Hi everybody! I hope you are all doing great. I am doing awesome after a week full of learning and feeling the Spirit. On Wednesday Bishop Edgley from the Presiding Bishopric, Elder Worthlin's son, and Elder Texeira from the Area 70 presidency came with their wives to have a special conference with my zone. It really was awesome. We learned so much from each one of them. I loved listening to Bishop Edgley because he told mission stories from clear back when he was a missionary and then after he would just say, "what do we learn from that?". They put a ton of emphasis on digging into Preach My Gospel and inviting everybody we see to church. They promised us that if we do that we won't just have 2 or 3 investigators, struggling to get into homes. But that we would have a lot more success and really just be surprised! Elder Masterson and I have tried to apply that in the past week. We wrote down the church's address on every pass along card we handed out and invited everyone to come in every contact. Hopefully we see the fruits of it here soon. I know blessings will come, I just want to see them soon haha. I guess I should be patient. Something I like about the mission is that I've become a lot less timid. I'm still no social butterfly but I feel that I've really improved in that area. The General Authorities gave us a little free time at the end to stand up one at a time and ask questions if we had any and NOBODY was standing up. The assistant to the President asked a couple and then it was just silence so I decided to ask one. I asked them to think back on their missions and to tell us what they wished they would have put more emphasis on, what they wished they had or knew, or focused more of their time on. I knew my question was kind of vague but I kind of wanted to pick their brains haha. They had similar answers. They both said they wish they had Preach My Gospel which really testified to me that I need to make the best use of it as possible. And Bishop Edgley said he wishes he would have worked harder. He said he wasn't a lazy missionary but he just wishes he would have taken every opportunity to share the gospel. I thought it was a really interesting answer. What a blessing it is to have contact with the leaders of the church!
Yesterday was pretty fun. We got on a bus with the branch and headed two hours to stake conference in Sevilla. They just finished a new building there and it is awesome. There aren't very many church buildings here in Spain so its always really exciting for the members to see what a real chapel looks like. Most churches here are rented spaces beneath apartment buildings. It was pretty cool to see all the members get excited for brand new stake center. I learned a lot in stake conference and my favorite part was hearing the testimonies of the returned missionaries in the stake. It was kind of weird because one of the missionaries served with me in the Barcelona mission and changed to the Málaga mission, which means he was serving in his own mission. It was just a little strange to not call him Elder Ponce when I talked with him. It was just "Javi". Weird stuff.
This week Archie gave a powerful testimony in one of our appointments with him. At the end I just started to bear my testimony and he kind of butted in which made me smile because its just kind of how he is. He didn't try to be rude or anything. He just wanted to get his testimony out! He said he has heard a lot of preachers and different beliefs but he has never heard anything like what we teach him but he knows its true because its all in the Bible. He told us one of the things that he really likes is that we as missionaries are out preaching to the world. He said that was what Jesus commanded His disciples to do in Matthew (I believe its the last chapter and one of the last verses???). I thought it was awesome that he could see that this church is the same church Jesus instituted in His earthly ministry. Its always good to hear the testimony of a recent convert.
Well this week should be good. We have plans to teach over 20 lessons which the Apostles have told us to make as our goal. Its going to be hard since we only got 10 last week but I think we can do it. Its just going to take a lot of work and careful planning. And even more importantly, careful listening to the Spirit. We'll see what happens though. This week I also have to interview a lady in Sevilla for her baptism. I've never done that before but it should be a good experience.
I love you all and I hope you have a great week! I know this church is true and that the gospel definitely brings new light to the minds of people. I've seen it so many times on my mission. Its awesome haha. Welp, love you all again and know you are in my prayers. Bye bye
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