Hola Family!
It's been a pretty ridiculous week to be
honest. I feel like that's the first line to most of my letters, but really,
there not a better way to describe it. We did finish the week off in a pretty
tranquilo way by visiting San Juan de Gasteluxate (Scaling its cliffs and wall
from the era of the Black Plague), and Butron Castle with the very best Papa
Manolo (who drives us around in his speedy 6 speed Ford through the windy
coastal highways of Pais Vasco), and brings the very best goat cheese and
Spanish sausage. You can't beat that. In other news, Joel didn't get baptized
this week, he's gotten cold feet, and getting trucked (run into) during soccer
and storming off, we’re working on picking up the pieces so he can get
baptized. We've been fasting for him so hopefully he'll pick things up again.
Other than that, Joanna had the stomach flu making a visit nearly impossible as
she was sitting on standby by the bathroom when we passed by, so haven't had
much progress with her. Overall we've had some great success with the less
active here, and finding some interesting people in the streets and knocking
doors.
Fun story. It's 8 pm, Elder Kimball and I are
on an intercambio in my area, and we're knocking doors in the building of a
member. After having little to no success with the people in the preceding
floors, we had the welcome surprise of finding this old humble looking Romanian
woman crack the door open to see who was there. Realizing that this could be
our chance, barely a syllable came out of our mouths before she slammed the
door at speeds I didn't think mahogany could go, especially from an old woman.
Ears ringing, we left laughing at how ridiculously sad that was haha. But we
did find a great Basque woman after so it was worth it!
Special report, we had another gypsie
encounter this week! We were in a town called Erandio contacting in the plaza
when I had this strange feeling to go and talk to this gypsie woman. When all
she wanted was 50 euros from us, I thought all hope was lost, until this middle
aged gypsie man with bulgy eyes, and this beard that could hold 30 pencils
named Abram came up. After 10 minutes, he went from disgracing the Book of
Mormon to getting his friend excited to dress up like us and share the book
too. Also cultural fact, you can never talk to just one gypsie. There will
always be more, especially true this time since we finished teaching 6 in total
with more coming from across the plaza. While we're still in the process of
finding him, I'm grateful for the power of the Book of Mormon, because there is
so much power in that book!
Elder Perry’s the best! We've had good times
taking mate, falling several times a day, and singing Follow the Prophet
randomly because we can. So yea, good times here.
If there’s anything I've learned this week,
and have applied from the President Nelson Conference is that we should never
" go beyond the mark". From Elder Kearon blatantly telling our
mission to stop being so anxious to this quote I found from Bruce R McConkie.
"We don't need to go beyond the mark to fulfill our purpose here! Just be
obedient to the commandments, valiantly testify, and serve always”. And
"You're calling and election is made sure". I've found that a lot of
stress can be taken out of our lives if we just fulfill the calling, joyfully,
and just do what's required! I promise you that after applying that this week,
life will be just that much better!
I love and miss you all, with two week left
here I'm getting antsy with how little time I have left, but with a new piso
tomorrow this looks to be an amazing two weeks!
Love and miss you all!
San Juan de Gasteluxate
Visited San Juan with Manolo today
Butron Castle
New piso...and carpet!
I love Elder Moulton's posts. What a great missionary he is. His pictures are awesome. I'm glad he gets to serve in such a beautiful area.
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