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
cathedral. Also dope.
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