Heeeaaat

Hola familia!

My goodness it is warm here in Jerez. It´s only 30 degrees celcius, but it feels much warmer than that. That´s okay, more people will be coming out and we´ll have the opportunity to talk to more. So it was quite the week we had this week. I said from the beggining that our goal was to improve member relations and start working better with them in order to find better prepared people. Let me update you on our efforts. 

Monday we taught a less active man and the lesson was amazing. He has a strong testimony, but is considered less active because he lives with his girlfriend (also a member) and they´re having troubles getting married. He wants so bad to be a good example to his friends and some recently baptized members that look up to him a lot, it´s just he, like all of us, has his weaknesses and succumbs to them every once and a while. But his disire is so big. And he committed to try harder and help the recent converts come to church and be strong too. The Spirit was really strong.

Tuesday we met with a member family and talked about some 39 references that they gave us to work with. This family is awesome and they help us a lot in the work. After talking we nailed it down to about 10 names of people that have potential to be baptized. We´re going over tonight to contact some of them, so please pray for us that we´ll have the Spirit with us and be able to touch these peoples hearts.

Wednesday we ate with a longtime member that had been a mission president´s councelor for about ten years and loves feeding the missionaries. He made some isrealie dish because apparently he is part Hebrew. All I know is that his food was dang tasty and we´re going back on Wednesday. Blessing from the Lord.

Thursday and Friday I was in Malaga for residency items. It was a quick trip, lots of travel, but it was nice to seem some other missionaries and old companions. I sent a note off to Marisol and her family back in Molina, they are doing great by the way. 

Saturday and Sunday we met with some more less actives and tried helping them feel the Spirit in their home. We talked about what a home with the Spirit in it is like and what we can do to invite the Spirit into the home. They didn´t end up coming to church, but "poco a poco" as they say here. 

Thursday, sadly, there was also a funeral. Our stake president´s daughter passed away tuesday night. His name is President Morales. Please remember him in your prayes because he is a great man and trying hard to help the members and non members here in Cadiz. My companion went to that (I was in Malaga) and helped some members while there. On Sunday there was yet another noteable difference in the members attitudes. We´re still far from our goal, but things are improving, and our area is slowly picking up. Everything is gradulaly growing and things are getting better. The Lord is definitely blessing us a lot.

This week is consecration week, and I couldn´t be more excited. All of us missionaries, all at the same time, collectively try our very best to obey, work hard, and give all to the Lord. It feels cool to be a missionary in the Spain Malaga Mission. We want to do this well, and to do them right. I am confident that the Lord will bless us a lot for our efforts and hard work this week. And hopefully it will have a positive effect on more than one missionary, and that we can all have spiritual experiences this week. In my studies I have come to the realization that 1. I need to love the missionaries more and show it better, and 2. I need to not judge people nor make judgemental comments! Those are some problems that I´m going to be attempting to fix in these next coming weeks. God doesn´t expect immediate perfection, but He does expect immediate progress. So who am I to judge others attempts at overcoming their weaknesses? Anyway, the answer is in the scriptures, and in rightous application. 

So there ya have it. I see tiny little tender mercies everyday and there isn´t enough time to list each one. The Lord is with us, His hand guides this work, I know it. I´ve felt it, and I am an instrument in His hands. There´s nothing better than being on the Lord´s errand! Nothing better than being a missionary. I just gotta drop that line each time, just in case someone somewhere still hasn´t figured that part out. The heat is coming folks, which means my shirts are going to be turning an even more shade of off-white. But that´s a good thing, a physical sign of hard work. I hope ya´ll have a a great week this week and that you all join us in our consecration week! Be perfect in your studies, prayers, church attendace, and fufilling your callings! I love you all so much! Have a great week! Loves.

Elder Webb

Things are looking up

Hola familia!

Twas a looong week in Jerez for the elders Webb and Curtis. It was Semana Santa which celebrates Christ´s last week in mortality. They celebrate it by having processions where they carry huge representations of the different acts of Christ, with life size models and everything. Each one weighs a ton, litterally some weigh close to 2000 pounds. They carry it on their backs and walk all through the city with a band playing and marching behind them. It´s quite the sight to see and a little odd, but for the Catholics it´s something almost sacred to them. The music was actually pretty cool, I would take any chance I could get to steal a moment and listen. The writing is very European and old, they all had just a really cool sound to them. But Semana Santa made work tough. There wasn´t a single soul at home between 5 and 9 at night, which are our most prime pros times. And the people that are in the street and the people going to the processions! So it made for a long week, but the Lord blessed us regardless.

He helped us find two new investigators, one of them is a single mom and is scared for her kids, especially her son who is startin to head down a bad path. The other woman has had contact with the missionaries and was very close to getting baptized, but then had a bad experience with another member and decided to back out. They both are intersted and we feel they have lots of potential. 

I went to Chiclana to do exchanges and have a baptismal interview on Wednesday. I was with Elder Dean, he´s from the Alpine area and he´s a fine elder. He´s been out for about 4 months now and is doing great. He´s got a lot of desire to do well and serve the Lord. I love seeing elders with that desire. He´s all business, and isn´t about to waist any time. That´s not to say that the mission is boring, it´s actually meant to be fun. The Lord has designed it to be fun, and I¨m having some of the most fun I¨ve ever had in my life. A missionary will love his mission and have fun when he does it the Lords way. DyC 4. And that same principle applies to life as well.

Like I explained in my last email, our goal right now has been to improve the relations with the members, so we took advantage of that seeing that it was Semana Santa and almost everyone had the whole week off of work. We talked with members and visted a few, and on Sunday there was a huge change in the members attitude. They were approaching us and talking to us, asking us when were would come over, and there was an apparent improvment in our relation. As I sat in sacrament meeting I felt the Spirit confirm to me that we were doing well, and that we are laying the foundation of a good work that will last here, so that was comforting. It´s always nice to get those confirmations and to know that what you´re doing is the right thing, and you´re doing it well. 

There was also a baptism here. The daughter of a part member family decided to be baptized. What´s more is that the parents haven´t come to church in 19 years and they came for the first time. It was incredible, and the Spirit was very strong at the baptism, adn the parents were very happy to be there, to see old friends, and to feel the Spirit once again. Baptisms are amazing, and rescuing less active members is just as amazing as a baptism, and we had both at the same time. So despite a long hard week, the Lord blessed us a lot here in Jerez. 

Easter was surprisingly low key, I think the bishop might have forgotten, because none of the talks in Church were even about Christ. One lady talked for 40 minutes and was cracking jokes and crying all at the same time. I felt like it was a stand up comedy routine. Probably not the most appropriate talk in the history of the church, but there were moments when the Spirit was present. Me and my companion feasted on hamburgers for easter dinner. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was the best, most American hamburger that was ever made in Spain. Mission accomplished. 

So this week we have a lot of appointments with the members, and we´re going to try and do two exchanges with some elders. It´s gonna be a busy week these week, but that´s okay. We have a lot less time in our area here because we´ve got to always be with the missionaries in the zone. There´s a lot that need help. But something my companion always says that I like is "success in the zone is the same as if it were in our area. We´re on the same team here." So that´s a new attitude and perspective that I´ve taken up. Things are steadily improving. We don´t have many investigators that progress, but that´s okay. We the work we´re doing with the members right now, that is going to change and the Lord is going to bless us. Sorry this email was so long, I guess I had a lot on my mind. I love you all very much! I hope you have a good week and that you seek out spiritual experiences. Cuz after all, from the words of Christ Himself, "It is the Spirit that quickinith; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." So strive for them spirit expieriences! Luvs to everyone!

Elder Webb

here´s the pictures of Semana Santa. Those KKK looking guys marched around everywhere, leading the big float with Jesus on it, and the band behind. It was quite the week.

you can kinda see the crucified Jesus and his decked out mother Mary in the back ground in this one.

Spring Cleaning?

Hola familia!

How is life in the States? Life in the mission is going fantastically as usual. This week was a tough one. We went to Málaga for concilio with President and Hermana Deere and then had Zone Meeting on Friday, where we teach the zoe what President taught us. We also touched on the subject of consectration and becoming a missionary, making the switch and giving all to the Lord, realyl putting your eye single to His glory, forgetting yourself and going to work. That is something that we here in the mission need to grasp better, become more dedicated and do it for the right reasons. We shared a talk given by Elder Tad R. Callister about what a consecrated missionary is and how to become it. The whole thing went okay, some missionaries have simply decided that they don´t want to change nor improve and are going to stay where they are. But that´s okay, we´re not giving up on them!

So my area is different from previous areas I´ve had. Ours is the very wealthy and it´s a bit more difficult to find new investigators. Our goal right now is the establish a better relationship with the members to help further the work down the line. Previous missionaries here didn´t quite have their hearts in the work, so we´re doing a little bit of spring cleaning. It´s going to be a tough few first weeks, but by the end of the transfer we´ll have made a difference. Elder Teixeira, the area President of the Europe area, says that one companionship can make a significant difference in their area in 6 weeks, so that is our goal. My companion Elder Curtis is a stud. He´s from Salt Lake and went to East high. He played football at Dixie for a little and wants to go to the U, but I¨ve been slowly convincing him that BYU is a better choice. He is trying really hard to be a consecrated missionary, so it´s nice to have someone with the same desires as me. The Lord has really blessed me my whole mission with my companions. We´re going to do work here in our area and in the zone.

We are working with a few people however. One family, the parents are Toti and Isabell. They´re from Bolivia and they´re a lot of fun. They like listening to the missionaries a lot and we´re right now trying to help them recognize the Spirit. Toti´s brother is a member, and a strong one at that, it´s just that when it comes to sharing the gospel, he gets a little timid. But that´s okay, we´ve all been there. We´re working with Toti to help him feel the desire to be baptized to then take his family to the temple. The other people are two youth aged kids, Haider and Jizzel, also from Boliva and cousins of Toti. Their parents don´t really want anything, so right now we´re just working with them to try and get permission for them to be baptized. Other than them we´re working with the members to find news. It´s a slow process, but by the end we´ll have lots of work.

On Wednesday President Deere will be coming to San Fernando for a specilized training for our zone. He´s going to talk about how we can better work with the members in the work and have more unity. That is the focus of the Stake President here, so that´s what we´re going to do. 

Semana Santa (Holy Week) starts this week, celebrating Christs final week of his mortal ministry. That´s when everyone goes out to the street and carries the ginormous parade-float like things on their backs all throughout the city, and they play music (which I actually enjoy a lot.. really catholic and european style writing, it´s great) and march all around. I´ll be sure to take lots of pictures and send them to you. Sorry I haven´t been sending many pictures, it´s becuase I haven´t been taking any! But I´ll send lots next week.

So that´s life right now. We have a bigger focus on the zone than our own area, we really need to step it up and get our minds into the work, so we´re doing our best to inspire the missionaries. And we´re trying to improve relationships with members and work better with them. Life is greatas always. I hope you all have a wonderful week and seek to feel the Spirit! And remember, if it´s difficult to recognize, purity is the key. Sanctify ourselves! DyC 43:15-16. There´s nothing better than being a servant for the Lord. The greatest feeling is feeling the Spirit as He guides you in your labors as you litterally become an instrument in the Lord´s hands. I love the Lord and am grateful for his love and mercy and willingness to forgive. Love you all so much! Have a good Holy Week and try your best to remember Him and all that He´s done for us! Luvs.

Elder Webb

me and my compy writing the families after playing ultimate frisbee with the zone

Chaaange!!

Hola familia!

Fantastic week last week. We saw some miracles, my new companion is awesome, and we had a really good concilio on Monday and Tuesday. Jerez is a really cool place, it´s pretty dang spanish though. This region of Cadiz is one of the oldest regions in Europe. It´s really pretty, and there are wineries on literally every single corner. It´s the european capital of wine. There´s a TON of tourists here from all over the place, especially the cold places. The architecture is still very old spanish, even in the new buildings, so that gives Jerez a pretty unique feel. Every area I´ve been in has been modernized, and now holds a modern spanish feel, but not Jerez. And it´s very green; lots of parks and grass everywhere. It´s pretty unusual for Spain, so I´m enjoying that a lot. I love the smell of freshly cut grass, and I love mowing the lawn. Maybe for one of these P-days I´ll go see if someone will let me cut their grass. 

So check this out. I got to Jerez a little nervous about everything, about the area, my companion, etc. As I was talking to elder Curtis, I realized that we have the same mentality right now. We both know our weaknesses, but we´re not going to let them hold us back. We both know what we want and are willing to do what ever in order to achieve it. And we both want the same thing. He´s a lot of stinking fun, and tactfully blunt. I´m loving it so far in Jerez. 

The area of Jerez is an example area for President, he´s been showing the entire mission the work that´s been going on here, and what can be accomplished if we actually work with members. I¨m grateful that President has given me the opportunity to be apart of the work that´s going on here, and to witness the miracles. 

Things are feeling good here in the new area, and the new zone. We need to help the zone get fired up and excited about working, so that´s going to be the focus of zone training this Friday. It´s the biggest zone in the mission, and there are a lot of good missionaries here, lots with desire to do well, they just aren´t sure how to do it. We´ll help em out with that. 

This email is less preachy this time, I thought I might give ya´ll a break. But just know that I¨m still riding on a spiritual high, so that hasn´t changed. The mission is the best, life with the gospel of Christ and the companionship of the Holy Ghost is the best, and I love being a witness of my Savior. I hope you all have a good rest of the week this week! Please pray for miracles here in Jerez and that we might be able to find those prepared by the Lord. Loves to all!

Elder Webb