D&C 20:10-12

10 And thy brother Oliver shall continue in bearing my name before the world, and also to the church. And he shall not suppose that he can say enough in my cause; and lo, I am with him to the end.

11 In me he shall have glory, and not of himself, whether in weakness or in strength, whether in bonds or free;

12 And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night. And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men.

Monday, September 30, 2013

A Glimpse of Christ's Love

Well. This has been a good week. I'm flipping exhausted.

Today, we went to the mountain in Cartegena. It was a rough hike. I have been a little under the weather yesterday and today, so it was quite the painful hike. I took some fantastic photos, and I wish I could share them, but this computer isn't reading my card. I'll have to use a different one next week.  (Note from mom:  I got some photos, I don't know if he finally got it to work, or if these were from his comps camera.)
Captioned by Hayden, "Let us All Press On."
 The caption for this picture read, "Awkward Spaces between Elders and Hermanas."  



Tomorrow I am going to Málaga again to finish my residency paperwork. That'll be nice to have that finished up. I wish that I could have told you happy birthday in person, mom, but I celebrated your birthday by eating a donut. I wish I had bought the slightly more expensive donuts, because the 24hr store donuts were awful. But I still celebrated your birthday, so... yeah.

This week we didn't place any Libro de Mormóns, but we did place one in Finnish, German, Norwegian, English, and Hindi. I'm starting to wonder if I am ever going to speak Spanish... Haha, just kidding. My spanish is improving every day, and I have been told by several people this week that they can see my improvement. That is always nice to hear. 

Starting the day after General Conference, the whole mission is reading the Book of Mormon. We are going to finish it before 2014. Which means, we have to read about 6.25 pages each day. The cool thing is, is that we are reading it in 85 days, which is about how long it took Joseph Smith to translate it. That's going to be sweet.  Buuuut... I have a personal goal to read the English and the Spanish BoMs side by side, verse by verse. I have to read 13.5 or so pages per day. And reading it out loud will help me become fluent before Christmas.

There are miracles happening all accross the mission. We are finding investigators in all sorts of places, and this week a whole family started listening to us. My greatest desire is to see all of these families sealed for time and all eternity in the temple, so the first step is to get them baptized and confirmed. 

Every day I grow to love these people more and more. Somebody at the MTC said that since we are authorized representatives of Jesus Christ, we get a little glimpse of the love he has for them and us. Despite many of these people being disrespectful to us, or just being rude to everybody, I love them. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses that don't smile at us. Except one, he was cool.

Friday, we took the bus to a potential investigator. 25 minutes on the bus, and 40 minutes of walking from the bus stop. We always walk fast, but we were tired and it was hot, so we tried hitch-hiking, but it didn't work. I guess Españoles don't pick up random guys dressed in shirts and ties. Oh well, vale.

Speaking of which, 'vale', is a word that is quite popular here.  For example, whenever you need a word to fill in empty space, you say vale. Whenever you are setting an appointment, you end with vale. When the check-out lady at Mercadona gives you your change, vale.   ¿vale?  sí, vale.

I think it is kind of ridiculous... But oh well, vale.

I got the camera! I also took some pictures, so that was cool. And I made some videos, which was also cool... So yeah.

I am so tired I can't concentrate on the email, because I can't remember what has happened this week. I think I need some water.

Speaking of water. I drink it. A lot. I regularly drink 3-4 liters per day. The tap water here tastes even worse than the water in Peoria!

Anyways, I'll try to email better next week.


¡Os quiero mucho!
Élder Oliver

Here are his pictures for this week, and the limited info he gave me with them.

 This is the view from the Cartegena Elder's apartment in the morning.
 Fun with fridge magnets.
 This one just said, "new camera!"
 This is their baptismal font.
 He wrote, and I quote, "Some old military fort."  Maybe I"ll google it later and fill in more info.  If anyone knows anything about it (Connie???), please feel free to fill me in!
 The view from their piso in the morning.
One of these days, maybe we'll get a picture of him actually making a normal face!
And lastly, zone conference.  This is three zones combined, the Cartegena, Alicante and Murcia Zones.  I got this picture off the Spain Malaga Mission Blog.

1 comment: