Week 92: My Bear hugs, Zaragoza Zone Travels to Barcelona, and Helado del Diablo

Hola familia!

My what a long, interesting week we've had. I'll list off some of the highlights.

Saturday night while visiting our old member friend Daniel, I gave him
a hug. I usually do, but this time, as we were leaving the house, my
bear hug caused his pants to fall off. I have no idea how or why, but
unknown to me, his pants fell down, he gave a hug to Elder Lattin too,
and we left. So my bear hugs sometimes cause old Spanish peoples pants
to fall off. I'm that good.

We've tried many ways to contact. One of my favorites is ice cream.
It’s simple, on the hot days you start by asking where one could find
the best ice cream, and then tying it into missionary work and the
message. It usually works, until we tried it on one couple on a
bench who freaked out. Like "agh don't bother us ahah!", and then got
up and sped walked away, even if we just asked where some ice cream
was. It was like 92 degrees so it was a valid question. You'd think we
were asking for ice cream from the devil or something from their
reaction. But yea, fun times.

We've been blessed this week tremendously. It was tough the last few
weeks but now we have a few investigators that are progressing so
we're hoping for the best this week. Daniel, the miracle from two
weeks ago disappeared and moved pisos. We hope that he can at least
come to a sacrament meeting to start back up again.

We did find one miracle, Stanley. He's the man that an antiguo
investigator told us about. He's from Nigeria, has about 8 months in
Spain, and wanted to find a Christian church in Spain that wasn't
catholic! He came too! He liked the meetings, he needed to leave after
sacrament meeting, but he was very attentive. I had to translate, but
the spirit was felt. The only struggle is keeping his focus in
lessons, he might have ADHD. He can barely hold his attention to a
video two minutes long without looking about or talking about random
things. He's read a lot in the Book of Mormon so we'll help him
understand more in it this week.

We also went to a terrific conference in lhospitalet.  We learned
about personal mission statements, obedience, church attendance,
consecration, and how to invite better. Plus it was made better by
traveling across Spain as a Zone to get there. Ten missionaries on a
train is rarely boring. My favorite line was this "if the service was
a failure to you, you failed. No one can worship for you!" Ezra Taft
Benson. We create our own weather, even in church. They might be
strange, but you can still feel the spirit if you want to!

Love and miss you all, miracles are everywhere!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Half a squirrel in the natural science museum today

 Elder Salazar had some mud cream for cleaning your face - tried it out as you can tell!

 Small horse statues....

 Karim - a recent convert

 El Pilar

 Aurelia and Pascual - a gypsie uncle and niece we are teaching and found this week knocking on doors - (I asked Taylor if the guy had anything on underneath the towel!  He did:))

 Most the buildings have stairs like this!

As Elder Salazar would say, an exposition of gringos!

Week 91: Gypsies Smell Funny, Joseph Smith Senior in the bath, and "Crazy People"!

Hello mi tribu,

Pues, una semana extraña, como siempre, entonces me voy a begin with
some miracles.

After a week spent trying to find anyone to listen, this weekend we've
been witnesses to many miracles of finding. On Saturday, we were
teaching Patrick (Spanish African man, who's in the military), one of
the old investigators from the hermanas, and had the chance to share
the video of the restoration with him and his son Ivan. They both
attended the Sunday session of conference, and left feeling good.
We'll be teaching them both this week. We also received two references
from a former investigator when she showed up in the park when we were
teaching a less active. We taught one, Stanley, just after, who's from
Nigeria. He has been here 8 months, and has been looking for a
Christian church to join (that wasn't the Catholic Church), and when
this lady, Nona, told him about us, he sent here to find us. Still
don't know how she found us at that park, but to me it's a miracle.

Sadly, Daniel has disappeared for a bit. We're still looking, we have
faith! He's the one we took to the baptism last week. Spanish people
can't run too far so we'll find him soon. He lives down our street.

Spent this weekend in the Magdalena (cupcake) - a Barrio here in
Zaragoza. It's filled with gypsies, Spaniards, and some interesting
folk, but they're very open to the gospel (expect the evangelical
preachers and the Jehovah's Witnesses). That's where we found Stanley.
Also found a man who's what he calls a "testigo of Catulum", which in
his words is god without hell. Aka no consequences. That's the kind of
person you find knocking doors at 9:30.

Had a visit with our friends Fatu and Moises, a couple from Mali. On
ending the video of the restoration, she had only two questions, one
of which, "why are they taking a bath at the end?(Joseph smith senior
getting baptized)". Well, that's baptism. She's Muslim and didn't know
what that was. But hey, questions are good. Can't invite her to be
baptized without knowing what it is.

Elder Lattin and I are having fun though. Lots of rejection, and a
ward that's got a bit of drama, but the days aren't boring. We had a
great stake conference where our mission president spoke, talked about
Joseph smith and invited all young men to go on missions. The other
talks were good too. Spanish people like I said say it how it is, so
there's no guessing with what they want us to do.

Other than that, feeling good. We played basketball with the other
missionaries in Zaragoza, and ate at Burger King. Best day ever.

Love and miss you all! Take your time in your prayers to, "talk to your
Heavenly Father" as a great zone leader once said.

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Plaza Del Pilar

 We used Amazon Spain to send him some goodies!

Week 90: FaceTime, Sofa Cushions, and Gitanos!

Hello family,

Sorry I completely forgot to email the group email. I'll cover the highlights.

Basically we dropped or we were dropped by most of our past
investigators this week, for a mix of reasons. Most of them where that
they fired on us (weren't in their piso when they say), don't fulfill
their commitments, or yea, it's hard to teach people who don't answer
the phone or the door. The funniest was this African man who told us
at 2 that he was in Madrid, and then at 4 we were walking to an
appointment and found this man in the street. His excuse was that he
took he Ave (the high speed train). Yeaa, he really wasn't too
interested.

Other than that, had an amazing FaceTime call with my family, with
minimal interruptions with the wifi. Last one before I go home,
scary...

Dallan, a Columbian friend of ours who we found on accident passing by
another investigator, had a scary experience in one of our lessons. We
were talking before the prayer when all of the sudden the arm cushion
of the couch where he was sitting fell out from under the couch cover,
scaring him (he squealed haha, he thought it was a dog or something),
and leaving us dying on the other couch. Now that's how you start a
restoration lesson.

Other than that, happy late Mother’s Day to all you moms, especially
mine! You’re the most Christ-like people I know in this world! Love being
on a mission in Barcelona!(ok Zaragoza, but Barcelona mission).

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Friday night sport night

 We were bored, and Elder Lattin became Harry Potter with peanut butter and a stick of celery...

 Stuffed after our buffet today

 District Meeting

 Parque Grande

 Puerto Venecia, the shopping mall here

Zaragoza and the district

Week 89: Borachos, Caves, Fiery Mana Testimonies, and Rude People!

Hello a todos,

Hoy me voy a write you all in Spanglish. I'm kidding but that's how I
write in my journal. This week as our first week together, Elder
Lattin and I made our way into the crazy world of Las Fuentes and la
Magdalena to find some new people to teach. We found a bunch, but
they're strange. We met a couple from Mali, and old homeless man with
a Book of Mormon in his cart, an old man from Transylvania Romania,
and an old woman from Ecuador(yes, I love my Ecuadorians!). As you can
see from the subject line we met a few drunk people (stories after the
mission, you'll like them). Let's just say that public drunkenness is
normal here.

While I love the Spanish people to death, they're a bit direct with
you. While in English you'd say, in order to describe a person, that
one is overweight (never fat or obese or chunky, because that's rude).
Well here they don't hide much. They just call you the gordito (the
little fat one). At least they're honest.

Sorry mom if I copied this from your email, but this is a true story
from the Spanish pulpit. An old 80 something year old Spanish lady
gets to the stand yesterday to share her testimony and by the end is
waving a Jesus Christ book mark around, and is calling
us out for not having enough faith as a ward to see Jesus Christ (she
had seen him apparently). She even left the stand and was shaking her
arms up and down next to it to make her point (les falta fe eh!). Super
funny and awkward.

Sadly, we've had to move on from a few of our past investigators like
Juaquin, Adela, Consuelo and Dallan because they all are very tough to
meet with and have fired several times the last week or so. Thankfully in
their place we have some promising new comers. One of which is Omilio.
He's an old man we found in the street, who after asking him if he's
seen the Book of Mormon before, pulls one right out of his bag! After
a good first lesson that ended up being distracting with some drunk
homeless man, he's doing good. It'll take a bit of practice to help
him pray right (he can't get himself to pray anything but to the
padrenuestro).

Ester and Ester have been becoming tough too, the daughter, who've we
focused on this week a bit more, is unsure about being baptized now.
To help them get back on the path we shared Elder Costas’ talk from
this last general conference, and that's helped a bit. We'll have to
give them a lesson z too if they keep plateauing, they didn't come to
church this week either.

Other than that, just a strange week. Us four today went and hiked to
a castle in the desert outside of Zaragoza. Nothing like sitting on a
cliff and eating Spanish sandwiches. We ended up wading through mud in
the swamp next to it in the effort to find a shortcut. It failed, we
just got covered in mud.

My spiritual thought is on the apostasy. I know that after centuries
of being lost, confused and changed by men and the devil, the gospel
of Jesus Christ is here once more in its fullness. I've seen so many
churches and strange beliefs (Muslims, church of philidelfia, mountain
of fire and miracles ministries, etc),and I know that we are in the
true church of Jesus Christ. When in doubt, pray about it. If you ask
google or your pastor, they'll probably mess you up more.

Love and miss you all!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Screenshot from a video - that's my district!

 Juslibol castles and mud

 Underground houses in Juslibol

Week 88: Lord Farquad, IPads in strange places, and Algerian Party!

Hola family!

Don't have much time today, but I'll summarize a pretty crazy Spanish

week. Transfer calls came, my companion Elder Barlow became District

Leader in Barcelona (boom!), and my new companion Elder Lattin’s going

into his second area. I'm excited. Sad thing is that the Hermanas were

taken out of the ward here, but now the two sets of elders have bigger

areas. Ours is huge, I'm so excited! Our last one was a bit sad!

The miracle this week has been Juaquin, our friend from Cape Verde.

After three weeks of being out of the count for his trip to Barcelona,

he came back! Thank goodness he did, since he came to church too. It

was a very uplifting meeting, and at the end after asking how he felt,

said he felt a great feeling, and asked if it happens every week.

Since of course it does, he's says he plans on coming next week with

his wife Consuelo and every week after. Big change from where he was a

few weeks ago. Ester and Ester came too, we haven't been able to meet

for a week and a half due to her daughter being sick, but we met with

her before Elder Barlow left to say goodbye. Now it's about helping

them get ready for baptism.

Fun story, after leaving a visit with Jito (pronounced g-2), a Ghanaian

man, I left my iPad on the table. Didn't realize either until we hear

"brothers!" from the fifth floor balcony and look up in fright to see

his holding my iPad over the edge. Luckily he came down and gave it

to us. I thought he was going to drop it... that's a long way down.

We also taught an Algerian man named Hafid the plan of salvation this

week. He's a man of faith, but very Muslim. What he told us was "I

like your message, but I don't think my wife will". He showed us a

picture of his very Muslim dressed wife Fatima and we agreed. Next

visit, a random catholic friend sat in on the lesson, and started with

the heartwarming "there little hope here, they're Muslim and will

never change". Well thanks Satan for reminding us they're Muslim. We

kept up and taught them both, plus the Catholic man, about Jesus

Christ. The Catholic man (Antonio) began to ask more about the church

and our beliefs, and wants to hear more! The Lord works in strange

ways.

Lord Farquad is who looks just like a man we saw in the door the other

day. He's short too haha.

Other than that, great week, I'm excited to begin the work again and

see these two Ester and Ester get baptized soon!

Love and miss you all!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Transfer night crepes!

 Swans and the sun while waiting for our companions

 Comic Elder Mendoza made about ward council and a recent convert haha!

 Beautiful church in downtown Zaragoza today

 Just your average Spanish post office, pijo!  Brian's got something on the way for him!

 Michel our ward mission leader!

 Goodbye to most of the Lleida zone!

 Goodbye Elder Barlow!

Our new companions, Elder Lattin (mine) and Elder Salazar