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

Week 76 - Nuevos!!!

6/22/15

This week we saw a fantastic miracle. As a district we were struggling on finding new amigos to teach, so in district meeting we set a goal to find 16 new investigators as a district this last week. We worked hard all week and found 16 new people to teach before sending numbers.  Three of which were not found until Sunday evening. It was incredible to see faith turn into action and to see the results. I promised the district three baptisms in the month of July if we got the goal so we're going to keep working hard and see that miracle too! I'm loving how much the work is progressing here in Santander!

We didn't have a baptism this week because our investigator has been working so we are going to see if we can't get him baptized in one of the coming weeks.  However, we have another investigator who is still progressing like a champ. I think she's from Ecuador but has lived in Europe for awhile (Italy and Spain). She lives with her grandma and her aunt is a member so she comes with her every week. Her mom was working in Italy but just got here for vacation. Her dad is living in the United States, in New York. She's super great though.

The work here in Santander is fantastic and we are getting closer and closer to white (aka baptism) so I can't wait to send more pictures, but for now this picture of my new haircut that I received from a member here in Santander will have to do.

Have a great week!

 

 

 

Week 75 - Closer to white

6/15/15

This week in Santander has been wonderful. We're looking at a baptism this weekend if everything works out.  We have this friend investigating the church named Eloi and when we were teaching him we realized that he had a problem with smoking. We taught the Word of Wisdom and he told us that he's wanted to quit smoking for a long time but he wanted more of a reason to. So we invited him to stop smoking by smoking two less cigarettes a day. I called him a day or so later to see how he was doing and he said that he wanted to stop smoking still so we set a visit for that Saturday. When we got to the visit we asked him how many cigarettes he was smoking now and he told us, "well I haven't smoked AT ALL in 3 days." We kind of sat there for a second mouths open, and then congratulated him for his efforts! He is such a great guy! 

We're getting closer and closer to a baptism, the weather even wants us to baptize. It's been raining off and on for the last couple days, but I take it as a sign. 

Another investigator that we are teaching is a South American girl named Melannie. She is progressing well. She's more active than some members.

This week we had our last conference with the Pace's and it was very nice. We talked about the importance of the sacrament.  It actually doesn't renew our covenants but reminds us of the convents we have made. The covenants we make are eternal so the don't really need renewing but they need remembering otherwise it doesn't work. I thought that was interesting.

I hope you're all doing well and have a
fantastic week!

Week 74 - Santander & Ipads

6/8/15

This week has been great, I love my new area and I'm getting to know the people better and better.  This week I have seen the miracles that come from an invitation.  The sister missionaries had our ward mission leader invite the Ward Council members here to identify the people who have recently had a baby, a death in the family or recently moved so that we could pass by and visit them with some cookies or something and a Book of Mormon.  Immediately after Ward Council we went out to visit an investiagtor with the Ward Secretary and he said that he had several people he was going to have us pass by!  Now when we go visit these people we'll really complete the promise of D&C Section 4 "...ASK and ye shall receive, KNOCK and it shall be opened unto you.  Amen."

Oh on another note, the three missions in Spain GOT iPAD MINIS this last week!!!!  Each missionary gets an iPad that will be returned to the mission at the end of their service but it's pretty neat having it to help in lessons! I feel so technologically advanced!  Haha but really though, it's a lot of trust that the first presidency puts in the missionaries.

On the investigator front we have a couple people who are getting really close to baptism and we are super excited for them!!!  Santander is growing poco a poco (little by little)!! 

Week 73 - Santander

6/1/15

Tuesday morning I got up finished packing and took the one hour train ride from Vilafranca to Barcelona.  Once in Barcelona, we spent some time talking with the other missionaries and had a good time.  I then caught my train to Bilbao (6 and a half hours) and got there just after 10pm.  We then spent the night in the Zone leaders apartment and the next morning my companion Elder Wadsworth and I got up and caught a bus (1 and a half hours more) to my new area of Santander. 

 

It's a lot different, everything here is green and it's colder here!  It's a neat change though.  Santander is super pretty and my companion enjoys talking with everyone.  I think I've knocked more doors and contacted more people this week than I have in the last month!  I'm excited to be serving here in Santander even though I don't know much about it. 

Photo - View of Santander

View of Santander