Goodbye Palma

Well first off with the sad news......

I am leaving Palma. I received a call from President Dayton telling me that I would leave Palma. I was really sad. I did not want to leave Palma. I love Palma. But I left all I could there. Im gonna miss Elder Bradshaw and all the members in Palma. But there is slightly exciting news!

The exciting news is that when president called me on Saturday he asked me if I would be his assistant. I was excited but very overwhelmed haha. An assistant to the mission president does a lot of work and has a lot of responsibility. But I accepted and packed my bags and left to Barcelona the next day. 

Wow this has been a crazy week. With the new calling I was really humbled and we have had a lot of work. I am not going to lie it has been a week much different than any other week in my life. I have had more work and have had so little time working in the actual streets. But I have adjusted well. I know what I am doing is for the benefit of the mission as a whole and I know that many lives will be blessed because of the work Elder Duersch and I put in here in Barcelona. I got to Barç Sunday night and have been working in the office until 11pm every night this week. This week was a crazy week. 

But as assistant I have new responsibilities . We are going to be traveling with President Dayton to all the zone conferences this transfer. We work a lot on end of the year numbers and we will be working a lot to help the mission change with the new technology we all just got. It’s a lot on my plate but I’m really excited! 

The miracle that I would say I saw from this week was the opportunity that I had to see the change in the Baleares Islands. When I got there the excitement and energy for missionary work was low in the missionaries and the members. But after 3 months of vigorous work we saw the change we have wanted to see. The missionaries are excited and the members are as well. Palma 1 and 2 have baptized multiple times in November and will both baptize in December. It was a true pleasure to work in the islands. I loved it. I loved every second of it. I am so excited to see what awaits me here in Barcelona. 

Elder Duersch and I are so excited to work together. He is amazing. The most amazing thing I have noted about Elder Duersch is that he is able to see all the work we have to do and not get stressed out. He conquers every task with a smile on his face. He is always trying to have fun and he is always wanting to be the best representative of Jesus Christ. 

I am really excited to be in Barcelona working as assistant to the mission president. Elder Duersch and I want the mission to focus more on people and less on just meeting goals. We want to see a true change in El Faro missionaries. I love the mission.

Have a great day,
Elder Bristol

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The Baptized Dutch

Well hello one and all,

We had a wonderful week here. Honestly I can say that this has been the most memorable week of my mission so far. It may have not been the most fun but it truly will be one of the most memorable. It was capped off by our great friend Abraham entering into the waters of baptism. He was confirmed on Sunday and extended a calling and given the priesthood! What an amazing day! 

Abraham is the most impressive man I have met while here in Mallorca. He was very dedicated about finding an answer and he even fasted to find an answer. He fasted and received an answer that he needed to be baptized. The week leading up to his baptism was not the easiest for him. He got his car broken into and a window broken on his car. But he told us that whenever he is with us he feels an unmatchable peace. He loves the members even more. It’s amazing. He cannot even speak Spanish but they all have loved him and he has loved them! The baptismal service was amazing. The talks were given in English and translated into Spanish by me. Then Hermana Cummings, elder Bradshaw and I did a musical number that Abraham requested. Then Abraham was baptized. Elder Bradshaw baptized him with power and authority. Then after the baptism Abraham bore his testimony. It is one of the most amazing testimonies you will ever hear. I am actually going to attach it right here: 

“-Dear brothers and sisters,

“Thank you that you’re here today to witness my baptism. It means a lot to me. I would love to tell you why I know that this church I the right one for me. 

“Around a year ago, I wanted to read about every religion so that I could make the right decision about what religion to choose, or to choose no religion. But since I came to know the elders and since I joined the meetings on Sunday, and met all the good people at this church, my perception changed. I now follow my feeling. This church feels so good. Every time I walk out of this building, I feel great and happy. And I believe that that is what god wants me to be. 

“Around 10 days ago, the father of Elena asked elder Bristol and Bradshaw to bless him. I was blessed to see how this went. I saw this man crying tears of joy after the blessing. I really thought; how is that possible, can god be so great that a man cries tears after getting blessed? 
“-I couldn’t believe it. So I had to do something about it. That’s why I immediately asked if they could also bless me. I was curious what would happen. The dear elders said yes. So they put their hands on my head. I fully surrendered to the Lord. And what happened was so beautiful. I felt what they announced, that god spoke through them. God told me that my parents are okay, and that they love me whatever I do. And that I am doing so good, and that I made very much progress the last months. And that if I would go on like this, I will look back on my life when I’m 80, and be satisfied without regrets. I cried tears of joy from the first moment elder Bristol started to bless me. It has been a long time since I cried. God touched my heart. 

“This was one great experience. But off course, I had to be sure about my feeling. I had to know if it was the right thing to do for me to get baptized. The elders told me that I Have to ask god if I want to know something, in the form of a yes/no question. And that questions get answered faster if you don’t eat/drink for 24 hours. So I fasted. And I received an answer on my question the same evening. I’m dedicated for answers. God knows that. Off course, I finished my fast and didn’t stop after I got my answer

“I believe that the members of this church take their religion seriously, and I like the healthy lifestyle from the words of wisdom very much. I’m happy that I found a place with people who live this certain lifestyle. I don’t yet believe everything that I discussed with the elders, but I read the Book of Mormon every day. And I’m grateful for all the beautiful friends and family around me. 

“The last four years, I’ve had a hard time with my religion. It was not fun, and I went through a deep valley. But that time is over now. I’m baptized, and I will do the work that God loves to see. If god likes it, I know that I will like it too. Because he knows my deepest desires. And my deepest desires are in alignment with his will. 

“I want to give a special thanks to dear elder Bristol and Bradshaw, and to my friend Hicham. Thank you for the time you spent on me. Thank you for everything that I learned from you. And thank you for your unconditional, heavenly love. Bless you in the name of our Lord. And I know that we’ll be friends forever. Thank you that you brought me peace of mind. 

“Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for your time. And I hope you liked this testimony.”

As you can tell. Abraham is a very spiritually mature person. I love him and we will be eternal friends. 

I love elder Bradshaw. He is a great friend and a great companion. I believe I will be eternal friends with him as well. He is amazing because he cares about his sheep. He will do anything to help other missionaries or the people we are teaching. I love him. 

Other things that happened this week is that the sister missionaries had an emergency in their apartment at 11pm Thursday night. President Dayton told us to go help them. We ran over there (literally). We had to help them until like 12:30 and then we ran home. We got to sleep around 1am. And then we woke up at 5am to go to Barcelona for residency. So it was a crazy week. We were fairly tired but it was quite a week.  

This has been one of the most amazing weeks ever. I love the mission and I love being a disciple of Jesus Christ. 

With love for this work,
Elder Bristol

One for the Dutch

The Dutch master Abraham is our best friend now. We went gokarting with him today and he is amazing. He wants to be a professional formula 1 driver. So he goes there every day to practice racing. He is a funny man and an amazing man.

Well life could not be better over here on the islands. I’m loving my time here. I love my companion. I love our friends that we are teaching. I love the members here. I love everything about the islands. I never want to leave. It’s an amazing amazing experience. Our friend named Abraham has progressed a ton this week and will be getting baptized this Saturday at 7! 

That leads me straight into the miracle from the week. Abraham was fasting last Monday to receive an answer on whether he should be baptized or not and we were really excited for him. He fasted for 38 hours and received an answer!! He received a yes! He is amazing! He came to the baptism of Elena this weekend in a full suit and was so excited for Elena. It was an amazing experience for him. He invited his friend Hisham who is also from Holland but is a Muslim to the baptism and to church. Hisham came to both and shows a lot of promise. Abraham will be getting baptized on Saturday at 7. Elder Bradshaw will be baptizing him and I will be giving him the Holy Ghost. Abraham is 23 and comes from a very wealthy family. He is talking about flying his whole family out from Holland to see his baptism this weekend. I am not lying to you when I say that he is the most converted man I have ever met. He loves Christ and wants to model his life after him. He told us today that no matter how he feels, when he is around us he always feels better. He is our brother in Christ and we will be eternal friends.

Elder Bradshaw will also be an eternal friend of mine. I love him so much. He teaches in a very clear and concise manner and allows for the Spirit to be present. He is a great leader and a great companion. He is a spiritual powerhouse. One thing I noticed is that he is dedicated to making our companionship as strong as possible. In every moment possible he looks to help our friendship and brotherhood and is always looking to serve. We also just have a lot of fun together.

Our area is going strong. We have another man named Miguel who will be getting baptized in a couple of weeks. We are excited for him as well. We have a couple more people with baptismal dates for the near future and things are going well. Abraham is our biggest help right now though. He is just giving us references like crazy. I love the work here.

I am personally trying to strengthen my relationship with the Lord. Every night I am making a big focus on my nightly prayers. I am taking them slower and making sure I go through the entire day so that I thank Him for everything He gave me. I love the mission. I never want to leave the Islands and I never want to leave El Faro. 

Baleares 2020,
Elder Bristol

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The Big 50!!

First of all a big heart HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOTHER! Happy 50th birthday my mother! Love you so much! You’re the best! 

I’ll be going to Ibiza for two days this week to work with missionaries over there so I’m super excited! It’ll be a great week! 

It was one great week here in Palma. We had a wonderful zone conference and the zone is so excited to have the new technology. We have seen miracles already from the new technology and everything is going really well. We had a wonderful week and we saw the hand of the Lord day after day. The zone had a great week as well and we are all looking upwards and tied together with the vision of Baleares 2020.

Abraham continues to be our miracle. This man has progressed so quickly. This last week the technology has been an amazing tool. We couldn’t call him earlier because his phone was a phone for outside of Spain and we were having to use membership phones who had WhatsApp to plan visits with him. But now with WhatsApp we are able to get things set up with him very easily. He actually has been thanking us for the constant contact we have been able to have with him. We sent him reminders to read and to pray and he said if he had not received those he probably would not have read. Technology has its first miracle here in Palma! But also he came to church yesterday and loved it. He loved the testimony meeting and Hermana Cummings gave a testimony about the power of fasting and after the meeting Abraham told us that he wanted to fast. He wanted to receive an answer so he said he was going to fast for it. We have gotten a text from him today telling us that he already received the answer earlier today and that he’d tell us about it tonight. So we are excited to hear about it tonight! He also asked for a priesthood blessing and we explained to him what they were and we gave it to him and then he cried after the blessing because of the things the Lord told him. He said it was the first time he had cried in a long time. He is an amazing man. 

Elder Bradshaw is a spiritual Giant. This week when we were teaching Abraham he bore some of the most heartfelt testimonies I have ever heard. He has a solid testimony in our Lord Jesus Christ and I love being able to work beside him every day. He is a great man and a great leader. I truly look up to him and love him.

The zone is doing well. The Marratxi district continues to destroy it and have great weeks. The Ibiza district is actually now doing really well. Our district is also doing well. The hermanas in our district will be baptizing this week and I will actually be able to perform the baptism and it will be a great experience. Menorca is not having a lot of luck in the streets as of late. The are not disanimated or anything. They are actually just hungry for success. Elder Ricks is a great leader. Elder Wood and Burr keep having a little bit of a tough time. We are doing an intercambio with them this week and we will try to animate them! 

I am personally doing really well. I am as happy as I have ever been. I love the islands! I love the people out here and I love the opportunity to be a representative of Jesus Christ. I love being able to help baptize people. I love baptism.

With love for baptism,
Elder Bristol

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Techno

Well as y’all have probably guessed...WE HAVE FACEBOOK AND A SMARTPHONE! The mission has taken a huge leap forward and we are so excited. I can’t reply to anyone on Facebook or Facebook messenger. I can only communicate with home through email. But we will be able to keep up with our friends here in Spain a lot easier. The biggest blessing is something called WhatsApp which is free messaging for people in Spain. People in Spain don’t have unlimited text so we have lost a ton of people just because they couldn’t respond to us. But now we have a way to contact them all! So the lord is hastening his work! 

Baleares 2020 is catching fire. The zone is doing really well and everyone is having good weeks! The missionaries are really motivated to make this place a stake by 2020 and everyone has stepped up their game! Elder Bradshaw and I keep getting blessed by the Lord and we are seeing many miracles. 

We have sad news before the miracle. Sebastian called us and told us that he didn’t want to come to church anymore. It caught us off guard and we can’t get in touch with him to figure out why but we will find him soon and help him receive the happiness that this gospel has! But a huge miracle happened this week. Our friend Abraham from Holland has been progressing quite nicely. Everything is going really well and we are excited to be working with him! He is one of the funniest men I know and one of the most humble and righteous men I have met as well. He is about 26 and has been living the principles of the gospel for about 6 months without even knowing it. He is basically teaching us. When we teach him something he says that he agrees with it and tells us why and it is the exact reason that Christ has explained to us that we have certain principles. He is amazing. He is living here because he wants to start a cleaning business and is here with his friend Hisham. Hisham is Muslim but also very open to learning about the gospel of Jesus Christ as well. The concern is that Abraham doesn’t want to upset his friend Hisham by choosing a faith that Hisham is not a part of. So we are working with Abraham to have confidence in the steps he is taking. We believe that we will see Abraham’s baptism in the next couple of weeks! 

Elder Bradshaw is a very effective man. He isn’t also a very loving man. I would say the biggest thing I learned from him this week is his love. He loves everyone and shows his love! He loves me and serves me. He loves the members and truly tries to make their lives better. He loved our friends that we are teaching a truly tries to help them as well. It’s going super well! He is a great leader and a great friend. He also gains trust of others easily. Some members of our zone told us recently that they feel that they trust us and they can tell us anything which really reflects a lot of how good of a leader elder Bradshaw is!

The mission took a big step this week with the advancements of technology. We are about to see the floodgates open and people are about to have their lives changed for the better. I am overwhelmed with excitement. The Lord is hastening his work. We are so excited. 

I am doing personally very well. This is a good day and I love missionary work. I love baptism and I am excited to see 5 baptisms this month. 

With awe for this new age in missionary work,
Elder Bristol

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Baleares 2020

You will understand the subject in just a short while...We just keep seeing the hand of the Lord in our lives here in Palma! The Lord is blessing the people here and we are truly priveledged to be here witnessing the Lord’s outpouring here. Sebastian is our new best friend. He is the man we found last week and we taught him multiple times and called him all the other days to see how he was doing and he isn’t doing super well. The zone had an amazing week. The new faces here are truly going to help our zone out a lot. We are super excited to be here! 

The miracle we saw this week was when we were teaching Sebastian! We taught him a lot this week. We called him really late one night and he came and met up with us to have a lesson right before we had to go home one night. He came to church again 15 minutes early, beating many of the members again. But the true miracle was when we were teaching him about the things we should stay away from. We told him that we should not drink alcohol, smoke, or drink things that could be addictive and he had a problem with smoking and drinking coffee. He said that he drinks coffee four times a day and that he smokes 20 cigarettes a day. We taught him that God does not want him to smoke and he said that he would quit right then! He then went and quit! We then asked him if he would like to get baptized sooner than we had planned and he said he would love to! He will be baptized on the 4th of November! We are so excited for him! 

Elder Bradshaw is amazingly. His biggest strength is that he can talk about any subject. He knows just enough about everything to be able to talk about a subject with someone and make them feel important. I’m working a lot on trying to make others feel important lately and watching him is helping me a lot. But we are getting along really well. He is truly a brother in Christ and we are loving our time together. 

We met with the District President (the man from the church who is in charge of all the churches on the Balearic Islands) this week, Presidente Barraza. We talked about the goal of the islands to become a stake (a word to describe a lot of large congregations. Right now we are a district which is a group of small congregations) by the end of 2020. We loved that goal and we have decided to make that part of the zone culture and part of the zone vision as missionaries. We want all the missionaries to buy into the idea and we want everyone to get excited to be the missionaries that started the push for “Baleares 2020”. We are going to do this by focusing really hard on fechas as a zone and making sure that every companionship always has 3 fechas. It is our focus and our vision. 

I am doing really well. As I said I am working hard to make others feel important. Other people want to feel important and they need to feel important. So in everything I am doing, with other missionaries or members of the church or our friends that we are teaching, I am going to be making a bigger emphasis on them. I want them to feel the love of the Lord. I love the Lord.i am also working on pushing myself even harder in studies so that I can be a purified vessel for the Lord. 

Elder Bradshaw and I are really getting along. In my apartment I love all the elders as well. It is the best one I’ve had so far and I’m always myself which is super great. Elder Bradshaw and I bought matching bucket hats today! 

I love the Lord and love His work.

Baleares 2020,
Elder Bristol

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Well the Miracles Keep Coming

Hello one and all,

Every week I feel a little repetitive but it was just another outstanding and miraculous week here in Palma. This was possible the most miraculous week that I have seen on my mission. We have found some of the most prepared people I have ever met and we have been able to help them come closer to Jesus Christ. Elder Bradshaw and I are so excited to be staying together. We thought it was possible the one of us was leaving and we are so excited to be staying together. We have great things planned for the zone and great things planned for the congregation out here in Palma.

First of all, I would like to inform you of one of the nicest and most humble men I have met here in Spain. His name is Sebastian and he speaks little Spanish and English. He understands both English and Spanish perfectly. The missionaries from Menorca found him one day when they were in Palma and gave us his number and we called him and set up a day to meet. We met and went to the church and taught him a lesson. He was so nice and expressed pure desires to come to know Jesus more. Then we invited him to be baptized and he said yes and that he would love to do that! We invited him to church and a baptism. Saturday morning we called him and he said he could not come to the baptism so we were a little bummed. But then 20 minutes before the baptism he showed up in church clothes and was ready to watch the baptism! He loved it and we had a wonderful experience after the baptism of a woman from Inca. Elder Bradshaw and I showed him the baptismal font with the water still in it and had a very spiritual moment there. He said that he had not felt that kind of peace in a long time. That moved us a lot. Then he came to church the next day 15 minutes early (earlier than all the members) and loved all 3 hours. Then we gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he was going to read it 30 minutes every day. He is so amazing but most importantly he is so humble. He has the purest desires of anyone I’ve met to learn more about Jesus and God. We have seen a couple more miracles from other people and Juan Carlos the miracle from last week keeps progressing and moving towards his baptism. We found these people from Holland. One’s name is Abraham and he has pure desires to follow Jesus Christ as well. He told us that he wants his future family to grow up in this church after the first lesson so that was amazing as well! 

Elder Bradshaw is a great companion. He has a way of accepting people’s ideas that is astounding. He is so humble and always takes what I say into consideration and takes what everyone says into consideration. He isn’t a powerful emissary of the Lord Jesus Christ and I am proud to be his companion. 

Elder Bradshaw had me laughing really hard yesterday and I accidentally broke the screen of my iPad. It still works and everything but it’s a little annoying. It was a pretty big fail haha. But all is well in Israel.

I personally am doing really well. I am applying the Atonement of Jesus Christ a lot in my life right now and I am trying to help myself always improve. I loved the teaching of the assistants in the last zone conference about complacency. I loved the thought about us needing to improve even when things are going well. We can still grow when everything is going well. We don’t have to be going through a hard time for us to learn something from the Lord. He wants to teach us always. 

Astounded by the miraculous Palma,
Elder Bristol

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