I will not be still!!

Hola familia!

First off, I love the Lord. I was doing some reflecting on the last three transfers I´ve had here in Molina de Segura. Twelve short weeks, and what have I accomplished? Who have I helped? To where have I progressed? Who have I become? As I was reflecting I couldn´t shake the feeling that the Lord is way too merciful to me, and that His love for me is real. He believes in me, wants me to succeed and has been helping me every step of the way. That thought filled me with such immense joy, like Nephi says "even to the consuming of my flesh," (2 Ne 4:21). I love the Lord. I will go as long as He wants, to where ever He wants, whenever He wants, with whomever He wants, and do what ever it is that He wants. I will be His faithful servant in all times and all places. Because He believes in me, I will go willingly. He has "restored my soul," and walks with me "beside the still waters," (Psalm 23). I love the Lord. I´ll put my future in His hands knowing He´s made me all that I am. His power and His love are real, and they move me until I will not be still. I love the Lord. 

So He has called me to another land, family. The land of Jerez de la Frontera. My new companion will be Elder Curtis. I¨ll be staying as a zone leader, and apparently that zone needs a lot of help. President was telling me on the phone that it´s lost a lot of fire in recent months, and he wants me to go there and help them get it back. Well this should be fun. I have mixed feelings because I love Molina. We´ve had a lot of success here, and I love the members and the ward, and I love the car. But as I said before, I have given Him my life, and I will go where He wants. I actually am excited, I´ve never been on that side of the mission so that´ll be a nice change up. I will forever remember Molina as the land where I learned what it means to be consecrated unto the Lord. 

So all the work we were doing in our pueblos will now be taken over by Elder Patterson and His companion. They´ll do a good job though, I don´t doubt. They have a really good ward here to support them. My new companion is from Utah, we were in the same zone back when I was in Elche. He´s a really good missionary; likes to work hard which is good. The San Fernando zone, (my new zone) is the biggest in the mission, but I´ll do the very best that I can for Him. Not much else matters to me now than doing His will and helping Him with whatever it is that He needs. 

Marisol and her family were really sad to hear the news. They had us over to eat yesterday and fed us Albondigas and it was soooo delicious. I recommend that dish to anyone that wants to try south american food. She got a calling last sunday, she´s the secretary in the relief society. Ballin! She´s so awesome, and I gave her son Josue the priesthood and he was passing the sacrament. This family is going to go to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity, and they can be together and be happy, forever. I believe that that is true with all of my heart. I love the Lord. 

So I¨m feeling a mix of emotions right now, but above all I¨m feeling the Spirit. I¨m the happiest I´ve ever been in my life, I feel true purpose to my life as a missionary, I feel the Spirit so strongly, and my Saviors love like never before. This Church is true. This way of life is the best way of life. I am grateful that I was able to share part of this journey with Marisol and her family, and to see their lives filled with the light of the Gospel. It was one of His tender mercies to allow me to be apart of that, and for that I say this: I love the Lord.

This was really long. Sorry. I love you family! I hope you have a fabulous week! I´ll get to Jerez on wednesday night. I will be travelling for 12 hours on Wednesday. Lots of fun. So while I¨m there adjusting and getting to know members, I hope you´re all enjoying your week and strengthening your relationship with the Savior! Get ready for General Conference, it´s not every day that the Lord´s Propeht and Apostles talk to the whole world. I love you all so much! ¡Hasta la próxima! Luvz

Elder Webb

This is Archena. Real pretty city. Does anyone notice that I´m losing my hair? Thank you Dad.

Blessings flowing out my ears

Hola familia!

Talk about a crazy nuts week. After last week, I was determined to change things, to improve our area and to find new people to teach! With the Lord´s help, we accomplished our goals and saw a ton of miracles. Why is the Lord so good to us? All we are is selfish and we make a lot of mistakes. But I think there in lies the beauty of God´s love. He doesn´t dwell on our faults or mistakes, but He sees us as how we can become. Despite all of my bad attributes, I know that at least I have one, and that is that I try hard. And I think the Lord saw that in us this week and decided to give us another chance. So here´s what happened this week.

Thursday the AP´s came and did splits with us, so we had two companionships in our area which helped out big time. Friday we had a multi zone conference with President Deere and Hermana Deere and it was aaawwesome. President is so spiritual, so inlightened. I love being around him. Every time we get with him, I always leave feeling pumped up, supercharged, and ready to tackle anything in my way. I suppose that it feels nice to be in the precense of anyone that is more spiritual than you. We talke a lot about obedience and the areas that we are going to improve, Hermana Deere talked about faith and the power of it, and the AP´s spoke about teaching by the Spirit and how to do it. Overall it was a really great conference and I felt the Spirit big time. Not necessarily because of the messages we were recieving, but rather the way in which they were being given. President Deere loves, appreciates, and respects his calling that he has as Mission President, and he has a lot of humility towards the subject. I desire to have that sort of humilty. I see him and I know that he depends entirely and 100% on the Lord and that their relationship is something real. I desire to have more humilty towards my sacred calling as a missionary, towards the work in general, and just be more humble in an all encompassing sense. Okay, moving on.

The really cool miracle happened on Sunday. So another ward in Murcia had ward conference yesterday and the noremal schedule got all mixed up. So our time got bumped back to 5:00 pm, which means we had all morning to go out and proselyte. We went to Abarán, where Marisol and one other member family live. The other members, Melissa and Noelia (I´ve talked about them before, they are the family that introduced us to Marisol), and Alejandra, the daughter of Marisol all went out with us and were literally taking us door to door to all of their friends houses! Now that´s member missionary work! But that´s not even the coolest part. As we left a friends house we saw two women outside cleaning. I saw them and knew we should talk to them, but we moved on to another house. Well that person wasn´t there, and I still had that feeling that we should talk to them, so I ran back and said hello. They invited us into their apartment, and a man was seated inside. He said that as he watched us walk in he could see a light around all of our faces and that he knew that God had sent us to his house for a special reason. We got talking about coming closer to God and making improvments and changes and the restoration, and they loved it all. They agreed to be baptized next month. What?! But that´s not all, the man took us upstairs and introduced us to his friends who are also in a lot of need right now, and they also loved what we had to share. WHAT?! Talk about blessings. Two families in the space of 30 minutes. Three baptismal fechas. I have been on cloud 9 ever since. We´re going back tomorrow to teach them again. Work causes scheduling dificulties, but they´re going to come to church this week, and I have lots of faith that they will be baptized! The Lord is way to good to us. Their names are Santo, Mari, and Maura. They are set for the 26th of April. Please remember them in your prayers!

So that was it for the week. Lot´s of cool experiences and blessings from the Lord. He took a couple weeks to humble us and prepare us to be able to teach these awesome families. Serisouly though, I had done a lot of self reflecting in the last couple of weeks. Thinking about the real reasons I do this. Is it becuase I want to be able to put on paper that I accomplished x thing or is it becuase I really truly want this person to come closer to Christ and have more faith in Him? After getting my mind in the right place, I feel more prepared to be able to help these people. Please just keep them in your prayers, that they might be able to feel the Spirit and recognize it, and that their faith might increase. 

Last thing, from my studies I learned this week. The gift of the Holy Ghost is really important, do you know that? I know I´ve talked about this before, it´s just that every time I study this topic, my desire and motivation to always have the Spirit goes up, so I study it every once and a while. This is what I learned. 3 Ne 19:1-9. The people just get done being in the presence of the Savior and they´re all super excited. They start praying and ask for the deepest desire of their hearts, and in this moment my thoughts would naturally be that they desire that He come back, but that is not what they do. They desire that they have the Girt of the Holy Ghost given to them! Right after being in the Saviors presence! Que fuerte! Maybe they understand that His visits are only temporary, and that if they want to feel as good as they do with Him all the time, then they need the HG. In PMG it talks about the blessings and benefit of having the Holy Ghost. There´s a lot of doctorine. I invite you all to go read it. The HG is the stinking best, and I will always do my best to live worthily of it. 

Okay I love you all family! I hope you´ve enjoy the letter this week. I hope you all have a stellar week this week and that you feel the Spirit in lots of ways! Love love love! 

Elder Webb

Frustrations and miracles

Hola familia!

I¨m going to try this whole "subject" thing with my emails for a couple of weeks. My only fear is that I won´t be able to come up with any names. So let me explain why this email carries that title. This week was tough. As far as the numbers go, it was literally one of the worst weeks of my mission. But! The Lord was still incredibply gracious and blessed us with many miracles. Gustavo, the husband of Marisol, the recent convert of about two weeks, is actually progressing! We talked about the book of mormon with them on Saturday and he said for the first time that he was going to read it! And he came to church yesterday, after passionatley saying about four weeks ago that he would never return. The Lord is incredibly good to us. Now this part member family can become a full member family! We´re going to focus on Gustavo and help him find the desire to be baptized. 

It was only frustrating because it didn´t go the way I wanted it to go. We didn´t get the kind of numbers that I wanted. Pretty selfish right? And my companion and I felt as if we had sort of lost the vision and drive we had at the beginning of our companionship. So we sat down, evaluated, set some goals, and recomitted. I´m so happy for repentance. We weren´t even doing anything wrong, it´s just that repentance covers us in more ways than one. Chist´s Atonement not only takes away the bad from me, it makes up for the rest that I lack. For instance, I want to be performing at "x" level, but only reach "x", which is much lower than where I would like to be. Through repentance, Christ and His Atonement, that gap is filled, and He takes care of the rest. Elder Patterson and I both felt really good at finding the same old fire and excited to get another chance this week. I love Heavenly Father for loving me enough to give me a second chance. 

Lastly I just want to share something from my studies that I learned this week. Like you know I´ve been studying the love of God, and this week that led me to the topic of mercy. Holy shoot mercy is a wonderful thing! How comforting to know that Heavenly Father WANTS to forgive us, and that He´s not a stingy pharasee that seeks only for the fufillment of the law. As I studied I realized that the greatest kind of mercy is made manifest in repentance, and I  read this scripture Alma 34:15 " 15 And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance." I love the imagry in there, that mecy overpowers justice (His love is more powerful than anything), that His mercy brings about the way inwhich we might change and improve and become clean and free from sin, and in the next verse is says that His mercy encircles us in the arms of saftey. I love that! I am grateful for God and His mercy, for understanding my weaknesses and not condemning me for not being perfect. I¨m striving to be more merciful like our Savior, and to show that kind of love to others. I make the same invitation to you all! 

Family I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week and that you are merciful to others! Remember the words of the Savior "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Luvs!

Elder Webb

March 10, 2014

Hola familia!

What a week, well really what a crazy five days becuase I wrote you last
wednesday! First off, I forgot to send photos of the baptism of Marisol, so
I will propmtly attatch those. Secondly, Zone Training went awesome. We
talked about putting everything on the altar of sacrafice and showing the
Lord our willingness by talking with everyone. We also talked about how we
can help our investigators to come to church by teaching them better and by
keeping up with our commitments that we give them. We ended by getting
everyone in a big circle and talked about obedience and some problems that
President has been seeing in the mission, and how we´re going to fix them
in our zone. It was actually really good and I felt the Spirit strongly.
President has been talking a lot about obedience lately and wants to see a
bigger change and a stronger commitment from all of us. That just makes me
excited because I know what kind of things are possible when we are
obedient.

Some exciting news, the church got broken into Thrusday night! They stole
the 42 in. flat screen TV from the relief society room. I know, I was
really disappointed too. It had a nice touch amongst all the flowers and
embroidories. The thieves also broke into the bishops office thinking there
would be something valuable but alas there was nothing. So that was pretty
exciting. The missionaries felt like Sherlock Holmes in the morning as they
searched the chapel for clues and more evidence.

We also had an elders quorum activity at the bishop´s house. Had a big fat
barbeque and a basketball tournament. We dominated of course, but not
because we´re good or anything. Only becuase the members have no idea what
they´re doing when it comes to basketball. We had about four investigators
lined up to come to the BBQ but in the end none of them came, but two did
come to church! One of them, Leonardo, is set to be baptized this Saturday
but is feeling a little nervous. We´re going to talk to him and see if he´d
like to wait till next week to enter the waters of baptism. Please remember
him in your prayers and pray that he has courage.

The car is breaking down too :( we need to take it to the shop to have it
looked at. Some strange grinding coming from the wheels and the breaks are
squeaking. In about 10,000 km it will be replaced. I also learned that it´s
going to be taken away in May. Which means we need to get baptizing and
quick! It´s alright though, I´m in tight with the office elders, so maybe
if we play our cards right, they´ll feel sorry enough for us and buy us
another one when the time comes. We´ll see though.

One real quick line about my studies about the love of God. I learned that
small and simple acts of love and kindness are often the most appreciated.
Alma 37:6 "...I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great
things brought to pass." This is true in a lot of senses, especially when
we are trying to show our love for others. God does this each and every day
and a lot of the time we don´t even notice it. I learned in an interesting
experience the power of the words "thank you", "I´m sorry", and "I love
you". Those are small and simple things that are widely missing in the
world today. So that´s my invitation today. Pick a different person each
day and tell them that you love them. I promise that they´ll feel better,
you´ll feel better, and your world will just be so much more happy. Cheesy
but true.

Hey I love you all so much and I hope that you have a fabulous week this
week! Be careful because there´s a thief out there and he´s got sticky
fingers, so hide ya kids, and hide ya wifes, and hide ya flat screen tv´s
cuz he´s swipen er´body up in hur. The Church is true family! Loves!

Elder Webb

                                       Marisol and family Baptism

                             Break In!!

                                              Elder's Quoum Social

March 5, 2014

Hola familia!

Welp, it´s been a pretty stinking awesome month. Marisol and her children did get baptized and the baptismal service was awesome. I had the privilage of baptising Marisol and my companion baptized her daughter Alejandra, and a member Vladimir (I love this man, he´s a saint in all definittions of the word) got to baptize the son Josue. Super cool experience. The husband Gustavo unfortunately did not get baptized, but we are confidnet that down the road, not to long from now, he will be baptized. Marisol, in the baptismal service got up and bore her testimony and was in tears, telling us how happy she is, and how good she feels becuase she is free from her past mistakes and that her children have a good and positive enviroment to grow up in. In one years time they´ll be going to the temple for sure. And Josue has already said that he wants to be a missionary. Holy. Cow. You´ve heard me say it before, but let me just say it again, missionary work is the best!!

So Monday we traveled to Málaga to have the concilio with President Deere and Hermana Deere. We talked about how to be leaders in the church, the customs and things we do, and then we talked a lot about obedience. We studied that all together for the whole month of Feburary and it was really good. I learned a lot about obedience and the whole expereince has given me a new perspective of obedience, a new drive to be obedient, and a deeper understanding of the importance of it and the power that comes with it. I enjoyed it so much that I have decided that for the rest of my mission I will study one subject a month. The month of march I will study the love of God/ charity. I invite you all to do something similar with your study habits. Pick a subject, or an attribute that you would like to aquire, and then study the thing for a whole month! It´s incredible the ways that your understanding will deepen and your mind be illuminated. Scripture study is cool! 

This Firday is Zone Conference where we teach the zone what President taught us. We´re going to talk about the key indicators and the one that in our zone we need help with, and that is having investigators in church. "investigators that come to church get baptized," as said by the famous Elder Bird, (no relation to Larry Bird). In our zone we know how to find, and we teach plenty of lessons, but it seems like we can´t get our investigators to church as much as we would like. So, we will be teaching this principle on Friday. And we´ve brought a surpirse for the zone. We asked a favor from the hermanas on the US military base in Sevilla to bring us enough root beer for the whole zone to make rootbeer floats. So, 22 cans of rootbeer made the long haul of over 400 kilometers in my suitcase with piles of books of mormon stacked on top of them, and I am happy to report that there were no problems. No one goes to as much effort to make their zone happy as we do, that´s for sure.

 Mom asked me if I ever have bad or hard days becuase every time I write, I always right such up beat letters. And the answer might come to a shock, but of course I have bad days! There are days where all of our plans fail us, where we don´t meet our goals, where we lose investigators, where people yell and spit on me in the street, days where I arrive home and all I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep for the next week. But I never right about that because it doesn´t matter. It´s normal to have bad days, but when I´m writing, I´m trying to remember all of the blessings I received that week and all of the miracles I saw, so naturally the letters come out super happy. It´s a technique that President Deere has talked about, and countless other church leaders: trying to find the good in every situation, and being grateful for the blessings of each day. It´s what helps keep us humble, and it helps keep me excited. I try my hardest to always be excited and have a good attitude, and I do it by trying my hardest to remember. Remember His Atonement, His love, and the blessings He has already given me, and the promise of the blessings to come. Remember. It´s a difficult thing to do, especially when the world tries so hard to make us forget, but that´s why the Lord has given us the Holy Ghost, it´s one of His jobs. The Gift of the Holy Ghost really is the most precious gift that God can give us in this life. Let us all learn to appreciate that gift, and seek for it´s guidance and help. 

I love you all so much! This month we´re going to work hard with a man named Leo (he´s come to church once) and a family named Milton, Ruth, and Chris. They´re all super prepared and we´re going to work hard this month to help them get baptized. I hope you all have a fabulous week, and if it´s going a little slow, just think of this: it´s already Wednesday! Luvs!

Shane

this is me and my companion at the mission home. 

                        and this is my companion learning to drive. nuff said.