Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 63: Sweet Dreams, Lugging Colchones, Miraculous timbres and Fartones!

Hola Family!

Pretty tough week in terms of missionary work. Lots of contacting in the rain, coming doors, and trying to find less actives and members. All of this was made better by the first few days of the week being spent moving to our beautiful new piso (which doesn't smell of mildew and yogurt!). It's small, but it has an exorbitant amount of closet space, mate storage, and fridges (it has two! Yea!). And it's in a better location for both of our areas, making life a bit easier for us all (also the blinds work too!). It was pretty funny though, one of which being us four walking across las arenas, each with a mattress on their head, along with Blanca cheering us on (a recent convert). Pretty great. It was also amazing to have a couch, which we didn't have before. But life's a bit better now, and even though Elder Kimball and I will only be able to use this piso for another week (transfers are coming....), it's worth it!

Fun story, before we built our bunk beds, we spent two nights of us sleeping on the floor on our mattresses in the new piso. On one of the nights, Elder Kimball, the lighter sleeper, woke up to find Elder Jacobson snoring inches from his ear (he having rolled onto his bed), me sleep talking as usual, and Elder Perry pacing around the room in his sleep. He probably thinks we're crazy, but hey at least it's never boring in the Las Arenas district!

Also Spanish cuisine of the week, Fartones (sticks of sweet dough dipped in powdered sugar), and torta de arroz, a Columbian dish which is a tortilla wrapped ball of pulled pork and rice. Both amazing, so look up the recipes of you'd like to try them.

For investigators, were running low at the moment. It's been pretty difficult to find anyone who's interested, and Joel the man who was supposed to be baptized this last week becoming pretty disinterested. But we've found a great less active family who's come back to church, and some fun news. One of them being Moosa, a man from Mali who we found in one of the bigger cities in our area called Leioa. We had pressed the timbre of a less active in the building, and upon not finding him at home we were thinking of going in to our next appointment. But after feeling impressed to try and get in, we pushed the top timbre, and almost immediately the door opened! The man who opened didn't want much, just spoke loudly in euskera (an alien language haha)and shut the door, but his neighbor Moosa let us sit down and teach him! We were able to teach a bit about prayer, find a better time to meet, and get to know him a bit, and we're planning to meet with him tomorrow. I'm so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord, letting us know that he's there through the simplest things, even if it's a single door opening.

We also had the surprising revelation that Alicia a recent convert got married on her month long trip to Bolivia. Surprise! She's back now, but she's going to move back to Bolivia in six months with Oyer Helen and the gang, so that'll be sad. The good news it's that he's a very Christian man, and has a great job so they'll have a good time there. But yea, that was unexpected.

Something I learned this week was to take time to commune with God. (Luke 6:12) Sounds complicated, but it's really as simple as sincerely praying to him, talking to him about your needs and what you're grateful for, and to take time to ponder afterwards. I hadn't done the whole pondering thing in a while (you know me, I can't stay still), but when I did this, it's amazing the burden lifted off my shoulders. I also grew after reading the talk "Fourth floor last door" from President Ucthdorf from the women's session this last conference. Even if our prayers don't get answered immediately, even if every door gets slammed in our faces, keep going! Keep fighting and walking with confidence in Him until that fourth floor last door, and that's where the miracles happen. It's that simple. Just keep knocking, keep enduring. Enos's prayer didn't get answered after just an hour, Alma the younger didn't change right away, Joseph Smith didn't immediately get freed from liberty jail... it just keeps going. So if life seems hard, I invite you to keep going a little more, because it will get better!

I love you family! Thank you for your love and prayers!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸