First week in Málaga 2!

Hey everyone! I´m in Málaga, the promised land, and I´m loving it. Not that I got here with a lot of work since there is only like one investigator and not much else...but hey we´ll fix that. So the ward here is huge. And the members are incredible. See a correlation? Because I sure do. Like I said before there are 4 wards here and two of them meet in our building. Our area is split between us and the elders so it´s actually not very big but it seems huge because Málaga is huge and it could be that our small chunk of Málaga is bigger than Benidorm but maybe that´s just me. And we keep getting lost ALL the time. My trainee Hna Andrew still doesn´t know the area very well and our map is actually in book form so I keep getting confused haha. We´ll figure it out soon though. I still can´t get over how great some of the members are here, it literally feels like I am in the states in some of the houses. And of course when I tell people I am from Florida they always ask about Alligators and the beach haha. 

You wanna know my favorite part so far? And please don´t think I am bragging but I am just so happy about it...but I´ve had people ask where I´m from because they thought I was American but I sound Spanish so they get confused! And these are people from Spain that ask. So if I just looked a little bit more española I could pass! Heh. When I come home you´ll all think I sound funny and speak with a lisp but I actually love the general Spanish accent. The Málaga accent not so much. They drop the s on words, shorten the endings, and use the "theta" on the s´s as well...they are a bit harder to understand in the beginning but I am getting used to it. And people here are so nice! I heard that Andalucia was more friendly but seriously, people actually say hello back and I´ve had people come up to us to help us when we are lost without asking. The demographics here are different as well. Less south Americans, more Africans, and A LOT more people that are actually from Spain. In the Benidorm area everyone was from somewhere else and so I was used to asking and here when I ask they say Málaga...of course...sorry for asking. 

The area has been in the hands of fairly new missionaries for a while so I am trying to change things and get everything reorganized...including finding all the information out for 6 MONTH OLD baptismal records that weren´t ever turned in...poor people still don´t count as actual members haha. Oh hey, and yesterday was my 7th month mark! Weirdddd. Time passes by differently in the mission. 

Leaving Benidorm was weird...so incredibly weird. It kind of felt like I was starting a new mission or something. It was sad too of course but I needed a change. And Málaga is the complete opposite. On Sunday we were almost like a side note...I didn´t get called up to introduce myself, I didn´t have to teach any classes, and I couldn´t even count the number of people. So different! But it is so nice to see a ward that actually functions! I´ll let you all know how things go! Oh and Hna Andrew know Spanish! So that is a nice break. Obviously she still has a lot to learn but she gets by really well and contributes well to lessons already. She is 20, from Ohio, and went to BYU. People are always surprised when neither one of us is from Utah (or the factory as they call it haha). 

Love you all and keep praying for missionary work!

Hna Thompson

my new address: 

Avenida Manuel Torres 6, 1ºB

29003 Málaga, Spain

ps- photos!

1. Last Monday in Benidorm- Mario (an investigator who has a baptismal date...fingers crossed!), Carlos and Griselda (members from Uruguay)

2. My new piso in Málaga! It has a CAT pillow. It was a great welcome and I new I was at home. 

3. Hna Andrew and I in the internet place. We didn´t get the chance to get a good quality one earlier so we just did this selfie right now for yáll