Santander

Near a faro (lighthouse). I almost fell off the cliff and decided to take a picture at the same time.
  A crazy statue at the palace.


For a "Feed the Missionaries" calendar.  They're trying to look poor and starving.



April 5: In Santander, we don't watch General Conference when it is live but sometime this month they will be sending us a dvd and we will get to watch it then.  I really cant wait. It's always such a blessing to hear from our leaders.  Because I couldn't listen to the new conference I have been spending the last hour before bed listening to last years conference and it is so amazing the inspiration and guidance that the leaders give to literaly every single member.

March 29:  So this week has been truly an awesome relief and so incredible.  After so many long weeks of having nearly no investigators or visits I was feeling very down and... left alone but I knew that the success would increase.  The Lord really does bless us when we have patience.  After weeks of nearly nothing but hard work with no fruits of our labors, this week really was the complete opposite.  We began having visits with incredible people and all of them had such desires to learn.   The hard times came and we were patient through it and after, the Lord gave us the success and joy that we had been waiting for.  We find 12 new investigators in one week!  I have never even gotten 4 in a week.  The Lord will really never leave us if we will do all we can in this work. 
    Turns out this new investigator is an assassin.  He was part of the bloods in America and did their "dirty work" but he wants to change and all he really wants is his son with him.  I was really pretty scared to talk to him but we promised him this message could change his life...  I honestly hope he comes to church because president told us we can't teach him because of his history but if he comes to church he can be taught there. 

March 15: Our ward mission leader is such a stud he had me and the new hermana speak in church yesterday.  I was surprisingly happy to have him invite me to do this.  I was very nervous because it was the first talk I have given in Spanish outside of the mtc and well it's a ward now not a branch and so we had the place jammed all the way to the back.  I felt very good about it though because this really was the first time I have given a talk without the entire talk written down.  I just had some general guidelines to direct my thoughts and let my memory and the spirit do the rest.

March 8: We were walking through this tunnel and I was thinking about what I should contact with and I was thinking "I will talk about prayer." I stop this lady and she just looks at me with the most stunned look on her face.  We kept talking for a bit and she told us that she had just gotten off the bus and was praying the entire ride for help from God.  Such incredible miracles God works through us.  I probably would never have stopped this woman normally but man I just got such a burst in my mind: "stop her."

Zoo

Nick and friends went the zoo at Santander. It's so big, a car is required to go from animal to animal.

 Los Osos


A wild bird show - this one flew wildly close to Nick!

For April Fool's joke, I emailed Nick and Maggie that Dad would be offering a prayer at General Conference. They both fell for it - what trusting missionaries!  So I emailed their presidents' wives to tell them the truth on April Fool's Day. Hermana Clegg wrote me back:
"Just want you to know that Elder Ryser is looking so good and doing so great.  We saw him this last Saturday and he looked happy.  His Spanish is wonderful and it looks like from the report of this past week they had a great week... Thanks for raising such a great young man.  He is super!!!"