Prepared

Queridos amigos míos,
Things here in Villalba are going great. We've seen a lot of miracles with the people we're teaching recently and it's awesome. The main part of missionary work is teaching (even though we have to search for a lot of people) and that's where you really realize why we go on missions.

There's a seventy something year old Bolivian member in our ward, named Adela. She has one of the strongest testimonies of the gospel I've ever seen. One of our investigators said once that Adela is always full of the Holy Spirit. Anyway, Adela literally talks to people she meets on the street about the gospel. She has friends all over Villalba. A couple of weeks ago, she told us that she had met a couple people who she wanted us to go over and visit. We did, and we met Francisco and his mom Elena. They're chilenos. Francisco is about 40 and he went to church when he was growing up in Chile, but only went because of his friends. Now, after he lived in a ton of different places, he's come here to live with his mom, and they're both really receptive to the gospel.
We taught them a few times this week and they've been some really great experiences. Not because of what we did to teach, but because of their willingness to learn and to change. Yesterday we taught them about the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, and the whole time we could feel the Spirit helping them understand and learn. Francisco said to us that he has a hole in his life that he's tried to fill, but he's never been able to do that, traveling around the world, and he believes that now the gospel will do that.
It's amazing, after talking to so many people who don't want to listen to us or who don't really see why the gospel is important, to see that there are people prepared by God to learn about this church. It's all true!

I hope you all have a great week!
-Elder Dobbs

Pictures for this week: one is of me and my companion by the new chapel that will be open soon(ish). The other one needs a bit of explanation. One of the Hermanas in our district, Hermana Braga, is from Brazil, and there's a member in the ward who's also Brazilian. She invited the four of us over to eat today, and since we didn't have any other plans for p-day, we all went. At first we couldn't find another man to go with us so we could go in, but our friend Francisco could. So that's the guy I'm sitting next to.