Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 26: Ding Dong the Mormons are here! Righteous, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Hola family!!!

This week has been a biggie, sorta. We weren't able to put anyone on a
baptismal date, but what we were able to do was find some solid new
investigators!! We found this African family of 7(yea yea!), this
super good Spanish man, and some others, but mainly some good street
lessons with Muslims and goofy Democratic republic of the Congo
evangelicals(that was fun, he gave us a great African prayer and a
fake number, oh yea!). Elder Olaso is pretty great too. A bit goofy,
his hobbies include calligraphy, being a great Spanish speaker and My
Little Pony. I'd give you the explanation on that last one but it'd
take a while. He's a great teacher though so I've been able to grow
from that, and also in my Spanish ability. Let's just say I thought I
was good until I realized I was surrounded by South Americans in
Valencia. The Spanish here is quite different, faster, slurred, and
most of the time people speak Catalan to you so that’s even more
confusing! But I'm ready to grow here in Manresa, even if I'll still
sound gringo for a while!

We've been teaching this less active named Angel for a while. He's an
old Catalan man who's a bit lonely, so usually these lessons get
pretty interesting. For example, while teaching him about following the
prophet on Tuesday, he decided to clarify it a bit but comparing
prophets to the Cuban missile crisis. I guess he was talking about
prophecy or something, but it was pretty hilarious. I also learned
from him this week on the tradition of pooping in your field for good
luck, Catalonia is a strange place ha ha. Someday that man will get too
church though!!

Like I said earlier, we had a load of miraculous contacts this week,
with people who were very ready and excited to listen and hear more of
the gospel! But the contact that was the most miraculous happened as
we were timbreing(door belling) buildings along a road just behind the
main avenue here in Manresa. We hadn't had too much success other than
a few people giving us a day to come back, that is until we hit this
one timbre. The lady who answered listened as we introduced ourselves,
and then suddenly realizing who we were, told us to come up to her
front door! This almost never happens(maybe once a week/month) so we
were both excited and nervous as we made our way up the
elevator(because the Jehovah’s Witnesses are known to do this
sometimes) . When we reached the door, we met Ninfa, a Colombian woman
in her 40s, who was raised in Germany, and who spoke Spanish, German
and a little English(she was like a color wheel of languages during
the lesson so that was a little difficult). Her husband was home so we
ended up teaching her the restoration, finding out in the process that
she had met with the missionaries in Germany about 10 years ago, and
that she has wondered since if they'd ever come back! She was very
receptive, and before she left she got teary eyed as she said that we
were an answer to her prayers(she's been praying for answers to some
questions about life), and that it was a miracle she even heard the
timbre since she was at the back of the house. Overall I'm so grateful
that we found this woman, and since Friday when we met she's become a
progressing investigator and who's excited to learn more! The Lord has
people ready to listen in every area!

Also on the topic of news, from that African family we found, I
learned that in African culture, if your Christian you name your
daughter after a Christ like attribute(Righteous, blessing, precious,
just to name a few), and your son after a biblical prophet or apostle.
Pretty cool right? It does make for some funny names for girls though,
Righteous was my favorite.

Thinking back this week on what I've learned in my studies, I looked
in my study notebook and realized I had like 10 pages of notes...,
but one of the things I've learned this week was from our Zone
Enfoque(monthly zone meeting), where the message we got from Hermana
Dayton was about the 10 types of negative thinking, and how we could
combat them throughout the day and week. I thought of myself as a
positive person before the meeting, but by the end I realized that I
still have some work to do. I'll attach a picture of the list, but
overall I found that we have a TON of things to be happy about during
the week, a good contact, the weather, the fact that we're in Spain
teaching the gospel to people, the list goes on! A lot of times
missionaries have a hard time in the mission because they take it too
seriously, or themselves most of the time. We need to focus on
laughing off the problems and crazy things that happen during the day,
and focus on the basics of life, both in the mission and at home for
all of you. If we can simply go through everything with the mindset
that we'll learn from our challenges and that we have so much be
happy/grateful for, I know that we can live more positive, productive
and happy lives! So yea, don't be negative!

Overall it's been a great week! I'm excited to teach some new people,
to talk to Muslims, and to continue to get to know this small Spanish
city, and it's funny cultures.

Love and miss you all!

Elder Taylor Moulton