Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 43: Soggy Agendas, Rainy Preaching, and our African Brother Papi

Hola family!

Good news, Barbara and Camilla were baptized! Yay!!!!!!!!! And in a
surprising turn of events, President and Hermana Dayton turned down
two other baptisms in Barcelona in order to take the one flight on
Saturday to Bilbao to get to our baptism! I love them so much gosh
dang! The service went great! I mean, it was a bit strange since the
relief society president from Bilbao got super peeved at us for having
the baptism the same night as her activity, which she changed to have
start at the same time as our service only two days before. But it all
worked out! Fun story, I was testing the water in the font to see the
temperature before the service, when my planner, filled with numbers
and plans, swan dived into the Spanish water! Miraculously, it was dry
on the inside, but now after drying it looks twice as big haha! But
hey, well worth the sacrifice for a Columbian and Portuguese teenager
to receive baptism!

It poured all week. Which was great since we, well there aren't too
many pluses to rain as a missionary(maybe sliding across the
concrete?), but we had fun anyways! On one of the days, I think Friday
we were running to a visit on the other side of the zip line bridge
from Portugalete, when we missed the bridge! Rather than angrily
waiting, we talked to these two African Muslima named Abdul and Haz,
who were selling umbrellas in the rain(smart!). But hey, they want to
hear more and now we've got some African friends to talk to when we go
across the bridge now, so blessings there!

Speaking of Africans, our less active Ghanaian friend named Papi (as
wise as Yoda and cool as Bob Marley, that's the best I could come up
with), came to church for the first time in many years! It was so
cool, the Rama had never met him, but he has such a strong testimony
of the Book of Mormon, so he fit right in! His only reason for not
coming before was that his legs hurt(he's 64), but now we know he can
make it!

Other than that, a pretty normal week otherwise! I got the flu last
night so that wasn't too fun, I had it a few days ago too. I got
vitamins and fruits and all that good stuff at Mercadona today so all
should be good now! We also had an amazing zone conference
yesterday(hence why I'm writing on a Tuesday) with the Bilbao and
Vitoria zones of missionaries! So good to get everyone back together,
and to hear some truly inspired lessons on contacting with power,
bringing the spirit into our lessons, and why we are here(like
personally why). It was so good though! As missionaries, these
meetings are some of the best times in the mission besides baptisms!

In a way life can be pretty frustrating at times. Not all of our
visits pan out(some people might even throw potato peelings at you as
you walk by), people might frustrate you, and sometimes it feels like
life is pushing you along, rather than the opposite. We were listening
to a talk by President Thomas S Monson from the October 2009
priesthood session titled "School thy feelings, o my brother" a few
days ago. The topic? Revisiting and replacing anger and other strong
emotions with Christlike love! As well said by him, "anger doesn't
solve anything. It builds nothing, but it can destroy everything". In
reality, I thought that anger and these emotions is really giving into
Satan's temptation, since in reality, no one can truly make us angry,
we do so ourselves. "A man’s a fool who takes an insult that wasn't
intended(hello rude basque/Catalan people cutting us in line at
Mercadona, or an old basque man loudly shutting us down mid-contact
with "just leave it!")". So what's the point? Why not replace
every sarcastic/subtlety angry comment(I'm guilty of that one
sometimes), with a hug? Or a high five? Or just compliment them on
something random like their hair or selection of tie that day? I
promise you that the more we "cease from anger and forsake
wrath(psalms 37:8)", the lord will bless us with the Holy Ghost, that
things will get easier! "This is my commandment, that ye love one
another as I have loved you".(John 15:12). You can do it!

Love and miss you all! Also happy late Father's Day!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸