Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 87: Pastora Amanka, Marilyn Monroe, and "Usted es sordo?"

Hello family and friends of the English speaking world!

This has been a week of hot weather, changes of plan, and a few let downs. One of those is losing the opportunity to baptize this transfer with Elder Barlow. Also of having the friends of ours who were teaching fire on us. But besides that we have some hope for this week!

Ester and Ester are on hold for a minute. The daughters been sick for three days and couldn't come to one of the visits nor church, but thankfully the mom has. The mother scared us by calling and getting a bit agitated that we didn't tell her about Joseph Smith and plural marriage. Thanks to the spirit and some good studying we calmed her fears down, and she came to church again! She's still in doubt about baptism (she's praying she says)(thanks for the scripture, it's really helpful), but we have hope for the daughter once she feels better.

A miracle we saw was spending the evening this Saturday with Karim, a recent convert of the hermanas who wanted to see some missionary work. While none of the planned visits worked out, we were able to, with his help, find some great new investigators, one of which accepted to be baptized (his names Kofi, from Ghana), when he feels ready. It really is a testimony booster, I still remember helping the missionaries out when I went splits with them before the mission.

Elder Barlow and I are doing good. After a great intercambio with the zone leaders (Elder Allen! Hadn't been with each other since the days of Santander, wow!) were focusing on getting to know our contacts better. Just from that we've found more people so that's been a blessing. I'm thankful for leaders who really do receive revelation for us.

Sunday morning we had the surprise of arriving at the house of Rose and Joy (two friends from Ghana who we found just outside of our piso), and finding them on their way to church! Well, we went with them. A bit strange as most African churches are, but we at least didn't have to combat anti-Mormon preaching. Pastora Amanka (this intense lady from Nigeria) spent the time teaching about authority and stalling for her husband, luckily we slipped out before he came, had a bad feeling about him. The two didn't come to church with us after as promised, but we’ll try them again this week. Also the church had a Marylyn Monroe clock. That's style.

I also asked a man if he was deaf while he was pointing to his ears doing the usual Spanish approach of saying ones deaf. Had a good laugh after thinking about the strangeness of asking a deaf person if he's deaf. Not going to get an answer most likely.

Today for preparation day we spent the day exploring the underground ruins of the ancient Roman colony of Cesaragusta, named after, you guessed it, Cesar Agustus. 2000 years old and still there, it's pretty amazing to think about! Spent the day with Emily, a good member friend from Valencia 2 who came up to spend the weekend in Zaragoza with us and some members. Good times, the basilica here is huge!

As for something spiritual, I've talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ a lot this week. It's pretty basic, but we often forget two things, 1, that it's one gospel and not 5 steps, and 2, that it applies to us MORE as members. So keep repenting, taking the sacrament, do the small things and it will all work out. "The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the desires of our hearts can be transformed and our motives can be educated and refined."

Love and miss you all!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸