Sunday, September 13, 2015

Week 87 - Books of Mormon & Testimonies of God

9/7/15

This week was long and filled with craziness. So Monday we had Concilio (Mission Leadership Council), Tuesday we had Preparation Day, Wednesday we had enfoque de zona (which we are in charge of as zone leaders), Thursday we had weekly planning, Friday we had to go to Tarragona to do a baptismal interview, and Saturday we had a stake priesthood activity. To talk about each one Concilio was great and I've already kinda covered it. Preparation day we planned for enfoque. In our enfoque we were supposed to talk about what we learned in concilio and basically get our zone to do better. So we tried to get our zone excited about our new mission goal of getting 150 baptismal dates in the mission at the end of the week. And keep the zone focused on the goal of baptizing 12 people a week as a mission.  So we went and bought a flag for the zone and had everyone sign it. It is now the Hospitalet flag. In enfoque we did a good job and had the joyful surprise of having President and Hermana Dayton call us and asking if they could come. Then Friday we went to Tarragona which is about an hour and a half away in train to do a baptismal interview. Those are always good!  Then the best thing we did this week was the Hospitalet Stake Priesthood Conference. So stake president Silvestre called us last week and asked if we would support the stake priesthood in going out to flood Hospitalet with the Book of Mormon. So we divided the area around the church into six areas and after a priesthood conference with the leaders from all the wards in the stake Elder Dunn, myself, and 3 other companionships of Elders got to go on splits and send companionships of ward leaders out to contact people in the streets and give out copies of the Book of Mormon. It was incredible! In one hour we gave out about 50 copies of the Book of Mormon and got between 20-25 references for the missionaries. It was such a great missionary activity! We got to work side by side with the leaders of the stake and see miracles! Also another bonus I got to be the group leader of my older ward, Vilafranca! I got to see some of my favorite members again and it was so much fun!

Also another experience we had this week was contacting an old Spanish man who didn't really want anything but that wasn't the crazy part...he said something that really surprised us. I asked him if he knew that God existed and he said that there had to be something but that there were too many problems in the world for God to be good. After talking a bit more, my companion asked him why he blamed God for the problems in the world and he had no response. I then testified that God loves us all because we are all his children and I told him I knew that God loved me. I then asked him if knew that God loved him, and he said No. I then asked him if he wanted to know that God loved him and he replied with a firm NO....I was shocked. I assumed he didn't understand the question so I asked him again in a slightly different way. And he said no again. I then asked him to put all knowledge he had about religion to the side, forget that we were missionaries, and see us as people and then I asked him if he wanted to know God loved him. And he still said not, I asked him why not, and he replied that God wasn't good and that he was fine by himself without God. It was sad to see.  We left him with a prayer and I learned that some people reject the gospel simply because of their arrogance. We must never ever get to that point where we have no humility and let Satan get hold of our hearts so strongly.

Here is a clip of Tikal at a ward Family Home Evening - Not sure what game they were playing
 
 
Picture of Tarragona
 

Week 86 - Exchanges

8/31/15

Well this week was pretty solid.  We did two companionship exchanges last week, one with one of the district leaders in our zone and the other with the ayudantes. We only have three more to go now so that's good! Soccer was officially approved to the leaders yesterday and tomorrow to the rest of the mission.
 
Yesterday we had Mission Leadership Council and it was a great spiritual experience and basically all my mission friends are leaders now so it was such a fun time!  President Dayton is great. Well I've gotta go but thanks for the letter!
 
Elder Jonson 
 
Mission Leadership Council

Week 85 - Hospitalet

8/24/15

Well I got transferred after just two transfers up north in Santander and now I'm back in the Barcelona Area. I'm currently serving in Hospitalet and I'm loving it. I have a great companion who loves soccer just as much as I do and we are having a great time. I'm actually replacing Elder Drew Dailey in this area so small world but I'm excited to work hard and see miracles.

Thanks for all the support!
Elder Jonson

Picture of Hospitalet from a member's apartment

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Week 84 - Transfer back to Barcelona

8/18/15

Another really busy week.  I got transferred to Hospitalet and now am a zone leader, I'm excited! Leaving Santander was sad but it's ok.  It was hard to say goodbye to Elder Gonzalez and all the members in the ward.  We really worked well together (ward members and missionaries).  However, I'm excited to be back in barce.

Tikal and Elder Dunn

Week 83 - Great Investigators and a New Suit

8/10/15

This week was a long one....but we made it through ready to see more miracles. We have some good investigators but it's all kind of in the works, Today I got to write my first recent convert in the mission. My zone leader Elder Batis had his email because he served there so I got it from him!!!! Hopefully he writes me back! It is so exciting to see how new members continue to grow after baptism.  Overall everything is going well in Santander.  We went with the Hermanas to dinner with one of their investigators to celebrate his birthday.  He is great and is progressing towards baptism.

Here is a picture of my new suit with my good friend Elder Ward.

Week 82 - San Juan de Gaztelugatexe

8/3/15

This week was good and we found some new investigators. Solid week though, I was able to meet with president Dayton and he is great.  Today we had a long day. We went to Bilbao and went out to a church on the coast. It was pretty neat. 
Here are some pictures of our visit to San Juan de Gaztelugatexe.