Alma 7:11-12

Hola familia!

Shnikees what a week. We taught a lot of less actives and recent converts,
and actually we no longer have many investigators, but that´s okay! The
Lord will provide! There´s people here that He has been preparing for a
long time, and by golly I´m going to find them! Gordon B Hinkley once said
something like "the CIA can´t find, the FBI can´t find, Interpol can´t
find, but the missionaries always find!" It´s cuz we got one of the
greatest tools on our side: the Spirit! I love the Holy Ghost and I am so
greatful for the gift of the Holy Ghost. What a magnificent promise! The
constant companionship of a member of the Godhead. Whoa! That´s some heavy
stuff. I am greatful for the mercy and love of our Heavenly Father.

Crazy miracle that happened to us. It was Wednesday evening about 6pm,
scorching sun, no one in the street because they´re all inside sleeping
still. We had several names that we were passing by to visit, but no one
was letting us in. So we were walking to the next place when out of nowhere
my comp beelines for a nearby building and had this look in his eye that
said "this is the place". We go in to the very top and start knocking
doors. The third door we knock a woman opens, says welcome elders and lets
us in! Her name is Daisy and turns out that she had been investigating the
church for a while and almost got baptized, but because of complications
from work, she was unable. We had a really good visit, she´s still full of
desire, but is just waiting for her work to finish before she gets
baptized. Talk about being guided by the Spirit right?

Saturday evening, same story. 6pm and we´re dying of the heat. My face was
covered in sweat when we knocked the door of a contact we had made weeks
earlier. She looked at my suffering and I think her bowels were moved with
compassion because she let us in. We then had an incredible first
discussion. She told us her life story, two of her daughters suffer from
chronic diseases and if she´s not with them 24/7 then lot´s of problems
could arise. She said that the constant need to be with them doesn´t bother
her, but what does hurt her is seeing her children sick and suffering. We
talked about the plan of salvation and she really liked it. She´s very
catholic but you could tell that she recognized the Spirit during that
lesson, something that she probably hadn´t felt very much in her life. Her
name is Victoria and we´re going to go poco a poco with her, help her kick
some of the old traditions of her fathers and accept the resotored gospel
of Christ.

We met with our ward mission leader and made a plan. We shared the story of
the Brother of Jared and how he made a plan, presented it to the Lord, and
according to his faith it was done. Because the Lord has "all power, and
can do whatsoever [He] wilt for the benefit of man". So we talked about all
the people that we can teach, and wrote all the names and where they live
down on a piece of paper. We´re going to make a plan for each one and start
the process of bringing them to the church. It´s a list of 40 names, we´ve
got a lot of work ahead of us. Like I said, the Lord will provide!

Last thing before I go. The scripture in the subject line talks about the
Atonement. Something that we need to understand is that the Atonement isn´t
only for all the bad things that we have done, but also for all the bad
things that happen to us in this life. He can take away all the hurt and
pain that we cause ourselves through sin, but can also take all the hurt
and pain that others cause us. He indeed knows how to heal, to help, and to
love. Don´t forget!

I love you all! I hope you have a rockin week and feel the Spirit lot´s and
learn lots. Good luck to Rachel as she starts another year of school! Loves!

Elder Webb

                          choir of missionaries we did for an activity last week.

Isaiah 52:7

hola familia!

Buenos tardes from beautiful Málaga Spain! This place is really pretty,
it´s got one of the coolest cathedrals that I´ve seen in Spain, the people
are awesome, and it has 4 wards in one city! The Lord´s work is advancing
here at an excellent pace.

Want to hear a cool miracle? Did I already tell you about Ramon, the
miracle man who came to church last week? The hermanas contacted him and
invited him to come, he came and really liked it. Then on Tuesday he went
on a date with a member and they hit it off really well. He commits to read
the Book of Mormon and told us that if he knows that it´s true, he will be
baptized. We didn´t even have to invite him to be baptized. Then he came to
church again yesterday and really enjoyed it (his new girlfriend gave a
talk too). We´re going to meet with him Tuesday and see how his reading and
praying has been coming. It´s incredible to see how quickly investigators
progress when they actually read the BofM and pray with sincere inentions.
The power of the Book of Mormon is real, and it truly is one of the best
way to come to know of Christ and His atonement, and to draw closer unto
Him. So Ramon is cool and is going strong.

We´re also working with a part member family, a man names Karim from
Colombia who never got baptized after marrying his mormon wife almost 20
years ago. He just never commits to read the BofM. Like I said before, it´s
amazing to see how quickly a person will gain a testimony of the truth if
they just read the book. It´s also amazing how quickly people will fall
away from God when they refuse to read the Book of Mormon. It´s God´s tool
for the gathering of Israel, and it´s the most powerful tool we have to
know Christ, His gospel, and to come unto Him. So don´t take it for
granted! Read it every day! I love that book.

We had a really cool lesson with a gyspy the other day too, (I know it
sounds a little too good to be true... them gyspies...) So this guy Jonni,
a devout evangilist, contacted us asking us if we had the missing book of
Enoc in our scriptures. We told him that we have some writings, but not
everything and then we got talking about the restauration and what not. He
was a pretty well informed man and by the looks of it had even spent some
time on the internet looking at anti-mormon stuff because he was well
versed in all the scriptures that people use to attack the church. So after
talking with him for a while, we set up an appointment the following day to
show him the writings of Enoch. We show up and tell him that in order to
understand where these writings come from, he nees to first understand
where the book of mormon comes from, so we start teaching the restauration.
He agreed with everything that we taught until we got to the great
apostasy. He believes that because we were given the holy Spirit, things
weren´t lost nor changed. My companion then shared the first vision and
Jonni felt the Spirit hard. I noticed that he got goose bumps all over him
when he said the words "this is my Beloved Son - hear him!" He then started
to cry and say "no no no, this can´t be. So you´re trying to tell me that
all my life I´ve been mistaken?" OH! So powerful. He gets it.

We explained to him that he wasn´t mistaken nor wrong, but that God was
simply preparing him for this very moment. He thought about that for a
moment and told us that he knew what we were saying was true, but that he
couldn´t accept it. All of his life, all of his family is in the evangelico
church, and it would be too much for him to leave that church. His wife
would leave him, and his parents hate him if he were to do that. My heart
broke. How can you just reject the truth like that! Especially after being
slapped in the face so hard by the Spirit! It´s sad, but everyone has their
agency, their choice. Heavenly Father of course wants all of His children
to come back to Him, but only if they choose to do so. He doesn´t want them
to come by force.

We can´t afford to not hearken the call of the Master! Alma 5:38-39, He´s
calling us all and we need to respond. If we don´t respond, like my friend
Jonni, then we will sadly be hearing the words of the Savior when He says
to us DyC43:24. Go look that one up. So, hearken to His call! Don´t be
afraid no matter how big the sacrifice looks. It may be dificult, scary, or
whatever, but none of that matters. The reward is a thousand times greater
than the sacrifice, and He is with us constantly, every step.

So that was the lesson learned this week in Málaga. Tune in next time to
see what other crazy happenings are going down. This week is feria (like a
state fare type deal) and it´s super awesome. Lots of crazy andaluz people,
lots of drunks, and lots of flamenco. Should be interesting. Anyway, I love
you all so much and hope you have a stellar week this week! Hearken to the
voice of the Good Shepherd! Loves.

Elder Webb

pics: these ones are kinda older

one in gibralter with a dope monkey.

I'm standing next to the tomb of Christopher Colombus in the Sevilla
cathedral. Also dope.

DyC 11:9,21

Hola familia!

Well it was quite a crazy week this wek. On Monday me and my comp decided
we wanted to run a half marathon, so we woke up an hour early and that´s
exactly what we did. And we did it in under two hours! Pretty cool right?
Transfers happend and I´m now in Málaga with my new comp elder Merchan.
Málaga is a prettty cool place, has a really different feel from Jerez
though. Jerez is more old fashioned, more spanish where Málaga is pretty
touristy and modern; but it´s still cool nonetheless. It´s also very hot
and I¨m sweating like a pig.

Other cool news, the mission will be recieving iPads! We´re finally making
the jump from the prehistoric age to the modern age! The daily planner, the
area book, the lessons with pictures and videos will now all be used on the
iPad. Also mormon messages and "I´m a Mormon" and the bible videos will now
all be available which will be amazing for lessons. I¨m pretty dang excited
because they´re iPad mini´s. We should be recieving them around the end of
October.

So here in the 3rd ward of Málaga we are 6 missionaries in the ward and
that also comprises the district. I¨m also the district leader here and
we´re going to be making a huge focus on finding. It seems every
companionship has just recently baptized and now has little work. We´re
going to work hard this week to all find at least 1 family that we can help
baptize in this month. The goal is that each compship baptizes at least 1
before the transfer ends. Our district is a little special because we´re
all "killing" our companions. I don´t think I´ve ever seen that happen in a
district before. Kinda cool.

So that´s about all I got for this week. Life is good, we´re all in
"finding" mode hunting out the Lord´s elect that He has prepared for us.
It´s tough cuz it´s hot and sometimes the people don´t want to listen, but
it´s all very worth it. I love being a missionary! And I hope ya´ll do too.
Try and look out for some missionary moments this week. And above all, feel
the Spirit and have spiritual experiences! I love you all so much! Until
next week! Loves.

Elder Webb

pics: 

                             Mme and elder allsop after the half-marathon

           and me and the district as I was gettign on the train to come to Málaga

DyC 6:33-34

Hola familia!

Lively. A very lively week this time around. We taught a lot of lessons realyl early on in the week, we had concilio on Thursday and Friday, President told us transfers while we were there, and on Saturday there was a baptism! Loooots of stuff to report on. I´ll start with transfers because I¨m sure that´s what you all want to know the most. 

I´m leaving Jerez. And I´m going to Málaga! The promised land! I´m sooo excited because this is exactly how I wanted to end my mission, in Málaga and training (which I will do the following transfer). My new companion is going to be elder Merchan, he´s a really good elder and is ending his mission. I¨m going to "kill" him as we call it in the mission. I¨m really excited for so many reasons. I´m going to get there and just baptize, and then do some more baptizing, and finish my time there with more baptisms. I¨m hungry for some baptisms. It´s gonna happen! I¨m determined to help get Málaga it´s reputation back (they´ve geen going through a little bit of a dry spell right now). 

Concilio was great. We talked about the covenant of baptism and it´s importance. President really wants us to up the quality of baptisms that we have, and really follow the requirements outlined in DyC 20:37. He wants us to do our best to ensure that a person understands the convent well. Some are afraid that this well mean less baptisms because it will be harder to get people to the water, but in reality it means more baptisms because retention will increase and these people will be giving referrals to missionaries and talking to all of their friends and families. But it´s going to require some changes on how we do things. As for me personally, I´m really excited about it. It´s the kind of change the mission needs. We came up with a list of things we need to do differently and it was actually everything that me and my comp had decided to do in our compship and zone 6 weeks ago. So now we just gotta get the rest of the mission on board. 

The man that got baptized is named Sekeseke and he´s a cool guy. He´s from Nigeria and he feels bad for some things that he´s done in his past and wanted to recieve forgiveness from God. I had the privilage of doing his baptismal interview. He doesn´t speak spanish which will make church attendance a little difficult at times but it´s all good, he´s slowly learning. 

Last thing I want to share is an impression I had on Sunday. I read the scripture found in the subject line and realized that I need to not be afraid to always do what is right! Never sacrifice your loyalty and obedience to the Lord for anything! No matter what, even if other around you that are close to you are doing other things. You know what´s right, now do it! Heavenly Father will always be with us to support us in our rightous decisions. 

Okay family I love you very much! I hope you have a a wonderful week this week and get lots done and above, that you feel the Spirit in many different ways! Loves to all.

Elder Webb

Sekeseke and "los guapos"