Jume 15, 2014

Bon dia família! There´s a little bit of catalán for you, the language they speak up in Barcelona. Ask Chad if he ever got fluent in Catalán. So it was quite the week we had down here in Jerez de la Frontera. We set a baptismal fecha, got some new investigators to church, had a sweet exchange in Cadiz, and the World Cup has official started.

So we have set a fecha with the mother of a recent convert (recent of about 6 months,) named Cristian, and his mom´s name is Maricarmen. She´s pretty cool, the problem is that she works a lot. For example, all this week she will be gone to Málaga for work. Her fecha is July 19, so please pray for her so that she will be able to be baptized. We´re going to go visit the father today, see if we can´t make an eternal family out of them! 

Yesterday at church (attendance was 112, one of the higher weeks here) we brought with us two young boys that are investigating the church with their mom. Their names are Martín and Bentoni. They are super good kids and really see the potential good that can come from this. They´re going through a hard time right now, and have a lot of trials. They have lots of faith that Christ will be able to help their family stay together. I love these kids! Please remember them in your prayers.

I went to Cadiz for an intercambio on Wednesday. Apart from being with a stellar missionary Elder Queirolo, the city of Cadiz is magnificent! Supposedly the second oldest city in the world, with 3,000 years of history. The cathedral there is one of the prettiest I´ve ever seen in my mission. Everything is white and shiny, it looks like the vacation spot for angels. I love it there. And Elder Queirolo is a fantastic missionary, very observant and obedient, he´s going to do great things in his mission. He´s from Chile and taught me how to speak chileanpo. They just say "po" at the end of most phrases. It´s easypo. 

So finally on Friday, I hit kind of a rough spot. I haven´t seen a baptism since being here, we don´t have that many investigators, and the work just didn´t seem to be going how I wanted it too. I had gotten to the point where I felt useless, like I didn´t know what I was doing. I was praying hard to know what to do, what to change when I heard a voice whisper to me "you´re not being very grateful". That made me think of Pres. Uchtdorf´s talk on gratitude from this last conference. I decided that morning for personal study, I would make myself a list of "reasons why I have no reason to complain". I spent a good while on it, searching deeply, and I saw that throughout this experience, my attitude completely changed. I am so so richly blessed! And I really have no room to complain about anything. I really enjoyed doing this activty, and I wanted to invite all of you to do the same. Sit down and see how many things you can come up with that you are grateful for and see how the Lord has blessed you. I came up with close to 60 things. I promise that if you do it, your view of life and your own world will change, brighten and you will find more happiness. 

My dearest beloved family, I love you all so much! The work is slowly progressing. The members are still a bit reluctant to open their mouths to their friends, but that´s okay, we´ve been blessed with the help of a few families. The Lord´s work cannot be stopped. I love being apart of it, and I love seeing all the blessings of the Lord in my life. A grateful life is a better life! I love you and hope you have a great week and feel the Spirit during it. Loves!

Elder Webb

       Cadiz Cathedral

                     That is a small raven!