Missionary Work is a Great Experience

Questions from home:

 

Question;  When you have visitors in church are there members that go out of their way to meet them and make them feel welcomed  in church?:  some yes others no.  I hope you go out of your way to greet people.

  Do you introduce them to the visitors so they can have a member come in contact with the visitors?: we make a great effort to so they keep wanting to come back.

  Do you have an ongoing Gospel Principles class for new members and visitors? : yes in all of my areas there have been teachers that teach the class.

who teaches it ?   : a member named Stalin Castro from Ecuador.

How many are in the class on a regular basis?: like 12.

Random thoughts 

I accidentally was trying to tell a less active that she looked young by trying to say 25 as a joke, but my mouth misinterpreted and said 50.  Now every time I see her she always laughs and I laugh because she keeps saying she's 50 but in reality she's 44.  Oops

We were on a train to Vitoria and there were a lot of young teens that were saying bad jokes and mean things.  There was also guardia civil on the train too.  I so glad to have for strength of youth.

I want mission stories.  Mom, dad, tony, victor...I want to hear some mission stories just for fun to read and treasure.

Mom, please send me electronically a copy of the baptisms for this year to me so I can send them to the office for an end of the year video, plus a hand copy of Claudia's baptism in December to send to her for a one year celebration of membership!

This week was a good week.  We saw many miracles and saw success too.  There won't always be stormy days.  The sun has to come out some time.

I would like to start off by sharing a great miracle that we had this
past week.  We were knocking doors one day and we were late on time so we skipped the first two floors.  We had extra time the other day so we decided to finish knocking that building.  As we came down to the first and last floor and the second to last door, we knocked and nothing.  We were just on our way to the last door and out the building when we heard a voice coming from the door of 1,D.  Normally when someone says "who is it?"  you normally answer back and say " we are missionaries", and then they shoo us away without even opening the door, but we answered back and said that we were missionaries.  The man opened up the door.  He was 25 years old and invited us in.  He is very catholic, but we went in, sat down.  He told us that he was in a hurry but we could share a quick message.  We explained who we are and told about the Book of Mormon.  He took ingress and invited us for Sunday lunch.  It was an incredible visit, one I had been praying for.  It shot our enthusiasm through the roof and gave us desires to work harder.  The visit yesterday was terrific.  No fecha yet, but little by little.

We met a lady right after this visit and met a lady in a bakery named Money from Bulgeria.  She is really nice, young and full of energy, plus we bought pumpkin shaped cookies for Halloween, and no they do not celebrate Halloween here in Spain, only all saints day.

We had a primary choir for the baptism of 2 children of this ward here from active families.  It was really nice.

A man from Logroño came to our church and shared a message about addiction recovery.  He is from the US, and has a strong THICK American accent.  I had to think to myself how is my accent?

Mom dad, hope you two are having FHE.  if no, join up with another family and have one.  it is a sacred time during the week to be together with the family and fill our spiritual lamps.

We cannot teach anything unless we first have a testimony of it in our own lives.

We played a fun game for noche de amigos with the JAS called bear, fish, mosquito.  It's like rock, paper, scisors (sorry have no idea how to spell that).

We contacted a man from Taiwan who speaks very good English named Elvis.

I just want to let you all know that I do have a testimony and that a mission is the hardest 2 years I have ever done/will do.  It is not easy but "salvation was not a cheap experience"- Élder holland.  Our savior Jesus Christ is our redeemer from the fall.  I have the chance to read the New Testament as assigned by president Dayton to begin a journey to study about the life of the savior.  I have only but read the first chapter of Matt, but I have first started off studying what is the bible and how and why it is so important.  It has gone through hundreds of years worth of translation and false dedication to get to our homes and we sometimes treat it lightly.  I know I have, but it testifies of the savior as well as the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ.  We must use the bible to gain a testimony of the basic Christian doctrine and read from the words of modern prophets to help us fill in the missing gaps.  I love this work even if it makes me want to pull my hair out:)

Well family I love you all and wish you a great week.

Con cariño

Élder Gonzalez 

Sent from my iPad