another great week!!

Monday- 

We started having FHE´s with part member families and less active members. Today, we had one with a family from Ecuador. Their names are Ramiro (nonmember) and Angela (member) and they have 4 kids: José (member, 11yrs old), Alex (member, 9yrs old), Miguel Angel (3yrs old), and a baby girl that I never can remember her name. It´s hard to teach this family, because Ramiro isn´t a member, but doesn´t want to be taught formally, so we will go and start teaching his family something super basic (like obedience) and then they (they being both Ramiro and Angela)  will start asking questions about the Book of Mormon and about the way the church is organized, and what we do as missionaries, but then when we testify and try and commit them to do something, they don´t really want anything to do with it, and stop listening. So it´s a challenge to teach them, but we are getting better, and apparently Ramiro didn´t even use to listen or talk to the missionaries, but now he says hi to us in the streets and everything, and he´s even started coming to church more regularly that some of our members.

We also visited a member named Tuga Licha (he´s from Ghana and he´s about 32). He is a super strong member, and I love him to death. We talked about Enos and how after we have felt the effects of the Atonement, a natural result is to feel the desire to share the Gospel.

Tuesday-

We had a lesson with a Less Active member named Alberto (19) and his younger brother who isn´t a member yet, Romel (16) about the plan of salvation. I think they are from Ecuador, but I´m not sure. Alberto´s a good kid, it´s just tough for him to get to church sometimes, and he´s having trouble getting rid of his earings, but more on that to come.

We also had a lesson with an investigator Nancy (from Ecuador, 40ish) and her two sons, Anderson (14) and Luis (13). They are a good family, but it´s hard to get all of them together at the same time. We have taught them the Restoration probably 6 times, and we are finally ready to move on. It´s been a good learning experience on how to teach people, not lessons (PMG chp 10).

We also had a lesson with some members who are some of the only Spaniards in our branch. Their names are Juan Jose, Providencia (Provi for short) and Juan Jose hijo/Jr. (or Juanjo for short). They are great, Juan Jose is the Elders Quorum Pres. and Provi is the Relief Society Pres, and Juanjo is the Gospel Principles teacher (he´s also 18 years old and is going to Greece on his mission in 2 weeks).

Wednesday-

We had a lesson with Jose and Stiven in a park. Jose is a non member who has to get married before baptism and Stiven (11), his son, is a member who we are reactivating. I think they are also from Ecuador.

We also had a lesson with a member, Georgina, from Mexico. And she let us know why she is a vegetarian. You all would be proud of me cause I kept my mouth shut. She taught us that when we eat meat, we partake of the carnal instincts of animals, and the natural man gains strength over the spirit. Yeah...

Thursday-

We had a lesson with Fernando (9) and his mom Carmen. They are from Ecuador, and he is getting baptized this Saturday, the 24th, and asked me to perform the ordinance. I gladly accepted. I hope his mother will follow him into the waters of baptism soon.

We had a lesson with Samuel Ogbor (Nigeria, over 40). He is the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency, and loves to mention that "nothing can shake (his) faith" and I believe it. He´s a strong member.

We had another lesson with Alberto, about piercings. We taught him house his body was a temple, and set a date for him to get rid of his last earing (He has already taken off 3 or 4 others and decided not to get tattoos, so he´s trying, he´s almost there). Today, was the last day to wear his earings, so I hope he´s following through with that. His phone is broken, so it´s hard to get a hold of him. He also lives 15-20 minutes away in bus, or a 45ish minute walk (unless we walk at my pace, then we could get there in 30ish min). Unfortunately, his little brother, Romel wasn´t there, but we are going to teach him soon, and reactivate his desire to be baptized (his dad wouldn´t let him 2 years ago when his brother did for whatever reason).

Friday-

We had a special training in Murcia (one of the major cities in our part of Spain). Hermana Deere taught us about the parable of the talents in the bible. And President Deere taught us about asking inspired questions in lessons and learning how to listen to both the investigator and the Spirit, because that is how we will know what to say. It was a great training.

That night, all our lessons failed us, so we were walking around contacting in the street. Nobody wanted anything. We found this 20 year old guy sitting on the sidewalk and I asked him if I could sit next to him. He said yeah, so I sat down and started talking to him about the Plan of Salvation. Then his girlfriend showed up and he had to go, but I hope that those seeds we planted will start to sprout sooner or later.

Saturday-

We went over to Felix (60ish, Ecuadorian) and taught him and his son Carlos (19ish) and his daughter (12ish). We were going to drop him this lesson because he doesn´t want to change anything in his life, but when we walked in, his son, Carlos, asked us if we brought another movie (the last time we watched "Our Heavenly Father´s Plan" and he liked it) and said he really liked the last movie. We asked him what he liked about it, and he said he liked how it talked about the Purpose of Life, and how we are never alone. I hope we can continue to teach him by the spirit.

Sunday-

I continue to play the piano in sacrament meeting. I continue to practice the piano so that I can try to help and bring the spirit to our meetings on Sunday, and I get better every week.

We had a lesson with a couple from Ecuador, Pilar and Danielo, who have been attending church for 13 years and just got married so they are now ready to get baptized. They have a 20 yr old son Kevin and an 11 yr old son Antonio (I think) who are both members and their family is awesome. I didn´t know they weren´t members until 2 1/2 months into the mission. We reviewed all 4 lessons and the baptismal interview questions with them during Sunday School, and they are now choosing a baptismal date, and will be baptized within the next month.

After church a man named Nikolas came to the church building. He is from Romania and is 45 or 50ish. His 15 month old son had tuberculosis about 2 months ago, and Elder Oldroyd and I went to the Hospital and gave him a blessing. Well, he´s better. I don´t know if he´s cured or what, but Nikolas said that the doctors said that the baby, Silvu, his body took the medicine very well and now he no longer needs to stay in the hospital. And he came to pay his respects to God. We will be trying to work with him in the future.

That´s been the week.

It´s good to hear that everythings going good back home.

Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Garrett B Turley

Garrett's new Companion

So, my companion´s name is Elder Simon. He is from Argentina (the South part, I´m not exactly where from, but his city´s name starts with a c I think) and it took me about a week to understand him due to his accent. In Argentina, instead of saying, for example, tortilla, they say tortija. It was nigh impossible for me to understand the words he was saying, let alone the fact that he was speaking Spanish. He loves Ironman (the superhero) and basically everything to do with Marvel comics, and absolutely hates DC comics and superheroes. And he hates the heat. When he left Argentina, it was snowing, and he got here and its 90-95 everyday, so I´m loving it, but he´s dying. He also got sunburned, and I didn´t, which I thought was weird because he´s brown and I´m white. He constantly refers to himself as a Lamanite and I am therefore the Nephite, I just hope I´m a Nephite during a righteous period.

This week, we knocked about 1,000 doors, that´s not an exaggeration. But we found several people that said we could come back, and a couple actually let us into there homes for a few minutes. There was this one Muslim guy, who barely spoke any Spanish, and he let us in, gave us some dates and some fried peppers (I only ate the dates cause I knew what they were) and then we tried to talk to him and I had to translate the muslim man´s spanish to Elder Simon and vice versa. We went back to give him a pamphlet in Arabic, but he didn´t answer his door. We´ll probably stop by the next time we´re in the neighborhood.

The biggest thing that we started to do this week, was to visit all the members. ALL of them. I gave a talk last week about Elder Andersen´s talk from last conference, and we are checking up with the members to see if they have prayed and done as Elder Andersen asks us to do. We are also making a greater effort to try and contact all the Menos Activos in the Lorca Branch (There are about 150 on our records) and see if we can´t help them remember why they joined the church or remind them the reasons that they should´ve joined the church for. One Less Active member is Anthony. He is from Ghana and has been a member for about 3 years. About the time that I got to Lorca (about 3 months ago) he stopped coming to church. He was without work, without a house and fell in with the wrong crowd, and started having problems with alcohol and smoking. I met with him this week, and talked to him about the Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity and Law of Tithing, and Church attendance, and he understood them all (which is a miracle in and of itself because most of the time, my African brothers don´t understand anything the first time I teach it to them) and as he said the closing prayer, you could tell that he was repenting and trying to do better.

I found out something very sad about our African members this week. There are several African churches here in Lorca, and the preachers in those churches tell their members to not associate themselves with the Africans that attend our church. The members of our church of African descent literally are without friends here in Spain. I can´t fully describe the situation in words, but it´s horrible that they have to live through this, but their faith is so amazing. They understand that Christ is their Saviour and that this is his church. They attend the church even despite the racism that takes place within the walls of our own church. How faithful!

Investigators: These first 3 have been handed to us, and are the fruits of the hard work of members and/or missionaries. It is great to have this hope that I am hopefully planting seeds that later someone will be able to reap the reward and joy from.

Pilar (and her husband): These two Ecuadorians have been attending church for the past 13 years, but have been unable to be baptized because they were not married. They have two sons, one, named Kevin, is a priest and is a great guy, the other is named Anthony (I think) and he is about 10, and it also a great kid. They recently went to Ecuador for a vacation/to get married, and are now ready to be baptized. We are currently in the process of reviewing the lessons with them, and organizing a baptismal service.

Jessie: Also from Ecuador, her mother, Paquita (also Fransisca) is an endowed member of the church, and Jessie has been assisting since before I came to Lorca. She told us this week, that she believes the church is true, she just needs to gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon before she gets baptized. I thinks that´s great. She´s reading the Book of Mormon in English and she´s currently in 1 Nephi 1:9. When she told us that, the only good thing I could think of was that at least she knew exactly where she was in her reading. We are going to work with her to help her gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon as we reteach her the lessons.

Juanjo´s French professor (I don´t know her name either): Juanjo is a 18 year old member of the church, soon to be a missionary in Greece. His professor has been studying the church by herself for the past 3 months and has read all of the Doctrine and Covenants and knows the church is true and wants to be baptized. The only problem is that her husband is a little against the church, so we can´t go to her house to teach her, and I don´t know how he would take it if she was baptized. But I have faith the Lord will bless her with a way to join the true church.

Nancy and Luis: Someone that we actually found/were guided to. Nancy is a mother of 3 and Luis is her 13 year old son. We have only met with them a few times, but they are willing to read and pray, and let us into their house. More on them to come...

That is about the extent of what has happened this week. I love you all and pray for you.

All the best (as my African brothers always say)

Elder Garrett B Turley