Here they celebrate Mother's Day on the first Sunday of May instead of the second, so Feliz Día de la Madre a todas!
It's been a great week. Like I said last week, we had a zone preparation day together where we hiked to the giant cross on the hill. At the end of that, we went all the way to Madrid to have intercambios with the zone leaders in Barrio 1. I went with Elder Burt, from Massachusetts. In their area, they just baptized a guy from Egypt, who we met with that day. He's a super cool guy. We taught him in English, which always throws me off. It was really interesting to meet someone who had been muslim before. Basically everyone we teach has a Christian background, but he didn't know the story of the Bible or anything about Christ's life before he got baptized. But, the gospel is for everyone who accepts Christ and repents, which is one of the biggest miracles about it all.
On Friday we planned an activity at the church, where we were going to have a short lesson, then play games and have dessert and play ping pong. We asked a member to give the spiritual thought, and she prepared it, but about 2 hours beforehand she told us she would show up half an hour late. We told her we would just stall and wait a bit to start. After waiting a while to start, we sang A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, all 7 verses, hoping she would arrive before it ended. She didn't, so my companion and I ended up giving the message on the spot, about that hymn. For the circumstances, it turned out good. The song has a powerful message about serving others and the little unnoticed acts of service that we do.
We had a really good lesson on Saturday with Francisco. That day when we met with him, he was talking a lot about how so many people in the world are distracted with unimportant things like partying and drugs, and he was really concerned by all the confusion that exists. We had a different lesson plan, but we talked about how we can receive guidance from God, and how He will always answer us. We reread Moroni 10:3-5, and broke it down phrase by phrase to help him really understand what he needed to do to get an answer. Then, to end the lesson, we knelt down with him and he gave the closing prayer, and Elder Christensen and I could feel the spirit there with us. Francisco has a lot of real intent and really wants the gospel in his life, which is the most important part.
I love being a missionary and being able to help people in this way. This church is true, and it is all proof that God loves us.
-Elder Dobbs
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| Valle de los Caídos: me and my companion |
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| Me and 4 of my previous companions (including my current) who are all in the same zone. Elder Christensen and Elder Santiago were companions before, and Elder Jones and Elder Moore are now companions. |
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| Our whole zone |
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