This week was pretty good. Quick summary of the week. We tried to contact a lot of the people we have talked to in the street the past two weeks, and now we are trying to figure out how to contact people in the street and help them be interested in our message as well as understand that their eternal salvation depends on it. Haven´t got that one quite figured out yet.
One of the biggest highlights of the week, is that we have a baptism set up with Cristina. She is a 58 year old Romanian woman, who is just so prepared for baptism. We taught her about the Book of Mormon about a month ago, and then she had a dream about it, and knows it´s true. She also had a dream (not sure if it was the same one or not) in which Angel Moroni told her that she needs to get baptized, to which she responded that she can´t get baptized till she has a job, and Moroni promised her a job. Well, she got the job real quickly after that, and she also has seen in a dream Presidente Muñoz (our ward mission leader and Gospel Principles teacher) leading her by the hand into the waters of baptism. We´re pretty sure she´s ready. Now, we´ve just got to finish teaching up the lessons, and we will be helping her take that first major step toward the Celestial Kingdom the 21st if everything goes smoothly. She is so ready.
Other than that, we had special training on Friday, and it was awesome. It was the first one I have gone to where President Deere has spoken the whole time. He spoke of the importance of the Book of Mormon and how we need to present it as more than just a good book "comparable to the Bible". How we have to say, this is the test, this is the evidence that God has given you in this moment in time to know if this message we are teaching is true. It was powerful. And it was even more powerful because I finished the Book of Mormon this week. It was a great way to end reading the Book of Mormon and start it again.
But, the highlight this week was easily the choir concert in Granada. First off, before I forget, Mom, make sure you tell Brother Coffin that they had a band in the chapel. Trumpets, trombones, percussion, the whole deal. It was legit. We sang three Christmas hymns in English: "Far, Far Away" Joy to the World, and O Come All Ye Faithful. Then, there was a solo by a sister named Hermana Roan, and she sang O Holy Night. It was soooo good. I got her autograph afterward. And then, I was in a group that sang Winter Wonderland in a jazzy sort of way. Then we listened to this band play a couple songs. They played a song entitled Ivanhoe which was crazy-awesome and then another entitled Russian Christmas Music which was pretty good. Then they played Battle Hymn of the Republic and we sang, unfortunately in Spanish (it´s not nearly as good in Spanish in my opinion). The funny thing was, is that when the conductor cued us in, nobody started singing. He didn´t really give us a good cue, but so we just faded in slowly. It was quite funny. I hope there is some kind of video out there that I´ll be able to look up after the mission. And to end it all, we sand White Christmas with the band. It was just so much fun. The best part though is that one of the Senior missionaries, Hermana Castillo, bore her testimony at the beginning and said, "You will touch hearts that will not open up to the spoken word, but they can not keep the music out. That is why we are here."
Well, that´s basically been the week. This week will be another week of finding. The last time we did this, we had a goal of 555 new investigators as a mission, and we found 558. This time around, we are out to find 800 of God´s children to bring into the fold. It´ll be a week full of hard work, but it´ll all be worth it.
Love you all, and Merry Christmas,
Elder Garrett B Turley
Garrett and his comp.
