July 29th, 2013

Holy stinking week!
 

The new sisters have landed safely in the city limits of Elche, Alicante in the country of Spain. Their names are Hermana Kunz and Cameron and they are both from Idaho Utah. They are both awesome sisters and exactly what Elche needs. Hermana Kunz was once described by a very prominent figure in the mission, but whose name I cannot disclose but I can say that it starts with President and ends with Deere, as a "great ball of energy". I have quickly come to realize that there is no other way to describe her. Hermana Cameron is brand spaking new and still a little timid, but quickly adjusting. The ward is very excited to have them here and are starting to feed of the ball of energy that is now in their presence. I am very pleased with the change and excited to see what miracles the Lord will bring to them.
 

As for Elder Morán and myself, we´ve hit kind of a rut. Esmeralda was progressing really well, then all of the sudden, stopped wanting to meet with us. We haven´t seen her in like a week and a half! That´s like two years in missionary time! And our new area we really don´t have anything. We´re starting to work really closely with our ward mission leader to find more work in our new area. There is one part of town that we have that is like the projects of the city where all the gitanos (gypsies) live, that we call gitanoville or pueblo gypsie. We go there pretty often and it´s always pretty fun. The gypsies are a lively bunch, always yelling at us and singing their awful gypsie music, and their church, the church of philadelpia, is really interesting. I like spending time there, but there isnt´really much work in that part. Literally 90% of the people in this section go to the Philidelphia church and don´t want to listen to us. For that, we are working harder and more closely with our ward mission leader.
 

Super funny thing happened to us this week. We got contacted by a man on the street, meaning he waved us down and started talking to us. His name is Slavador and he asked us for one of our bibles. Upon giving him a book of mormon, he began telling us all about this "machine" that he has in his house. This machine, he says, is actually God the Father in tangable form, and it is sustaining his life, and also teaches him things about the function of the world and the universe. He´s studying with the machine to understand more and become a better person. The machine also tells him to read the book of mormon, which has has done about three times. And also, he was supposedly baptized in Alicante but doesn´t remember. I cannot describe to you how hard it was for me to keep a straight face. He was a very interesting man to say the least. We have plans to go by this week to check out the machine and start teaching him. Hey! Maybe the machine can help us in the teaching!
 

All jokes aside, things are awesome in Elche. I love it here and I´m super excited to see what happens this transfer. I¨m glad to hear that everyone is doing well! I love you all and well talk to you next week! Go seek for some missionary experiences!

 

Elder Webb




So this is a picture of a members cat that I am about ot eat cuz I love him. His name is simba.



This is the only picture of the sisters I have so far. We´re were visiting a member (the owner of simba!) last night and before we left we all decided to sing some hymns. So here we all are singing and havin good ol time

 

And these are the big bad elders from my district

July 22, 2013

Hola familia!

So this week was the end of transfers. Elder Kiffe, who´s in my group is getting transfered to Aljaceres on the other side of the country. I¨m really sad to see him go becuase I freaking love him. We´ve been living in a four man piso and it´s been a lot of fun. The new elder that is coming is Elder Rodriguez. I don´t know him, but hés from south america and has been living in Barcelona for a while. We´re also recieving two more sister missionaries in Elche Barrio (ward) 1!! Super stoked for that. So now my district will be ten missionaries! We´re like half of a zone! Super awesome. They´ll all be getting here wednesday, so this week ought to be really fun. Showing the new mishies the area and the investigators they´ll be having.
 

This last week was pretty normal, just getting ready for the new missionaries. Our area is now split down the middle by the river in the city, and most of our work is all on one side, and it´s going to the hermanas. So we basically are starting from scratch. It´ll be a tough first couple of weeks, but it´ll also be kind of fun. I like to think of it as like a treasure hunt. That somewhere here in this city in spain, there are people that are ready to hear our message. They might not know they need it, but they´ll recognize something different when they hear it. I¨m really excited for this coming transfer. We´re going to be trying to work with a lot of less active members in the ward, maybe rescue a few, and then baptize their friends. Go team Elche 1a!!
 

Today we had a district minus one companionship P-day. We visited a cathredral here in town and climbed it´s bell tower and got a sick nasty view of the city. This country is super stinking beautiful. Now if the temperature were only a bit cooler...
 

So that was pretty much it for this week. Pretty normal all in all. This next week should be pretty fun. Meeting new missionaries, showing them the area, the district growing; lots of fun!

I love you all very much! Keep being awesome!
 

con amor,
 

Elder Webb

Front Door of Elche Cathedral

At top of Cathedral

District at top of Cathedral

July 15, 2013

Hola familia!
 

This country is super beautiful. The bus ride from Elche to Malaga is about 8 hours. Then another hour of traveling on train and car to the mission home. And the country and sites that there are inbetween here and Malaga are absolutely amazing! Unfortunately this elder isn´t the brightest bulb in the package and I didn´t take a single picture. So mom, please don´t get mad thatt there aren´t any pictures this week.
 

DL training was a blast. I learned a ton from the AP´s and from President Deere. I¨m surely convinced that I have the best mission president in the world. He knows so much and is a Spiritual GIANT. I stinking love him to death. We talked about serving our missionaries better, helping them realize their goals, and helping the new missionaries better. Starting next week, we will be recieving 57 new missionaries in a period of like five weeks, and you add on top of that that there are already about 80 missionaries in the missiona with less than 6 months; President thinks a lot about the news and how he can help them better get a grasp of missionary work and become excellent missionaries quicker. Also, Hermana Deere cooked Hawaiian Heystacks and they were straight up amazing. Super nostalgic for me haha. Mom you ought to cook those this week, just for kicks.
 

So Esmaralda is coming along nicely. Slowly, but she´s still prgressing. She knows that she´s gotta move out of her boyfriends place so that she can get baptized, she´s just really scared to do it. She doesn´t have a job and has no faith in finding one, and her only other option would be to live with her biological father that just found her about a month ago after being absent her entire life. And she´s scared to do that too. She has two kids and wants to be able to be with them forever, but the choices she has to make in order to do it are tough. She probably will not be getting baptized this weekend, but then again God is a god of Miracles! We just need to have faith. Please pray for a miracle this week! I know that if we all pray with faith, the Lord will provide.
 

I also did splits with the zone leaders in Alicante and guess who´s my ZL? Elder Keller! That´s right, my papi. I got to hang out with him all day Friday and Saturday and it was super awesome. Alicante is huge, and super humid, but an awesome city. I would definitely reccomend it to anyone coming through the south of Spain!
 

One last thing before I go, I member gave us a giant chess board, with hand painted ceramic pieces that are the form of moorish knights and warriors. I´m SUPER stoked about it haha, I´ll be playing a lot of rounds of chess during mediodia. I´ll take a photo and show it to you next week. Hopefully by the time I´m done in Elche, I´ll be the next world champoin of chess. Or at least in the mission.
 

Well family I love you all very much! Send Brad my regards and tell him good luck with life in BYU_I-do! Also, tell him to drop me a line. I´d like to hear from him and how his mission was. Love you all! Have a wonderful week!
 

Elder Webb

July 8th, 2013

Hola familia!
 

So super awesome week this week. The elders in Crevillente, (a small town outside of elche, those elders are in my district) had a baptism this week. I went to Crev to do the baptismal interview, my first one! and it was super awesome. The girl that got baptized was super excited to be doing it, to be changing her life and starting on this pathway. It´s super awesome to be able to witness things like this, people changing their lives forever, in ways that they can´t even imagine!
 

So me and my comp we set a baptismal date with a lady named Esmarelda. She´s an eternal investigator, but totally loves the church. she´s just a little afraid to get baptized. But last week she had some really spiritual experiences, felt the spirit really strong and that gave her the desire to be baptized and recieve the holy ghost. This all happened while we weren´t there, so evidence that the Lords hand and His angles are here helping us! Her date is for 20th of July, but she lives with her boyfriend. She isn´t sure if she should marry him or kick him out, so we fasted on friday for an answer. We haven´t been back to see her about her experience because she´s been at the beach, so please pray for her to have the strength and courage necessary to do what it takes to be baptized.
 

I saw a miracle this week too. One of the spots on my permanent retainer came unglued and I needed to find someone to be able to fix it. Dentistry isn´t covered in the missionary medical plan, so I was going to have to pay for this myself. I was sitting in church a week ago next to a member when I suddenly felt like I should tell her about my situation, as if she´d be interested or something haha. So it turns out that her sister is a dentist and was willing to fix it for me! Normally it costs 100 euros, but she only charged me 20!! Such a huge blessing, a massive miracle. I´m so greatful that I was able to recognize the Spirit and then had courage to follow through with that. Sometimes that´s what I lack, is the courage to follow through. It can be scary sometimes! But the blessings that follow always far outwiegh the trouble we might have had with following the promting.
 

So Spain is a super sunny place. There is sun every day for like 15 or 16 hours. It rises at 6 and doesn´t go down until about 9:30. is that normal for the states? I don´t rememver it being like that, but maybe I´m just freaking out.
 

Tomorrow I´m going to the mission home for a district leaders training. I freaking love going to the mission home! Only problem is that it´s 8 hours away from where I am. boo. But it´ll be worth it in the end.
 

So a missionary that I knew here in the mission is McKay´s teacher in the MTC! Elder Peterson, and it turns out that me and him went to the same elementary school in Orem and we know a bunch of the same people from childhood! Pretty stinking crazy! Small world or something like that.
 

Well family I feel as if I´ve ranted on for long enough. I love you all very much and I will talk to you next week!
 

con amor,
 

Elder Webb




We made American Pancakes for our investigators!

 

View from our apartment

July 1, 2013

Hola familia!
 

Pretty interesting week this week. Yesterday we watched the broadcast of the new mission presidents training and it was super cool. Really inspiring and got me super pumped to go work with the members and hasten the work! Mom and Bob, if you didn´t see it, it´s on lds.org. Go watch it and take notes cuz it´s super good. There is something for everyone in the broadcast. I´m hoping that they´ll put them in print form so that I can have them forever.
 

Saturday there was a blood drive at the church and the missionaries helped out. They even gave us some sweet jersesies so that people would know that we´re special. We were there origianlly to talk to any nonmembers that showed up, but only two came. And so our responsabilities quickly changed to "keep all the children entertained by any means possible". So we had set up a bunch of different carnival style games so keep them all occupied like sack races, throwing dart at water ballons, ping pong; stuff like that. We even had a point system and everything. The Elche missionaries are incredibly organized. After all the activities and blood drive, the members made paella for everyone that was there in a gigantic pan. Literally have never seen a cooking pan this big in my life. They carry it around in a big screen tv box. The paella was super stinking good. Mom if you could, please learn how to make paella becauase I love it! Have another one of those experament nights and tell me how it goes.
 

Thursday there was an emergecny transfer in Alicante and there was a trio in our district: two elders and the district leader. President transfered the district leader from our district to Alicante to replace the elder that left. Then this morning I got a text message from President asking me to be the new district leader. I thought it was kind of funny, like as if a bishop had extended a calling through text. Probably has happened somehwere in the world! I´m not sure I ever told you, I´m in the Alicante Zone, there´s like 20 missionaries in our zone, and in my district there are 8 missionaries and we´ll be recieving two more this next transfer. Not sure if they´ll be sisters or elders, but we´ll see.

This week we´re going to be applying what we learned at the broadcast and working better and harder with the members. And thursday we have specilized training with President in Murcia. Everything is going well in the new area and I´m loving it here in Elche. It´s absolutely ridiculously hot, like I can´t complain enough about how hot it is, but that´s okay. At least I´m getting a really good farmers tan. And my soccer skills are improving. McKay sounds like she´s loving her MTC experience so far. That makes me glad because I absolutely loved mine! I hope everyone is doing well! I´m working on letters for everyone, so please be patient! Send everone my love! Until next week!

 

con amor,

 

Elder Webb

 

Large Pan

Volunteering at Blood Drive