July 28, 2010

Hello, Hello!!! family,

Well, first off, I would like to affirm that miracles happen and that because of our faith we receive ¨tender mercies¨ as Nephi explains in the first chapter of the Book of Mormon. I, too, am happy that we can stay in Utah another 5 or 6 months. How fun to be around family and friends for a little longer, and who knows, we might be receiving even more miracles before that time runs out. At least we as a family have been reassured that if we are faithful, things work out, and ultimately we are happy.

I have been thinking about that lately. As we know, the divine purpose of this life is to be happy, and the only way to be happy is to be obedient. Wow, is that really it? Just by obeying God´s commandments are we really happy? Well, I know that that is true. As missionaries true happiness doesn´t depend on how much success you have, how many baptisms a month you are having, how funny your companion is, etc. The times where I have been most happy have been those where I haven´t seen much success but I have tried to be obedient with exactness, not only to the rules and commandments, but also to the Holy Ghost. When I have tried my hardest to follow the small whisperings of God, I have been happy. When that is accomplished, we can step back at the end of the day and see the countless times where we have been instruments in the merciful hands of Christ. These are the days where I feel like I have done my best. I just wish I could live like this every day. It requires a lot of focus, but as it goes with putting every Gospel principle in action, at the end...it´s worth it. Oh if only we could remember this every second of every day, to keep us concentrated on what is actually most important. But anyway...



This week, as many weeks in the mission, has been a week full of surprises. I sure that you would like to know that I am no longer with el Élder Moreno. This last Thursday we received a phone call from the assistants informing us that he was to be transferred. Monday (two days ago) to Torrejón de Ardóz, to be with Élder Jackson, and that the companion of Élder Jackson, el Élder Gomez was to be my new companion. So, on Monday morning, Élder Moreno finished packing up his bags and we left at 11 to arrive at the stake center near the temple at 12, where we were to meet with our new companions. Elder Moreno and I were anticipating the change, as he only has 2 transfers left, I think I told you that last week.

So anyway, Elder Gomez is an animal. He is such a good missionary and I have been wondering for quite some time, why he isn´t a leader in the mission yet, because not only does he speak Spanish fluently, he is just about perfect in every phase of missionary work. So I am very blessed and privileged to be able to have him as a companion. Élder Gomez is from Guatemala, his city is called El Progresso. He will finish the mission in April so has a little bit more time in the mission than me. He actually lived a year in California before the mission in Los Angeles, where he went to school for his senior year. His parents are separated, his dad living in Cali and his mom in Guatemala. He is a great missionary, just to say that again.

It is a little rough right now in Barrio 5 just because there really isn´t much work for us. But we know what we need to do to generate the type of work that we want and we are in the process of doing so. There have also been of few changes in the zone. One of the districts of 4 missionaries has left the zone and now is part of the Leon zone. This means that now there are only 2 districts in our zone or 10 missionaries. This is good for several reasons, mainly because it will allow us to work more specifically with the missionaries and be able to help them on a more personal level. I am excited for the opportunity to serve and to be able to help others.

I am really happy that you had so much fun on the river. However, if I was there, I don´t think I would have supported Cari going on the river. But I am also sure that she swims much better than I did. She probably swims better than I do now. haha. But it sure sounds like you had a rad group up there. I would love to see some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I have sent Cami and Taryn letters, both containing pictures, and I will be sending the bigger package with the cd and a few other letters in it today. I have a letter for Callie Johansen (I do not know her address, because she sent it to me when she was at Snow), and also a letter for Timpview High School. I don´t know the address for the school, so if you could send it to them that would be great.

Also, I received an email today stating that President Watkins wants several of the missionaries in the mission to get an international driver´s license. I am going to forward you the email that I received, but unfortunately, it is all in Spanish. But I am sure you can understand it just as well as I can. Apparently the only thing that I have to do to be able to have this license, instead of take classes and tests here, is send you my Utah license, two passport photos of me with my signature on the back, and a form filled out by me, and 15 dollars. The thing is that you have to take all of these things to the AAA and they will give you the license. Nothing else. It seems pretty simple, and they also suggested that I do it even faster, so instead of sending all of this stuff in the mail, I could do it all by fax. So I will need you to send me your fax number and I will send you the stuff once I am done with everything.

Just FYI. I am not sure if that makes any sense but I will let you know with further details, but I do need to know if you have any passport pictures of me, because if you don´t I will have to send you some through the mail, and it will take 3 weeks. Which is okay. But if you have them, I can just give you permission to sign them on the back and turn them it with the rest of the stuff. So if you could get back to me on those two things, I would be very grateful. The passport pictures and the fax number, if we still have it?. I think it is 802-8229. I don´t remember.

Well, I have had an excellent week and I hope that the miracles of God continue to lighten your ways and brighten days. Please, never quit smiling and enjoying life. Remember that is why we are here, to be happy. To learn and grow. We can´t ever let Satan distract us from that divine, eternal purpose. It is too important.

I love you all so much and I, too, add to your faith and prayers.

Thanks Cami, for sending me the letter, and don´t you even worry. We will always be best friends, even when I am married and have my family. Just keep focused on reading your scriptures and praying, so when I get back we can go to the temple and participate in Baptisms for the dead. We will always be ¨bestest¨ of friends.

Have a stupendous week,

Con mucho amor y cariño,

el Élder Driggs

P.S. He incluído una foto del Élder Gomez y yo, hace mas o menos una hora y media, en el ascensor de nuestro piso. Así que puedan ver que es super guapo también, y no sólo un misionero de éxito.

con amor,

Rob

July 21, 2010

Dear Family,

Well, I don´t really know what to think after receiving that email from dad. First off, I am so glad and happy that dad has work. As he said it is very important in this economy. I am also glad to here that mom and cami are happy. It sure is going to be hard, more for you than for me, but I can see this as being a great thing for our family. I am very glad to hear that all is well with the river trip. I, as you know am a huge fan of the family/friend river trip, and if I wasn´t a missionary, I wouldn´t be in other place but there. SO FUN!!! So today I finally finished the letters that I have been preparing for Cami and Taryn the past month. Way pathetic that it takes me so many preparation days to finish a letter to someone. But I am happy to say that I have addressed them, sealed them shut and put a stamp on them. They will be put in the mail this evening. Yippee! So Cami can look forward to that.

So, I am way excited that we are going to go through this little adventure as a family. I am really interested and excited to hear all about it. Where are we going to live, more details on when you start, dad, and when we are going to leave, etc. I want to know all of the logistics. Just so you know, I am all for it and you can count me in. This is going to be a big opportunity for our family to grow closer and stronger. I can only look at the way the Hill family acclamated when they moved into our ward. That will be us!

So this week has been great. So many great things have happened. A successful baptism AND confirmation, a mission council with the 14 zone leaders of the new Spain Madrid mission, the assistants, and President Watkins, as well as interviews with the president and many other little funny things that happen along the way. Not to mention the daily miracles that we see every day as missionaries. They are so small some times that we don´t even note them, or consider them not big enough to write in a journal, but they happen. I try to do my best and thank Heavenly Father in prayer when we have the blessing to see those beautiful, tender mercies. They are daily occurences and sometimes you just have to open your spiritual eyes to find them.



So starting with the baptismal service of Kathia del Carmen Urquiaga Torreblanca. Well, maybe it would be better that I tell you the whole story about Kathia. It was only about 1 month and a half ago when I was on my first exchange in Barrio 5 with a companion that had never served in the city. Not to mention that I had only been there for 3 weeks, and had hardly any idea of where I was and where I needed to go. With hundreds and hundreds of buildings in Madrid and many looking the same, it is very easy to get lost and very hard to find your way. So we arrived at the last appointment of the night, my companion and I, and taught this young family, a single mother with two children, a 10 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. We and the member that accompanied us ate with them and then shared a message. Towards the end of the message a girl walked through the door and the mom presented her as her 24 year old daughter. She sat in for the rest of the lesson and to make a long story short, the mom after the prayer asked us if we could give her daughter Kathia a blessing. We said sure and asked the reason why, if she was sick, etc. She told us bluntly, no she just has a lot of problems. o en español, es que ella tiene muchos problemas hermano. So without asking more, we went ahead with the blessing, afterwhich we asked her a little more about herself, as it was the first time I had seen her. I asked if she had heard missionaries before and she said yes, and then we invited her to come to church with us that Sunday. She agreed as she had never been. We decided to pick them up that Sunday at 11:30, and then left the house. Well, the week went by and Sunday came and we arrived late to the house, due to metro difficulties. While we walked to their house or apartment, we found them walking towards the metro, and not just the family but Kathia as well. So she came, she liked the church, and we set up a time to visit her. After that Sunday we have been meeting with her and her family 2 times a week and she has come to church every week only missing once. During this past month and a half she has really changed. You can just see it in her face that she is happier and at peace with herself. She has a strong testimony, but it continues to amaze me how the Holy Ghost works. It amazes me that after 6 weeks, she accepted the invitation to be baptized, to make that huge change in her life, and her reason, is because she wants a remission of sins and because she has seen how drawing closer to God, by reading the scriptures and praying has really helped her feel happier. The Gospel is true and it is a miracle. It is a happy pill, or as the guy says in New York Doll, it was like being on drugs but there were no drugs involved, or something like that. You can just see the light in her face and she is so much more content and confident and patient. The changes are obvious and it makes us even more motivated to find more of God´s children that are ready to do the same thing.

So the baptismal service was great, except for the fact that we started 30 minutes late waiting for the speakers. There was a good amount of members that came to support her, about 25. So we are happy about that. Elder Moreno asked me if I wanted to play the violin for the special musical number before the baptism and I did so, with Hermana Watkins accompanying me. We played ¨I Know that My Redeemer Lives.¨ It went well, considering the fact that I haven´t played the violin for about 9 months and that the violin that I used was one that the mission had found in a missionary piso in the Canary Islands. So it was great.

The mission council was really neat because we had the 4 Madrid zones with the assistants and President Watkins meeting in the MTC on temple square video conferencing with the 3 other zones in their respective chapels. So we were connected and talking with the zone of Leon, Santiago, and the zone of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Know the zone covers two time zones and there are 110 missionaries. We are excited to see what happens with transfers this Monday the 26th of July. Elder Moreno only has two transfers left, and as if he follows suit, he should be leaving his leadership position pretty soon, and there is some necessary rezoning for a couple of the zones as the mission has changed. So we will see if I get a new companion this next week. I am not wanting to get rid of Elder Moreno, but I just think that that is what is going to happen. So....Stay tuned.

I am sorry that I wasn´t able to send a picture to you last week. I will see if it works today.

Today we visited El Escorial, a really big palace with a ton a old kings buried in the basement. It was beautiful.

Oh and I think that in the future, dad, that they are going to change the transfers from being six weeks to eight. We will see what President Watkins decides.

We got news that in September Bishop Edgely and Elder Teixiera are going to visit our mission, well only the missionaries that are in Madrid. Also, in November Elder Causse is going to visit us again, that time it will be a mission tour, so he will be visiting all of the missionaries. With the size of the mission, zone conferences will be reduced to every 3 months, with optional zone conference in between. Interviews with the President Watkins will also be every 3 months. This will be really hard for some missionaries that are really secluded because they might be 3 months without seeing very many missionaries. There are missionaries for example on the canary islands, that are there, 2 missionaries on some of the little ones. So that is hard being so isolated. It is fun however seeing the mission get bigger and meeting more missionaries. I called the other Elder Driggs in the mission and he is from Syracruse Utah. He knows Preston Tucker. So that was interesting.

I love you all and am praying for you very much. Please be safe up there in Wyoming please, and I hope that you have the best week of your lives, enjoying time together as a family. What a blessing.

I love you all.

Elder Driggs

July 14

Dear Family,

I am glad to hear that all is well in Zion and am especially excited to hear all of the great things that are going on at home. I am so happy that Mark´s eagle project turned out to be such a success. I am also very glad that you are still doing the river run. I would say I am jealous but there is no better place than Madrid Spain, while serving the Lord.

That is so fun that you went to a Paul McCartney concert. I do remember that you wanted to go dad in Miami, but what an experience to watch him right there in Salt lake.

Thank you mom for offering to send another package. I would love the chipotle sauce and wheat thins, and of course, Ranch would be great. I will try and think of some more stuff this next week so that you don´t have to worry about it until after your trip to Wyoming. Please, please, please be safe up there. Don´t be dumb like I was. Haha

I am sure you are wondering what my response was to Spain winning the world cup. I won´t say too much as I think that the picture that I sent will explain almost everything. It was crazy however. All of the festivities the day after and the main parties were in our area. It was so loud outside and the streets were just filled with thousands of people. I think that they said there was 1,000,000 people in Madrid for the day of the game and the selection the day after, when the team went around the city in a car. Basically a huge parade. I am sure that you have seen the pictures.

I can´t believe that Mark is 14. Wow!!!! Happy Birthday Best Bro. Ever. I can´t wait to hear when you get the priesthood, and how fun to celebrate it with the family this Friday.

It sounds like the family reunion was a hit. We haven´t had one of those for a while.

I am going to tease Dad a little bit. As I was reading in his email I came across the following line. Rob completed his Eagle project yesterday. HAHA, I am glad to hear, that even though I am not there that you are still getting the two of us mixed up. I thought that was funny.

I have to go now. We have to leave early today to get to an appointment at 7. So wish us luck with the metro, as the strike is continuing on.

Dad, I believe that my future release date, well the day that I leave the mission, is the 27th of June. That is the day of transfers, I believe, and the next day, the 28th, really early in the morning is when all of the missionaries will board the plane and leave. I am not exactly sure about that, but that is what I assume. That is what Elder Moreno told me and that is the day that my ministerial certificate signed by the prophet expires. I hope that that can help you.

Thank you mom for the newsletter. I love hearing from my friends and family!!! It helps a lot.

Yesterday we had a zone conference and it went grate. I thought you might like to know that with the combining of the missions, there is another Elder Driggs. He is from Driggs, Idaho, and President Watkins suggested that I call him and get to know him tonight. Way crazy eh? I thought that I was the only Elder Driggs on a mission. But that is great that there is one more.

I love you all. I am grateful that all of you are well. Keep up the good work and have the best week ever.

Love, Rob

P.S. Oh Yeah! Great news, we are having a baptism this Saturday. The daughter of member is getting baptized. She is the 24 year old girl from Peru. She seems very happy and we are excited to see her make that special and sacred covenant this Saturday.

July 7, 2010

Dear family,

Well, where to start on the weekly letter home? Things are going well. Elder Moreno and I are trying to find the best way to do the missionary work here in Madrid. The best ways to manage time, when to schedule appointments, when to call the references that we received. We are really trying to analyze everything, and of course, we are so blessed to have Preach My Gospel that has the answers to almost everything.

It is rough sometimes because the success isn´t as obvious as sometimes we would hope, but the blessings cannot be denied and we cannot complain. We taught a very special family yesterday, and they got us very excited. They are wonderful! We had scheduled the appointment with the husband, Gustavo, and he told us that we could come by at about 7:30 yesterday. You must understand that when we schedule appointments over the phone there is a pretty fare chance that they are not going to be there. But we got there at 7 and rang their doorbell at the bottom of their building. They answered, but we couldn´t hear what they were saying. They let us in and we went to the door, knocked, and his wife answered. She opened the door and invited us in with a huge smile.

Unfortunately after asking her, she told us that her husband hadn´t arrived yet, so we stayed outside the door for about 5 minutes talking to her until he and their daughter got back from the grocery store. We went in, and you could tell that they not only were just going to let us in, but that they were expecting us. The whole apartment was clean, she put out some appetizer things and brought us something to drink. We sat down and started to talk. They both have a ton of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the best part about it is that they are really sensitive to the Holy Ghost. They felt the Spirit, we felt the Spirit, and we are going to come back Friday to teach them the first lesson. They seem to be willing to make the changes that they need in their life to become an eternal family and be baptized. So we are really excited about them.

Other than that new family there really isn´t much more. We had a few people that had committed to being baptized, but one has lost interest, and the other is received opposition from his mother. We are going to talk to him about that tomorrow. We are also teaching a young girl from Peru, who also has committed to being baptized, but it is on the condition that she knows that it is what she should do. Her mom and brother are members. So there is work to be done here in Madrid, but the work is a little bit slow, and even slower with all of this heat. Wow, it is hot here!!! We have surely entered into summer and the sun is hot. We are again getting used to the constant sweat on our brows and the sticky shirt feeling. So that is also fun!!!

Today for preparation day we went to the temple early. It was a great way to start off the day. When we got back I picked up the cd I had made with all of the latest pictures on my camera. I think you will enjoy all of the fun and exciting pictures. I hope we can send that soon.

We are going to be having another zone conference this next Tuesday and the only specifics that we have received are, that we are going to have 1 hour to teach and motivate the missionaries in our zone. We are going to have 30 minutes that has to be related to faith (how to strengthen our faith, how to manifest our faith, etc. The other half hour can be about whatever we feel needs to be discussed in the zone. So we will be planning that until we arrive at that day.

Today we also went around all of Madrid and took pictures of all of the famous sites with our district of 6 missionaries. It was fun, but we got tired fast, and after 3 hours, we were pooped. I hope to get you those pictures soon. If I can figure out how, I will try to send you some right now.

I am glad to hear that all is well with all of you. I hope that the interviews go well dad. I am praying for you. I also fasted for the same purpose this last Sunday. There surely is a power in fasting, and even more so as a family. I forgot to with you happy father´s day dad. Happy Father´s Day. I hope all went well on your special day.

I am extremely appreciative for your prayers. They are becoming more and more meaningful as time goes on in the mission. It isn´t always easy, but it sure lightens the burden, knowing and feeling that people are praying for me.

I love you all soooo much. I hope that you know that. I pray for you as well. I am glad that you are doing better mom and that you are reading the scripture daily. What a blessing to be able to do so.

I hope that Mark and Cari do well in dance and that they enjoy the summer while it lasts. I am glad to hear that you are going on the river again. Very fun.

So we are rooting for España as much as we can here. I hope that you do a better job than we do. I hope that you have the best week ever and that you enjoy every minute of every day. There is no reason that we should get down. We are a happy people, especially with the restored Gospel in our lives. May God bless us this week. I know that this Church is true.

Thank you for everything, your thoughts, prayers, and love.

Elder Driggs