Resolving the New Year

Hola familia!

Hey I stinking love you all. Do you know that? I want every single person that reads these words to know at least one thing: I LOVE YOU!! It´s nice to be loved, and wanted isn´t it? Love is the greatest driving force in existance. It drives us to good things, and sometimes bad things. To do funny things and sometimes stupid things. It brings the greatest amount of joy and happiness we can know, and also hurts and breaks us in ways that nothing else can. It´s interesting isn´t it? Why the heck am I even talking about love? Well it´s one of my new years resolutions. To be more loving. I have met people throughout my mission that are so filled with love, that after being with them a mere five minutes, I know they love me. And I want to be with them more because they make me feel so good, and happy. I desire to be that kind of person. I believe that part of this love comes from Christ, and our personal love for Him, our appreciation for His Atonement, and my relationship I have with Him. I feel that if I understand the Atonement and His love for me better, then I will be filled with more love and be able to transmit that same love to others. Also being filled with the Spirit I beleive plays a role too, becuase who´s going to carry that love to the person? Anyway, I feel really really loved here in Spain, amongst all the members, investigators, and missionaries, and I want to return that love and help someone else feel as warm and fuzzy inside as I have. Yay for new years resolutions!

Christmas was awesome and it was super great to see you all and to get to talk to Dad and Ryan as well! Best Christmas gift right there, for sure. Tuesday and Wednesday we hardly did any work becuase the entire world was gone to friends or families houses, or they had friends or family over and didn´t want to recieve us. So we hung out with some members and it was really great. We worked really hard Thursday up through the rest of the week and ALMOST got the standards of excellence. We only were missing 3 people at church. Man that was frustrating for me! We invited and had confirmed about 7 people to come to church yesterday. We had rides set and EVERYTHING. And the following day, not a single one came. No one! Man that was hard for me because we had worked soooo hard and did all of our part, but the people always have their agency right? I was really frustratred and kept wondering if God ever gets frustrated like this when we use our agency and break a commandment. I came to the conclusion that yes, perhaps it hurts Him and He gets frustrated, but He NEVER stops loving us and believing in us, that we have the power and strength to choose good next time. So this week, all seven are going to come to church, I believe in them! 

This Friday President and his wife are coming for a specilized training and a talent show to celebrate the new year! I will be playing a duet with a sister, and singing "Danny Boy" with some elders in my zone. Super pumped! We´re going to talk about the goals we want to set for next year, for baptisms and so forth. It´s been a really satisfying year. We saw some odd things like that meteorite that fell in Russia, a Pope retire, some scary things like more natural disasters in preparation for the second coming, and incredible miracles which are the most important the hastening of the Lords work as He sends more than 80,000 missionaries across the globe. And I´m apart of it! Super awesome. I hope the year that you´ve all had has been as equally as satisfying, and that above all you´ve felt the Spirit in abundance, your relationship with the Savior has been strengthened, and you´ve felt His love. And I hope you all know that I love you! Happy New Year to everyone! Love love love.

Elder Webb

Merry Christmas

Hola Familia,

Hey, Merry Christmas to all whose eyes graze these letters. I love you all! And I love the people of Spain! And I love missionary work. We celebrate during the Christmas season the day our Savior was born, and feeling that Spirit makes people happy, and I get to share that message (that they have a Savior, and the beauty of His Atonemet) with people every day! Así que me siento genial TODOS LOS DIAS. That´s not to say that there are sad moments, and moments of difficutly, but I¨m learning to face those trials with a better attitude so that they become easier to get through. This last week was the Week of Finding, and the goal was 800. We ended up with 847 new investigators! There were miracles happening every single day! It was the most amazing week of my mission, and ALL the missionaries in the whole mission were having similar experiences. The Lord really was with us in this one. It was a huge testimony builder for me, and I hope for all the missionaries in the mission. There is literally nothing that can stand in our way. With the Lord, everything is possible. We are the only ones that keep us from our potential and acheiving our goals. I¨m so stoked right now I can´t even contain it, nor describe it! President has been putting an emphasis on working with the Young Single Adults, like I said last week, and we found 7 new investigators through ONE YSA!! She loves missionary work and helps us so muchl, and her friends, the news that we have found, are incredible. All of them will be baptized. I have faith. 

Friday we had the ward Christmas dinner and it was also super great. We planned on having about 10 investigators, but in the end none of them came! They all chose to stay in that night, but that´s okay, there was more chicken for me. The missionaries in the ward sang a Christmas song and it actually wasn´t too bad. It´s a little difficult to perform musical numbers when no one else knows anythign about music, and even more when they ask for parts and a guitar accompaniament. But in the end it wasn´t too bad and they asked for a repeat performance the following year. I love the participation of the ward here in Molina. They all have such fire for the work and understand their role and the importance of fellowshipping. The work in Molina is progressing like crazy. We´re going to have a lot of baptisms in January, and in about July or so, the new chapel will be done finally!

So we have two mini missionaries with us for a week and they´re the best. Randy and Davis, they live here in Molina and will be with us until Friday. They´re going to be super awesome missionaries when they finally leave on their missions, way more prepared than I ever was. They already know how to teach the lessons and everything! And their testimonies are rock solid, they´re stinking examples for me! I love it. Anyone who has the opportunity to go out with the missionaries before leaving on thier mission, or to do a mini-mission, DO IT! It´s a really awesome experience. 

We´ll be hanging out with a few families tomorrow and Christmas day. The ward coordinated so that we have a family to be with during the holidays. They´re the stinking best here in Molina! I¨m loving it for sure. So mom, don´t worry about me on Christmas, I¨ll be well taken care of. Just keep Christ in your hearts and thoughts during these last days of the Christmas season. Him and His Atonement and the real reasons to celebrate. The chains of death have been broken; the horror of eternal torment and suffering out of the presence of our Heavenly Father has been erased and replaced with the hopes of glory, honor, and happiness as families in the Kingdoms of our Father, to last for all of the eternities. That´s reason to celebrate right? Love it! I love you family! I¨m excited to talk to you on Wednesday. Love you and Merry Christmas!

Elder Webb

December 16, 2013

Hola familia!

We had a stinking crazy week last week. We found some really good families to teach and we had some super good lessons with our fechas and we had zone meeting to get the zone pumped on the week of finding, and we had some intercambios in Murcia. I was in Murcia with Elder Baker, he´s new, from Chicago and he´s got a lot of fire and desire to work. I stinking love him! He doesn´t like sitting around not doing anything, he wants to be out DOING, and working and I love his attitude. We left a cita Friday night and were late for a baptismal interview that I had to do. So you know what E Baker says to me? He says "get ready to run!" I stinking love that attitude. He doesn´t want to sit still, and that´s how we need to be in the work! I hope he´s having a similar effect on the other missionaries in the zone. 

We have two investigators that I totally love. Paola and Ivan, a brother and sister. They have a fecha for the 28th, however they´re not progressing as much as we´d like. We had a really good cita last night and basically just sacked out all of their doubts and got to the bottom of why they won´t be baptized. They know everything, but they´re afraid that they won´t be able to make the changes and maintain them, or that they´ll get baptized and nothing will change. Family, please pray for them! They just need to recognize the Spirit once, to recieve the answer that everything will be better if they get baptized, and they´ll do it. They´re close, but I´m out of ideas of how to help them. The only thing we can do now is try and bring the Spirit strong enough that they realize all this. Anyway, please pray for them.

In preparation for the Week of Finding, we´ve met with a lot of members and asked for their help in the work. We´ve met with some JAS and we´ve planned to have a familiy home eavening with them and all their friends that can come. So potentially, we could find A LOT of new investigators. I love working with the JAS, and it´s actually something that President has asked us to do recently. JAS are the Young Single Adults. Jovenes Adultos Solteros. This Thursday, one of these JAS will be joining us for a week on a mini mission and it´s going to be a lot of stinking fun! Please please pray for us and the mission this week so that we can meet our goal of 800 new investigators in one week! It´s a high goal, but nothing is impossible with the Lord. Thank you familiy! I love you all! I will talk to you next week!

Elder webb

Me and my compy made pizza from scratch the other day. All those years working at the pizza place finally paid off. It was stinking tasty too! Barbeque

This is Penny. She´s a demon. And I love her.

December 9, 2013

Hola familia!

What a stinking week. Kinda weird actually. We were gone out of the area for two days for concilio and it really bugged me! 48 whole hours where nothing got done. Well we just tried to work even harder the rest of the week to make up for it. We found two news that are incredible, named Celia and Katy, from Bolivia. They´re super great people, the only problem is that they´re super busy and never have time to meet with us! The way we found them was a pure miracle. We contacted this lady on the street and she said "go visit my sister, she´s a bigger believer than me." So then a few days later we knocked her door and Celia answered and told us that then wasn´t a good time becuase the whole family was over, but if we came back Sunday she´d be able to listen. Well we went back and taught her and it turns out that she works on call in the hospital in Murcia and is always getting called in so it was pure miracle that we got in with her! Her daughter is Katy and they´re both super great. They both have desires to find God and be happy. 

Getting people to church is really hard, did you know that? We taught the mother of a member that lives in valencia, (the girl was down here visiting, and turns out is a friend of elder Lucero, he lives in valencia, cool huh?) and it was a really good lesson. After giving the first vision and talking about the prophet and apostles she suddenly was very interested and said by herself without having to be invited that she would come to church the next day. However, after we left, she backed out of her commitment, saying that it was too early. But what´s worse is that she got up and drove her daughter and two other investigators to church in murcia, then returned three hours later to pick them up. That one hurt a bit because she was really set on coming to church, and I knew that if she came she´d feel the Spirit becuase it was the Primary Prgoram! It´s alright though, we´ve got another week to work with her. Speaking of primary program, I played the piano for them and let me tell ya, it was a stinking success. I mean, the performance of 2012 with sister Becki Hone was a bit of a bigger success, but we can´t really make comparisions. There were a lot of differences, the venue, the lineup, the audience, heck even the language! But the Spirit was there, just as strong. Random thought: it´s a neat experience when the Spirit talks to you in Spanish. 

This week we will be having zone meeting in Murcia and will be planning our zone chirstmas pday. I want to have a white elephant and cook a PHAT American breakfast. Others want to just play football, and some don´t want to do anything at all! I´ll convince them of the food idea. Who doesn´t love breakfast? I´m really excited for this week becuase I¨ve got some goals that are really burning in my heart. I want to just get out there and DO what I said I was going to do. Last week we were a little lazy and didn´t work as hard as we could have. Well now I feel bad for doing a have baked job and I´m going to go out this week and GIVE ALL, make every day a 2 Mite day. That´s the invitation I make to you all. A lot of the time, it´s our habit and perhaps even nature to do the bare minimum, or to give only what´s left over, no? Well, like the poor widow who gave EVERYTHING, we need to have the same mentality. In the end what´s important isn´t if you merely did what you were asked, but rather HOW you did it, and WHY. This is going to be a two mite WEEK. In the words of Ben Gibbard (with some slight alterations.) "I´ve got a hunger twisting my [soul] into knots... this is the sound of [a Spirit hungry missionary!]" That´s the theme song for the week. "the Sound of Settling" by Deathcab. Listen to it, and find the same hunger to do EXTRODINARY and give EVERYTHING this week! 

Love you all so so much! Stay warm and be happy! I¨ll talk to you next week!

Elder Webb

                           Name tags make great christmas tree ornaments

Murcia de Seguros

Hola familia!

Toni got confirmed on Sunday! I´m so stinking happy for him. His parents have fechas to be baptized! And in like a years time, he´ll be a missionary. The Lord´s work is amazing! Uniting families for eternity! 

Christmas time is here. You can smell it in the air. And in Spain, it smells like Churrizo. Man I love churrizo. There´s decorations everywhere and in the piso we listen to christmas music all day. I love christmas time and I´m doing my best to share the christmas spirit!

Holy stinking cow Molina is great. The Lord has blessed me with an area just as great as Motril. It is a ward of about 55 members and they participate a lot in the work. Kinda wierd because I had gotten used to doing everything ourselves becuase there straight up weren´t members to work with in Motril, but it´s definitely a welcome change. My companion is Elder Lucero, and he´s from Bolivia but doesn´t look like it. He´s a really good missionary, he likes to work hard and he teaches really well. He´s been here in Molina for 2 transfers already. 

On Wednesday when I got here, we found a new investigator named Raul and he came to church with us. We had 4 investigators in church and it all went really well. The members help out a lot by arranging rides for the investigators and such and it really helps a lot becuase the chapel is in Murcia, about 30 minutes away in bus. Raul is from Colombia and he´s golden. When we explained the restauration he got really excited about the Book of Mormon and said "so that mean that if this is true, then your prophet is true as well right?" So awesome! We´re going to work realyl hard with him to help him and his familiy get baptized.

Monday and Tuesday we had concilio, where all the Zone Leaders and the Traveling Training Sisters meet with President at the mission home to talk about the status of the mission and to set goals for the coming month. In December we´re going to do another "Finding Week" like we did back in August and we talked about how many news we want to find. I was, and still am, totally pumped on all the things that had happened to me in Motril, and my faith was through the roof. Everyone was suggesting a goal of about 600 news in one week, and I felt that it was just too low because the Lord can do anything right? So I suggested 1000 new investigators in one week. It went dead silent and some missionaries looked at me like I was crazy haha but I had good reason. The Lord guided me to find 26 new investigators in an area where there hadn´t been missionaries for over a year, and we are 229 missionaries in the mission, we all have at least 6 months, so there is no reason not to set a goal like that! I had most convinced haha, but there were some others that felt a more realistic goal would do. So we all got on our knees and prayed with President for what we should do, and we decided on 800, and we´ll baptize 100 pèople in January and Feburary. Super exciting! We´re going to have to work hard, but it´s totally possible. The Lord can do anything that He wants. And if there´s anything in this world that He wants to do, it´s help the church grow in Spain. So we´re totally going to do it! 

I live in a four man piso and it´s a lot of fun. The other elders, Elders Allsop and Butler and stinking awesome and really good elders. I´m really stinking excited to be working here in Molina and for the new adventure that the Lord has placed in front of me. These last couple of weeks, I´ve felt something change inside of me. Nothing else matters to me except doing the work and helping these people progress. I am willing to sacrifice anything and to do anything to get the job done. I didn´t feel like this before, but it´s also another welcome change.

I love you family! I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week! Seek to keep the spirit of Christmas alive in every moment and seek to do a little good. do something out of the ordinary. I love you and will talk to you next week! 

Elder Webb

Me and Elder Lucero in front of President Deeres Christmas Tree