Miracles!

This week was a busy one! It started out when last Monday, we went to Madrid to spend our p-day there, because we had to be there on Tuesday. I don't know what the exact translation would be, but we had Concilio in the mission home that day. All the zone leaders and the sister training leaders have a council with President Pack and his wife and the Assistants, to talk about what we want to focus on as a mission for that transfer. It was a great meeting. The spirit was strong as we came up with ideas and plans to better the mission. The main result that came out of it was that we are now going to set monthly goals for baptisms. For August, we want to have 25, which will be pushing ourselves, but it'll be reachable. As a mission we fasted yesterday that we would be able to reach the goal and see miracles this month. And we did in Valladolid, at least!
On Sunday a familiy from Peru showed up. They've been in Spain for a few months and they just came because they were looking for somewhere to go to church, and they loved it. The father, Jose, even asked what you have to do to become a member. Anyone who serves a mission in Spain knows that the South Americans are generally more open than Spaniards. Anyway, that was a cool miracle.
On Wednesday we went up to Leon because we had a district meeting there. Since we're the only two missionaries in Valladolid, we're in the same district as the missionaries in Leon and Ponferrada, two other areas in our zone. I've been there a couple times now, and it's a cool city. The district meeting was good, and afterwards we went out to lunch to a Mexican place, and they had some props to take a picture in front of a painting on the wall. So that's where the picture of 8 of us dressed up as a mariachi band came from.
Also, another backstory of some of the pictures: At Concilio they always take a picture of everyone, and then a random picture. For the random one, my companion is the one with the basketball. All throughout his mission, he's been telling President Pack he's going to dunk on him. They both love basketball. But, they hadn't ever gotten the chance. So for the picture, my companion grabbed a basketball from the garage of the mission home, and he had a couple missionaries lift him up, and another missionary lifted up little Elder Alacama from Bolivia to be the basketball hoop, and that's the story of how Elder Waters dunked on President Pack.
For p-day this week we hiked a hill on the edge of the city that was almost as tall as our apartment building. I have pictures from that, and some from looking around the center of town.
We had a great lesson with Olifer, our 22 year old friend from the Dominican Republic. By day he's a radio DJ, and by night he works at the club. He's such a cool guy. We had to teach him about the 10 commandments and the law of chastity, which we don't teach too often because most people don't progress that far. A member around our age from the branch, Elena, was there too, because they're good friends. Throughout the lesson he had a lot of good questions about the commandments and at the end, we got talking about the Holy Ghost. He already has a baptismal date and is excited for it, but he wanted to know how he could get a sure answer to know that it's true, and how to recognize the Holy Ghost. He was really sincere about wanting to know the truth, and the spirit was really strong there as the 3 of us tried to explain to him. At the end my companion asked if we could all kneel down and have him pray, and it was one of the most sincere prayers I've heard.
I know this church is the Lord's true church, and I love being a missionary so that I can tell people about it. I love you all!
-Elder Dobbs