Families Can be Together Forever

Good morning everyone!

As I'm writing this, I'm on a train to Madrid for the mission Concilio. I've been on more trains on my mission than I had in my entire life before coming to Spain, it's crazy.

Anyway, this first week with Elder Douglas was really good! He's a good, nice, dedicated missionary and he's excited to be here. Our zone is doing well too. I would say it's even better now that Elder Allan isn't in it, but that wouldn't be true.

Last week we had Elder Palacios and Elder Jones from Leon down for intercambios, and we had a good day. For part of it, we used the streetboard that our mission started a couple months ago, which was cool. Basically it's a painting of Jesus Christ that we put on a stand on a street somewhere, and talk to people as they pass by. It does seem a lot like something that JWs would do (and there's a lot in Spain), but there have been some cool miracles in the mission that have come from it. Before we started, we got a picture with it so you can all see what it looks like.

Miracle of the week: when we got to church last Sunday, some members introduced us to a 24 year old guy who had come for the first time, Johnatan. We talked to him, and we've met with him a few times in this last week already. He's from Mexico, and his brother got baptized 9 months ago. Since then, his brother's been trying to invite him to come to church and stuff, but in Mexico he went a couple times but didn't have a ton of interest. He got here to Spain a little over a month ago to study in the university, and he had the thought out of curiosity to see if there was a Mormon church here. He found it online, and went on a weekday to see it. He eventually found it (he said it was smaller than the one in Mexico) and told his brother, who encouraged him to go one Sunday. He finally did, and he showed up an hour and a half early and waited almost an hour until someone else showed up. In Sunday school, the lesson was "Families can be together forever" and afterwards he told us that that lesson really hit him, and made him want to return to God in his life, so that he and his girlfriend could get married and sealed in the temple. He's told us more about his story, and it's amazing how everything in his life came together to want to find the church here.

Our friends Victor and Madelin are both doing really well. Madelin is like our Dominican grandmother here in Spain, she loves us so much. And we love her. She's a sweet old lady, even though she's going through a lot. Victor finally came to church yesterday and even though he had to leave right after sacrament meeting he said he loved it.

I hope you all have another fantastic October week! I don't know how it is there, but it's starting to get really cold here. Until next week!

-Elder Dobbs

Us with the Leon Elders and the other Valladolid Elders at Domino's