September 23, 2013

Hola familia!

Holy stinking week. I have not seen a week like it, and part of me hopes that I never do again haha. We started off the week with some elders in the district having problems in their compship and not getting along at all. Their problems kept escalating all week every single day. And then another elder decided to add to the mess and suddenly there were three elders involved. On top of that, Esmeralda and her baptism were causing more stress becuase every single day the status of her baptism changed. She was still living with her boyfriend and they were looking for a piso for him and didn´t find one until about 4 hours before the baptism, it was scary! We also had a misisonary activity here in the ward that we were preparing for all week which in the end came together really well. Add all that on top of our normal missionary responsabilities and training, and it was a pretty crazy week. But the Lord helped me get through it, and here we are in Monday. 

I just want to say something about my companion right now. I could not be more satisfied with Elder Adams. He´s such a stinking CHAMP! He works so hard and literally never gives up. I don´t know how he stinking does it! We´ll be conta cting in the street and getting rejected person after person and he never loses his smile , while I¨m over there grumbling under my breath. He´s so full of love and just way to stinking happy all the time. So I have made it my goal to be more like Elder Adams. To be a light. And perhaps I can have a positive effect on someone else.

So after everything, Esmeralda did end up getting baptized and it was awesome. The missionaries all sang a special musical number, Lord I would follow thee, and the Spirit was super strong. It reminded me a lot when I sang with Logan and Jake before I left. There´s a lot of missionaries in the District that are musical and it´s really nice to have music being a part of the work. Right now we´re planning an activity for Novemeber, a Restoration Musical. It´s gonna hit Broadway some day for sure. Back to Esmeralda, it was really cool to see her get baptized because the Hermanas have been working really hard with her lately, and I too even taught her for a transfer, so it was just really cool to see all of our joint effort finally pay off. I love it when the Lord provides miracles.

The activity was a success, which was a miracle as well. All four compships here in Elche prepared a short workshop for the members to help them know how to participate in the work. There´s a lot of members that are scared to talk to their friends or are unsure of how to bring up the Gospel in a normal conversation. Everyone really enjoyed it and the Bishop was really happy with how it turned out.

Now for investigators. A man named Jorge came to church with us yesterday which was super cool. We had seen him on the street about two weeks ago and taught him a lesson and then set up an appointment for saturday, but after a series of unfortunate events, we missed our appointment with him, so I called him to beg forgiveness and asked if he´d like to come to church and he was all "sure I stinking love to come to church!" And so he did. And he loved it. And I feel like he´s going to be the next baptism here in Elche. There are also a few other families that we are working with. Their progress is slow, but that´s better than nothing!

Well family, that was basically my whole week. I hope your week was fun filled and that you were able to see the Lord´s tender mercies; they´re everywhere! Try to look for one tender mercy every day and I promise you that your love for the Savior will increase and your testimonies with be strengthened. It´s allways good to be grateful for what He has given us, because He´s given us everything! I love you all! Have a good week!

con amor, 

Elder Webb

September 16

Hola familia!

Super crazy week this week. We found some new investigators, Rosi and Claudio. They´re both friends of a less active member her named Loli. Loli is really great, she was a missionary in the Canary islands, but because of some problems she´s had and has now with some other members, she doesn´t come to church. But her testimony is still really strong and she likes to help us in the work. We gave Rosi a blessing when I frirst got here to Elche, and lost contact from there. So last week we saw her again and set up a time to do a family home evening with Loli. While we were in the middle of teaching, her other friend Claudio comes walzing in and joins in on the discussion, and he totally liked it! Huge miracle from the Lord. They´re both look for how they can improve their lives and be more happy, so they´ve come to the right place. We´ll be working with them little by little over the coming weeks.

As for Gruya, we weren´t able to get with him with our Romanian member, but we were able to teach him just us. We´re still not sure if he´s down to get baptized. I was using a pamphlet in Romanian (which has the baptismal question on the back, super awesome) and basically using hand gestures to see if he understood. He then again told us that he was already baptized, but in the end said yes again. So we´re back to square one: we´re not sure what´s going on haha. We´ll bring that member over this week and finally find out what's going on in his head. If he doesn´t want to be baptized, I jsut want to know why he always liked us coming over and teaching him ya know?

So a pretty normal week here on the home front. This week however, is going to be totally crazy. I had an investigator before the hermanas came, named Esmeralda. She was an eternal investigator. We had a baptismal fecha with her, but she didn´t make it. Last week, on like Friday, a total miracle happend. She was with the hermanas and as all "I´m sick of this! I want to be happy and have the Spirit and be an eterenal family! I want to be baptized next Friday!" So tomorrow, she´s moving out of her appartment, (which is also a TOTAL miracle becuase he´s violent and possesive) and Friday she will be getting baptized. It´s incredible how the Lord works. His ways truly are mysterious. But I will always try to be prepared for whenever he wants to drop a miracle on us. 

I just want all of you to know that my companion is a super star. He´s got so much desire to work hard and to do well and to just serve. He´s such an example to me, and he helps me to have more two mite days (if you´re not sure what that is, talk to Grandpa Pier). 

Well family, I love you all so much! I hope you all have a stupendous week and that you see the Lords tender mercies this week, cuz they´re everywhere! I love you and will talk to you next week!

con amor, 

Elder Webb

September 9, 2013

Hola familia!

Holy crazy week! 38 new missionaries all got here on the same day. It was
totally and completely insane! 17 new areas in the mission opened, which
means we´ve had at least 17 miracles! Movie pun, sorry bout that. So my new
companion is Elder Adams! He´s from Sandy Utah and is a stinking CHAMP. He
wants to work hard,learn lots, and baptize! I¨m really excited to be
working with him. We´ve seen a lot of miracels already and they´re just
gonna keep on comin! Especially with all of your help and prayers!

So this week we placed a baptismal fecha with a man from Romania. The thing
is, I´m not sure if he knows what he´s agreed to or not becuase he doesn´t
speak much spanish! I can´t tell if he knows HE´S getting baptized or if he
thinks there is a baptism that he´s going to watch. So tomorrow we're
coming back with a member that speaks romanian to help get us all on the
same page. It was a really fun lesson because he didn´t understand gospel
terms in Spanish so we were using a Romanian book of mormom to look up
words like "baptism" and "sin" so that we could teach him haha. It was
probably pretty interesting to see to white boys that speak englsih trying
to teach a man in Romanian while referencing a book in Spanish. The Spirit
definitely helped us with that one.

We had a cool miracle today. We were in the mall looking for new pros pants
for Elder Webb when we got a phone call from a member we had just seen in
the bus on the way to the mall. He said that he as a friend that he was
talking to and he wants to meet the elders! So now we´re going there
tonight to visit him. Such a huge miracle, a reference just out of no
where! That never happens. This member is super awesome, he drives buses
and talks to people all the time. The only thing is, he´s inactive! We´re
workign on that though. But he gave us a reference because he was sharing
the gospel while on the bus. Let´s all follow his example and share the
gospel with someone we know this week!

So other than that, that´s pretty much it for this week. I was out of my
area for about 3 days, which kinda sucked. I always get "homesick" or like
"areasick" whenever I´m gone and in someone elses area haha. It´s nice to
be back, and we´re going to hit it hard this week and meet our goals! I´m
really excited to be with elder Adams, and even more, he likes to
excercize! Finially maybe I´ll start losing a little weight haha.

I love you family! Thank you for your prayers and love! Share the gospel
with someone you know this week, and help the Lord in His work! I love you
all and will talk to you next week!

con amor,

Elder Webb

this is a picture of me and Elder Adams. That´s my "I hate doing numbers"
face. Five companionships takes a long time to take the weekly numbers

Sept. 2nd 2013‏

Hola familia!

So there was a huge concilio in Málaga this last week. It was originally just for the District leaders, but President changed it last minute and all the Zone Leaders and the Training Sisters (ya´ll know that there are leadership positions for sisters now right?) came too and it was super awesome. The only downfall was that I was out of my area for three whole days! The mission home is about 8 hours away from here in bus, lot´s of traveling. The training was really cool, we talking about our purpose and about how far it really goes meaning we need to be looking past baptism and towards the temple as the real goal. Hermana Deere also gave us a presentation of a new program the church has released. Does everyone know what the "twelve week program" is? It´s a program the church developed to train new missionaries in twelve weeks. The purpose is to get them to the point where they could be able to train after twelve weeks. So! with that, the church has come out with another program called "adjusting to misisonary life" and it talks mainly about stress and how to deal with it and really be a happy missionary. It covers all sorts of aspects like physical, emotional, spiritual, etc. And it has advice about how to deal with stress caused in all these specific areas, it´s pretty cool. But it got me thinking; why did the church spend all this money to make this booklet and program? Becuase they want their missionaries to be happy and effective right? Well what I want to know is what did they do before? Was the work just not as stressful? Did people not struggle? Doubt it, so then why did it take the Chruch so long to come out with something like this? Are the missionaries these days all just super wimpy and can´t handle it or what? That´s what I want to know.

So it´s transfers week! Elder Morán is going to Sanlucar, on the other side of the country, and I¨m getting a new comp. And by new comp I mean that I'm training again! I´m super excited, of all the things I¨ve done so far, training has been my favorite. It´s a lot of fun, and you see a lot of miracles. There will be 37 new missionaries arriving tomorrow and wednesday, and I don´t think a single one of them is a native. They´re all from the US, and the majority from Utah haha. They call Utah "la fabrica" and the missionaries from there "fabricantes". These next two transfers are going to super awesome, which means I will most likely be in Elche for 6 months! Plenty of time to get to know the members and the area well and find those that the Lord has prepared!

That was basically it for this last week, and this week is full of tons of eating citas to say goodbye to Elder Moran, and then I go get my new companion on Wednesday and come back Friday. The mission has changed so stinking much since I got here and I¨m super excited. There´s almost 200 missionaries here right now, and more just keep coming. It´s insane! And once we all learn how to recognize the Spirit and follow it´s promptings, nothing is going to stop us from baptizing all of southern Spain! 

Anywho, I love you all and will send pictures next week! Have a wonderful, fun and Spirit filled week this week. Look for opportunities to serve and for Spiritual Experiences! I love you all! 

con amor,

elder Webb