Week 66: Lightning Strikes, Leaky Trains, Turkey, and African Prayers!

Hola familia!

Sort of a strange week here in Vic. Right off the bat the weather
turned for the worse and we found ourselves with soaked feet and cold
wind, and the Pyrenees Mountains covered in snow! I haven’t seen snow in
so long, it might snow here by Christmas though so I'm praying for a
white Christmas. On Wednesday we met as a district for district
meeting, talked about language study and inspired questions (we had some
fun with that, practicing on Muslims and other people we find here),
and then had a huge Thanksgiving dinner as a district (hermana Carollo
baked turkey, we brought ice cream, and we ate a pile of potatoes and
gravy, so good!). Elder Orantes and Maurer (pronounced mora since he's
from Australia), divided and I went with Elder Orantes to Badalona,
where, on the way there, we hit one of the biggest lightning storms
I've seen in a long time. We hit the cloud, it turned to night, and by
the time we hit the tunnels in Barcelona, it was a torrential
downpour. So much so, the lights in the train were flickering, and
rain came pouring in through the doorways. And there was lightning.
Lots of it.  Definitely made it weird to teach while the windows kept
flashing and the thunder echoing through the city. We had fun though,
may have been wet but we had good lessons and we made it up and down
the hills without slipping.
The power went out in Vic for half an hour too I found out while I was
gone, which made contacting a bit harder for Elder Bowles haha. So
yeah, fun times.

In other news, Phillip, our Ghanaian brother came to church again,
along with Angie, this less active lady from Ecuador who had given
birth recently and hadn't come much since getting pregnant. Phillip’s
the best, doesn't understand much Spanish but we've been stopping by
the library and the church to help him understand a bit more (he's new
here). This tiny town’s crazy! You can find people from Morocco,
Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, every country in South America, Romania, it’s
a cultural fruit salad most days. We've gotten in the habit of me
saying hello in Spanish and Elder Bowles saying hello in English so
that we cover our bases (because you never know). I'm also learning
twi. It's the Ghanaian native tongue, so I guess I'm learning more than
just Spanish here haha.

Cultural experience, we were teaching Abraham, this Ghanain man, in a
Muslim house of a less active lady named Samira (interesting story
there), when it came time to pray. So Abraham wanted to give the
prayer, so him, a lady on the couch who turned out to be the Christian
wife of the Muslim man(huh?),and us kneeled down, held hands and
listened to one of the most colorful and interesting prayers I've
heard in a while. ("Recieve life, receive life!!!!"). It was fun,
Elder Bowles, who already has hurt knees, almost lost it half way
through (he kept squeezing my hand haha). Good times in Vic.

Also an old lady (like 85 something) got really excited talking to Elder
Bowles while we were looking for the library, and wouldn't let go of
his hand (when we got a way I just hear in a sort of scared/exasperated
tone "She wouldn't let go!" under his breath). Well hey she found us
the library.

If there's anything I've learned this week through district meeting,
climbing Catalan mountains, eating polverones, is that we need to live
life with real intent. Just like Randall R. Ridd says in his 2015 YSA
devotional, "This simple idea of the compounding effect of daily
disciplines, with purpose and real intent, can make a big difference
in all areas of your life. It can mean the difference between
struggling through an ordinary life or being immensely successful and
filling the measure of your creation". Live life, live the little
moments, and don't just do things out of habit, figure out why the
heck you do those things (taking the sacrament, exercising, spreading
the gospel, praying), and then go through them with real intent (Moroni
10:32), and live these short few years with purpose. This will make
even the boring days a little more interesting!

I love and miss you all, I hope you had an amazing Thanksgiving, and
that you take advantage of this amazing time of year known as the
holidays!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Visiting Sant Marti de Canolleres

Thanksgiving dinner as a district and zone leaders - we even had turkey!!

Week 65: Rastas, Ripoll, and the African country of Vic!

Hello family!

Fun week here in the land of leche and miel! To sum up the area, it's
basically a few Spaniards and an army of Africans from several African
countries that fill at least half the city. But in just a week I've
learned so much about Ghanaian, Moroccan, Nigerian, and Senegal
cultures, you'd have thought I'd switched countries. But with Elder
Bowles, my new companion straight out of Preston, Idaho (actually a town
next to it) from Elder Perry’s group. But the members are strong, we
are surrounded by farms and mountains (it looks like Colorado or Utah a
bit), and I'm surrounded by Catalan again! I feel like I'm back in
Manresa (it's just over the ridge so kinda).

Fun story, last night we were walking across town looking for people
to teach (Sunday nights are pretty dry around here), when we came
across this African man named Joseph from Ghana on a bench in a lonely
plaza. As we talked to him, we noticed his very large red hat on his
head, and before he could say anything else he loudly declares
"Rastafari! Like a lion!!!"as he threw out a pile of dreadlocks. He
calls himself a Muslim, but follows numbers 6 which teaches that we
cannot cut our hair if we follow god (this is also coming from the man
smoking "Hhherb", so don't know about that). He's got some good points
though, and we're meeting with him today at 7. But, hey, goes to show,
you never know who you'll find out there in the dark streets of Vic.

Another miracle I saw this week happened after we had passed by a less
active member, and upon finishing a quick lesson with the Maurecan
family that lived there now, we headed down the stairs again. At the
very bottom was this twenty something year old woman named Rosio, who
upon talking to her, told us of her goal of becoming clean from
substances for her four year old daughter. We had found her smoking
tabacco, but found out that she's now down to only two a day! Even
better was the receptiveness she had to there being a plan of God for
her and her daughter, and because of this she accepted a folleto, we
wrote down her number and we're going to visit her later this week! I
know just from a week of working in this miraculous city of Vic that
the Lord is preparing people wherever we may be serving, or where we
might find ourselves during the day.

The area, along with a collection of cultures, food, and jóvenes, has
some beautiful little towns in the mountains called ripoll where our
amazing, and I mean probably the best Rama mission leader lives,
President Marchan. Baptized in Ecuador, with a family now and who's
been the Rama president for 6 years before being released last August,
he literally gave us a whole list of less actives and references for
us to teach. He's that good. But without him, this Rama wouldn't be
growing as much as it's been.

Other than that, the district’s fun, we had a get to know you game of
fishing out funny questions out of a bowl of chocolate, whipped cream,
olives, arroz con leche, and then answering them. Pretty strange, but
it definitely made the district meeting interesting haha. Great people
here for sure, so it's going to be a great Christmas transfer.

Love and miss you all family!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Going to a Roman ruin in Vic in the rain!

 First District meeting - boom!

Week 64: Leaving Getxo to work in the land of milk and honey!

Hola family!

I have to be pretty brief this week, since I don't have much time to write, but summary is that I've been transferred out of Las Arenas after 6 months, and I'm now serving in Vic (the land of milk and honey as President Dayton put it). Pretty excited to work here, this place is beautiful, the people look like fun, my companion Elder Bowles is a stud (he's also from Elder Perry’s group), and yea, I'm back in Catalunya!

It was also sad to leave Elder Perry and Las Arenas. Our district of four had a great run together, and it was sad to see Elder Kimball go home. But I have faith that those two will keep the areas running, they're pretty solid. I'll miss those members though, the Valerde family, Manolo y fe, Neyla, the Castellanos, it was tough. But I'm grateful to have left on a good note, finding a bunch of miraculous investigators (being fired on by 5 investigators in a row, contacting the first building and finding two fuerte news!), and saying goodbye to the members. I also gave a 10 minute talk on a whim (they told me like 1 minute before the meeting started), which I gave on being a disciple of Christ.

I love and miss you all, you're all the best, and good luck with Trump as president!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 I've been called to Vic in Cataluna to be district leader!

 Manolo

 Manolo

 Our piso!

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🌲🇪🇸

 Dinner party in the new piso after building the furniture!

 Non alcoholic wine!

 This might be the best pair of pajamas ever!

 My tie collection!

Torts de arroz to celebrate the last night in the old piso!

Week 62: Breaking the Sound Barrier, Climbing a 15th Century Wall, and Gypsie Tales!

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! 

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 San Juan de Gasteluxate

 Visited San Juan with Manolo today

 Butron Castle

New piso...and carpet!

Week 61: Shaking hands with President Russell M. Nelson, and other stories!

Hola Family!

As you've seen one the mission blog, and other sources, President Russell M. Nelson visited our mission this week, along with his wife, and Elder Patrick Kearon and his wife also. All I can say is that it was probably one of the most spiritually uplifting and powerful experiences I've had in my life. Just to be there with 200 missionaries, and an Apostle, it was ridiculous the spirit felt in that chapel! Our journey there was a story in its own. After having 6 other missionaries in our piso Wednesday night, we left at 4:30 in the morning by taxi to the airport along with the other 40 missionaries from the north. We all hopped on the plane together (that was fun, lots of suits and funny looks), and arrived just as the sun rose in Barcelona. Elder Perry and I went on splits for the day in Hospitalet with the zone leaders there (finding some fun people, and a crazy girlfriend), before going to the stake center for the evening for the general meeting with President Nelson.  That meeting was crazy, almost 900 people crammed into the building, including 75 missionaries in the back so that the members and investigators could sit down. All four of them spoke, ending with President Nelson telling his translator to sit down so that he could full "gift or tongues" it by finishing his talk and testifying all in pretty fluent Spanish (the room went silent since the spirit was so powerful). The members were so excited to meet an apostle, the first one to visit here in many years too, and are probably still talking about it today.

The next day was the missionary conference, we arrived at 11 to say hello to all the missionaries of the mission (only the second time in the missions history that the whole mission’s been together), and to prepare for the picture. Once we all got in position, and knew that he was coming down from his brunch upstairs, all 200 of us began to hum “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet”, President Nelson sat down to take the picture with us, and in complete silence we each shook hands with the four of them. President Nelson has a firm grip for a 92 year old man, and the most intense eyes. I think he saw my soul haha, kidding but still an amazing experience. We then had the conference, with the four of them testifying and teaching on the resurrección, the importance of missionary work, the sacrifice our family's make for us to be here, family history, Joseph Smith, and President Nelson’s part being almost an hour of him teaching us. He finished by giving an apostolic blessing to the mission, and with us standing in silence they all four left.  From their teachings, and the spirit I felt in this meeting, I know that the Lord calls modern day apostles to do his work, that the spirit of revelation is real (every one of my questions was answered), and that this is Christ's full church on the Earth today! Where else can you feel this spirit, and have all of these truths that we know?! It was a memorable moment for the entire mission, and one I'll hopefully never forget.

Back to Las Arenas (we were gone three days so that was strange), the work’s progressing, Joel's getting baptized next week probably, and miracles are happening everywhere! A miracle I saw this week happened in this small pueblo in our area called lutxana, a station on the metro line that we'd never visited. We contacted almost every door in the town (there were like 15 small buildings), and found nothing. That is until the very last building on the top floor, where we found this young woman named Ester, who had seen the missionaries in the past in Bilbao, already had a Book of Mormon, and was completely open to reading the book again and starting with us! For a long morning of little success, this little miracle helped make the day for me, and show me that there are people prepared in even the smallest of towns in our areas!

This week, while made amazing by the mission conference by President Nelson, was also made good by some of the good people and progress we had this week! Joanna, the friend of a member named Miriam who came to church two weeks ago was able to come to a Noche de Hogar, another lesson, and to church this Sunday with her, and the family of Alicia our recent convert coming to another noche de Hogar tonight. She's very promising, and we're planning to invite her to be baptized in the next few days. What makes it better is her support that she has from Miriam and the family of Alicia, which is where she's living at the moment. Thankfully she doesn't need to be reminded to attend church.

It was also Elder Perry’s birthday today so we spent the day walking around Bilbao, eating at a Chinese buffet, and now we're here writing! It's been a crazy week, along with us moving this week, it's going to be nuts. Hopefully this new piso helps us forward the work here even more!

I love and miss you all!

🇪🇸🌴Elder Taylor Moulton🌲🇪🇸

 Tiny octopuses!

 My crawfish friend!

 Birthday lunch for Elder Perry at the Wok Buffet!

The Barcelona Mission with President Russell M. Nelson! (Taylor is 4 rows from the back, 3 over on the right from the basketball hoop)