Week 81 - References are Great

7/27/15

This week was a little bit rough for us just because we are in the finding process again, by the end of the week a lot of our investigators decided to stop progressing. But that's ok because we found a great lady from a member reference. This lady named Carmen works in the train station and the old bishop's wife would go and talk to her about the gospel. She gave us the reference when she came to visit Santander about a month ago, and we just couldn't go out to the pueblo where she worked because we had so many things happening at once. But with a slower week we got out there and she was superb. We taught her the restoration and answered some questions about the plan of salvation and she told us that she wanted to come to church this next week!! She's so great.

Overall we're improving here in Santander and my companion Elder González is great!!

Foto we went to the Magdalena palace again for preparation day.

Week 80 - BAPTISM!!!

7/20/15

This week Melannie got baptized! Melannie is a perfect example of how missionary work should be done.  Melannie's aunt is a member and about two to three months ago, she started bringing Melannie to church on Sunday.

We began teaching her in the house of another member who is one of her friends. As we progressed, we began teaching in her in her own house with that same member friend and others. We also brought another member to the visits named Luis.  At the beginning we brought him just to be able to teach in a house with only women, (there has to be a man in a house before we can go in as missionaries) but he was able to answer many of the questions that she had. It got to the point where in almost every lesson we had one of Melannie's member friends (often invited by Melannie) AND Luis.

We helped Melannie grow spiritually and helped her testimony gain strength and although she doesn't like talking in front of a bunch of people she got up and bore an incredible testimony. I've gotten to see her progress from day one thanks to transfers and got to see the blessings of working with the members.  Baptism is the best!!

Tikal & Elder Gonzales at Melannie's Baptism

 

Celebrating with the sister missionaries, Melannie and her cousin

at Burger King after the baptism

 

 

 View looking back at Camello and Sardinero beaches in Santander

With a 7 year old girl from the ward

With some members on P-Day

 

Tikal and Elder Gonzalez from Lima, Peru

 



 

At the groundbreaking ceremony for the new

chapel being built in Santander

Week 79 - Lima, Peru

7/13/15

On Monday night we went to Bilbao so my companion could catch his train at 6:30 AM with the other missionaries who were being transferred or going home. I then caught a train at 3:20 PM and got into Barcelona at 10:10 PM.  I spent 3 hours alone in the train.  After a couple of stops, two more missionaries who were training as well got on and went the next 4 hours with me into Barçelona.  When we got into Barçelona, we were supposed to go straight to the Assistants and Office Elders piso, but the assistants weren't home and the office elders had to go pick an elder up from the airport whose flight got delayed coming in. So we bought McDonald's and waited outside their apartment until about 12:15 am, when they finally got home. The next day the assistants and office elders got up early to go do stuff with transfers and Elder Sedgwick (one of the missionaries who got on the train after 3 hours) and I had to take the other elder who's flight got delayed to meet up with his companion at 9. His name was Elder Johnson ironically. Anyway we got him off and then went to the mission home and had a training-the-trainers meeting. We then got to meet all the new missionaries, and have lunch in the mission home.

My new companion is Elder González, he's from Lima, Peru.  He is the only member of the church in his family, he is 24 years old, and he plays the piano super well and speaks English. We try to speak Spanish in the street and English in piso.  We're getting along well and he's a good missionary. Fun fact, I've been a missionary for more time than he's been a member. He was baptized three days AFTER I entered the MTC.  We have two baptisms planned for this weekend. I am so excited! It should be a great week.

Lately, I've started saying y'all. It's what happens when the only other Utahan in our district is Elder Vickery from St George who says it all the time. Overall really good week.

A home/castle of the Spanish King and Queen in Santander

Week 78 - Training!

7/7/15

This last week I had a super bad headache and fever but I survived and we got to meet our new mission president.  President and Hermana Dayton are awesome! President Dayton is the brother-in-law of the late Elder Perry and Hermana Dayton is such an incredible lady she got talked about by Elder Anderson in general conference.  They are the best!!! So transfer news is that my companion is going to my first area of Palma de Mallorca!!!!! And I don't know who my new companion is going to be because I'm picking him up in Barcelona tomorrow!!! I'm training!!!!! So it should be a great week!!!!

Picture of the Mini MTC that the missionaries have started for their ward in Santander.  It is every Sunday for a month.

Week 77 - New Mission President

6/29/15

This week our miracle was with Eloi. He had a fecha for a couple weeks ago, but he fell through because of issues with the word of Wisdom and being busy with work.  So it kind of seemed as though he was losing interest but we invited him to church anyway and Sunday morning he showed up! All by himself! It was so great to see that he still had interest in becoming a member of the church and progressing. He is such a great guy!

This week I learned a little more about the meaning of the multiple resurrections and the plan of salvation, how that people have to wait in spirit prison until they are resurrected so that is what one of the concepts of hell is and we as members of the church can save people from that hell by helping them find the truth and taking part in ordinances

Life's good here in Santander and we're getting closer and closer.  We get a new Mission President this week so we'll see how that goes! Hope you all have a great week!

Tikal at a dinner appointment