Hello family! I absolutley loved getting your email! That picture is so great! Now that I´m out in the field, I can´t really print stuff, so can you send me a copy in a letter? Also some other family pictures would be great. Speaking of that! Here is my address: Jose Manuel Pedregal 14 Escalera Derecha 4D Aviles 33401 España Group message: First week out in El Campo Misional(the mission field)! I´m very very excited to be here! I was very surprised when I heard that I was going to the North of Spain, as most missionaries stay in the Madrid area. It is gorgeous up here! I am in a little town called Aviles. When I say little, I mean about 80,000. Haha, not too little! But since everyone lives in appartments, it only takes about 30 minutes to walk from one side of the city to the other. It is very green up here! A little chilly as well! The weather here reminds me a lot of the north west, it rains pretty much every day, and is not sunny very often, but I love it! It is gorgeous, and I will need to send some pictures soon. My first few days out here have been pretty great, but really, really hard. I thought I knew quite a bit of Spanish my last week in the MTC, but I have realized that it is totally different talking to real people. I´m slowly getting the hang of it, but I now understand why return missionaries say don´t give up in the first few months. The work is going great! My companion is so good! His name is Elder Parkinson, and he is from Kaysville. He only has been out for 4 months, and he is already training! But I completley understand why. He is very good at the Language, and is a very hard worker. The church has a branch here, where there are about 20 active members. The members are so awesome! They help us out so much with everything we do! It is a little strange with some of our investigators, as I didn´t start out with them. It feels like I am just being put in the middle of someone elses lessons, but I am getting used to it. I will let you know next week more about that, but we have one investigator that commited to baptism on Friday, and another family where two of their children are pretty interested in the church. Once again, I will let you know more about them next week. I love teaching the gospel! And sharing something with other people that means so much to me! Tell Skyler congrats for me! I´m so excited for him! When does he leave? I´m so happy to have a family that supports me so much! My MTC companion, Elder Schwenke is in Alconbendas, just outside Madrid. And I am not sure if he is related to that football player. Thanks for everything family! I will keep in touch weekly! Elder Kaleb Rawlinson PS If you or anyone else needs to send a package, make sure to send it to the office. I am going to try and send a Christmas package back home, but I don´t think it will make it back by Christmas.

November 14 letter

¡Hola! ¿Qué tal mi familia y amigos? Greetings from Spain!!! The weather is still fantastic here, but even better is the spirit of God that exists in this MTC. The language is coming along so well, and I am getting very excited to enter the field! Only a week and a half more! We just barely got back from the temple, and I am in love with it! It is one of the most beautiful things I have seen. The spirit I feel, and the inspiration I get there are special and undeniable. Let´s see, what else is there? I can´t remember if I said anything about this last week. There is a popular TV channel here that has filmed us a couple times in the past week and half, as they are making a segment on Mormons in Spain. If anyone wants to look that up on the internet (I think that is what its called, I can´t exactly remember. ;) ) the show is called commando actualidad, and the channel is TV 1 Española. That experience was very interesting! There was a day where a film crew was following the MTC president around, and also interviewed a few of the missionaries, in Spanish!!! Im glad that they didn´t choose to interview me, that would have been so stressful. The MTC received 30 new missionaries on Tuesday. All of them are native Spanish speakers that will be entering the field at the same time as us. So we now have almost 60 missionaries here. Very exciting! And it gives me a chance to practice my Spanish a little more! Every Thursday, we watch an MTC devotional either from the past, or live from Provo. Last weeks was from Elder Bednar on Christmas of 2011. It was one of the best devotionals I have ever listened to! It was on the Character of Christ. He stated that the character of Christ is to turn outward and serve people when the natural man would turn inward and focus on himself. I know that my mission will help me to overcome myself and become more like Christ, and I want to challenge each of you to do the same thing back home. I know that as we do this, we will become more in tune with the spirit and the will of The Father, and find more joy in this earthly experience. I miss all of you tons, but I love this work more than almost anything right now. I am always praying for all you, and I hope things are going great in The States.! This gospel is true. More and more, day by day, I am seeing that more clearly. I am very excited to get into the field and serve the people of this gorgeous country. ¡Grande es el Salvador y su Evangelio! Family! I´m so happy right now! I just got back from Sol, and I got some postcards I will have to send to Ethan when I get his letter. The fence looks very good! Tell everyone to check the blog, because I don´t have too much time today. I love each and every one of you! Keep me updated. Elder Rawlinson

November 6th letter

What happened this week? I´m kind of settling into the MTC, so this letter might be kind of short. Let´s see… On Saturday, as usual, we went to the park to proselyte. My companion and I placed 2 Books of Mormon! It was pretty amazing, before we left, me and him met to establish goals, and my companion said that he needed to bring a Russian BoM. He wanted to because he had met a man in the park the week before that wanted a Russian copy. I was a little skeptical, but as we were walking around the park, we found the same man! We gave him the Russian copy, and he was very happy. Not too much to report besides that! We went to the Prado art museum today. That was an awesome experience! My parents know how much I enjoy museums. The weather here continues to astound me. We left the window open last night. And it is November! My roommates are such amazing elders! They are all so different, but everyone contributes in different ways to an awesome spiritual room! We have an elder from Payson, one from Delta, one from Wyoming, one from Oregon, and my companion Elder Schwenke, who is from Orem. We have grown very close over the past three weeks, and I know that all of us will be lifelong friends. Haha, in fact, we are all planning on going to each other’s weadings when we get back. On a spiritual thought, our district had a killer lesson from one of our teachers a few days ago! He talked about the importance of bearing testimony to investigators, but it basically turned into him testifying about his mission experience. One thing that he said that I like a lot was, ¨God doesn´t look at your results, he looks at your decisions and your journey.¨ That helped me a lot, especially as I am learning a new language, and it can be a little discouraging sometimes. I love this gospel! I love the Lord! I love Spain. I love the People. I just can´t wait to get out in the field and feel this love grow tenfold! Elder Kaleb Rawlinson