La Mejor Semana! (The Best Week!)

Hola familia!

What a stinking great week! We had a zone training in Malaga with two other
zones, we had a baptism this weekened, we made dougnuts twice in the week,
and Elder Flores and I cleaned and cooked an entire chicken, by ourselves!



The Chicken

The zone training was incredible. President talked about getting
investigators to sacrament meeting, and what we can do to make that happen.
He taught us something we could do to motivate them to come, give them a
reason to want to come. Essentially, we´re giving them a reason to come. We
invite them to come pray about a question during the sacrament, and to look
for the Spirit in those 10 minutes. I had a big aha moment when we were
talking about this because before, I would always just invite them to come,
and if they didn't I´d be sad. But this is so genious and such common
sense! Help them have Spiritual experiences at church, and they´ll want to
come back! Duh!

This week the Hemana's are coming to Jaen. We are going to be our own district
in Jaen and I am going to be the district leader! First I train, now I am district leader
to new missionaries in the area, and one of them really is actually brand spanking new
from the US! I feel that the Lord has high expectaions for me and is trying to teach me
something, but What? He is preparing me for something, but what is it?




Carmen's Baptism

Carmen's baptism was great. She was so happy, huge smile the whole time. And her
husband Fausto too was super happy. It was amazing for me to see this
family take the steps necessary to becoming an eternal family. One year
from now, they´ll be going through the temple to be sealed, so awesome!
Maybe I could come back to this area and go with them... that would be
sweet. Carmen said to me after her confirmation "after my baptism I didn´t
really feel different, but when you all laid your hands on my head I felt
such an incredible warmth. I feel like a dove, just floating in the air, so
happy and worry free!" YES! That made me feel super good, I´m so happy to
have been an instrument in the Lords hands to help this family find the
restored gospel. Stinking love being a missionary.

We made doughnuts with Esther and Luis AND for an Elders Quorum activity.
Twice in one week! They were incredible. Mom you need to go fine a recipe
for 'roscos' and make them. They are downright incredible. I´ll send you a
picture of what we made. They´re little doughnuts, but they have orange
zest in them, and are covered with cinnamon sugar. HEAVEN.




Rosco Mickey

 



Roscos

I hope I was able to convey the awesomeness of this week, because it was
purely awesome. I love you all so much! Gentry´s wedding is getting closer,
and McKay´s mission too! I hope they´re both super excited! I know I am!
Well, I love you guys and I´ll talk to you next week!

con amor,

Elder Webb

No Baptism!

Hola familia!
 

So this week we did not baptize Esther and Luis. Super sad moment. Duriing the baptismal interview we found out that they aren´t married! That happens a lot, it´s cheaper to just live together rather than go through all the legality of getting married, so they just say that their married because they´ve been together for like 20 years. But it´s okay! Because they still have desires to get baptized, and they are currently working on getting the neccesary documents to get married. What´s really good is that their desire to join the church is still there. The night after they found out they couldn´t do it, Esther and Luis both cried, which I think it awesome! Because it shows that the desire is there! So we´ll be working more with them to help keep them focused and on the path. I stinking love those two and they´re so close, they just can´t give up! Please pray for them!
 

Another investigator, José, has basically dropped off the face of the planet. I´m not sure what happened, but he came to a child baptism about two weeks ago and we haven´t heard from him since. His phone doesn´t work and we´re not sure if it´s just off or if he blocked our number. Hopefully it´s just off haha.

This weekend we will be having another baptism, and this one´s for sure haha. The wife of Fausto, the man I baptized last month, is getting baptized. She´s so ready, and super excited. She said something to me Sunday that meant a lot to me. She said that when we come by to teach her, we bring her more happiness than she´s ever experienced in her life. That made me feel so good because I know that feeling! That´s the Spirit and she´s recognizing it. Moments like that are what make being a missionary so awesome. Helping this person find the true church of God and feel the Spirit and feel His love. I love it!
 

So I had a cool spiritual experience this week. Thursday was a tough day, we only taught one lesson out of 8 planned, all our backups failed and we spent the day just walking around trying to get in somewhere. Just one of those days. I was frustrated with how the day was going and I wasn´t really talking to anyone in the streete. And that night I was pretty upset, bummed out, and scared for the next day to come becuase I didn´t want to repeat Thursday. I prayed and asked for help and strength for me to be able to enjoy every moment, regardless if we were teaching or if our plans were failing us. The next day we went out and I just started contacting people, determined to have a better day, and in that moment I realized that I LOVE contacting people! When I contact, I testify to people and then I feel the Spirit and that helps me to feel better. So then the rest of the day I made sure to open my mouth and talk to people, regarless of how the day was going. And the day finished our wonderfully. We didn´t get all the lessons we had planned, but it didn´t bother me. I was happy because I was working and I could feel the Lord´s approval through His Spirit. Big eye opener for me, when they say that the best way to be happy as a missionary is to work. It´s totally true!
 

This week we´ll be preparing more for the sisters to come next week, and preparing for our baptism on saturday. We´re also having a zone conference with the Málaga zone on Wednesday in Málaga with Presidnet Deere. Super excited for that. I love meeting with President and hearing him speak, he´s such a spiritual giant! So grateful to have him as my mission presidnet.

Anywho, that´s basically it for now! I love you all and will talk to you next week! Love you!

Elder Webb

 

 

Elder Webb and a castle wall

 

 

Elder Webb and Elder Flores with Cathedral next to them

Zone Leaders Rock!

Hola familia!

If I could use a preferred word of mine to describe this week it was be this: dope. The zone leaders came in Tuesday night, well actually we drove with them in their car from Granada, and we went on exchanges that night. It was sooo much fun. Elder Hooper and I went out to a couple different appointments and contacted a TON of people while we were out. We got ten different peoples numbers and addresses, which is a lot for one evening. Then the next morning Elder Woodford and I went out and met with Carmen, a woman that will be getting baptized this next week. I learned so much from them, better ways to contact people, to find new investigators, to help those that we are teaching already. It was super awesome to spend time with more experienced missionaries, and it got me super pumped on the work!

Ester and Luis are doing fabulous. They´re getting baptized this Thursday! I can´t believe it. I remember when I first got here, talking with them, they seemed so far away, like they would never get baptized. But here, they´ve made so much progression, their faith has grown so much. It´s so amazing to be able to see those kinds of changes in people. To see them overcome their own doubts and challenges, and to see their testimony take root. I love being a missionary!

Elder Flores and I are doing great. He´s a champ and we´re both still learning a lot together. It still boggles my mind everyday that I was asked to train. It´s a bit hard at time, but that´s what it´s all about right? The struggle! Or in the words of our beloved Miley Cirus/Hannah Montana, "It´s the climb!" Huh, maybe she was on to something...

Anyway, that´s what´s going on here! Thursday we´ll be gone baptizin'. Please keep them in your prayers so that they can continue in this path! I love you all! Hope all is well!

con amor,

Elder Webb

General Conference Weekend

Hola Familia,

Conference was AMAZING! Every single talk was a stinking home run. The
theme to me definitely seemed like obedience and that if you really want to
be happy, you gotta be obedient. Man if only I could have learned that
sooner! There was one talk that stood out to me, one line specifically. He
said that every single person on the earth needs to feel the love that
their Heavenly Father has for them. And I can help them feel that love by
how I treat them and how I serve them. And then I thought, that if the
people can feel the love of God better through me and my comp, they´re
going to want to listen to us more, and want to get baptized! And then I
remembered the line nobody cares how much I know until they know how much I
care. Whoa! that´s some deep stuff. Obedience, peace and happiness, and
love. That´s what I got from conference.

Things in Jaén are Krazy! and there is a captial "k" there. We still have 4
baptism dates right now. José is supposed to get baptized this Saturday,
but at this rate it´s not going to happen. He is so hard to schedule with!
He only ever wants to meet with us once a week, but in order to get
baptized this week, we gotta see him at least once a day. He came to a
baptism of a little girl on Saturday and a member invited him to a family
home evening after conference on Sunday and he agreed. He also promised to
come to one of the sessions of conference, but he bailed on both of them!
And he wouldn´t answer our calls. I´m not sure what´s up with him, but I
hope everything is okay. When ever we teach he´s always super excited. He
gave up drinking and smoking and coffee no problem, and he always says that
he loves having us in his house and that he wants to get baptized, so I
don´t know what´s going on right now. I´m a little confused in case you
hadn´t caught on. We´ll go stop by today to see what´s up.

So our area is for sure getting split and the zone leaders are coming in
tomorrow to go on splits with us and talk to the branch president about
splitting the area. Have I already told you that we´re for sure getting new
missionaries? Well if not, wahoo! I´m super excited to have some more
workers here, it gets a little lonely at times... but not only that,
there´s tons of work here, and it´s growing fast! Super stoked to get to
spend some time with the zone leaders.

Elder Flores is sick right now. Poor guy. He´s always complaing of the
cold, but to me it feels perfect. It´s like 20'C average every day, when
it´s not raining that is. It´s been raining a ton, and there is a hole in
the roof and leaks into our piso, and now there´s a TON of mold in on the
ceiling in one of the rooms. And the owner won´t fix it until it stops
raining, but she says she doesn´t know when it´ll stop raining. So
basically what she meant is she´ll fix it in the summer. Perfect. I´ll take
some pictures of the nastyness and send em' next week.

So thats basically it for right now. This week we´ll just be preparing José
for baptism, and Ester and Luis too, their day is next thursday. Please
pray for these indivuduals! Thank you so much for all your prayers! I love
you all! I hope you all had a great conference weekend!

con amor,

Elder Webb

A lovely blurry shot of Jaén gracias a Elder Flores

 

My District

Happy Easter! Feliz Semana Santa!

¡Hola familia! and Happy Easter!

It looks like it was great, just like every year. Grandma sent me an email
and it sounded like they had a wonderful Easter as well. Ours here in Jaén
was actually pretty mellow. It felt like a normal day in the mission field
to be honest ha! We went to church, which was all about Christ and there
were some really great talks by the president of the branch and his first
councelor and we sang one of my favorite songs, "I know that my redeemer
lives". There is a line in the spanish hmyn that isn´t in the english. It
says, "He lives, my ever faithful friend", and it caused me to reflect on
how many times He´s been there for me, AFTER having already suffered
everything for me. Even still when I need help, someone to lift me or even
carry me, He is there for me. When I had this thought I was overwhelmed
with gratitude. I´m so grateful that Christ loves me and all of you! As
King Benjamin says, we truly are nothing without Him. I hope you all had
wonderful spiritual experiences as well this easter that helped make it the
best one yet.

So here´s what´s going on in Jaén. Right now we have 4 people with a
baptismal fecha. Remember Ester y Luis that I told you about my first week?
yeah well they finally have a baptismal date for the 18th of Abril! And
Carmen, the wife of Fausto the man I baptized, has a date for the 27th of
Abril. And lasly there is José, a man from Spain and he´s a champ. He has a
date for 13th of April. He´s an awesome individual and already is
recognizing the Spirit. Heck, he recognized it from day one! We found him
by street contacting and at first he didn´t want to give us the time of
day, but then all of the sudden his demenor changed and he gave us his
address and asked us to come by the next day. The first time we taught him
he accepted a baptismal fecha and said he would come to church everytime
that he could. He said that he didn´t know what it was, but he just felt
really good whenever he talked to us. Spirit baby! I love seeing the Spirit
work in people like that. It´s experiences like these that make a mission
so amazing to be apart of. For me anyway. So that was in the begining of
March and he´s been working a lot and hasn´t been able to meet with us
recently, but has come to church, so please remember him and all the others
in your prayers so that they can be baptized!

So this last week was what the catholic world calls Semana Santa (holy
week), and it´s a huge celebration of Christ´s death and resurrection.
There´s parades and processions every night in the streets and people
marching around in costumes and giant floats a lot of crazy stuff. Elder
Flores and I wanted to see a procession really bady, but amazingly enough
the entire week, we didn´t see a single one! I like to think that that
means we were just working hard. I´ll attach a picture from a past Semana
Santa so you can get an idea of what it´s like. For me, it´s pretty
different because there isn´t anything like it in the states, at least not
that I know of.

Elder Flores is a super missionary already. He listens really well and
invites the Spirit really well. I don´t even feel like I´m training him. I
feel more like we´re just normal comps, both learning new things together.
The language barrier is still proving to be a problem for me ha, however I
feel as if my Spanish has improved by miles just in these short two weeks.
So imagine how it´ll be after 12 weeks! I´ll be fluent and ready to move on
to Portugese.

This coming week is conference week and I´m so stoked! I´ll be watching it
in the church on the computer in english while everyone else watches it in
the chapel on the projector. I can´t wait to hear what the prophet and
apostles have to say. It´s kind of funny how much more I apreciate things
like that now, now that I´m trying to help others understand the
significance of it. We have a living prophet, just like in the times of
old, a man that talks to God and tells us His will. Amazing! Why couldn´t I
have understood that before? Maybe then I would have paid more attention
during conference! Ah well, that´s why God has allowed us to repent right?

Well I think I´ve said just about enough. Perhaps too much. The work in
Jaén is progression, and if we can have these four baptisms, then we are
for sure going to recieve two more missionaries, which would be amazing!
There´s definitely plenty of work for four missionaries. So please continue
praying for Elder Flores and I that we might be able to continue having
success and help these people get baptized! I love you all very much! Talk
to you next week!

con amor,

Elder Webb