October 13, 2010

Dearest Family ever,

How are things going in your part of the town. I absolutely loved the letters today. I appreciated the spiritual thoughts, the scriptures, and the surprising events about the Stokers, Ernst´s, and just how life is so busy at home. I love being busy and I fear the time when I get home and have very little planned. However, that day will come. I need to worry more about the now.

Thanks for the thoughts on staying focused and enjoying to the max the time I have here to dedicate myself to the Lord and His service. It honestly makes me sad to think that I am on the other side of the mission and to think that I will not be doing this forever. I love the work. I love the people. It is hard work and sometimes I don´t love it, but I try to do my best during those times and it helps shape who I am.

It is also hard to see my progress during the mission. You always want to change so much during the mission and sometimes I fear that I am not changing at all. I´m sure I have changed in some aspects, well hopefully most aspects, but these changes are certainly so gradual that I don´t note them at all. But don´t get me wrong. I love the mission and want everyone to serve one. Holy Cow, it is the best. I am still waiting to hear from Kathryn. I want to know where she is called. I hope she comes here to Madrid. That would be way sweet.

So yeah, Mom, I do know Élder Pederson. It´s actually kind of funny, because he asked me that the other day. I actually don´t know how he found out, but apparently you are friends with his mom too. But he asked me if I knew the Ernsts and I said yes and it was really neat to draw that connection.

He used to live in California when he was really little, in San Francisco and in Concord. He was actually in the ward of President Watkins, when President Watkins was a bishop. Apparently, Elder Pederson´s mom is really good from with Hermana Watkins. So that is really neat. He is a great missionary, and he only has 4 days left and then he goes home. He has been the assistant for the last transfer, or last 5 weeks, and so it has been fun to get to know him a little bit more and to learn from him.

Elder Pederson bore a really strong testimony the other day in mission council and I really came away really impressed with what he had learned during the mission. The two things that I remember that he mentioned were, 1 – being honest with yourself and with God. 2. Talking about baptism in every contact and in every lesson. If we do that we will baptize more. He is a really good missionary and even though I hardly know him, because was from the old Bilboa Mission, it would be fun to stay in contact with him. I am going to tell him about the concert, because that will make him happy that we know the Ernst´s so well. He also told me that Nicole is really serious with someone. That made me laugh when I heard that because I still remember the family joke that everyone always played on us. I guess things are not going according to plan. Haha

Everything is going really well here. I will tell you what though. I want to baptize more people. We have a baptismal service this Saturday with the 25 year old man, I think I told you about him last week, Luis Jaime Males. He is a really good person. We had a few minor complications in the whole progress because last week we found out that he was going to have to go to Columbia to see his brother get married, the week before his scheduled baptism. We asked if he could postpone the flight two days and leave on a Monday. We also asked permission from President Watkins if he could get baptized because he had only come to church 2 times officially, the first time he missed the Sacrament Meeting and we don´t count it if that happens.

For someone to be baptized in the Spain Madrid mission they have to come to church atleast three times. President had no problem with that and so we are all good to go. Our district leader Elder Cerro interviewed him last night and all is well. All systems are go for this Saturday at 7 o clock. We are very excited, especially because the whole ward is excited about it. Our new bishop is super focused in the missionary work and wants all of the organizations focused on that. So he and our awesome new ward mission leader have everyone excited for this Saturday and many members are helping us out and calling to see if there is anything else they can do. I love it, because that is the way a ward should work. I would love to hear that Luis goes on a mission too. His girlfriend told him a few weeks ago that she wants to serve a mission, so hopefully he can get the chance to go. We will see. That is my dream, to help someone get baptized that at the same time serves a mission and helps many more people.

We are really excited about a certain family Luz, Napoleón, Jasmani, and Saul. They are the family of four from Ecuador that I think I commented about last week. Napoleón has left to work out of Madrid for a couple of weeks and we have seen tons of progress. He was a little stubborn, and Luz is super sensible to the Spirit. Last night we taught tithing to her and her two sons, and her niese(who is a little like Napoleón), because she had seen the word in the guia de las escrituras, at the back of the Book of Mormon in Spanish. We taught it to her and she understood it perfectly. We invited her to live the law after her baptism and without thinking she immediately responded, Sí. As you can see she is just awesome and is being prepared by the Holy Ghost to be baptized.

She and her sons and her husband, who brought the Book of Mormon with him while away for work, are reading the Book of Mormon every day, and she and her sons, at least are praying everyday as well. We just need to make sure that they are asking Heavenly Father everyday in their prayers if these things are true. She is really great and will be a really strong member pretty soon. She has committed to come to church this Sunday with her sons and she is also planning on coming to the baptism this Saturday, also, there is an activity for all of the youth in Madrid this Saturday and she said that if we went, Elder Gomez and I, she would let her 2 boys go too.

We are just really excited about them and pretty soon you will here that they have a date and will be baptized. We invited them to be baptized already the 20th ish of November, I can´t remember exactly, and she said, well, I can´t say that it will be that day, but in the future I can´t deny that I might do it. So she is there progressing little by little. She read the first half of the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, yeah it is also the same in spanish, and she said that she liked it, she shared concerns that she has for her youth especially while living in Spain, and she said that she agreed with everything that it said so far. She told us that she wants to know more about Alcohol the next lesson, so teaching her is really easy now, because we teach in accordance with her interests.

Well, I love being a full time missionary. I sometimes forget the eternal importance of this sacred calling. But I do love being here.

I love you. I pray for all of you by name. Thank you for your prayers. Thanks for writing Cami, and the letter is almost finished being written and will be in the mail today. I love you, Cami, very much and I also am excited to be with you and the family again. It will be great, but for now my time, thoughts, and actions are to be focused on the Lord´s holy errand. His labor of love.

Love, Elder Driggs