Valladolid

Hey everyone!
Valladolid is a great area. It's an old Spanish city with a lot of history, and the branch is great. It has 80-90 people each Sunday, and yesterday, when I met most of them, they were all super nice and welcoming to me.
The work here is going fantastically, too. A woman from the Dominican Republic who I barely know is getting baptized on Saturday. There's another guy, Olifer, who's in his early twenties, who is for sure getting baptized later this month. He's from the Dominican Republic too, and he plays basketball really well. We went with him to play on Tuesday night, and apart from a few Spanish guys, there were only Dominicans. When my companion and I got put in, we were the only white guys. The best I can do is pass the ball as fast as I can when I get it, but my companion, Elder Waters, plays really well. There are some people we played with who were really interested in talking to us so we're gonna go back this week and see if we can talk to them more.
In my first week as zone leader, we've already gone on exchanges with the assistants to the president, and had our zone conference up in Oviedo. The zone conference was really good. We talked a lot about faith and how we can increase it. The most exciting part was definitely seeing good old Elder Allan. He's already a great missionary. I can testify that his Spanish is really good already. He's always happy and excited about everything.
Ok so here's the best experience that I had this week. Last Thursday, the assistants to the mission president came to Valladolid to do exchanges with us. I went with Elder Baron, who's from Orange, CA. We didn't have anything set up in the morning, so we spent the morning talking to people. We tried to pass by some houses of less active members and old investigators, but due to the fact that it was my 4th day in Valladolid, that wasn't very effective. But Elder Baron and I talked to as many people as we could. He loves doing it and he's good at it. We didn't see any results that morning. Then after we went back to our piso for lunch and to study, we went back out, and we were on our way to a lesson. Elder Baron went and sat down next to a guy on a bench, and started talking to him. We asked if we could share a 5 minute message with him, and he said of course. We got done with sharing the Restoration and he said he really liked it. After asking if we could meet again he was really excited for that too, and he said he would love to see where our church is and what it's like. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and we left Victor from Venezuela there to keep enjoying the rest of his afternoon. Now sometimes, as missionaries, you have cool experiences with people, but then you never see them again because they don't answer our phone calls after that. But he called us later that night, and told us that he had already read a little bit of the Book of Mormon and that he loved it. After feeling the spirit strongly while testifying of the story of Joseph Smith restoring the church of Jesus Christ, and hearing that he was so interested in learning more about it, it has become one of the biggest miracles I've seen on my mission. We haven't met with him again yet, but we saw him on the same bench another day and talked to him a bit then.
The Spirit led us to find him, and helped him feel the truthfulness of what we shared. I know that this church is true and that the message we share is of valuable importance.
Have another great week!
-Elder Dobbs

The view from our piso at night

Conferencia de Zona