Super Short One This Week…

This week was great

I can´t remember if I told you or not, but I got a new companion, Elder Triana, he is from venezuela. He is my second "nativo" companion in a row! the last one didn´t really count, seeing that Elder Estrada went to high school in Utah, But with Elder Triana, EVERYTHING is in spanish now, I have noticed a difference already in my spanish but I really do miss english.

Things went really well this week. We found some new people to teach and our three baptisms from last week got confirmed. Elder Triana and I get along great and we are having a good time. We hope we can set some people up with some baptismal dates this upcoming week!

Angels of the Lord

This past week we baptized our last 3 investigators! The great thing is that we had 3 baptisms, but on that same note, there goes all our work! But thats ok, we´ll find more!
It was a very spiritual experience (I´ll be sure to send in pictures next week, I don´t have time this week). So Marina, Sandra and Manuel were all baptized. They are family members of another member in our ward. They are from Colombia. Marina is about 80 years old and has had contact with missionaries for 13 years. Sandra is the sister of the member and daughter of Marina and Manuel is 19 and the son of Sandra.
Marina has some serious knee problems and was SCARED TO DEATH of going in the water, not so much getting in the water, but bending her knees and being under the water. She made that very clear to us almost every lesson, we just kinda brushed it too the side though.
Side note, we found them the first week I was here in Elche and its taken the past 12 weeks to get them ready, its been a long hard process going up and down, but of course it was worth it!
Manuel gave up friends and an old lifestyle, Sandra gave up an old lifestyle and Marina faced her fears of being baptized.
The baptismal service was very nice and one of the friends of Marina, who is also a member of the church, gave the talk. He said as he prepared the talk and thought about something he could say to give a little bit of comfort to marina this thought came to him. He said, something along the lines of this, "Marina, the lord knows your pain and all the issues with your knees but you need to be baptized and so he will send his angels to assist you in this thing." It was very powerful and we could all feel it. As marina went into the baptismal font she was trembling and as her son Carlos was getting ready to baptize her, she was shaking her head and whimpering "no Carlos, ahora no." He looked at her, smiled and she gave a weak smile back, then he said the prayer and she went under the water and she came back up! No problems! woohoo! Everyone at the baptism knew about her fear and it was all the audience could do from not bursting out in applause. I know thats how if was for me anyway!
When Manuel gave his testimony he preached the good word to everyone and invited everyone who wasn´t baptized to follow the example of Jesus Christ and do so! It was awesome! I was all smiles the whole time! He´s told us he wants to serve a mission.
But on the topic of missionary work and the story of marina, it really hit me that the lord is at the helm of this work and that he is sending down his angels to assist in any way. We didn´t see them, but I am 100 percent positive that angels of the lord came down and comforted Marina and made sure that all went well.
It was a wonderful experience and I am so grateful that I could have been a part of it.
Os quiro mucho!
Jason

Baptisms!

This week was great. We are keeping up with our goal of having a baptism for every weekend in January! This past weekend Eloy was baptized! It was great, But the first two pictures, Vasil was baptized on Dec 23 and Paloma the 7 of January. Both of these two wonderful people were super prepared to receive the gospel!

For the 21 we will have THREE baptisms! We are stoked. This past week when we met with Manuel, we sat down, he got all serious and he said, "guys, I made a decision. I´m going to get baptized." It was all I could do to not jump up and yell for joy. We have been working real hard with this guy and there have been lots of doubts and difficulties for him to get over. But he has got a ton of Faith. He is 19 and lives in the world and he has given up his friends that drink and smoke, and also dropped his girlfriend.(She wasn't´t being very supportive with certain laws of Chastity) I can´t wait for his baptism. It is going to be great. We really hope he goes on a mission. His mom will also be baptized this Saturday and she is already asking us what he would have to do if he was interested in serving. So we know that they have talked about it.

But things are going great, I love my mission and this time to serve the many and wonderful children of our heavenly father.
Os quiero mucho,
Jason

Paloma

Vasil

Eloy

It pays to be nice to missionaries

It was a great week!
We had a ton of lessons and the week ended with a baptism! All of our investigators have baptismal dates and it all goes smooth, we will have a baptism every weekend for January!
Fun story,
We were in Alicante, a big city, for a missionary conference and we weren´t sure which bus would take us to where we wanted to go. We asked a man that was waiting and he was very nice about it and told us that he was taking the same bus and he would tell us which stop was ours.  We get on the bus and he starts to scratch the lottery ticket he just bought before getting on. He starts to breath heavy and then he yells, "I just won 10,000 Euros!" he hugs us, almost kissed my companion, then got off the next stop and started running. We had to ask someone else which stop to get off of. But the moral of the story, it pays to be nice to the missionaries.
We had a miracle Sunday this past weekend because TEN investigators came. It was awesome. The testimonies for testimony meeting were so strong and the spirit was definitely there. It was a good week!
Well,
Os quiero mucho
Jason

A Quick Christmas Note

I´ll quickly tell some quick stories of things that have happened lately

Vasil got baptized! It was a great service and his family came! they´re next!

At his baptism, a member brought a friend to come watch. She, come to find out, has been being prepared to receive the gospel! After the baptism, we talked to her and she told us that she had a dream a few nights ago where she was dressed in all white and getting baptized! only, she didn´t know what was happening in the dream until she saw the baptism and she told us that "this is the place for me" and now she has a baptismal date! She´ll get baptized in 3 weeks, but she is so set on getting baptized that we might move it down to 2 weeks!

Christmas was great, we ended up not being able to watch the Lion King but that's alright, i´ve seen it already.
I sure do love you all and I hope that you all have a happy new year!
¡Os quiero muchisimo!
Jason