've also been working with this one Dominican family for the longest time ever, and they were finally able to make it out to church this Sunday. Not only that, but they absolutely loved it. I love teaching them, and learning all about their culture. For some reason like all of the Dominican grandmas out here have like 20 siblings. In her particular case, she said she had 25 brothers and sisters, and me and my comp were absolutely blown away by that. There is this other lady we met the other day that had great, great grandkids and was not only still alive, but only looked like she was about 40 years old. It's funny cause the more and more I've been out here in Puerto Rico though, the more and more Boriqua I feel. All the crazy different things that they do out here that isn't done in the states doesn't even phase me anymore. Overall great week though. I'm loving every second of being out here in San Juan!

Hanging out with the zone

The foursome

General Conference Weekend

Old San Juan

Yet again I forgot my planner with notes on everything we did this week. We got absolutely spoiled this week though! There's a new senior couple that just came into the mission, and they got assigned to our district. They've been treating us sooo nice though. They invited us over to watch general conference for the weekend and it was so awesome. They fed us, had snacks, and we got to watch conference in a nice air conditioned house with a couch. Ever since the hurricane, they got rid of all the couches in the missionary apartments, so getting to chill on a couch all day is probably the most amazing thing that could have happened to me.

General Conference with the Flake's

Eating with the Flake's

Not only that, but we found out that they're going to build a temple in San Juan, Puerto Rico! All of the members are going absolutely crazy. They've been waiting to get a temple for years, and they finally announced it! Every time general conference comes around, everyone always talks about when Puerto Rico is finally going to get a temple, and now we're getting one.

Besides that though, we had a pretty normal week. We did a bunch of service, and talked to a lot of people. Favorite part besides conference was probably the lesson we had with a Dominican family and one of their gringo friends. The gringo spoke practically no Spanish, and the Dominicans spoke practically no English. I have no idea how they even communicated with each other. The dinner we had with them was the funniest thing ever, cause we were having two completely different conversations the entire night, and we got to mess with them the whole time cause we were the only people that understood everything.

Holding Pigeons

Celebrating investigator's daughter's birthday party

Celebrating investigator's daughter's birthday party

As far as a spiritual side of things, things are going awesome. We got invited to one of our investigator's daughter's birthday parties and we ended up being the only people who had showed up at the time even though it already started. It's been awesome to be able to work with them. We also had zone conference this week and learned a lot about being bold but loving.

Transfer calls came out this week! Both Elder Shah and I will be staying out here in San Juan. We are getting another Elder in the house though because Elder Cook is going home tomorrow. 

Happiness spreading the gospel

This week was kind of crazy though. Or should I say the people we talked to were pretty insane this week. It's always the craziest conversations we have on the buses or at the bus stops. It's different every single time too. The weirdest one was when we talked to these guys who my companion is thoroughly convinced are Russian spies or something. We were talking to this pretty cool college student at the bus stop at the end of our day when this guy walks up to us, and in the heaviest Russian accent ever asks us (in English) where the bus is going. We tell him, and then immediately after walks over to this other Russian dude and has a small conversation with him (they were facing away from each other the whole time), after which they pretend like they don't know each other. We were talking with the guy on the bus though and he was lying about absolutely everything though. He also said he was Puerto Rican and had learned Russian when he made a short trip over there. His Spanish was so bad though, there is absolutely no way it could have been true. Either way we were getting some funky vibes from the dude.

Funniest part by far of the week was the English class we had to teach though. We talked with him on the bus for like 3 minutes, and got his phone number. We ended up setting up a time to meet up with him at Plaza las Americas (the biggest mall out here in the Caribbean) to help teach him some English. He ends up being super late, and every time we call him he tells "Estoy llegando ahora mismo" or that he's arriving right now. This keeps happening and we end up waiting like an hour and decide to just leave. As we're walking through the mall though with thousands of people he see's us and calls us over. He then starts walking us over to the food court. This guy was kind of a weird dude. The whole time he didn't say like a word to us. When we got there he said "teach me." So we started to teach him and he starts asking us what parts of the body are in English (like head and arm and stuff). Every time he repeats the word over and over.

Brian's love for fast cars has not changed