Week 3 in Zaragoza April 7 2014

 Elder Torres, Ximena, Me, and Elder Hutchins. You can see Elder Gonzalez, Elder Hutchins´ Companion in the background

Well, this last week was really great for me. A lot of really great things are happening. A lot of things happened this week. One of them was zone conference. At zone conference, the mission president comes and speaks to all of the missionaries in the zone. There are 6 missionaries in my zone. The conference was really good. I understood quite a bit of it. I am to the point where I can understand the main ideas of the person talking, but not all of the details. And I can understand much more than I can speak. I also found out that my mission president is extremely good at playing the piano. He could be a professional concert pianist. There is another missionary in my district who is a very good piano player. He also plays the trumpet, trombone, tuba, and guitar. He is from Puebla, Mexico, and we have become good friends. He can speak English fairly well. He had trouble with pronounciation and with some of the grammar, but he can speak English much better than I can speak Spanish. The amazing thing is that he learned English just by speaking to missionaries from the states serving in his home town.

This weekend was really great, and General Conference was amazing! I even got to watch three of the sessions in English! The first two sessions on Saturday were really rough, because I had to watch them in Spanish, but I can read those ones later. And, we had 4 investigators show up for one session each of conference! That was a really great feeling. I could really feel the love that God has for me as I was listening to conference. Many times the idea that as we show our love for others, it will be easier to feel the Love that God has for us. I testify that this is true. Many of the times that I have felt the happiest here were when I was serving someone else. 

After the last session of Conference we held the baptismal service for Ximena! a man named Presidente Juan De La Cruz performed the baptism. He is the man that baptised the rest of Ximena´s family. It all went really well. Just before the baptism, I found out that I was giving the talk on El don del Espíritu Santo. In Spanish! I had about 3 minutes to prepare. It wasn´t long, and it wasn´t great Spanish. But I got through it, and I think that everyone understood me and I hope that everyone felt the Spirit.

(Ximena and Juan De La Cruz)

We had a lot of lessons this week, and a lot of new investigators as well. I feel really blessed that the Lord loved me enough to send me here. And trusts me enough to allow me to teach and serve his children.

Elder Earl

 

There is a family with a pet racoon here. I want a racoon when I get back.

Elder hutchins found this turtle shell on the banks of the river today.



There are a lot of cockroaches in this part of mexico. This is the first one I saw. It was in our apartment. And it was ginormous! Isn´t it beautiful!