Got Home Teaching?

 

Welcome to September everyone.  The temperature is 7 degrees Celsius and I have no idea what that translates into the U.S. Standard.  We have calculators on our iPads but I'm too lazy to check it.  I do know the math equation is Cx1.8+32=F so...I still know math:)

Right now I'm on a bus going to Vitoria again, because that is what we seem to do here is go to Vitoria, to go play soccer, futball, with the zone!  I'm so excited, we played last week and it was a lot of fun.

Last week was a very hard week, maybe one of the hardest weeks I have had on my mission, at least emotionally.  I had been feeling really down, so we are going to see what will happen with this final week I have with Élder wheat because this is his last week in the mission because he goes home this next week, and more than likely I'll stay here in Pamplona another transfer, hopefully with more missionaries.

We had a really good week with the ward members.  We have seen a lot of success with teaching and ward motivation in missionary work.  After stake conference, many members are pumped to have the Ward split in the near future.  I am really excited to see what will happen.  For example, one thing this ward needs to do to split is to increase the number of home teaching and more elders.  So yestrrday the elders quorum president made all the elders go and do home teaching.  I was adsigned with another member and we went and visited javier Montoya, a member who works for the national police force, or the army resumed, I
don't know, but in order to get to his home, we had to go through security.  They had to scan my DNI card, my European citizen ship card for Spain, and then we went and visited Javier.  He is such a great guy.  He's the Sunday school president.  He was a missionary in Malayan in 2001 and showed us his gun he has in his piso.  Super cool!

Random notes:
It has been a windy week this week, and the weather has turned to a cool fall temperature.

We had a visit with this new Romanian family we met on the street last week and it was a great visit.  We didn't plan on it, but we taught the family a proclamation to the world.  It was a really good lesson with a great family.

This week i have been making my prayers a little more personal.  At night I would walk into another room of our piso and I would close the door to find myself alone and kneel down and pray out loud.  Sometimes they were good prayers when I could feel the spirit, and others were prayers of complaints to the Lord.  Missions are hard and requires all the energy you can consecrate to the Lord.  Sometimes I get scared what happens to my letters when I write home.  I don't know who reads them or what happens to them, but I will say this, this week was a testimony rocker.  I really had to think, is mission good for me?  Should I stay here? Am I doing any good in the world when even though I take 2 steps forward, I feel like I'm going 3 steps back.  While others are maturing I still feel like a boy.  I still look at people and still wish to be the Victors and the Sam Garrards of the world because they are people that I do look up to, even wanting to be more like dad.  Anyway, that is enough complaining from me for one day.

We made a virtual tour of our church last week with our iPads so we can show the investigators what our church looks like because that is what president Dayton wants us to do.  Plus new pass-along cards with a photo of the church.

I had the biggest desire to play "the pyramid" a game show from the 70s for English class, but need more time to come up with a plan on how to do it.  Instead we played jeopardy.

A member had a picture that said " if you need help from God, call these numbers : John 14:13-14; Matt11:23-28; Luke 11:9-10; Isaiah 55:1-3; rev 21:3-7".  So if you ever need something. give him a call.  Operators are standing by to take your call.

Well, family there isn't much more that I have to write other than the fact that I love you and I know the church is true and I have a testimony that the church is true.  I was sitting next to one of our investigators in church yesterday while my companion was with someone
else.  I sat there and in like 10-15 seconds I felt good, like I was in a place I needed to be.  The church here is just as true as in Utah.  I still feel like a popcorn in a bowl of hot oil, like when
tony makes his Sunday batch of popcorn, I want to jump out but I'm not cooked through yet.  I still want to pull my hair out and my head still wants to explode, but stressors make stress receptors stronger to stretch the capacity to be stressed.  I think the movie " it's a wonderful life" puts it in plain terms for all to  know just by reading the title.  God is the father of our spirits and parents only want the best for their children, and if you spare the rod and spoil
the child how can anyone grow and mature?  We receive challenges to define our characters to make ourselves that much closer to the savior of the universe. I don't know what the Lord has planned for me but I pray that I'll keep him planned in my life's daily schedule.

I love you all family.  Hope you have a great week.

Con cariño,
Élder Gonzalez

Ps sorry about missed words, this bus is really shaky and autocorrect
is just off today.

Sent from my iPad