Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 41: Zip line Bridges, Surprise Menos Activos, and Welcome to Basque Country!

Hola Familia!

Well it's been a pretty interesting week! New area, new language (the
equivalent to Russian and Japanese combined), new people, and a new
companion. Lots of new things, so it was a little overwhelming at
times but it's ok, I've made it a week! The good news is that there
are a pile of people to work with, whether it be less active, recent
convert, or investigator, which was a huge difference from Manresa(we
had to find all of the people there!). Plus it's been fun to fill the
shoes of Elder Hemeyer, who I shared a piso with back in Valencia back
in the fall! In other news, we have two fifteen year old girls named
Barbara and Camilla who are getting baptized on the 18th(they're super
excited too! One’s from Portugal and the other from Bolivia, and
they're friends so boom!)! We also have a few others who are well on
their way to baptism, and one who's friend is trying to steal her back
to her church(we coincidentally found those two yesterday, kinda
awkward but hey she's getting the message!). But boom, a fun week over
all!

Some fun things to know about my area, it used to be the home of the
mission home and office for the Bilbao mission 6 years ago, and it
used to have 8 missionaries in this branch(the area it covers is
huge!). After a few years, it's now just us two and this super nice
senior couple, los Rhode, who help out in the Rama, and judge our
piso(it's so old!!! Like 40 years old and just old! It smells like old
person house and yogurt! We're working on that!). It also has this
bridge we have to cross to get to the other side of our area in
Portogulete and Santurzi that is just strange. It's a cross between a
zip line, a ferry, and a suspension bridge, and is just as old as the
city itself! But it's cool! 30 seconds of fun being swung across the
river!

We also had some time for contacting (the area is very large so we've
been going around finding out which is the best for us), which led us
to this miraculous contact we had in the plaza by our piso! We had
twenty minutes after a lesson before we had to head back, and we could
have either gone left on this street or right. I felt that we needed
to go left, and not even a minute after, we contacted these two
Bolivian woman, who hadn't seen the missionaries apparently, but after
listening to the story of Cecilia, we found out that she had been
baptized a member of our church, and even though she lived here for 15
years, she's never found the missionaries or the church building! So we
gave them new Book of Mormons, and capilla cards, and Cecilia should
come to church this week if she could get time off work! Super
miraculous, and it has made me more grateful for the help of the
spirit contacting!

The basques are a funny people too! Black or white hair depending on
the age, super nice if you don't mention religion, and super proud of
their language that is only spoken in this little state of Spain! The
members are great though! Mostly women in the Rama for some reason,
but super nice, and the ward mission leader, Ramiro's a stud too! He
served in the UK so he knows English! The bad news, during this Europe
stake conference broadcast yesterday, a few of the members heard my
singing voice, and I've been offered up to do a solo and teach this
one lady(apparently the choir is super off key haha) how to sing. Agh!
I don't sing that good! But I'll find a way to deal with that!

Elder Morley great too! A seven foot tall, 21 year old college
basketball player for North Dakota, from little South Jordan, Utah, and
I'm his first companion out of training. Boom this should be fun!

This week I learned the art of patience. Not just because my companion
requires a lot of it (he doesn't, so sweet!), but that us in our lives
need to have more of it to see the hand of God! In his April 2010
talk, president Dieter F. Ucthdorf spoke on the power and blessing of
this trait in our lives. He defines this Christlike attribute as
"active waiting and enduring", meaning that while it might come easier
to some people, we actually have to put some effort into being
patient! In reality, patience isn't just waiting, it's humbly
accepting the Lord’s plan for us, and loving it(or just accepting it,
life isn't always fun, take traffic or the DMV for example).
"Knowledge and understanding come at the price of patience", so in
reality, why shouldn't we be a little more patient, bridle our
emotions, and be a blessing to someone because we had the patience to
listen! I challenge all of you, since I've been working on this too,
to work one being "patient in long suffering(Alma 17:11)". For me,
being in a new area(especially here in Basque Country, where the
language is alien to me, and the people are way different then in
Catalunya)requires a lot of it since I knew absolutely nothing coming
in, but it's worth it(it always is)! The better we are at waiting now,
the more often the spirit will be able to touch our lives in the
future!

Love and miss you all! Argul! (goodbye in basque)

Elder Taylor Moulton