Week 3 in Spain!

Well hello everybody! I have some awesome experiences I´d like to share this week. First, I´ll talk about my park experience I had. It was great! Me and my companion from Provo, Elder Hunsaker, were paired up for the park. At first it was a little discouraging. We got a lot of hands in our face and when we´d say hola to someone, they´d say adios. So it was kind of hard for me. But we kept trying and it ended up being so worth it! Once again we found a man on a bench reading a newspaper this time. My companion noticed it was talking about soccer so he decided to open the conversation up by talking about soccer. His name was Iván and he was from Peru. He was very nice to us and understood we weren´t the best at Spanish. We asked him about his religion and he couldn´t have given us a better response! He said he was catholic but he didn´t believe you should have to go through the catholic to communicate with God. He believed that we should each have an indivual relationship with God and pray to Him whenever we want. It was perfect! I was so happy because I knew we had the message he needed! I handed him a pamphlet about the restored gospel and he willingly accepted it. He also gave us his address and number so the missionaries could come to his house. We explained they would be much more fluent. So he was grateful haha. I´m so excited for him still! I have a really good feeling he will accept what those missionaries teach him. I loved how he wanted to pray to God himself. It is something I may have taken for granted in the past. I never knew that other people didn´t believe you could communicate with God when I was younger. It is such a beautiful gift. Speaking of prayer, I had an experience this week that strengthened my testimony so much this week. It is a very sacred experience, but I think it would be appropriate to share most of it. This last week, I had a question about something spiritual. I wanted to know why something was the way it was. So I prayed and I prayed hard. I have learned that God will always answer my prayers, but I wasn´t expecting it to happen as fast as it did this time. When I finished praying I opened my scriptures to a random page, just wanting to study a little more. I happed to open up to Doctrine and Covenants 45. What I saw still gives me the chills. All over the page were the words Hearken, listen, Hear my voice, Give ear to Him, all underlined in my scriptures. I knew I need to prepare for my answer. For some reason, I started to flip backwards through D+C and again I saw a scripture highlighted. It was my answer. It was so amazing. I have never felt so comforted and happy. I kept going backwards and I saw another scripture highlighted in D+C 35:3 where it said I have looked upon thee and heard thy prayers, and prepared thee for a greater work. Something like that anyway. It felt SO cool. I wish I could explain it exactly how it happed but it is something I will never forget. I know prayer works. I know God listens to each one of our prayers and if we are sincere and really want to receive an answer and have faith that we will, we will get one. I know the scriptures are the word of God. They contain answers to every question we have. Whether they be spiritual or temporal, it doesn´t matter. Search the scriptures. There is so much in there! I hope you all read as much as possible. I have found a love for the Book of Mormon on my mission and I´m in Alma again. I can´t stop! Haha but thank you all so much for caring. Thanks for taking the time to read these emails because I get so excited to share my experiences with you. I love you all so much. Good luck to you Branson. I know you are heading out soon. You will love it. Oh and Tim, there are missionaries here from Moscow right now to renew their visa. They have a lot of good stories. Sorry if my emails are a little confusing. I have heard that family members of other missionaries are a little confused because the emails are organized like spanish sentences. Oh well. I wish I had more time to write. Have a great week! Con Amor, Elder Langston