September 23, 2010

Dear Family,

I am sooo glad to hear that you went to hear Elder Carr speak. I am glad that you enjoyed his talk. I can imagine that he stumbled a little bit on his English. It is really hard sometimes when you find someone that speaks English and you try to share your testimony. It is really difficult. For the normal daily things it isn´t that hard, but when we teach, which we always teach in Spanish, it is hard to do so in English. Plus, he speaks very well. I will also be interested to hear what his parents say about Spain and what is good to do here.

I am very sorry I haven´t told you anything lately about the package you sent me. There are no excuses but it is hard to remember and write about certain things 4, 5, or 6 days later. I did get the package and I loved it. The cookies were wonderful, a little dry, but that doesn´t matter one bit after you dunk them in milk. Hmmmm. The package was wonderful. I think I got a stomach ache that first night from all of the cinnamon bears that I ate. Haha not really, but I did eat a lot. I also loved the honey nut cheerios. They were delicious. I got the license as well, and as usual, the best treat is the CHIPOTLE sauce. I love that stuff. I had to wait a few days until I could buy some cream cheese, but that just brings me back to eating that with Cari, and when she would always take too much cream cheese, haha. I love you all soo much. Haha.

I am sure that you were all worried when I didn´t write you yesterday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday some of the missionaries participated in a special training meeting where they presented us with 8 themes to help us better use the Preach My Gospel Manual. It was interesting and very well done. I learned a lot and felt a lot too. The biggest focus was to really focus on the needs of the people and on the spirit and our love for them. So hopefully we can carry on and show more love for the people and not just teach them, but help them, love them, and walk with them to the waters of baptism.

I really don´t think that there is anything that I need from home, mom. I can´t think of too much. I love the fruties, cinnamon bears, and whatever type of candy. Those decorations were fun last time, but I like whatever you send me. It is sent with so much love that it makes me want to work that much harder when I receive a package.

That is sooo exciting about Kathryn. I hope to hear soon that she is going to be called to Spain on a mission. Hopefully to Madrid, but if not, at least to Spain, so I can see hear around in the MTC or something.


Before I sign out and write the weekly report to President Watkins I wanted to tell you about a spiritual experience I had yesterday.

With all of the focus from the training that we have been receiving lately on listening for the Spirit and following it, yesterday I was able to have an experience that helped fortify my testimony. As we were going in the metro to a metro stop, Palos de la Frontera, we had no plans. Our main plan had been dropped and so we were lost as to what to do.

Normally, we have back up plans but this time we had nothing. We were calling references and contacting when we stepped out of the metro and my first instinct was to head for the exit like normal, when I felt that I should stop and just wait and think about what we should do. I stopped, thought about it, and looked one more time in my agenda and specific name and person jumped out at me. I looked at it and couldn´t remember who it was and we decided to pass by him, he actually lived very close to there. We went in the direction of his house, and after talking to a few people in the street we went up.

We knocked on the door and the address was wrong. We knocked on the door in front and asked for Alberto and he said that he was Alberto. I began to vaguely recognize his face and we asked to share a brief message with him, that we had been sharing in his neighborhood that day, for 5 minutes. He accepted and we went in. It was a very spiritual message, with a lot of love and participation on his part. We talked a lot about Jesus Christ and at the end invited him to prepare himself to be baptized on the 23rd of October. He humbly accepted. We went into his room and knelt and prayed together. He offered the closing prayer.

It was a wonderful and spiritual lesson and we felt very guiding during the whole experience. He actually has a few people he knows that are members that live in the same building. So we are very blessed here. Please pray for him that he might be able to find work and that he will be humble enough to keep going and progressing towards his baptismal date.

I love you all and pray for you so much.

Please keep praying for me and the people that we come into contact with. Please follow the teachings of Jesús Christ always. We need His help.

Love,

Rob