Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 31: Brazo Buds, Moosa's Hungover, Navarcles, and the Sound of Music

Hola family!

With all the new people we've been finding, there's always the
possibility that some would be duds, with fake numbers and addresses.
But there's also the amazing chance to find someone who'll progress,
which we found a few of this week! One was a guy named Jonathan, a
Colombian 19 year old who just wants to find a church that he can
believe in, another was Abdul, a Senegal man who doesn't believe as
much in the Muslim Faith and wants to try out some others!

After witnessing many miraculous things on the streets and during
lessons with our investigators this week, it takes a lot to narrow it
down to a certain miracle that happened. One of the most impactful for
us was our lesson with Ninfa our former Jehovah's Witness
investigator. We've been struggling to get her to humble herself
enough to apply what we teach. On Thursday we taught her the gospel of
Jesus Christ with a member named Toni Garcia, and we witnessed her
mindset change almost miraculously on the gospel. Elder Woodmansee and
I were able to bear fervent testimonies on tithing, the gospel and on
the restoration with a loving prophet, and while she began with many
questions, we all left uplifted, and she left with the contentment
that what we were teaching wasn't just a good word. We challenged her
again to read and pray, and were excited to see a deep believer of the
Jehovah's Witness doctrine receive her own witness of what we’re
teaching! I’m grateful for the power of the spirit in lessons, without
which the people we teach wouldn't feel the love of God and the
understanding that comes with this Spirit!

We also had some crazy contacts and passbys this week. My favorite was
with Abdul, at Senegal man, who I asked at the end of the contact of
we could razar, or pray with him. He didn't understand me I guess, so
he just hugged Elder Woodmansee with a confused look(because raza and
brazo(to hug)) are super similar haha). We were laughing pretty hard
after that contact haha! Africans rock!

We also had this amazing reference for a man named Javier, who lived
in this little village about thirty minutes from town called
Navarcles. There was literally no on there haha, there was like one
bar... But Javier was great, he's from Spain, has a pet bird and two
cats(ones named Mogul..., it just stared at us during the lesson), and
also a house filled with plants and marijuana blankets haha. He was
quite the character, but he's happily progressing and we're going to
visit him on Thursday!

Also one of our investigators named Moosa, who we thought was game for
church, surprised us by being flat out wasted at 9 am after being up
with his friends. In his own words "I drank allloooot...". Crud, well
we know what we'll talk about for our next lesson haha!

For preparation day today we had an awesome time exploring the
cathedral and this cool mountain just outside of the city with the
elders from Terrassa, and as you can see from the pics, it looks just
like the grassy hill at the beginning of the Sound of Music. It was
also super sunny today and it felt great just to goof off a bit and
relax! Manresa is pretty amazing. Also I had shark soup for the first
time this week from a hole in the wall Chinese place, quite an
experience, but super delicious(and I'm still good a few days later)!

In my studies this week, I was very impacted from the scriptures,
conference talks and the mission newsletter about initiative as
Hermana Dayton called it. She quoted Jesse Evans Smith as she says
"Happiness is doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done,
whether you like it or not". As Elder Gregory A Switzer said last
conference, true disciples don't look for ways or excuses not to share
the gospel, but are always working to spread it! In the mission there
are a lot of things that are very routine and sometimes boring(weekly
planning, daily planning, yea), but that doesn't mean that as
missionaries we need to be sad about it. As people too, life and
happiness is doing all that is necessary and important with a positive
attitude. So don't let yourself or other influences control your
happiness, do what's necessary with a bright attitude, and the Lord
will bless you with happiness and satisfaction!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Taylor Moulton