Mar 19, 2018 - Crazy Week

This week was a crazy roller coaster of emotions and stress but also excitement.

So to start off I’ll just explain that on Tuesday afternoon we had 3 baptisms scheduled for this week. We were going to have baptisms 3 days in a row. We had Enrique scheduled for 23rd, Carole the 24th and Edwin the 25th. Then during exchanges on Friday everything went terribly wrong. First of all Elder Cazier and I went out to Denia to do Enrique’s baptismal interview and when we showed up he was like super sad. He came out and talked to us and told us basically his wife was being crazy and didn’t even want to let him go outside to see us. He came out just for a minute to not be rude but had to go back in and wouldn’t let us go try to talk to her. 

Meanwhile, Elder Coleman and Child were up in Callosa having a lesson with Edwin. When he showed up he was also really sad and told them his wife said he can’t be baptized. She studies with some people from a church that I won't name but has their own special translation of the Bible. Anyways they basically convinced her that if he was baptized into our church he would go to hell. Edwin was really sad because he knows that it is true and has been so excited for like the past month for his baptism. 

So yeah we get home and I’m like Elder Coleman we have bad news. He’s just like no don’t tell me that, us too... we were so sad. So that night we prayed really sincerely to know what we should do. The next morning when we got up we both felt that they needed to go to Enrique’s to do the interview right then. We called him up and asked if he was home but he didn’t seem too keen on the idea of them going over. We all felt strongly that they should though so they went. When they showed up his wife was out in the yard right out back watching the grandson play. So Elder Coleman was able to go over and talk to her/ entertain the grandson while Cazier did the interview. During Coleman and Isabell’s conversation she finally gave him permission to be baptized. 

So now we still have 2 baptisms planned for this week Carole and Enrique. They both already passed their interviews and everything so it’s good. Hopefully we will be able to help Edwin be able to get baptized soon in the future. 

Anyway, if everybody could please pray specifically for all three of them so everything will turnout alright that would be amazing. 

Carole Culleton

Enrique Montalva Sentamans

Edwin Peñaranda 

Thanks so much, love you!

Mar 12, 2018 - Arrepentíos y sed bendecidos

Well its been a pretty good week. 

We basically have been calling all of our investigators to repentance, teaching straight commandments haha, which is scary but the good thing is they’ve all accepted. 👍🏽 

Other than that we had some funny stuff happen this week. We got stranded at a train station in the middle of nowhere for a little over an hour because we didn’t realize national woman’s day would effect the trains. It was fun though because there were two retired Norwegian couples there that we talked to. It was funny because at the end they asked if they could take a picture with us. We couldn’t communicate too well because they were just speaking to us in broken English. However we did commit them to talk to the next set of missionaries they run into back in Norway.

We had another funny situation of difficulty in communicating this week at the Cara’s home. They invited us over for lunch. The only problem is, they are French. The wife speaks a little bit of english and the husband speaks some Spanish but no English. So sometimes it gets complicated.. This guy is a beast though. He went from being just a regular old plumber to starting a kitchen supplies and appliances store. In the end he had two 700 square meter warehouse stores. He has now sold the business but still owns the properties. So he is quite well off. His key to success is easily notable though, he’s a hard worker. His hobby right now is translating the Book of Mormon in Spanish back into French. He was so excited to show us his Excel page where he had just under 4000 words in Spanish and French. Anyways it was a fun time with them, they were hilarious. 

Carole is progressing so fast we decided to move her baptismal date up so now it is on the 24th. She is super excited. Its so funny because her whole family like loves us now. She normally talks to them on the phone like almost every day cause they all live up in England still. Anyways her son said “take them out to get Chinese food on me.” Then the next day her mom “take them out to get Mexican food on me.” They all like love us just because Carole is so much happier than she has been in a long time. She came to church yesterday and shared her story. I don’t know if you’ve seen all her facebook posts but she calls us “Carole’s little angeles.” So apparently during relief society she shared the whole story about how we knocked on her door in her lowest moment. She had come out of having hip surgery and her son had just left back to the UK. The first time we talked to her she told us she hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife because she feared it would be as hard as this life. Somehow she felt that she should invite us back though. During our first lesson she began to change. When we started she was pretty skeptical about it all. She made it clear that she wanted to continue worshipping in her own way. Then at the end of the lesson as we were explaining a little bit about the Book of Mormon we showed her the picture of Alma baptizing in the Waters of Mormon. The spirit testified to her and she began to tear up. Over the course of the past two weeks as she has learned more she has begun to glow. She went from a point of dark despair to bright happiness and willingness to learn and serve. She is the greatest example of what the gospel of Jesus Christ can do to the life of one who commits to live it.

So yeah its been a pretty awesome week. We had two investigators in church!! I know that doesn’t sound like much but here it is a big accomplishment haha. They both really enjoyed it too. So that’s always a plus :) 

Well thats about it, love ya’ll! 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

March 5, 2018 Graves, Church, Piso Problems

Well it's been a pretty great week we have had lots of lessons and did some pretty cool stuff. 

First off one day this week we met Toni out at the cemetery to dedicate his son's grave. It was a pretty cool experience. I’ve never really blessed a grave before or even seen it done so it was cool to do that. The spirit was really strong there and he was so happy that we were willing to come do it for him. Afterwards we went and found a bench and shared a short little message with him. We finally found him a magnifying glass so he can get reading the scriptures again he was really excited about that. He’s a great guy and I’m glad he is finally making the steps to return to full activity in the church after so many years. 

Unfortunately one of our other investigators Rolando got deported this week. He went up to Barcelona to get his papers renewed and they denied them and sent him back to France. Sounds like he is doing good there though he has already found work and we are arranging for him to meet with the missionaries there. 

Carole our English investigator is doing super well. We had two lessons with her this week and she came to church yesterday! At church since there are quite a few people from England. We have a wireless microphone and headsets to translate for them. Since the other three missionaries here are pretty new it's my job to be the translator every week. So yesterday as I was translating the testimony meeting I was worried for Carole that perhaps since she couldn’t hear them directly in her own language she might not be able to feel the spirit as strongly. As I thought this I glanced over to see her tearing up. She caught my glance and smiled. She told me after that she absolutely loved it. So that was a great comfort. The whole way walking back to the cars she was saying that she understood now why people want to come every week and that she felt like her battery had been recharged to take on the next week. She is so prepared it's amazing. 

I want to just explain the branch a little bit real quick. So this place is a total mixing pot. We have members from Switzerland, France, England, Argentina, Columbia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Mexico and even the Middle East. It is a really like vacation place so a few of the people have houses here that they only live in for part of the year. The branch is fairly young and its even more interesting because the new branch president who was called the week before I arrived is a convert of only two years! 

Oh yeah one last thing. We almost got kicked out of our piso this week haha. So Wednesday night we get a call from our landlord and he’s all like “Hey what time are you leaving tomorrow?” So we are just like “Probably at like 10:30 that's when we normally leave.” Then he’s just like “No, what time are you leaving?” Again we say10:30 and ask why. He’s all like “I don’t think you are understanding what I’m asking... When are you leaving, like for forever.?” We say the 31’st of next month cause that's when the office had told us our contract was up and he’s like “No, that's wrong, you’re leaving tomorrow.” So we call up the mission office and explain the situation and they’re like “Well... that's not good.” hah So at this point its already like 7 pm and we are going into a lesson. When we get out its around 8 and we still haven't got a call back.

So we decide to call and we jokingly say “So do we have to move out tonight.” And they’re all like “Um well maybe.” Turns out they had forgotten to pay the rent for the month so the dueño thought we were leaving. He eventually told them it was alright for us to stay one more night while seeing if we could make a deal with the bank to keep it for 2 more months. The deal went through later the next day so we are good now but it was just kind of funny how it all played out. 

Anyways yeah that's it for the week. Love you all :) 

- Élder Alex M. Childers