December 8, 2009

Dear Family,

There have been a few changes here in Aranjuez. Elder Carr was shipped out of here half way through the transfer, yesterday, also known as an Emergency Transfer, to be a district leader in a ward in Madrid. He is excited and so am I. My new companion is Elder Dawson from Indiana. He has been serving for 10 months now. I like him a lot, and we will have a lot of success together.
As to answer your question, mom, we eat probably 2-3 times a week with either members, recent converts, or investigators. They all love feeding us and of course, we love eating food that we don´t cook and that is basically out of this world, especially since there are many south Americans here. I had lomo saltado last Saturday with a part member couple in a pueblo about 20 minutes in bus from Aranjuez. It is a very, very, very small town. But I love it.

My newsletter segment is as follows:

My dear brethren in the work,

Buenos Dias. I would like you all to know that today I had my second meal at an American fast food restaurant. This time it was Taco Bell. I find it very interesting how globalization is taking over the world and how there are signs of America everywhere. However something that Spain still hasn´t caught onto is the miracle of FREE REFILLS. It just doesn´t make sense to me. They didn´t even give me a water cup and there is never a chance to find a water fountain so the only option is to wait till we get back to the piso(apartment) or buy a ridiculously expensive bottle of water. But this tiny issue is of hardly any importance when I am focused on the Lord´s work.
I had an experience with an investigator the other week that I failed to tell you all. We have an investigator couple by the names of Christian and Nina. The man is from Romania and the women from Bulgaria, and they have a child of 4 or 5 months. When we were teaching them the third time we read a little out of the Book of Mormon and after about a couple of verses, my companion felt prompted to change the reading to 2 Nephi 4, which as you know is Nephi´s Psalm. We were going to take turns but Christian ended up reading the whole thing and when he got to the end he stopped and didn´t say anything. We were in silence for about 5 minutes and then started to cry and tried a few times to talk but couldn´t finish a sentence. He managed to say that he always feels the same way as Nephi does here. I want to tell you Elders, that this experience with the Book of Mormon has changed the life of Christian and Nina. They still can´t get baptized because they are married and Christian has a problem with smoking. But after about a month of having a copy of the Book of Mormon, he has now almost read and marked the whole book. He LOVES the Book of Mormon and he now can quote other verses when we are talking about something else and his testimony of this inspired, divine book has helped him gain testimonies of other difficult principles, such as the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Chastity, etc. When we taught him these principles, he already new that they were true and that he needed to do all he could to obey them. His powerful testimony has carried him a long way and will carry him in the near future towards the waters of baptism. This experience has changed the way I look at the Book of Mormon. It is a bazooka of the Spirit of God. It is a lion ready to tear open the heart and change the natural desires of an peaceable follower of Christ. I hope that all challenge all to read and apply the principles of the Book of Mormon because it has the power to change the soul and bring someone closer to Christ.

I love you all and pray for you also many, many times every day.

Love,

Elder Driggs