Dang your trip that week sounded amazing! Was it hot? I love the story
about the horses, especially with dad getting the slowest - haha!
This week in our little mountain retreat of Manresa, we had probably
the most stressful week of my mission. To start off, Angel, a less
active of ours who's been baptized for about a year now, called us
Thursday morning to tell us that he's apostated from the church.
Like flat out ditching ours to go back to the Catholics or Jehovah's
witnesses! And all because he was offended by a member, he hasn't
even attended since January! It's just like that talk by Elder Bednar
about not being offended, but yea he chose to do just that. All Elder
Woodmansee and I could do was go to his house, and testify with some
power I didn't know I had! He got all offended at us for that too, so
we had to leave him. I feel so bad for him, he's depressed too, which
could have been fixed if he listened to the missionary’s invites to
read and pray! Sadly, there's only so much we can do as missionaries!
On a happier note, we invited a Nigerian man named Patrick to be
baptized this month, Ninfa was excited to hear about temples and
eternal marriage, and we found some great new investigators this week!
Sadly our whiteboard is like a train station and because of not being
able to get into contact with some of our people we've had to move
some of them out. We have some great ones to replace them with though
so there's hope! We also had intercambios this week so I spent the day
with Elder P Miller in Rubi, a town filled with South Americans! The
bomb!
I can't really narrow down this week to one miracle that really stood
out to me, but I did see a pattern in all the miracles that we did
see, which is that God through many means puts us exactly in the place
that we need to be. Moments like trying the first door on a street to
find a lost new, finding out that we found them the first try, to
finding a new and a very interested investigator just outside of the
building of another investigator that wasn't home, or having a store
owner named Marta we gave a Book of Mormon to show us her
reading/highlights in alma 7 that she wasn't that interested in at
first! Sometimes the miracles are huge, others a bit less life
changing. But all of these tender mercies, and the others we had, all
changed the lives of someone, whether it be us or the people we are
teaching! And for me, it's daily reassurances that the lord is
watching out for us, even if we don't notice it at the time!
This Sunday was crazy too, we walked into find an African man named
Reuban sitting in the seats, who's a hobo, but had a Book of Mormon
and was interested in our church. He asked a bunch of pretty crazy
questions during gospel principles though which gave our very capable
teacher a run for her money haha. He also stood up during priesthood
and went to the pulpit to ask for food and money. Sadly, he was only
really there for the food or money so he wasn’t interested in the
missionary lessons, we have his number though so we'll have to find
him someday! We also had Teresa a gypsie woman that we are teaching
attend, she has some crazy family husband problems that we got roped
into this week too, but she's progressing! I’ll leave that story of what
happened with the husband and us for after the mission though haha, it
was a crazy week let’s just say that!
This week in personal study I've been studying King Benjamin's speech
and teachings in Mosiah. For anyone who's read the Book of Mormon, you
know that there are some amazing teachings in these chapters at the
beginning of Mosiah, but the one that stood the most out to me was in
Mosiah 4:19, "Are we not all beggars?". There's a bit more context to
it than that, but I hadn't had a scripture impact me in a long time as
much as this one did. We might all have different incomes, childhoods,
families, cultures or ages, but we are all in the same boat, finding
our place in this life, being good, and preparing for the next life.
As missionaries, it's good to remember this because as we talk to some
real characters in the streets(crazy Andalusian Catholic priests,
Jehovah's witnesses, drunk people on trains, the crazy lady yelling
Catalan around Manresa all day), it's sometimes very easy to think
about how much more we've got in our lives with the church and the
gospel. But really, what we should be thinking is how we can help each
other in this life be more perfect, to love one another, and to put
aside all judgement. So I invite you all, and fellow beggars and
hobos in this crazy life on earth, to treat each other with kindness,
love and respect, no matter if they're Muslim, atheist, or Buddhist
Spaniards! Also read Jeffery R Holland's October 2014 talk on this
scripture too, it's quite awesome.
Overall a crazy week, I love the work here in Manresa, and I'm both a
bit nervous and pumped to get into a new week! Thank you for all the
letters and pics!
Love you all!
Elder Taylor Moulton
Happy Birthday Hermana Stanley!
Pique macho, Peruvian style!
Ready to give out some Book of Mormons to the Muslims!
We've had some long days haha!
Found some Tang, just as impressive as in the U.S. haha (it was like 75 cents here too!)
View during lunch today
McDonald's and a view!
Toured the Convent of Sant Ignacio here in Manresa - place had the coolest cave ever!
Outside the convent! Spain's awesome!
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