February 16, 2011

My dearest Family in the whole wide world,

Firstly, thank you soooo much for the package that you sent me mom. Wow!!! You know exactly what I love, you really must be my mom. I love Sees candy and that box was too good to be true. I really was surprised by that lovely detail. I will eat that little by little, to saver the taste of home. I received that package on Monday while I was at the office and opened it and shared with the office missionaries and a senior couple the dried bananas that you sent me. They seemed to like them. Thank you so much. I loved the little comments on every one as well. That was very....cute. Haha.

Yesterday, Tuesday, we had a Zone Conference here in Madrid. The three zones here all met in the stake center by the temple and we had a great meeting. Elder Ketchum and I had thirty minutes to be able to address the zones and I was hoping that we would be able to do something together. As this will be Elder Ketchum´s last zone conference he chose to do separate talks instead. I am not as confident as I would like to be in giving talks that have not been written out.

I feel like I can´t communicate very well publicly my thoughts. So it was a little bit of stress for me. However I tried to prepare myself and it went over very well. Many missionaries were nice in complimenting me, which also feels good. I will tell you what, though, Elder Ketchum has an incredible gift in public speaking. He is a natural. He speaks from his heart and does so in a very calm and direct way. Let´s just say that he has mastered teaching by the Spirit. He is a great example to me and he said everything perfectly yesterday. He is incredible.

This week has been a great week. We are getting ready for transfers this next week, this next Monday, so we are excited. There will be about 13 missionaries, I think, that are going to go home at the end of this transfer and about that same number that go home in the next, including Elder Ketchum. So President Watkins is trying to prepare for these big changes. It is weird to think that about a fourth part of the mission is going to go home within the next 7 weeks, especially since a good number of those missionaries are, have been leaders in the mission.

Everything is going really well. We are anxious for a baptism. We haven´t had one for a while and are in need of finding some more good people. There are a few and we are really excited for a man from Honduras that we started teaching this last Sunday night. His sister and brother in law, he lives with them, are members with their 4 year old daughter. He is out of work and it looks like he is fairly active in the Catholic church. We, in the mission right now, invite people to be baptized in the first lesson. We usually do it in a casual way just to understand their desires and to make sure that they are really people that are elect and are going to progress. We usually say something like, ¨Si usted supiera que lo que nosotros compartimos es verdadero y que esta Iglesia es la Iglesia de Jesucristo, usted se preparía para ser bautizado en ella.¨ In this way we can see if the people we are teaching are dedicated or not.

So we invited Mario in a similar way and he said that he was willing to listen and learn about the church but baptism not so much, I actually don´t remember exactly what he said about baptism but like it was really serious or that he wasn´t really interesting in that part of the message. He seemed pretty against it. So we taught him again last night and as a mission or I think as a church, missionaries should invite people to be baptized with a date at least by the second lesson. So we did so with Mario last night and it was incredible the change in his answer this last time. We told him that we were certain that he would receive an answer from God very soon and we invited him to prepare himself to be baptized the 19^th of March. We assured him that as he kept reading in the Book of Mormon, he had read until page ten in the introduction part, and kept praying, that he would be able to receive an answer. He responded, ¨Vamos a ver si estoy preparado.¨WE promised him a baptismal calendar for the next time we meet. I am happy here in the mission and I love the work. It is fun helping people come unto Christ by doing simple things.

Thank you sooo much for all that you do for me. I love you all very much and pray for you often. I love you all and hope that you have a great week. Keep praying for Mario and the other investigators that we are teaching, and please pray for me that I might be a good instrument in the hands of God.

I suppose that Kathryn is already living the dream in Provo MTC. If you write her, tell her that I say hi and that I love her. Wish her luck from me as well.

I love you all,

Love,

Élder Driggs

February 8, 2011

My Dearest Family,

It´s been a great week. We are busy as usual and there are few moments to breathe in our busy schedules. Monday, two days ago, we had a zone leader council and it turned out well. We ate there in the MTC around 2:30 or 3:00 and then we, Elder Ketchum and I, were off to the office. We were there until 8:30pm and had to make a couple of calls so that we could move the visits that we had scheduled and be able to teach two, Elder Ketchum going with Elder Jeppson, and Elder Gardner going with me. Lately I have noticed that I am really tired when I get home. I think it´s because I just turned 21...I am really getting old and the age must be taking it´s toll on my body.

This last Sunday we were really excited because there were 8 non members in church, 2 of the which were official investigators, but the rest had just been invited in the initial contact and came. They all seemed to really enjoy it and 2 of them, a mom and daughter from Columbia, were really receptive and hit it off well with the members. I think that it helps that our bishop is Columbian.

We are looking forward to the baptism of Fausto the 19^th of February. I think that we are going to do it that week but we have Stake Conference this next week so it will be hard to let all of the members know so that they can come and support him. We will see what happens.

I think that this itinerary is fantastic. I am not sure how I could check train schedules to Paris. I don´t even know where they would leave from. I guess I have a few ideas of where that would be, but those places are not even in our area. I could probably talk to hermana Watkins, who might know more than I do. You, mom, could probably ask her as well. I am sure that she would be happy to help, that is if she knows something about that kind of stuff. I really do like the itinerary. I will sure be fun to see everyone and to be able to do so here in Spain.

Hermana Watkins has created a blog spot, if you wanted to know mom, for the parents of missionaries and for returned missionaries from the Spain Madrid mission. This is the direction: www.spainmadridmission.blogspot.com

Today we went to the temple and it was great. Afterwards Elder Ketchum started talking to Presidente Moore, the temple president, and he invited us into his office to answer a couple of questions. We were there probably 15 minutes or so but it was a priviledge to be with him and to just hear him talk. He is a very special man with a lot of church experience.

The other day I was walking with my companion in the street, I think that it was Elder Veintemilla de Ecuador pero que vive aquí en España ahora, and I saw a women across the street look at me and I had the thought to go and talk to her but I didn´t do it. We walked a loop and then went back to almost that same spot, just a little bit farther down, and I saw her and her dog again off the sidewalk in a grassy spot. I didn´t pass this opportunity up this time and went and gave her a card, even though she was talking on her cell phone. She stopped talking and said to me while I was starting to walk away, ¨Soy miembro.¨ I wasn´t that surprised as I realized that I had had the prompting earlier to talk to her and I realized why the Lord wanted me to talk to her, because she is a member.

We waited until she was off the phone and she told us that she had been here for a month from Paraguay and she hadn´t been to church yet. She gave us her number and now we have localized another member of the Church of Christ. It was another miracle in missionary work and I should learn never to deny spiritual impressions. Luckily or gratefuly, I was given a second chance and I was able to see the fruits behind the acting on that spiritual prompting. I am a witness that miracles do exist and that God is a God of love and miracles. If we are worthy and willing he can make us instruments or angels in his hands.

I am doing really well and am excited about the work. I love this celestial work! I am working hard and Elder Ketchum and I are finding new drives and new focuses to just baptize. To do everything possible to baptize. We are preparing to talk in the next tri-zone conference about this focus, just in doing all that is possible to baptize. Not to be distracted by things that are supposed to help us baptize from actually doing so, getting to the end goal. We are excited and love the work.

I love you all and pray for you. Like I always say and know that you do, keep praying for me.

I love you all!

Love,

Élder Driggs

February 2, 2011

Dear Family,

Bad weeks are hard to come by here in beautiful Madrid Spain. As you could probably guess, it was another wonderful week...busy, but surely wonderful! I loved the updates on the family this last week and I loved hearing about how everything went with Cari´s baptism.

Right now, Elder Ketchum and I are in Toledo for preparation day. What a beautiful and ancient city. It is just fantastic. Elder Ketchum has a lot of patience with me as about every corner I stop in amazement and say, ¨Wow, how beautiful is that, oh and that, oh and that too....wow!¨ He is a great companion and I look forward, not complaining at all about the blessing we have to be training right now, but I do look forward to his last transfer in being together more often. It is just a HUGE blessing being able to have companions that are sooo seasoned and perfected and that have devoloped so nicely Christlike attributes and know how to do missionary work. I have been so blessed to have had so many companions like that, and Elder Ketchum is definitely one of the most advanced. It is hard to keep up with him, as he is so outstanding. We get along and we both desire to work hard and, of course, baptize.

This week has been great. We have continued to do 3 weekly exchanges which requires that I be out of the area 2 times every 9-10 days, and 2 other days, I am with another companion and it´s Elder Ketchum that leaves and goes to another area. It is really hard doing all of these, but we are seeing a lot of good results. Most importantly we are able to see how the missionaries are doing the work, their strong and weak points as missionaries, and this knowledge allows us to better analyze the needs of the mission and where we need to go with the training. It is good and from what we have noted so far is that the missionaries are benefiting a lot from these 1 day exchanges and we are also receiving a lot of blessings.

We, right now, oh well yeah. We had a baptism last Saturday. Fernando Andrade got baptized, the same day as Cari, and I spake about baptism. It was a great baptismal service and Fernando was really happy. He said that he felt really good, like aliviated, afterwards.

We, right now, are trying to find more people who are dedicated to being baptized. We don´t have the best investigator pool right now, so we need to do some better finding so that we can help more people. Fausto Jaramillo from Ecuador, I am not sure if I commented about him, is doing really well. He has now come to church 4 times, and has been to 2 baptismal services. He has a baptismal date for the 15th of February and is excited for it. He is really just waiting for his testimony at this point. He says that he is praying and reading in the Book of Mormon, he actually had to work in a far away city all of last week and brought with him his Book of Mormon and was able to read while he was there, so we hope that he is able to receive his answer soon. I am not sure if he actaully reads every day, but his is reading, so that is good news. We are also teaching, well mainly Elder Ketchum and his companion Elder Gardner from Afton Wyoming, a little 10 year old boy whose parents are less active from Bolivia. They have lived here for a while and are now getting back into the church. They have now come to church a few times in a row and the father just received the Aaronic Priesthood in the office of Priest, I believe. They are a great family, two parents and two children. Johann is excited for his baptism and hopefully his dad can baptize him. That beautiful thought just came to me.

Well, I have to go. I am glad that you all had a great week and I hope that this next week goes the same. Say hi to everyone for me, and actually we were reading in a church news newspaper that some missionary got and I was thinking that it would be really neat to be able to work in the MTC when I get back. I have no idea how any of that works. I have heard that Elder Carr might be teaching their right now and maybe one more missionary from this mission. If you could maybe look that up and see if that is possible/a good option, I would thank you for it. I love you sooo much and have the best week ever.

Don´t forget to ¨Look unto Christ in every thought. Doubt not, fear not.¨

I love you all. Congrats on your talk Cami!!!! and Happy Birthday Cari!!!! I give you my welcome into the church. ¡Bienvenida hermana!

con mucho amor y cariño y gratitud por siempre orar por mi. Oro por ustedes también.

Élder Driggs