Okay, So crazy week right!?! I´m on the island of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands for my first area with my amazing trainer Hermana Trone from Oregan. She´s new to the islands (only got here 1 transfer previously) but a seasoned veteran to the mission. She has 3 transfers left including this one we are in. She´s a great hard worker, super fun and honestly just amazing! I´m so grateful to have her! Her Spanish is amazing too. Honestly she sound amazing!

Here on the island there are a TON of less active members. You might know that the now stake here on the islands was only made a year ago! Previously it had been a district. It´s so warm here... I love it but I´m kind of dying of sweat. No don´t worry I´m drinking lots of the bottled water I have to buy here because we can´t drink tap water on the island. The members of our ward are amazing! I loved church with them yesterday and we´ve had dinner with a few families. I love the people here so much! the people here are from all over, Mozambique, Ecuador, Columbia... So basically everyone here speaks without the theta... so I´m quickly loosing my Spanish lisp. It´s hard but I´m so new to Spanish that my trainer agrees this is definitely better. So I definitely sound more like a South American Spanish speaker now. 

My hair is so frizzy because of the humidity here. My companion finds it endearing and compliments my ¨voluptuous" hair all the time... I kinda hate it though. 

My Spanish is definitely a lot better, thanks to Hermana Trone but I still don´t feel confident in it yet. Don´t be mistaken though that doesn´t keep me from talking. Just makes me want to either cry or laugh after each lesson and contact. 

So it was Hermana Trone´s birthday on November 1st. I won´t tell you how old she turned but I will tell you she graduated from Stanford with a degree in biochemistry. Basically she´s legit. Anyways on her birthday we had pizza with the other missionaries here in the same ward and the senior couple on this island bought her rootbeer so we bought ice cream and had rootbeer floats. I don´t think I´ll have those again until I´m back in Canada. Rootbeer is pretty expensive. The senior lady (Hermana Larsen) also made us cinnamon rolls. Basically I´m equally loosing my weight in the amount of sweat I´m perspiring but gaining it back in cinnamon rolls. I´m okay with it to be honest. They´re sooo good!

So the buses here are called the "guagua" (pronounced wawa) we take it everywhere it´s super fun but I just love the funny name. 

We have a couple investigators on date. A HUGE problem here is helping people quit smoking. So Any suggestions? I want to help them so much but I know it´s hard. One of our investigators hasn´t smoked all week! Another is off cigarettes but uses an electric one, it´s a good step but she needs to stop using it too if she´s going to be baptized. Basically the work here is good, reactivation is a big goal and I LOVE IT! Honestly my companion couldn´t be better. 

If people ask what I´d like for Christmas I´d love handwritten letters and pictures, those would be my favourite! 

Nathan Smith is on another island BUT in 3 weeks we have zone conference and I get to go to his island for it! I´m excited to see him! 

I love you, I am honestly in paradise, I will take more pictures this week and send them next week. We´ve just been busy so I haven´t taken any.

Love,

Hermana West