Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 40: Portable Fireplaces, Emotional Columbians, Baptizing a Spaniard Woman, and Off to Bilbao!

Hola Familia!!!

Well it was my last week in Manresa, the land of many miracles! I'm
exhausted at the moment (we ran all over the place this last week,
getting a Spanish woman baptized takes a bit of effort! Maria del Mar
did get baptized (or dunked as we say here), which was a miracle in
itself. I was surprised this last weekend too to get called to serve
in the Las Arenas branch, north of Bilbao(all the way across the
country, dang), so it's been a sad few days saying goodbye to all of
these amazing people (Hermano Toni Garcia gave me his wedding tie, I
about cried, he's probably the most Christlike man in this city!).
Ninfa, our investigator who refuses to be baptized but yet does
everything that members do, literally broke down in tears during
gospel principles class and forced a beso on my ear. Everyone else was
sad, but they were super excited for me to go north! While hard to
leave, I'm grateful for the time that I had there in Manresa, and I'm
pumped to head to this next area!

The miracle of the week had to have been this baptism of Mars! We
faced all the opposition that Satan could throw at us this week (doubt
on her part, her fear to be baptized by us because she was afraid her
weight would drag us both down into the water, wedding parties
blocking the way for the van to get to the baptism, our van being an
hour late, being late for the sacrament meeting of her confirmation),
all in two days! Thankfully, Heavenly Father looked out for us, and
Mar was able to make it to the font, and the service, filled with
members of the Manresan branch, a profound spiritual experience for
all of us! I know now that with anyone with faith, God will and can
clear the path through the darkness for them to make it to the gateway
ordinance of baptism!

Another fun activity this week, walking with a Catholic investigator
to his house to drop off a massive cardboard fireplace (is that ironic?
Maybe...). We also had the fun activity of attending the Ghanaian
Pentecostal church here in town, where our investigator, Edward, is a
pastor. Probably one of the strangest experiences ever (we knew all the
members from street contacting haha, it was like a family reunion!).
The bazillion African children had this huge fascination for my watch
with the light button, no idea why but it was pretty entertaining to
watch! But Edward taught well, he yelled the story of Cornelius from
the bible, and we have an appointment on Thursday with him!

This week we had the fantastic opportunity to bring together five
zones from eastern Spain (about 120 of us) to have a zone conference by
the area seventy president Dykes and his wife. It was a blast! We
were able to see a bunch of our missionary friends, and we were filled
with amazing teachings by this amazing leader. He was the mission
president of the Portland Oregon mission too so he's been pretty close
to home! The strongest messages that he wanted to convey to us was
also taught by President Dayton; our time isn't our time here in the
mission, it's the Lord’s. Therefore careful planning, during and after
the mission, will bring to pass all the blessings that the Lord has in
store for us! As I'm typing this on the high speed train to
Bilbao (we're flying at 200 mph at the moment), it's a pretty good time
to reflect on how well we used our time that the Lord’s given us. The
message I want all of you to get from me this week is that there is no
better time than right now to give our time to others. While that
might seem tedious, boring, and sometimes without any reward on our
part, I know that our lives will be so much better used if we focus on
bettering the lives of others. "We create our own weather" as
President Dykes says, so let's make some sunshine and rainbows in our
lives!(A bit cheesy but I hope you get the message!)

Overall, a great week, and I'm super excited to head up to northern
Spain and teach the Basque people!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Taylor Moulton