Pamplona (in Spanish) = Iruña (in Basque)

Pamplona is the Spanish name and Iruña is the Basque name

 Hey everybody! This week has been a crazy week. For the whole month, we have been hitting the pavement and contacting like crazy. And finally, we have seen the fruit of our labors! We had eight investigators in church on Sunday, we got six new investigators and three people with baptismal dates! One of those is named Mario, a young man who has been investigating the church for almost a year and who has finally committed to be baptized this weekend, so please, include him in your prayers as he is preparing himself to be baptized this weekend!

But a funny experience this week. In church, one of our investigators, Valter from Italy, smokes and we were talking about obedience in priesthood. The teacher then talked about how smoking is really bad for us and how it breaks God´s commandments. Valter turns to us and says "I smoke...They are making me feel so bad about it...I love it!" jajaja! Valter, making jokes on every occasion. I love it!

This week we have also been cleaning out the piso (flat) of the Sister missionaries, as the office is closing it, so we have to clear everything out. And the myth that girls are clean is NOT TRUE! Our piso is so much cleaner. There was so much trash left everywhere and food, yuck! I don´t even want to remember it, there were too many gross things, jajaja!

So that is it everybody for this week. Remember, Mario is being baptized this weekend thanks to you! Pray for him and let the Lord know you love him! Thank you!!

And next week is transfers, so I will be updating everything next Tuesday as that is the way things work here.

Hasta pronto amigos!

Elder Sadler

En el monumento al Encierro / At the Running of the bulls monument

 

Oh, no, run, the bulls are coming!!! 

Missionaries and members must work together

Hola a todos! Hey everybody another week has gone by! The weather here is changing a lot first of all. On Wednesday, it reached 40 degrees C (104 F), super hot, and today it is struggling to reach 25 C (77 F). Crazy weather!

This week a lot of people have been leaving for vacation. During San Fermines, everybody was busy working since that is where most of the money comes from for the whole year, and now they are all going on vacation. So we have been contacting people for a good 5-8 hours each day. It is a little rough but we manage to find a couple of people.

However there is a small miracle that happened this week. There is a part member family in the ward where the mother and two of the children are members while the father and the youngest child are not. They hadn´t come to church before, but two weeks ago, they stayed for Sacrament meeting and then left, and this week they stayed for all three hours! I think they are seeing how much joy the Gospel brings to people´s lives, especially to their family, and soon, please pray, they will be baptized!

There is also power in working with members. The missionaries and the members MUST work together or the church will not grow as well. I know it because I have seen it. Members, work with the missionaries, and missionaries, show the members that you care and that you are willing to do anything for them, and you will both have success. Until next week! 

Adiós!

 Elder Sadler

San Fermines are finally over!

Hey! So San Fermines are over! Finally! It was a pretty rough week for us, since most of our investigators were either working or out at parties, so we hit the pavement, knocked doors and contacted a lot of people. We found a lot of extranjeros (foreigners) here visiting, so we didn´t get a lot of people who were interested.

We also worked a lot with the members this week to try and help them invite their friends to activities and church and things like that. It is going pretty well, some members are already starting to do it!

But let me see. A miracle this week was that we prayed to find people ready for the Gospel and we did! However they all live outside in different cities, such as Zaragoza, Madrid, etc. But they wanted to learn more and hopefully the missionaries over there will take care of the rest!

And we went to Vitoria (a really beautiful city) yesterday to have interviews with President Pace. He really is the best, He shows all of his love and kindness to you and says he learned stuff from me that I write to him every week. It was really a great experience.

Oh well, that is all for now. Let us see how many miracles we see this week because of our labors from last week! 

Take care everybody. Hasta la próxima!

 Elder Sadler 

At the bullring with the other 3 missionaries in Pamplona

Inside a Catholic church

With a giant from the procession

San Fermín, a patron saint of Navarra

The music band during the procession

 

Happy San Fermines!

Happy San Fermines!! Today is the first day of the Running of the Bulls and all of Pamplona is busy, busy, busy! But I will start with last week.

Last week was a little rough because tourists started coming and all the people that live here are busy working for los festivos (festivities). So we spent a lot of time contacting. We found a lot of tourists who didn´t want much, but we found a couple of Pamplonians who are interested… but after the San Fermines… but it is alright, we have a good pool to work with.

Sunday was El Chupinazo, where they officially declare the start of San Fermines, and it started at 12:00 PM. We went to church at 10:00 AM, everybody was dressed normally, but when we got out at 1:00 PM, everybody was wearing the traditional San Fermines clothes (red pañuelo/handkerchief, red cinturón/belt, and white clothes) It was a sight to see!

And today for Preparation Day we went to La Plaza de Toros/Bullfight Ring! Where they do part of the Running of the Bulls! We went with a member and some of the JAS (Young Adults) and it was so cool to see it live! It only lasted about two hours as they had el encierro (running of the bulls) and then had young bulls come out and charge the people who stayed in the arena. It was crazy!!!! Some of the bulls knocked down a lot of people! Then we went around and saw the procession of San Fermín. I will send pictures next week!

And last but not least, today is the anniversary of my wonderful parents! Shane and Estefania!!! 24 years together!!! Congratulations!!!! Hope it is a really good one and I love you a lot!!!!

Elder Sadler