It was one great week for us here in Zaragoza! I learned a lot, we helped a lot of people come closer to Christ, and we are coming closer and closer to bursting the "baptismal dam" here. When it breaks there will be many people following our Savior Jesus Christ.
The biggest miracle from this week is this man named Alfonsi. Alfonsi is from Venezuela and he is one great man. He is in his late twenties and has only been here in Spain for a short time. Honestly when I got here to Zaragoza I thought he had little potential. He was really intense and was questioning every point that we brought up to him. He wanted to make sure every point we ever taught him was backed up by scriptures. I am not that type of missionary that loves to fight every point doctrinally. I am more of a teach by the spirit and ask them to ask God to be sure what we are teaching is true. So I was a little uncomfortable teaching him that way. But then in the past three weeks, this man has had a huge change of heart. We teach him and he accepts every point and is truly openin his heart. It is amazing! He is preparing to be baptized in a couple of weeks and we are really excited because he wants to baptize his family when they get here from Venezuela. He is working really hard to bring his wife and daughter from Venezuela and told us that he wants them to come be baptized! He is a great man! He was in the army and is absolutely massive in regards to his muscles.
Elder Molina is amazing! He keeps working really hard and he is so focused. This week we got a lot closer as companions. It is definitely different being companions with a native but I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn with him. We are becoming true friends and we get along really well. He is really humble as well. And as you can tell he is amazing she ukulele. He learned how to play the ukulele 7 weeks ago and that is how well he can play it. He listens to any song and can play it! It is amazing!
I personally am doing really well. A member of the congregation told me something yesterday that was literally an answer to my prayers. I was praying on how to improve and a person and as a missionary and the member said something that struck me to the core. It could have been said with other intentions but it was the answer to my prayers. I am so thankful for Our Heavenly Father. He always answers.
Leo and Julio keep moving forward. We are looking forward to their progress.
It got really cold for a couple days this week. It was only in the 80s. Lol. The heat is back now though.
What a miracle packed week. We had a great time finding new people to teach and teaching our friends that we already have. Elder Molina continues to impress me. He works as hard as I could hope him to and loves the work. We are getting along really well and I am truly learning a lot more about the Spanish language so I am very excited for this transfer we have here!
As I said, it was a miraculous week here in Zaragoza. Last week I talked about our friends Melvin and Leo. Well we have another miraculous person to add in there. His name is Julio, he is the 12 year old brother of Leo, and he is deaf. We always knew that he existed and that he was in the house but we never knew how to invite him to learn with us about Jesus Christ. But this week we were picking up Leo to go play soccer with other people from church and Leo asked if his brother could come. We said of course and went to play soccer. The family has invented their own sign language with him so we just had to learn some signals from Leo and we started having fun and communicating with the brother. We had a great time and even taught him about Jesus Christ and about baptism and Julio loved the video of Jesus Christ baptizing himself. Then we invited them to church on Sunday. It was the first time they were going to come. And they came! Leo told us that Julio woke him up to go to church! They came to church and at church every single young man and woman shared a short testimony in the first meeting. It was amazing for Leo. Then afterwards all of the young people in the church were so great. They all tried to sign to Julio and talked to Leo. They stayed in church for all 3 hours and did not get on their phone one time. Julio sat there, not understanding any, so reverent and respectful and it was amazing. Elder Molina is amazing. He has such a strong bond with Julio. I would venture to say that he is Julio's best friend here in Spain. It was so great. After church Leo asked us if he could come out and visit and teach people with us if he wanted! He wants to be a missionary as well! What a miraculous week.
Elder Molina is amazing. He has such great people skills and knows how to do missionary work. He is also very humble. Just yesterday we were trying to figure what to teach a family and he told me that he trusted me and he would just follow my lead. It was a true show of respect and love. We are getting along really well and have many jokes between us. This is a powerful team here in Zaragoza!
I am doing really well. I have found that in these two weeks here in Zaragoza I have been praying more for other people than ever before in my life and it has truly made me a happier person. I have rarely prayed for myself but I know that my God is there for me and that my Father has lifted me up and is just carrying me! I love the mission!
This week Elder Molina and I have started dancing a really subtle dance every time we here rap on someone's speakers and it's really fun. Also it's super hot here in Zaragoza. I've taken three showers today haha.
With a new vigor to learn how to communicate with the deaf, Elder Bristol
I cannot believe how blessed I have been to come to the new land of miracles! Zaragoza is the promised land. But I am not even lying! Zaragoza is the promised land. Elder Molina and I have had such a great week and I am so excited to be here working with him. I cannot believe how blessed I am. Words cannot describe how happy I am to be here in Zaragoza 2B!
We had a week full of miracles. We are preparing a lot of people to be baptized in the end of August and we are super excited. Two of our good friends that will be preparing for baptism are named Leo and Melvin. They are from Homduras and they both moved here just of 1 year ago. They are a father and son. The father used to live with missionaries in Honduras but was never taught anything but just knew a little of the basics of the gospel. They were found a little before I got here in Zaragoza and Elder Molina and I had the privilege of teaching them the first lesson in their home yesterday. We taught them and the father is probably the most responsive person I have met here. He was so nice and listened to every word intently. Elder Molina invited him to be baptized and the man said yes! And then the son as well said yes! They also said they will be in church this week! And they said they will be praying to make sure this is the right way for them! The father Melvin told us in the end that he wants to be a better father and have a stronger family and he says he thinks he found the right place for that with the Church of Jesus Christ! He is so great!
Elder Molina is phenomenal. Hands down he is the most prepared missionary I have met. He knows the doctrine and he teaches with great power. The members love him and he is a great missionary! I am so excited to be with him!
Zaragoza is the first city I've been in that is outside of Cataluña (basically the Texas of Spain [always wanting independence]) and it is very different. All of the signs are actually in Spanish. The people are more open and it is a great experience.
Elder Molina is so smart. He also can play the ukulele like a native Hawaiian so that's amazing. He learned it 6 weeks ago and can play any song I play for him from my music drive. He plays it just by listening. He is impressive.
Words cannot describe how thankful I am to have been called to serve in Tortosa. It was small and it was very different from my beginnings in Badalona but I grew to truly love it. I am leaving Tortosa a better man than when I entered. I am leaving a changed man. I entered here and looking back I feel like I was pretty immature as a missionary. But I have been humbled a lot here in Tortosa and I am forever thankful for the opportunity I've had to work there. I have learned a lot from my companions Elder Riggs and Elder Cushing and I have a firm testimony that God truly does direct this work. They were the missionaries I needed and this was the area I needed. I love Tortosa.
I am going to Zaragoza! My new companion is Elder Molina and he is from Colombia! He has already graduated from medical school and he is amazing! He was baptized just a short while ago and I am so excited to be with him! Also I am excited to be in the big city again! I love the small towns but the big cities are great!
We had an incredible last week of the transfer here in Tortosa. We kept teaching the family that I told you about last week. This is the family where the girl just moved here from Homduras who is a member. Well we were invited over to eat with them and then we taught them a lesson afterwards. After sharing the lesson and bearing thoughtful testimony, the mom turned to us and said that she felt something. She told us that she can feel that this church has got a future and that it is truly the church of Christ. She expressed to us about how happy she was and she was excited to keep moving forward. Well, us as servants of the Lord, could not help but invite her to come closer to Christ through baptism. She answered with an enthusiastic yes and so did the rest of the family. A family of 3! It was a wonderful moment, one I am sure I will never forget.
Elder Riggs is amazing. He has helped me to keep moving forward for every moment of these past six weeks. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to learn from him. He is constantly doing something. If we are walking on the street he is memorizing scriptures. If we are at home he is study scripture. He is amazing!
I am so excited to go be with Elder Molina in Zaragoza. I know he is going to be such a great help to me and that we are going to see much success together. It is going to be really fun. I love the mission and I love my Savior Jesus Christ.
Wow what a great week! The great weeks just don't stop coming here in Tortosa. We truly do have a lot going on and the branch is on the brink of a ton of growth! We are putting the pedal to the metal and just working 110% every day trying to help our friends here in Tortosa! The great thing is that everyone else is as well! The members of the congregation are hitting a turning point and everything is on the up swing here!
A couple weeks ago our dear friend Orlin reappeared from off the face of the earth and this week we had a similar miracle. Our dear friend Iru undisappeared off the face of the earth! The story is even better. We were in the town that Iru lives in which we go to once maybe twice a week. We had found someone in Tortosa who lived in Iru's same town so we decided to take advantage of that time and we went to pass by where Iru works. He takes care of an old Spaniard lady and lives with her all the time. We are not allowed to ring her doorbell because she does not like us because we believe in God. So we passed by and called him a couple of times but he wasn't answering. So the normal Elder Bristol would say, "ok this is a waste of time let's go find people" but something inside me told me to wait and make a call to one of our other friends that lives in Iru's town. So we made that call standing right outside Iru's house and during he middle of the call Iru comes walking down the street! He greets us and we get to talking. And he is back! He has reduced smoking from 40 cigarettes to 1-2 cigarettes a day since we taught him that smoking was not in accordance with the commandments of the Lord. He said that he will be baptized when he can get all of the bad things out of his life (like smokimg) and he committed to read the entire Book of Mormon by Tuesday! This happened on Saturday. What a miracle! We are so glad the Lord used us as his tools in this moment to find His lost sheep Iru!
Elder Riggs is stellar. As I keep telling you, he is a spiritual and scriptural monster. He knows the scriptures like the back of his hand and it truly helps. I have never met someone with so much knowledge of the scriptures! He truly is amazing. I am learning to take every moment of study seriously from him because I want to be a scripture master like he is.
As for my personal development I am doing well. I am still progressing. This week I have put a huge focus on my personal study and I am trying to take advantage of every moment in that hour so that I leave that hour being spiritually enriched. It is working!
A great/fun experience from this week was that after the conference we had on Thursday with a ton of missionaries we had our interviews with the mission president that we have every six weeks. We were the last interviews and we were running late for our train so President Dayton gave us a ride in his car! It was so fun. We had great time with just President Dayton for twenty minutes in his car. Whattan experience!
I am happy here in Tortosa. It is the land of miracles.
