April 15, 2018 - 1 Corinthians 13

Pretty basic week. We taught a few people, normal, nothing too exciting. Edwin is still progressing. He had some doubts about tithing so we cleared those up with him the other day. The members helped out a lot with that so now he understands. 

Other than that I can’t really think of anything too exciting... 

One cool thing was at the Whalley’s this week. John told us his conversion story. His life was pretty crazy too. When he was younger he was the bass player in a rock band. Then he was a doctor in the army, he has really crazy stories from that! Then later on he ran his own little business in Manchester. Anyways he told us about the moment when he really truly began to understand what the gospel was all about. It was at a fireside on the island Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea. He had been baptized a few years back but had fallen into old habits and become less active. Upon hearing from a friend about the fireside that was going to take place he decided to go. The man who spoked related 1 Corinthians 13. We all know that one (Charity). The man asked the audience to replace the word charity with their names. I will write in how John explained it to us, using his name.

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 “John” suffereth long, and is kind; “John” envieth not; “John” vaunteth not himself, is not puffed up,

5 “John” Doth not behave himself unseemly, seeketh not his own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 “John” Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 “John” Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 “John” never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

—

As he began to read through each of these verses with his name he begun to realize that a lot of them were not currently true statements about himself.

As the speaker continued he this time replaced the word charity with Christ’s name.

—

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not “Jesus”, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not ‘“Jesus”, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not “Jesus”, it profiteth me nothing.

4 “Jesus” suffereth long, and is kind; “Jesus” envieth not; “Jesus” vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 “Jesus” Doth not behave himself unseemly, seeketh not his own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 “Jesus” Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 “Jesus” Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 “Jesus” never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, “Jesus”, these three; but the greatest of these is “Jesus”.

—

Listening to this helped John to realize the importance of Christ’s example. This helped him to understand the true meaning of the gospel and see that changes needed to be made in his life to become more like him. 

As John read this chapter to us I realized that I had read the same chapter that very morning during my studies. I had not gotten nearly as much out of it though. The difference was he likened the scripture to himself. It reminded me of an important lesson taught long ago by Nephi. He taught that we must liken all scripture to ourselves “that it might be for our profit and learning.” 

Sometimes we take the scriptures for granted. Maybe because we think they don’t apply as much to us having been written so long ago. Fortunately that assumption is not true. The scriptures were written for our day. The prophets who wrote them knew that they would be of great value to us. They testify of Christ and teach us the key principles and doctrines to find peace and comfort among all of the stresses and difficulties we face in the modern world.

I’d like to invite you all to look over this chapter and likewise apply it to your own life. It will help you to see the changes needed for you to become more like the Savior and thereby receive the comfort and strength he promises us.

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

April 8, 2018 - MA's & UFO's

Well it was a pretty basic week with a few high points.. we had lots and lots of visits with less actives and they all went pretty well. 

Antonio, the guy who contacted us last week in Denia met with us in a bar this week. It was pretty cool he shared his whole life story and about how he found the church and whatnot. Over the past 10ish years he was living in a place where the church wasn’t nearby so he wasn’t able to attend. However during all of this time he would go onto the church website normally about once a week to read the talks and watch videos. He had lost his Book of Mormon before he had the chance to read it through. We gave him one there, set the goal for him to read it cover to cover and started by reading the title page and introduction right there. He’s a cool guy.

The other notable experience we had this week was with a less active guy the other elders met on the street. Hey had asked him what he works in and he had said audio and video. He also lives in a place called Moradix which is like a super pijo town just full of really nice vacation homes. They also told us to make sure and bring our bibles. So we are walking down this road just lined with super nice houses nervous that we are going into a cita with a super smart guy who owns like some kind of electronics company haha. So we are walking looking for number 9 and it’s nowhere to be found. Then we notice that there is this old abandoned house tucked back in some overgrown trees. The front gate was shut with a bike lock  we call him and he comes out to let us in.. man this house was so sketchy I thought we were gonna get kidnapped or something. (I’ll attach the pictures so you can see what I’m talking about.) Anyways we went up to the main room which smelled like straight campfire. On the table was a glass of what he said was rum which literally had mold floating in it.. he offered us a drink to which we promptly declined. After that he began us his entire life story, which is nuts! To make a long story short I’ll just mention some of the main points. He was ran one of the largest English academies in Madrid, one day he decided he wanted to quit so he sold it and threw a massive party with all of his students and friends. He then went traveling all over europe just jumping on different trains and hitchhiking. After that he started working with a friend drug trafficking, during this time he tried all sorts of crazy drugs and claims to have had crazy visions and seen ufos. They eventually got caught and were sent to prison. In prison he became friends with one of the guards who helped him to escape. He then rode a motorcycle all the way back down to France. This is when he came upon a program that allowed you to mix music and pictures, basically its just a bad version of animation. (This was when that type of stuff was just coming out.) So he thought this stuff was revolutionary and started making a video that he has been compiling for the past 18 years of his life. Just about a month ago he started getting nauseated and passing out. So someone took him to the hospital where he found out he has several tumors in his brain and lungs. They kept him in the hospital for 4 days but he finally said he didn’t want to die in a hospital bed so he ran off to live the rest of his life free! Anyways super interesting guy. I didn’t believe his story at first because it was so crazy but he showed us tons of pictures and its legit. Haha so that was the crazy experience of the week! I hope you guys enjoy all the pictures :) 

Still working with Carole, she is improving little by little. I think she will eventually muster up the courage to come back to the church. 

Enrique is still planning on moving up to France. In case he actually does we have already spoken with the missionaries up there and it sounds like it will be alright. The branch there will actually be closer than the one here is to his house. Also there are quite a few spanish speakers there. 

Yeah so thats basically it for the week. Love you all! 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

April 1, 2018 - Easter/General Conference/President Nelson

Wow it was a long week, I’m struggling to remember all that happened.. Mostly we have been focused on sharing the Easter video #siempreahí  #alwaysthere....? -Not sure if thats how it was translated in English but yeah you get the gist haha. Anyways its been super fun going around, having people fill out the paper and then sharing their experiences of when Christ has been there for them. It has helped me to reflect on lots of times in my own life when he has been there for me. The truth is, he is always there. Sometimes we may not recognize his presence, accept his comfort, or heed his call but even then he never abandons us. He is always there,arms open ready to forgive and forget. With Christ there is always a safe return, we can never go so far as to pass outside the bounds of his infinite love.

I would invite you all to ponder on the simple question “When has Christ been there for me?” 

What a wonderful opportunity we had to listen and watch General Conference. The blessing of being able to hear the council of living prophets and apostles is another evidence of the love God has for us. What a wonderful man President Russell M. Nelson is! I can’t wait to learn more from him in the coming years! His life has been chalked full of lessons and experiences that have prepared him for the holy calling which he holds today. 

I hope you all have enjoyed this wonderful conference weekend, until next week! 🏼

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

Bro Childers <brochilders@gmail.com>	Apr 2
to Alex

Awesome. 

On Apr 2, 2018, at 03:22, Alex Matthew Childers <alex.childers@myldsmail.net> wrote:

Wow it was a long week, I’m struggling to remember all that happened.. Mostly we have been focused on sharing the Easter video #siempreahí  #alwaysthere....? -Not sure if thats how it was translated in English but yeah you get the gist haha. Anyways its been super fun going around, having people fill out the paper and then sharing their experiences of when Christ has been there for them. It has helped me to reflect on lots of times in my own life when he has been there for me. The truth is, he is always there. Sometimes we may not recognize his presence, accept his comfort, or heed his call but even then he never abandons us. He is always there,arms open ready to forgive and forget. With Christ there is always a safe return, we can never go so far as to pass outside the bounds of his infinite love.

I would invite you all to ponder on the simple question “When has Christ been there for me?” 

What a wonderful opportunity we had to listen and watch General Conference. The blessing of being able to hear the council of living prophets and apostles is another evidence of the love God has for us. What a wonderful man President Russell M. Nelson is! I can’t wait to learn more from him in the coming years! His life has been chalked full of lessons and experiences that have prepared him for the holy calling which he holds today. 

I hope you all have enjoyed this wonderful conference weekend, until next week! 🏼

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

March 26, 2018 - Washing Machine

We had a pretty stressful but overall good week. We had interviews and conference, we started sharing the new Easter iniciativa and both Carol and Enrique were baptized. We ran around a lot and spent a lot of time driving down to Alicante and back.  It was good though we had fun. Now we are on the hunt to find some more people to teach. So that should be pretty fun. Oh yeah and I almost forgot, our laundry machine broke right before we had to leave for two days. The door was stuck shut with wet clothes in there so we called the office and they told us to tear the top off haha. 

Anyways sorry this email is so short. Hope you all enjoy the pictures! 

Love, 

- Élder Alex M. Childers 

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