The drought is over

Hey everybody! We are now in the last week of August! Crazy how fast the time flies here! But there is now a lot to account for this week, we have just been working hard and getting people to baptism and it happened on Sunday!  Roxana 19, from a part member family (her sister, brother and mother are all members and she is the youngest of the family) so far her dad and oldest brother aren´t members, but I hope they soon will be. She was ready for a long time, she has known that the church is true for most of her life, and she doesn´t know why she waited so long. But it feels so good to complete the family a little bit more. All of her family was crying after her baptism awww. And this week, we have another baptism planned! Eneritz, a 15 year old Spanish girl who is going to be baptized this weekend, the 30th! Please keep her in your prayers so that she can go forward with her baptism! 

And well, in other news, we have switched pisos (apartment). We live on top of a Carrefour (a big store) and live close to the library, the church and a lot of bus stops, so it is a lot more convenient than the last piso.

But not much has happened this week. We have been focusing ourselves in the baptism, and all that, so it is alright. Also this week we are going to be cleaning the old piso doing an intercambio (exchanges) to do the interview for Eneritz, and all that, so there will be a lot of traveling involved (and I wanted to go see a castle in Olite, another city, but it is closed for repairs for two months -_-) But oh well, another time.

Thanks everybody! I will talk to you all next week!

Elder Sadler

Our baptism yesterday Sunday

 

Finding people to teach, but where is everybody?

Cleaning our piso before we move out

Hard work pays off

Hey everybody! We are in the middle of August now, the height of tourist season here! Honestly, there are more tourists again than citizens on Pamplona jajaja!

But this week we have been working. We have worked with our investigators and we sweated and we prayed and in the end we got four people to commit to a baptismal date! Roxana has a baptism this weekend so everyone keep her in your prayers that she may be baptized this coming week! We also have María, a woman from Romania who wants to be baptized on the 30th, and Eneritz, a young Basque girl who lives in a pueblo an hour away, and pray for them as well! Especially for Eneritz that she may come to church despite the distance!

And well, really nothing has happened here that is new. The area when I got here was in bad shape. But after a lot of hard work, diligence and patience, we are able to see the miracles that we are bringing! Pamplona is baptizing again and the members are excited to work with us now!

We are also moving pisos, so it is always better if anybody sends me a letter to send it to the Barcelona mission office because that address will never change.

See you all next week and hopefully I can tell you about our baptism!!!

Elder Sadler

Travelling around and working hard

Hey everyone! We are in the middle of August now and it still rains a couple times a week here jaja! But we have had a couple of cool experiences this week.

So we have been working with a part member family, because their youngest daughter has accepted a baptismal date for the 24 of August, Roxana. As we have told her to pray and read and come to church, she will want to change her life for the better. And after these past couple of weeks, she has definitely been changing! She says she didn´t know why, but she felt like she needed to become more like Christ and try and be a better person every day. The family is so happy and it is so good to see them so happy with what is happening!

We then had the privilege to go to Bilbao for a specialized training! Bilbao is really pretty! And so we got there around five o´clock in evening, then Elder Ochoa had to stay in Bilbao, so I went with Elder Slauson (from Utah, and was in my old Zone in Badalona, serving in Mataró) went to Las Arenas, a pueblo outside of Bilbao, where we stayed with Elder Leseur (who served in Sugarhouse for three months waiting for his Visa, so some of you may know him) and Johnson. There was a huge party that night and it was really hot, so we didn´t sleep that much jaja. But the conference was good, we talked about how we can be better missionaries and what we need to change about our teaching methods. So it was really good! 

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

At the entrance to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao with the dog Puppy

We also went to a pueblo (town) this week called Cintruénigo. It is about an hour outside of Pamplona and we received a reference from the Sister missionaries in San Sebastián. It was for a woman named Eneritz. When we talked to her on the phone, we were expecting a woman in her late twenties, early thirties, but when we stepped off the bus in the pueblo of 3,000 people living in it, there was a fifteen year old Spanish girl waiting for us. We were a little shocked at first, since a lot of youth don´t want anything with religion nowadays, sadly, but she has been reading the Book of Mormon and has prayed to know if she needs to be baptized! We extended an invitation to her to be baptized, and her sister who lives in San Sebastian is getting baptized soon as well! So she accepted and her mother, Ana, is allowing her to be baptized! Miracle! She is ready for this, and she says she can come to church and everything like that in order to be baptized!

On Sunday, we went to a member´s house to celebrate her birthday, and her friend from Perú cooked her one of the most delicious Peruvian dishes I had every tried. It was meat with onio, potato and red pepper. I can´t remember what it was called, maybe “Asado de lomo” o algo así. Pero bueno, it was really good!

Well, I guess that it all for this week. Nothing really funny happened since we have been working a lot. But we are moving pisos! We will live in a bigger and newer place which is a lot closer to everything. But we will talk to you next week!

Elder Sadler

Week of transfers, but I stay in Pamplona

Hey everybody, yesterday was transfers but I am still in Pamplona with Elder Ochoa, but Elder Merkley left (from the other companionship in the piso/flat with us) and now we have Elder Morales from Peru, so we have a Peruvian, a Mexican, a Honduran, and a Spaniard in the same piso jajaja!

So Mario didn´t get baptized. Things happened and we haven´t had contact with him, but we are giving him a break and we are continuing to find more people!

But this week has been crazy! I went to Vitoria to work with Elder Smiley from Spanish Fork and there were some sort of festivities going on and right outside our window at night there was a club who opened up all their doors and we could hear techno music all night jajaja!

Travelling to Vitoria by bus

There is not much to say this week. We finished cleaning the piso (flat) of the Sister missionaries who used to be here, and man… was that a task!!! There were too much clothes and stains everywhere, but now it is practically new jaja! 

Cleaning the piso (flat) of the sister missionaries

But I hope everything is well back home! Things are good here; it rains about every three days, so it is alright. We are finding more people and working with members a lot more. The members are the key! Help them and the blessings will come!

Have a great week!

Elder Sadler

Studying at our piso

At a zone conference