Shane In Spain: June 9th

hola familia!

Holy fastest 6 months of my life! I never believed them, but it´s true, time in the mission really does go by ridiculously fast. I like looking back at where I was 6 months ago and to see where I´ve come, to see all the times the Lord blessed me and helped me learn something. That´s why I stinking love writing in a journal! If you don´t do it right now, start doing it cuz it´s awesome!!

Crazy awesome week this week. We had stake conference on Sunday and 4 of our investigators came! That´s stinking awesome because for one it was in Granada, an hour away, and two, the bus that took us all there left at 9, so people had to get up super early to come. They´re all showing their faith and I´m loving it! Antonio, the man that lives in the pueblo an hour away, wanted to come to the conference, but had no way of getting to Jaén for the bus. So a member offered to drive us to Porcuna to pick him up. So amazing of this member! So at 7 in the morning, we left to pick up Antonio, then we all went to Granada in together on the bus. And conference was amazing! The member of the 70 or area authority spoke, Elder Richards, and him and his wife talked about nurturing the faith that we have. It was super awesome for all our investigators to hear.

A missionary from the branch here in Jaén returned home from his mission. He served in Calgary Canada. His name is Santi and he actually knew a couple of my friends that are serving in that mission, like Colby! Small world huh? Anyway, he came home on Friday and there was a party for him and we took one investigator to meet the members, which was awesome because ever since the beginning, she has been really reluctant to attend activities in the church. Now finally, she knows some members and I feel she will be mroe likely to actually come to church now. She really enjoys the lessons we teach her and thinks it´s really good and important to follow Christ, but she always says she doesn´t have a lot of time to devote to investigating the church. We only meet with her like once a week. It´s all good though, she´ll get baptized eventually for sure.

We also saw a miracle with a less active family. They´ve been less active for years, never really wanting the missionaries to come over, or the home teachers, they´re really bitter about the Crisis that´s happening right now and some other things that happened in the branch a while ago. Anyway, we went by this week and shared a really powerful lesson about coming back to the church, because the time is now, and to not wait until things are good to return because now is the time that they need it most. And they said "yeah we´d been thinking of coming back for a while and had been wanting to, we just are lazy and need a push from something". So that´s exactly what we did! And they´ve commited to come to church every week, and in fact, they came to stake conference yesterday! They´re a super awesome family, and a part member family at that. So Jaén will see some more growth!

I stinking love this place. At first it was a bit hard to love, there isn´t much except olive trees. But after getting to know the people, I don´t want to leave! And right when I get comfortable President calls me and tells me I´m leaving. Yup, transfers are falling on me this time. I´m headed to Elche, in the province of Alicante. It´s about 6ish hours away from here and even farther away from the mission home! Lots of traveling now. What´s weird is that I´m leaving today in about 2 hours. That doesn´t usually happen. It´s because Elder Flores is going to stay in Jaén and train! He´s a stinking champ and I´m going to be a grandpa! So soon, why do they grow up so fast? My new companion will Elder Fernandez Morán. He can´t decide which name to use, so for now, it´s both. He´s from ARgentina but has lived in Spain for a while. I¨ll send you some pictures next week. Elche is the palm tree capital of the world, so I´m coming from the olive tree capital of the world, to the palms. Kinda cool. Maybe my next area could be the banana tree capital of the world, cuz who doesn´t love bananas?

So that´s pretty much it for this week! Pretty stinking awesome, and full of blessings. The work is progressing here in Jaén, and I¨m pretty sad to be leaving, but I´m also excited to see what He wants me to do in Elche. Send me lot pictures of McKay´s farewell! I¨m soooo excited for here and to be serving at the same time as here! She´s a stinking champ! I love you all a ton. Have a good week and seek for spiritual experiences! Love love!

con amor,