Polynesian Dance Lesson

ahem, entonces,

This week has actually been really fast! Which is good because it is my last week in the CCM here in Madrid. Finally the real missionary work will start! But first, some cool stuff has happened while I´ve been here.  A French news crew is here at the MTC to film a documentary about a day in the life for a French missionary.  There are only 18 of us here in the MTC so we get recorded as well.  They are putting this documentary or whatever it is online, so once we find out the website, I´ll let you know and you can hopefully see me!  But the purpose of this, it was the idea of a mission president in France, is to get the French people to know about the church´s existence.  Not very many people here in Spain or France know about the church so this is a great way to spread the word!  They filmed us during a special Easter testimony meeting and it was such a cool and spiritual experience to be part of that, I thought of Alma wishing to be an Angel and preaching unto all the world, well this movie thing is going online, so my testimony, if they put it in the video, will be out there for all the world and I am so excited to be a part of it!  They have been filming us these past 2 days and we played soccer, we actually whooped the French, so they might not add that in there..hehe.  Friday and Saturday we are going to the park and they are going to record us as we make contacts and such.  I don´t really know how it is going to work out because if 2 guys in white shirts and ties approached me with a camera man following them, I wouldn´t take them seriously and i would probably think they were selling something...so we´ll see.

I had 2 really cool experiences while I was out in the park.

The first one happened when we approached a man (I was in a trio, one was Tahitian who speaks French and the other didn´t speak any Spanish, my companion, so I got the privilege of doing all the talking! yippee! So when I say ´we´ I really mean ´I´) and he was sitting on a bench. We approached him, introduced ourselves and starting talking about the Gospel.  He said right off that he didn´t believe in God and said Jesus never existed.  Right then I felt a strong feeling to bear my testimony.  I sorta cut him off and testified that God exists and Jesus lives.  I said we are all his children ( It was nice having a Polynesian there with us to hit home on that point) and that he loves us all.  It is hard to describe, but his face sorta changed, he went from stern to I guess the word would be thoughtful. My two companions also bore testimony and after it all, he said, well maybe God is there. We talked for a little bit longer, gave him a pamphlet and he left.

The second cool experience happened when we were just walking and looking for people to talk to. This man, his name was Fransico, approached us and told us that the Devil was in the park and that God told him to show us to him. It was pretty weird, I got really nervous because I´ve heard plenty of missionary stories about casting out demons and such so I was a little worried. But I said "Really? Well if God told you too, then lets go see him" So we walked and talked for quite some time until he led us to a big fountain.  On the top of the fountain was a statue of Lucifer, the fallen angel.  It was a statue of an angel who looked like he was falling and there were serpents wrapped around his ankles and the water spouts looked like demons. We looked at it for a second, i was just thinking to myself, man this is so bizarre, and I was totally at a loss of words.  It was quiet for about 20 long seconds and then finally words came to me. I said that our message isn´t about misery and pain or fallen angels, it was about peace and joy! I then started talking about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He was really receptive to it and really liked the idea of a modern day prophet.  He seemed to just eat it all up. He asked questions, we shared scriptures, I thought it was going great!  I finally asked him if he would like to meet with the missionaries and so i gave him a reference card to fill out.  But he said he couldn´t give that kind of information because he didn´t want to be on any kind of records (or something like that, i didn´t completely understand) but he wrote down the number of the CCM and we told him to call it to set up an appointment with the missionaries. So hopefully he will do that.  But after it all, I thought back to what he had first said. God told him to show us the fountain with the devil on it. And I believe He did.  We taught Fransico the Gospel at that fountain and bore testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Personal revelation really does occur, all the time, and so I am sure that he was directed to approach us and talk to us.  I love having these kind of experiences!  They are just so cool!

The two Tahitian elders taught Elder Walton and I some Polynesian dance, well, they didn´t really teach us, they just motioned for us to follow what they did. they recorded it and showed it to President Earl...talk about embarrassing!  We took some fun pictures afterwards. Haha.  Those Elders are lots of fun!  The picture I added is elder walton and I with elder Tamamah-Moo (he is a prince on his island and an ENTIRE island is in his inheritance from his Father, once he gets back from his mission in France)

elder walton kept losing his towel...hah

I´m so glad that Elder Walton has been here with me. We´ve gotten really close and we´re bummed that after this week there might be a potential to never see each other for the rest of the mission.  The Málaga mission is HUGE and so we could be sent anywhere! but I am still really excited for it!

I can´t wait to get out to the field next week! It´s so exciting!

Oh one last thing, I said something funny in a practice lesson.  Negrita (when talking about words on a page, means it is in bold) but I asked the person to read the Negrito words and Negrito means little black person. The teacher started busting up laughing and i was totally lost.  but once he calmed down he explained what it meant. hah...

I appreciate your letters, your support and your love so much!

I love and miss you,

Jason