I hope everyone who reads this gets to celebrate it in a fantastic way. For our p-day today, as a district we went out to lunch to an American restaurant called Ribs and then almost all of us went bowling. It was a day full of American pride, and American indoctrination to the three international missionaries in our district. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, it's not a big holiday here.
Anyway, so this week started out with a zone conference. It was another really good one. President and Hermana Pack focused a lot on faith and our purpose as missionaries to help us out with our work we have to do. It was a very spiritual conference and we got a lot of direction that we all needed. They also introduced two new activities that they want us to do. President Pack challenged us to meet with all of the members in the next couple months and share a 4 minute Restoration lesson with them. Elder M. Russell Ballard said once that if missionaries can learn how to share a spiritually powerful Restoration summary in 4 minutes, the number of convert baptisms will increase. We have already shared it a few times, and the spirit is super strong when you're with members. They've usually wanted to bear their testimonies right afterwards and it's been a very rewarding experience. The other thing that President introduced is something I will call a streetboard. I need to backtrack, though.
About a month ago, Elder Robert C Gay of the quorum of the seventy visited our mission, and he served in Spain about 40 years ago, back when it was all one mission. They weren't teaching any lessons hardly at all, and the only sacrament meeting in Madrid was held in a kitchen. They were looking for things they could do to turn it around, and at one zone conference they received the inspiration to make a streetboard; a large picture set up on a stand, and they took it to the Plaza Mayor in Madrid and started talking to people there, and it made a huge difference. Unfortunately, in that time it was illegal, and some missionaries got arrested at first, but the mission president took the case to the Spanish courts and got the law removed. A couple months before Elder Gay came and visited us, President Pack had had the thought that he needed to order some large pictures of Jesus' face for the missionaries. When Elder Gay shared that story, President Pack hadn't told anyone except for the Assistants about his idea, and that was a confirmation to him that it was an idea from the Lord. So recently, missionaries have been setting it up in busy parts of town, and talking to people, and have had a lot of success with it. It looks a lot like something that the Jehovah's Witnesses would do, but we have the Lord on our side so it works better for us. We got to try it out last night and it worked really well. It's a very different experience trying to talk to people with a visual aid to refer to, and the spirit is stronger. I can testify that the Lord guides us through personal revelation, and that when we seek it, it helps us so much.
Other cool things this week: I went back to Torrejon de Ardoz for exchanges with my old companion Elder Calder! I'd been there before for exchanges when I was in Guadalajara, and it was cool to be back. It was a really good day.
Last little miracle of the week: we're teaching a part member family, where the dad, Felipe, from the Dominican Republic, is a member who hadn't been to church for many years but he is coming back, and the mom, Isabel, is Spanish, and she isn't a member. They met with missionaries a long time ago, but she never got baptized. They have 3 kids who are very crazy and very fun, but they all came to church on Sunday and it was really cool. They're progressing slowly, but it's a cool experience to teach a family.
I hope you all have a great week! Next week we're going to the temple, so we'll have our pday on Wednesday. Talk to you later!
-Elder Dobbs
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