Miracles and transfers

hola familia!

holy stinking miracles. They never stop coming. My head is exploding with amazing with how much the Lord has blessed us and continues to bless us here in motril, and above I´m oozing with gratitude for what He has helped us accomplish. I feel that I have truly been an instrument in His hands, and let me tell you, it feels great! I feel like Alma when he said "I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." This is what happened. 

Kati and Gloria came to church and they totally loved it. Kati is the young lady that is paralyzed. We had some problems because her wheelchair didn´t fit in the elevator, and Gloria her mom was saying the whole time "lets just go home, it´s easier!" But we ended up carrying her the stairs and they stayed for sacrament meeting. The Spirit was super strong and they totally felt it. I spoke about the Prodigal Son and how amazing it is that we have a Father that is watching and waiting for us to return, and willing to run out to us and help us the rest of the way. Katy and Gloria are pretty hard core catholic, but they totally liked church more than mass, and they now have some really good friends in the church. They´ll get baptized for sure down the road, I don´t doubt it. Gloria is a funny lady, she doens´t like to call us Elder, and so she asked us our names, and upon hearing mine, she insists on calling me by my name becuase she loves it! She says my name is "celstial music to her ears" haha. A really funny lady, and she works really hard for her daughter becuase Katy is totally and completely 100% dependant on her mom. To bathe, eat, sleep, you name it. And Gloria also has to work to provide the house and food and what not, it´s incredible all that she does. And she said she´s for the first time in 8 years found real happiness and peace when ever we´re with them. The Gospel blesses families!

Second thing. Toni is getting baptized tomorrow! There are a couple of reasons, one of them being because I´m being transferred. After only one transfer President is kicking me out! I can´t believe, and I´m super upstet. I¨m headed to Molina in Murcia, back to the other side of the mission. My new companion is named Elder Lucero, I¨m not sure where he´s from but I do know that he´s a really good elder. We´re going to work hard like we have been doing here in motril. Back to Toni. Last night we had a really good lesson with him and his parents and President Izquierdo. His parents stinking love us now and kept saying "man it stinks that you´re leaving webb!" and his mom as we were leaving asked us "hey are you doing anything tomorrow? Want to come over and hang out more with us?" haha it was perfect! The Spirit was with us, and they know we´re not crazy. So Toni told them that he still wants to be baptized and they are totally down with it! So tomorrow he´ll be getting baptized, in the ocean! I will have the honor of baptizing him and I can´t stinkign wait!!

So things are going really good here in Motril and I don´t want to leave, but the Lord needs me in another area. It´s been nice just being a normal missionary and not worrying about anyone but my investigators, but I´m also excited to see how I can help the other missionaries as a zone leader. I imagine that I¨ll being staying in Molina for at least three transfers, hopefully President doesn´t pull me out right when I get comfortable. I have to go pack my bags now. I stinking hate packing my bags. Too bad my mom isn´t here to do it for me...

Hey I love you family! You´re the best! Remember that like the prodigal son, our Father in Heaven is always waiting for us to return whenever we stay, even if it´s just a little bit. He´s waiting, and willing to run to us to carry us the rest of the way. We just need to accept that we´ve made a mistake, and start the journey home. I love you all! Be safe and have fun this week. I hope you enjoy Thanksgiving for reals this time! Love you all!

Elder Webb

                        We went to the beach to look for a place to baptize.

                             This is President Izquierdo and his wife

                         And this is Miguel Angel and his girlfriend Almudena

November 18, 2013

Hola familia!

 

I am still amazed, each and every week at how much the Lord blesses us and the miracles that we see! Miracle number one. Thursday was weekly planning, so we were in the piso planning the next week, and making a few calls. We saw a number of a man that the previous elders had contacted some three years ago, and decided to give it a call. Turns out that the man, David, is in Madrid and can´t meet with us. No big deal. Last night we were trying to contact some futures we had and they weren´t home, so we went to the streets to contact people when we saw a younger couple, Nano and Raquel and decided to talk to them. We sat down at a park bench and taught them lesson one and they were really great people, they accepted a book of mormon and agreed to meet with us again. Turns out that they´re friends with our investigator Toni, the one who almost got baptized! But what´s even more crazy was that Nano is a nickname, and his real name is David. and it is the same David that we had called a few days earlier. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?? Too big to be coincidence. The Lord Jesus Christ and His Spirit lead this great work, I¨m sure of it. 

 

Miracle number 2. The Lord has led us to some really prepared people. Jose Carlos, one of the young kids woke up Sunday morning with some ankle issues (he plays rugby). He originally wasn´t going to come, but after talking to him on the phone he agreed to walk with us. Well we went to his house when we get a call from him and he says "hey Elders, where are you? I¨m at the church but you´re not here!" What´s even cooler though, is that HE BROUGHT A FRIEND! They stayed for all three hours and afterwards we were talking about Jose´s baptism next week when out of nowhere his friend Ernesto says "I want to be baptized with him too. Can I be baptized the same day?" What?! Jose has been sharing the gospel with his friends and Ernesto liked church and that was enough for him, he´s getting baptized! Huge miracle! For the first time on my mission, we set a baptismal date without even extending the invitation! It was given to us! 

 

Over this transfer I´ve been focusing a lot on humility and having the Spirit. I though before that I could do this work with the skills and abilitites that I naturally posses. It took me until now to learn that that is not so, and that in fact I don´t get very far with just my talents. I need the Spirit and I need to submit myself to His will in order to become an instrument in His hands. The constant companionship of the Spirit is most important, and for the first time in my life I feel the Spirit constantly. I understand now what that phrase means, but even more, I understand what it´s like. I¨ve come to realize that a life guided by the Spirit, with His influence and presence is one of the most important things we could seek after right now. I understand now why some prophets like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young have said that the gift of the Holy Ghost is one of the greatest gifts to man. The Spirit I have been feeling these last couple of weeks has been amazing, and something that I never want to lose, for the rest of my life! 

 

Last thing, my companion and I have decided that we were friends in the preexistance. We both like the same things, we both think the same way, we both have the same desires and dreams, and the same faults to work on. We get along better with each other than with any other person in the mission. He is my best friend ha. But the deal breaker was this. Elder Peroni was born May 5th and I was born May 6th! We were up there hanging out when they called for us to come down to earth and I had to give Elder Peroni a shove infront to make sure that he would come down, that´s why he was born one day before me. Serisouly though, the mission is so much better when you have a companion that you get along with, that has the same vision, and that is honestly your friend. Love it!

 

Well I¨ve talked enough. I love you all and hope that you enjoy Thanksgiving this week. I will be here. Not eating turkey. No one celebrates that day, and I don´t have enough money nor time to buy the neccessary things. So eat a couple platefuls for me! And remember to thank Heavenly Father everyday, not just this Thursday, because He blesses us every single day! We just need to open our eyes, and sometimes try a little harder to look for it. I love you family! Have a splendid week!

 

Shane

Nov. 11, 2013

'Hola familia!

The Lord helped us end the week on a good note. I say that because near the end it looked like we weren´t going to end up very well because we had zone conference friday and we were out of the area all day, and then saturday my compy got sick and we didn´t work at all. However, the Lord heard our prayers and totally provided a miracle for us. I spent Saturday studying in the piso and calling all our investigators to remind them about church the following day. I called one family and the husband told me that he wasn´t sure they were going to come and he would talk to his wife when she got home and he told me to call the next morning to verify. Well I did that and when I called, to my surprise, the whole familiy was up and getting ready to come to church! So we went and picked em´ up and all walked together and they totally loved church! Huge miracle from the Lord because we hadn´t seen them since the previous Sunday. We had an atendance of 13 this week, four of which were investigators! Biggest number yet! 

We found two new investigators that are super awesome. Two young men named Jose and Jose(Papu). They´re both 16 years old and really smart and awesome kids. They keep ALL of their commitments, and have real desires to find the truth. Especially Jose (not Papu) becuase about four months ago his dad died and he really misses him. He totally loves the plan of salvation and was giving really smart answers like "if this is true then that means I should follow this path". they both have agreed to be baptized on the 23 of November! They´ll be the first youth here in Motril to be baptized and when they were told that, Jose shouted with joy "YES!! Finally I´m the first in something!" They´re both really great kids and the Rama (branch) needs them badly. Please pray earnestly for them so that they will recieve a witness and be able to resist Satan´s temptations!

So the zone conference was super great. We learned some new methods of planning to help us focus on our investigators and help them progress. The mission has grown a lot and all of our numbers has increased since the biggining of the year except for church attendance and baptisms. So President is making that a focus now. We´ve all learned how to find and if we can learn to teach well and get our investigators to church, then we´ll get them to the baptismal font as well, obviously. After the conference the senior couple from the office came to Granada to have a half P-day with the zone. We played baseball, soccer and had a barbeque and I stinking loved it. I kept thinking about the scene from Farris Buler when they go to the baseball game and almost get caught on TV. Classic movie. 

This week we have some exchanges with the district leader and is important that we meet with our investigators becuase in two weeks are their baptismal dates! Jose, Jose Carlos, Toni are those with a baptismal date. Miguel Angel is another investigator that we´re working a lot with. He´s become a really good friend of mine and is struggling to let the Spirit affect him and accept the baptismal invitation. Please pray for all of them! They need all the prayers they can get. 

Well familiy I love you all and wish you well! I hope you have a good week this week and look for all the ways that the Lord blesses you. Love love love! Chau

Elder Webb

Sunset while returning from Granada!

Making hime made ice cream. What a pain!

Who is more Crafty?

Hola familia!

I honestly can´t complain. A lot happened, but in the end I have no complaints. First off, for those that are wondering, Toni did NOT get baptized. About twelve hours before the baptism he called us and told us that his brother had be badly injured and needed to wait a week. We told him that we would run over and give him a blessing and he´d be fine and Toni could still be baptized the following day. Well Toni turns out that upon seeing that there was a solution to the problem, Toni opened up and told the truth. His brother was fine, it was actually his mom that was the problem. His parents have been asking him all week to wait to be baptized, wait a month or two, hoping that his desire would leave with time. They had been fighting a lot during the week and the night before the baptism they had a big fight and Toni decided that it will just be better to obey his parents wishes for now and wait a month to be baptized. Heart broken. Satan is a crafty one did you know that? But as I got thinking about why the Lord would let something like this happen, the thought came to me that perhaps the will of the Lord isn´t that Toni get baptized alone, but rather with his whole family. And now we have one more opportunity to open up the family and help them see the blessings of the Gospel. Had he gotten baptized alone, I¨m sure the family would be totally and completely against the church. So I learned from that that the Lord us much more crafty than Satan, now alls we need to do is fufill our part and do it right! No pressure.

The Lord blessed me Sunday in crazy ways to help lift my Spirits. So Motril belongs to the Granada stake, which was the first stake I started in in my mission. Well yesterday was stake conference and I got too see all my old friends and members that I was with in Jaén and it was super great.I also got to participate in the ordination of 3 people to the melchezidik priesthood. One was a convert of mine, the other two were less active members that I worked A TON with. It was so super cool to be apart of that, definietly a tender mercy of the Lord to be sending me to Motril so that I could be apart of that experience. Then He led us to a family of 5 that are super super prepared and will be getting baptized here soon. So like I said earlier, I have no complaints. The Lord knows me, and my needs, and provides for me. He blesses me in ways that even now I´m just realizing. I love being apart of this marvelous work!

I love you familiy and hope you have a marvelous week this week! The internet cafe owner is kicking us out so I need to go.

 

I love you!!

Elder Webb

 

 

 This was my holloween trick or treating pay load. I scored big!

 



This is how I usually end up studying everyday.