This week was INCREDIBLE for Elder Gentry and I!!!! WE set super high goals this transfer and we are well on our way! We want 8 baptisms in March, 180 transfer lessons, and 180 references. With our faith and the Lord's help this is very very possible. We have been praying hard and working even harder. Plus my Spanish is good! Kind of. I can teach the lessons and answer questions. I just can't really make small talk haha so I'm awkward sometimes but that's okay it will come. Monday, we helped a lady from the branch with her washing machine. She's less active and has a daughter on a mission in Barcelona and it was good to get into her house and bring the spirit. We accidentally broke her washer when we pulled it out of the little area it was in haha. The tube for the water snapped and water got everywhere. It was bad but we fixed it and its all good. It's better than it was before. It was pretty funny hahaha. Whoops. Tuesday, we have still been working with Davy and Lorena, they want to learn more doctrine and have lots of questions about the Bible so we´re focusing on answering any questions they have and somehow tying it into one of 3 points, priesthood, prophets, and the restoration to help them see this church is true. We´re going to be discussing D&C 138 next time. We´re excited for that! We had 6 street lessons that night and people have been listening to us as we have very specific prayers asking for the Lord to put prepared people in our path. It says in Preach My Gospel to have faith that will happen. The Lord knows what we need, so we just need to ask. So, specific prayers=specific answers. Wednesday, we had district meeting with our new district and I could actually understand everything that was said!
So my understanding Spanish is coming along as well. It was awesome. We went to drop by a recent convert who we hadn't had contact with in a while as he never answered his phone, and we had the impression to drop by. Normally after district meeting we just go back to our apartment to do 12 semanas (the training program) but we decided to go to Brauddy's and on the way we taught a super prepared kid named Fredi and we are teaching him now. The Lord's hand is definitely in this work. We taught Fransisco (our progressing investigator who wants to learn English, the sculptor) the word of wisdom. He's in the hospital right now with some problems with something he said it in his English/Spanish that is really confusing so we´re going to be visiting him soon. He's going to be ready for March 15th to be baptized. We are extremely excited!!! Right before we taught him we were setting up in the capilla (chapel) for our lesson and a man walked in for absolutely no reason. He didn't even know what our church was and we ended up teaching him the first lesson. So we´ll see. It was amazing because Fransisco didn't show up on time and showed up 5 minutes after the man left. It was crazy. We also had a lesson that night set with a man named Christian. We met him in the train station and he brought his girlfriend which we weren't even expecting but we taught them both and things are going extremely well with them!! Thursday we brought Andres to Raquel's house again and gave him our do or die lesson, basically telling him he needs to act on what he's been taught and think about whether or not there is a God and we´ll meet again on Tuesday. If he feels like he wants to know or keep commitments we can continue to meet if not we can't because it wastes our time. Raquel bore AMAZING testimony on how we can know there is a God because of the scriptures. It was a powerful lesson so we will find out Tuesday what he thinks.
We also went to an old investigators house his name is also Christian but long story short the electric company cut the wrong wire and he had no power so we sat in his room with a bunch of candles and it was super dark but he had a friend over right as we dropped by she was super open and we taught her the first lesson and the investigator bore a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon. We can't baptize him because he won't come to church but it was cool. We were like can we just count that as a member present lesson for our numbers this week? haha It was insane the timing of it all. Friday, we taught a 50 year old lady who is trying super hard to come to church. She has a testimony but she cares for an old lady so she can rarely leave her house. She's been coming to church and we asked her to be baptized she said well, I need to study more before I can go preach on the streets but I want to. We told her she doesn't have to know everything and doesn't have to go preach and she said okay what day can I be baptized? She will be baptized March 28th!!!! Super pumped. She also said I look like her son who is in the Siberian army. Yeah, I look like a Russian warrior. haha We were walking to our ward mission night activity and all of the sudden this guy yelled out to us hola! It was a street contact of ours and he was trying to find our church. His name is José and he came to the activity, came to church, we've had a lesson with him and he is going to be baptized on March 15th!!!!:) Super cool guy. He's progressing well! We also went another man named Bob and his friend. We had a lesson with him on Sunday too and we read the Book of Mormon introduction with him and he asked us so how can I strengthen my relationship with God? Yeah, what investigators ask that?? It was the greatest question ever!!! We taught him how to pray and he will have a baptismal date most likely this week!!
On Saturday we played futbol with some members and its so cool just playing at this little field. Like America has little baseball fields everywhere... Spain has soccer fields all over the place, its sweet! Yes, I'm really enjoying futbol. hahaha I know, I know, its way fun. Then we ate at a members house and they fed us this weird fish stuff and mom, I remembered you and even though I was about to puke as I shoved it down I remembered you saying, on your mission you just have to eat what people give you. You'd be proud of me. I did. I ate it all and I have felt like garbage since. I got pretty sick and so did Elder Gentry. But, we´re good haha and we ate it all. So thanks for teaching me the right thing to do no matter how disgusting it was haha. It was called sevirche and Elder Gentry says he's had better from other members. This one was just really bad. We also taught an old less active man and I love doing that. Being able to bring the spirit back into their homes. We had an impression to drop by at a certain time, we did and he said we caught him for the 10 minutes he had been home all day. It was amazing!! Oh and our lesson with Bob on Sunday about prayer was because Eliot our normal Sunday night lesson couldn't make it back into town that night.
We have seen so much of the Lords timing this week and how his hand is in all of this. He is truly in charge of His sheep and it is evident in this last story, something from Sunday. We had our lesson with Jose and he showed up really late. It went well and then we talked for a little after, we took a long time and it's usually good to be moving quick and getting other places to teach more people but we didn't feel right about rushing things. As we were walking on Ronda de Outerio, the main road, it was only us and an old man a little further up and then a lot of cars on the road but we were alone on the sidewalk with this man. There was no one else. All of the sudden this man started to stumble and started to walk out into the road. He was stumbling and we ran up to him and grabbed him pulled him onto the sidewalk and honestly we saved his life. We helped him walk home and he was really struggling. We got him to his apartment and helped him inside and his wife took care of him. It was amazing though that had the lesson with Jose started earlier, or ended early, or had we not talked, or had he showed up on time, we would not have been there and that man would have been hit by a bus that came flying around the corner 5 seconds after we pulled him out of the street. The Lord has his timing for all of us and when we are being exactly obedient he will guide us and use us where we need to be. We will be in the right place at the right time. Huge testimony builder for me!!!! Thanks for everything!! This church is true!! 3 months down this week! Crazy. Love you!!!
((Hugs)) and kisses,
Elder Anderson
El Reino de Dios o Nada
