Aug. 26, 2013

Hola familia!

 

Holy stinking cow (does anyone know where that phrase comes from? all the natives think it´s extremely strange and ask me where it comes from) this week was totally incredible! WE MET OUR GOAL OF 555 NEW INVESTIGATORS! As a mission, we found 558, it was pretty close, but we did it! Now, President as put in effect another plan to place 250 baptismal dates and in the month of september have 100 baptisms. Holy grand faith no? I´m super excited to be a missionary in the Spain Malaga mission right now. So much faith, and we´re all working so hard and seeing lots of miracles! Elder Morán and I personal met our goal of 7 investigators in one week. There were some companionships that were blessed by the Lord to find two big families and ended up finding about 13 new investigators! The Lords blessings are POURING out here in Spain! I can feel it just gushing all over us, and it feels great! 

Super cool miracle this week that we saw was the way that we found one investigator. Her name is Kaiatana and is 88 years old. She was trapped in her home Tuesday night with out power and no one to help her and was unsure of what to do. She was waiting by the window for someone to come by to help when she saw us and yelled for us to help. She threw us her keys, we got into her house and flipped the breaker and she had power again! She was so overwhelmed she was brought to tears and saying stuff like "blessed is the day that you two were born"! haha It was pretty funny. So then we asked her if we could share a message about Christ and she accepted and now her and her son Jesus are investigating the Church! The Lord works in mysterious ways, but I learned from this that I need to always be worthy of the Spirit and be aware of unplanned opportunities that the Lord will put in my path. We also found two familias that some members had given us as references that are super prepared and seemed very interested. Super exciteing!

So with 7 new investigators, the work here in Elche has picked up drastically! I¨m super excited, and we´re going to work really hard to help these families accept the restored gospel. I¨m super pumped right now! 

Okay familia I love you all very much! Manténganse rectos y firmes en la Fe. Guarden Cristo cerca a sus corazones y sírvanle siempre! Les quiero un montón! Hablamos la proxima semana! 

con amor, 

Elder Webb 

August 19, 2013

Hola familia!

Well this is it! The week of finding has arrived. Our goal is to find 555 new investigators throughout the whole mission. The most we´ve ever found was a little over 230. We´ve prayed and fasted as a mission, planned well, and are now about to commence the work and see many miracles! I am really excited to see what happens this week, to see the hand of the Lord and His angels working side by side with us. So next week I should have some good stories! As for this week...

Specilized training in Alicante was on Thursday with President. We talked about teaching PEOPLE and not lessons. Really focusing on the people and trying to help them rather than checking off a list of criteria that we have created in our minds or in our agendas. His training was super good, super spiritual, and super inspired. 

After that I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and we tried to find some more people. Like I said Elche is going through a bit of a dry spell becuase everyone is at the beach and we were only able to teach 1 lesson in 24 hours, but that´s alright! This week that all is going to change. We´ve been working really hard to increase our faith in the area and that the Lord is preparing people. And this week we´re going to find those people. 

This last week in Elche was the "festivos" where they celebrate the Virgen and the other catholic things that Elche represents and on Tuesday night was the Asencion of the Virgen (where they believe that the Virgen Mary was taken up to heaven by angels and is now with the Father having never tasted death) and there was a huge fireworks display that night from 11 to 12. The senor couple from the office was in Elche that night doing piso inspections and checking out the city and so President gave us special permission to watch the fireworks. Words cannot describe how incredible they were! Way way way better than anything I had ever seen in the States. There aren´t any regulations and so the fireworks are much more extravegant. We watched them from the rooftop of a members house and it was the perfect spot. The fireworks were going off in about ten different spots all over the city and we could see them all. At the very end the grand finale was a gigantic firework that covered almost half of the city that exploded in the shape of a palm tree. Super duper cool people. I highly recommend coming to Spain just for that.

So overall a pretty quite week this last week. But that´s all gonna change this week! Super excited for the week of finding. Please pray for the missionaries that we can all find new investigators and meet our goal and that the people will be receptive! I love you all and will talk to you next week!

Elder Webb

 

 

 

the mishies watching the fireworks

 

 

 

Saturday there was an activity and they made a stinking delicious paella in honor of me. No not really, but it sure seems like it doesn´t it? 

 

August 12, 2013

Buenos días familia!

 

This week was pretty nuts. From Tuesday until Saturday, I personally only worked in my area once. I was doing exchanges the entire time with all the elders in my district. This week was just one long episodes of "splits" haha. It was pretty cool though. There are a couple of elders in my district that need some "motivation" if you know what I mean, and we had some good conversations during the exchange. 

Friday was zone conference in Alicante and it was super awesome. We talked a lot about goals and plans. How our goals are how we show the Lord our desires, how we want to spend His time and help His people. And are plans are how we meet our goals and show the Lord that our intentions are true. We talked about how the Lord sees our goals and helps us to meet them. With righteous goals and careful planning, our goals can always be met. So as a mission, we have set a goal to find 555 new investigators in one week. Next week, and that´s one new investigator every day of the week, for every single companionship in the mission. It´s a pretty high goal, but totally doable! So this week in my district, we´re all going to be preparing our areas. Contacting a ton, helping members invite their friends, finding people while we teach, and just working really hard so that next week we can really meet this goal. When I set serious goals and then I work towards them, I feel really empowered ya know? Goals and plans are cool! Drugs and alcohol drool! New rhyme I´m coming up with to teach the Word of Wisdom.

So basicamente that is all we got for this last week. This week will be pretty cool. Specialized training with President, and tomorrow one of the Senior Couple missionaries are coming to Elche and taking us all out to lunch. The Castillos They´re amazing. 

Have I left a spiritual thought? Let´s see, what do I got... How about goals and plans! Even if you´re not a missionary, we can show Heavenly Father how we want to spend our time here on Earth that He has given us by setting righteous goals and then working to achieve them. And if we can master this process of goal setting and achievement, we can go through life becoming the spiritual and physical leaders that He needs for His children! There is a quote by President Nelson in Preach My Gospel chapter 8 about goal setting. It´s pretty rock solid. I invite all of those reading this to go check it out and apply it! 

 Hey I love everyone! Keep being awesome! Keep Christ centered in your lives! And keep having lots of fun! I love you all and will talk to you next week!

Elder Webb

 

Teach Everyone!!

 

August 5th, 2013

Hola familia!

The things here in Elche are going good. We´ve hit kind of a dry spell right now. With the new sisters coming, they took all our investigators, and we´ve basically had to start from scratch. And it´s August and everyone has gone to the beach to live. But know that there are still people here in Elche that are waiting for the message! The Lord is still preparing people! We just gotta find em.
 

So on Saturday I had kind of a cool experience. We were given a reference to contact, but he lives out in the country side on the borders of the city. So we took a bus as far as we could and started walking. When we hit the country side, the houses are super spread out and so although the number is small, it the next house could be a couple of miles down the road. So we were walking and knocking every house we came too, searching for this reference. And we got a little lost and asked a man for directions when suddenly two massive dogs came running out of his house. He quickly grabbed them and tried holding them back and started yelling at us to leave because he wasn´t strong enough to hold them back much longer haha. So we quickly left his house and kept searching. Finally after about two hours of walking we found the house and guess what? He wasn´t home. But it´s okay! At least we know where he lives!
 

This week was pretty mellow other than getting lost in the country side. The district is pretty solid and they are all good workers. And the sisters don´t cause any problems which is really nice haha. We´re the biggest district in the zone and I think in the mission too which is kind of cool.

 

One last thing that happened yesterday that was pretty funny. It was fast and testimony meeting and a member got up, recently reactivated about a year ago, and he testified of the reality of our living prophet, Gordon B Hinckley! Immediately right after he finished the bishop grabbed him and promptly explained to him the situation and he smacked his forehead in embarrassment in front of the whole ward. It was pretty funny!

Welp family, I love you all and will talk to you next week!

Elder Webb

New Investigators!!

Add capYesterday, without planning it, Elder Moran and I were complete opposites. White guy with black suit and grey tie. Brown guy with grey suit and black tie. I guess we must have followed the spirit when we got dressed! tion