Week 13: New Companion, Akim Bigdady, and Miracles

Hola family!!!!

How has the week been? It's been a slow but eventful week as I got my
new companion Elder Turner, and as we got used to working with each
other. It's been a little bit difficult getting used to a new
companion after just 6 weeks, but so far we've had a pretty good time
working together. We had a crazy number of 11 new investigators this
week too, even with it being a shorter week, so we've been pretty busy
visiting all of these people.

Ok so Elder Turner’s from Orange County California, has only been on
the mission for 4.5 months(I only have 1.5, so it's crazy that he's
training... That could be me soon too in this mission), and served in
Vitoria Spain before coming here. He went to BYU Hawaii for last year
too, so that's pretty awesome. Overall, it's been fun getting to know
him, but hard at the same time -  it's hard since I see Elder McArthur
like 3 times a week, who lives just across the city. But we are pumped
for the upcoming week to get some real work done.

The nights are getting chilly here, even though the highs during the
day are in the 70s, the lows at night are almost in the 40s, so it's
definitely sweater season. The good news is that it hasn't rained in
forever so that keeps our spirits up!

One of the coolest days this week was working with a member
named Akim Bigdady, who's from Nigeria. Yes that's his real name, and
he has one of the strongest testimony and conversion stories I've
heard. His wife's not even a member, but he and his son are always at
church each week. A funny thing about him though is that even though
he can't speak Spanish that well, he still contacts every breathing
thing in his path, so we ended the night up having like 6 news, and a
bunch of lessons under our belts. But the real miracle happened later
that night, when we contacted this man after setting up an appointment
with a new we had. We contacted this random guy named Cristian, and
as we asked for directions to a certain street, we found out he was a
Bolivian man, who speaks English, and who had read the Book of Mormon
and met with some sister missionaries in DC. So the random guy we had
only asked for directions, turned out to be an amazing new that we are
meeting with this week! It's crazy how God puts people who are ready
to hear the gospel in our paths, even when we don't expect it!

So far on the mission, one of my favorite times of the day has been personal
study, because any time to read talks and the scriptures is awesome.
Because of the study time I've had, I found my new favorite talk,
called "We're the architects of our own happiness" by Gerald Causee as
a young adult talk. It's a long talk all about how we decide our
happiness level, even in times of struggle, and since any mission,
especially European missions, are hard, I learned a bunch from this
talk about how I can be a happier person. Overall, it's my new
favorite talk and I'd recommend it for anyone to read!

So while this week has been a bit long, and filled with new experiences,
I still had some random experiences and memories, and I know that this
week will be even better now that I'm getting used to my companion!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Taylor Moulton

Pictures from his last week at the MTC (probably from his camera)

 Departure Devotional

 Our amazing district!  With our teachers Hermano Ostler and Savage

 Our two districts that left

 Last pic at the Provo Temple

 Map pics before we left

 The Hunger Games like Frankfort Airport

 I stayed my first night in Spain at this piso (it rained too)
New pictures from this week:

 Soccer with most of the zone...still working on my soccer skills though (Elder Turner is the one in white in front of me)

 Bad pic of us eating at The Good Burger

Sunset from our kitchen window

Week 12: Greenie Power, Fu Fu, New Companion, and that time I called a kid Oboe

Hola family!

This week has been crazy! We are all healthy again, and with the
inspiration that we got from our zone Enfoque (focus) this week, our
companionship found 16 new investigators, taught 35 lessons and
basically killed it in every other way(we are also baptizing our
progressing investigator Xiomara this Saturday so that'll be great!).
The sad thing though is that with transfers, my companion got called
to be the new zone leader for our zone, leaving me trainer less
halfway through. Good news is that I'll get a new trainer, Elder
Turner, tomorrow night. So while it's hard to have a new companion
already, I'm excited for the change, and to have more experience with
new companions. Elder McArthur's nervous to be a zone leader, but
he'll be a great one once he gets used to it.

So one of the craziest miracle days this week was when we had
intercambios (exchanges), which left me working with my fellow greenie in our
area, Elder Heymeyer. We went contacting to Alequas and downtown
Valencia, and over a few ours we taught 6 lessons, found 3 news, and
had a funny experience with what we thought was a deaf guy(I said
senor to him like 6 times and he never looked up, so we awkwardly
walked on laughing at the experience). Overall, the miracle was that
even though we collectively had the Spanish knowledge of Spanish kid,
we still taught a bunch of people and were able to invite a bunch of
people to learn more, showing that even if we greenies don't have the
language down, we definitely have the faith to try(we had a good
attitude about it too so that helped).

For correlation meeting this week, our ward mission leader, Victor,
who's from Nigeria, made a huge dinner of Fu Fu, which is a
dough/potato dough that we dip in a delicious chicken peanut soup. It
was delicious, but it filled me up like nothing. His wife also fed us
some delicious banana bread cake that I could barely fit in
afterwards. Overall it was a fun experience trying out real African
food.

So while my language skills have improved, they're definitely not
perfect yet. A funny experience that I had because of that was when we
visited this member family a few weeks ago to see how they were doing,
and leave them with a message. They had this son who was like 3,
but while his name was Hugo, because of the Spanish accent here I
heard Ubo, or something of that sort. So when I was asked to give an
opening prayer, I ended up calling him Oboe, since I didn't know that
the H in Spain is silent. It was pretty funny to find that out
afterwards though haha.

Overall, it's been a week of ups and downs, with a bunch of lessons
and things happening in our area, and the huge change of losing my
first trainer, but I'm excited to see what this week will bring as I
get my new trainer. Thank you so much for your prayers and emails, and
I hope that you'll all have an awesome week as we get closer to the
holidays!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Taylor Moulton

 Doodles that sum up life here in Valencia

 A field of cattails in La Plaza de Virgen....random but cool!

 Contacting near Alequas

 Nesquik bar!

 Jose Carlos, and awesome member here!

 Ronny, our favorite member missionary

 Eating fu fu with the ward mission leader - it was the bomb!

 Victor, the ward mission leader's baby Vinn Axxel - best name ever haha!

 Torre de Torrent

 On the metro with no one riding haha

 Elder McArthur's yoshi hat

 Piso pic during lunch yesterday

 Elder Vickery, Reddish, Islas, Heymeyer and I waiting for the new companions to come

 Preparation day spent rollerblading by the City of Sciences

Week 11: Food Poisoning, Miracle Prayers, and the Knight Bus

Hola Familia! 

 This week has been just a little bit crazy. After the week before of

being sick with the flu, my companion and I went to a family home

evening Monday night and ate a horrible chicken sandwich(it had bones

in it....We still have PTSD with that haha). So that night and the

next morning we totally got slammed again with stomach pains, Elder

McArthur got more sick then me, and Elder Heymeyer, another elder in

our piso, got sick from another thing too so our whole piso was sick.

Long story short we’re better now, but Elder McArthur and I learned to

always check the food before you eat it haha. We also had the great

experience of having daily planning through the bathroom door as my

companion was dying, so that was new haha.



 Besides that, this week we slowly got back up to speed from me being

sick last week, by teaching Jeannine after her baptism things about the

temple, Doctrine and Covenants, and how she can share the gospel with

her friends(she's excited about that), so that made that lesson a bit

easier. When I showed her Canal Mormon(Mormon channel) on Facebook

though she almost blew her noodle with excitement( she loves

inspirational quotes so that made her day). We also started teaching a

Mali man, and a Venezuelan woman who knows everything and just needs

to be baptized(her name is Xiomara). Overall once we were healthy

again we are teaching a bunch more than before. 



 On Saturday night we decided to take the Renfe to a pueblo in our area

called Alequas/Aldaia, which turned out pretty well since the people

were nicer and we were able to meet some less actives named Fernado

and Elsa(like frozen haha). They were cool, and we were able to give

her a blessing which made it even better! But on the way back, we rode

the bus, which here in Spain means hang on and hope that you don't

flip over on the roundabouts, since the buses go 60 mph on ANY turn

haha( just like the knight bus haha), we literally were half thrown

from our seats. But it was worth it, we got back on time, just with a

few bruises on our sides.



 I also learned that prayers work this week. That might sound dumb, but

there were several times this week when my companion and I prayed to

find people, then we had amazing contacts. Specifically on Sunday

night(or last night haha) we prayed and found Kai and Khaled, who was

a Muslim, who we have appointments with this week, which is amazing!

Contacting is fun, but appointments are where the work is done.



 Today for preparation day I got my hair cut, we explored Turia Park

with some other companionships, and also chowed down on a Dominos

pizza buffet. Overall, a fun and relaxing preparation day. 



 Thanks for all your prayers, and letters! I'll try to respond to you

all but it's hard to fit it in the time we have!



Love you and miss you all! 



 Elder Taylor Moulton



 Fernado y Elsa (like Frozen)



 Plaza of Government



 Near Xativa





 Haircut on P-day



 Jardi del Turia (Turia Park)





 The sciences















 Dominos buffet with the gang



The Mestalla Stadium (with a Barc jersey!)



Video of Taylor's walk home from Sunday night