Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 25: Possums behind Timbres, Montserrrat, Killer Pigeons, and the Miracle of the Angel

Hola family!!!!

This was what you'd call an insanely busy and tiring week. Since I was
new to the area, I had to get myself used to the tiny streets and huge
hills of the city(so the opposite of Valencia, which was flat as a
pancake), and also meet new members of the branch here(it's tiny! Like
only about 20-30 show up most weeks! That'll change!). They're all
Spaniard too so I need to work on my Spanish skills. But we basically
spent all of our waking time contacting and finding people through
ringing timbres(doorbells, they have a bunch at the bottom of each
building in a grid, sort of a games since you never know which one will
have someone who yells at you behind it haha(in Catalan I might add)).
So yea we basically did that, but the good news is that apparently we
quadrupled the amount of lessons they had last week, so I think we're
doing good! I also started a list of the funny and strange things that
happen at timbres, since there are some weird ones. One is that
there's a weird thing people do here when they don't want to talk to
you, and they're not one to yell, and that's possuming. After I give a
little intro, that we're the missionaries and such, there's just
silence. When we break it by saying hola, they still think we'd leave,
so they leave the phone on and then hang up randomly. Sort of weird,
but that's how a lot of those contacts work out haha.

Today we also had the opportunity to go to Montserrat, the giant
pointy mountain behind Barcelona and Manresa. It took us an hour or so
to hike up with us and 8 missionaries from our zone, but it was
definitely worth the view! You could see the Pyrenees mountains by
France, and almost the ocean by Barcelona! There was also the
monastery, with its huge gothic insides and gold and brass and granite
statues everywhere. Today was also a balmy 65 degrees so it was
perfect for the hike and the top.

A truly miraculous moment that happened this week happened later one
night as we were on our last round of contacting for the day. We were
walking down the passejo(the main road here in Manresa), when the name
of an old investigator came into my head, named Maria Angeles(get it,
Angels?), one that Elder Olaso had mentioned briefly during weekly
planning. I brought it up, but Elder Olaso reminded me of his phone
call with her earlier telling us not to call again, so I pushed the
thought aside. They(the elders) had also being passing by for over a
month and haven't been able to talk to her. Five feet later I again felt
this impression to stop and visit this investigator. So I got Elder
Olaso, and we both sped walked across the crowded shopping area of
town, and across the bridge to this lady’s apartment. Because I had
only heard her name once, I didn't realize that she was outside her
apartment talking to someone when we walked up the stairs, only
realizing it when she gave us a surprised look. What followed was a 45
minute conversation on her doorstep, where we learned about her
loneliness here, her grandkids, and her fear for where her mom was,
who had died from a fall a few years earlier. When she tearfully asked
the heartbreaking question of "is she ok/happy?", we were able to
testify to her about the plan of salvation, and that her pain was
taken away. I know that we were told to visit that lady’s house for a
reason that night(whether to comfort her or to show that God loves
her, I don't know), but because of that prompting, we now have a
return visit with her on Tuesday!

To add to the fact that we are contacting basically all day to the
Catalonians, we also had the opposition of the pigeons! I was walking
along the passejo, minding my own business when this pigeon came
flying right at my face! So I swatted at it in the air, and then like
three seconds later it happened again! What the flip? It also happened
to the hermanas on Montserrat too so I didn't feel so alone about
that, but dang the birds are mean!

Overall a great, but long start to my time in Manresa, and we're
excited to get some work done here, and to have some progressing
investigators!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Taylor Moulton