Hola a todos!
Hope you all had an absolutely wonderful week wherever you are. I'm thinking about all of you every day!
This week we went down to Los Alcázares and had an exchange with the zone leaders, which was fun, especially since we had 6 elders all in the same piso. The other elders in our district had had an exchange with them the day before, so we had a great time. The next day, I went with Elder Puelles and we did some good work. He's a native from Barcelona, and I felt like it was a make of how far along my Spanish has come that I was able to understand him perfectly. I still have trouble sometimes when people ask me questions, but I'm getting there! Slowly but surely.
One of the members in his ward pulled a prank on me, though, by offering me a drink from a bottle of London dry gin. I was a little concerned, but it turned out that he used to work at a bar and he just kept some of the bottles and washed them out. I guess he must've liked how they looked or something. But it definitely had me thinking for a second.
We also had a wonderful mission conference with some of the members in our stake. Our president talk to them about how we can make our work more effective in the ward. He also talked about God's visión for Spain and how its far bigger than anyone has ever imagined. You could see how stoked they looked as they were beginning to see what was possible.
Later we had a "Face to Face" with the young adults and President/Hermana Hamilton. The young adults could ask them literally any question and they would answer them. There were lots of good discussions had, mostly about missionary work and how to strengthen your testimony as a young adult. Super powerful and there were some pretty funny moments too, and we got pizza afterward so that's a win-win.
On another note, me and Elder Golightly had to throw together two musical numbers last minute for these activities, but they went really well. Played "Let The Lower Lights Be Burning" and "Come Come Ye Saints." I got yo play guitar for the second one, so that was really cool! But now I'm dreading the fact that every single zone, mission, and random conference we have I'm going to be asked to do a musical number... Oh well, my talents are consecrated to the Lord now.
We also totally found a new friend completely randomly. We were in a member's home for a family home evening, chatting and getting to know them more, and one of their friends that was there started asking us questions about the church and what our beliefs were. We answered some of them and pretty quickly it ended up turning into a full lesson about the restoration and what our church believes. It was really interesting because one of our recent converts, Carmen, was there and she got to bear her 12-day-old testimony, which was just so powerful. The entire family at the beginning was all kind of milling around and preparing food, but by the end of our lesson the house was dead silent and everyone was listening to us. We testified and challenged her to read the Book of Mormon and she agreed, beaming from ear to ear. So we'll see where this one will go! The Spirit was super powerful there and it was really neat to see the effect that our teaching, testifying, and the testifying of Carmen had on this person and the family.
Quick scripture I liked this week :)
"Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh."
Luke 6:21
¡Cridto vive! ¡El Libro de Mormón es verdadero!
¡Os amo!
Elder Ritter
Fotos:
View from the elders' piso in Los Alcázares,
me and Elder Puelles,
me and Elder Golightly with an absolutely gigantic donut,
a super yummy drink that I need to find again,
Elder Vowels the Brit,
the cathedral in Murcia,
Me taking a selfie of Elder eastmond taking a selfie
Our lovely organized bookshelf (applause please)