Just Keep Walking the Hills

Hello friends and family!
How is everything going back there in Georgia and the United States!
If there is one thing I have truly learned this week it is that I am
definitely not in the United States right now haha. But Spain is
great! If there is any place I would want to be serving the Lord it is
Spain! I love it here and I love the people!
Our week started out pretty rough last Monday. We ended preparation
day early to go talk with the man that was supposed to get baptized
that Saturday and he said that he was not ready for baptism and he
wanted a couple weeks to think on his own! So that was definitely not
the way I wanted to start our week. But I can testify that it got
better haha. We went straight from talking with him and taught this
man that is so ready to hear about Christ and His gospel! Then as the
week kept going we kept seeing miracles! We have a great baptism set
up for this weekend for a 23 year old girl named Daisy who has been
thinking about getting baptized for 8 months and now is finally ready
and we are so excited for her to take this great step in her life! She
is going to be such a solid and faithful member and will love God with
all of her heart. She already loves God and Christ but we are super
excited for her! Go Daisy! Another man we have committed to get
baptized in 3 weeks is a man named Manuel from Spain. He is 67 and is
super humble. His back is hurt really badly and is super humble and
open to hearing about the gospel! I know he will get baptized and will
dedicate his life to Christ.
The thing I learned most from this week is that whenever adversity
comes you just have to keep your head up and keep going. There is
nothing in this life that we cannot face if we have God on our side.
And that is the amazing thing! God will always be on our side if we
seek Him! My week started off pretty rough but we just kept our heads
up and kept trying our hardest and testifying that Christ lives and we
were blessed for our faith! Just like here in Badalona we always need
to keep walking up the hill because sometime it will level out. I know
Christ lives and he loves us! I know we can always talk to God through
prayer!
I love all y'all!
Peace out.

Elder Bristol

Hilly Badalona

Hey everyone!

Badalona is still full of hills of anyone was wondering. Literally it
is one of the hilliest places that I have ever been in my life! The
hills are absolutely huge and steep too! But we are doing well right
now! Elder McNutt and us are really killing it here in Badalona!

This 22 year old lady named Daisy decided to get baptized with us and
she said November 5th is when she wants to be baptized so we are super
excited about that! She has a ton of support and she is so excited.
Well actually better said she has a lot of support from friends. Her
father and mother are both devout Catholics and they aren't super
excited about the change but she is super excited and so prepared to
be baptized! Our other investigator who has a baptismal date for this
weekend is also doing well! He is having a little struggle with
smoking so we are going today to his apartment to help him out and
give him some extra encouragement. But he is doing well and we are
super excited for him!

We are having so much fun though! Elder McNutt and I really get along.
He is super funny but most of all he is a work horse! That's perfect
for me! I love to work hard and for my first companion to be such a
hard worker is really good for me! But we get along really well and we
are becoming really good friends.

The Spanish is really coming along. This week was a great week for it.
I saw a lot of improvement this week in it. Yesterday I knew basically
all of what everyone was talking about in all of our lessons and
conversations! It definitely is a gift of tongues that I am even able
to to this! We have met many Chinese people on the streets who speak
worse Spanish than I do and have been in Spain for 5 or more years!
It's a gift from God that kids 18-20 years old have the ability to
learn a new language fully in 6 months!

This week was great though. What I really learned throughout the week
is that God truly does love all of his children! He knows us all
individually. He even knows us by name. He loves us so much. He loves
us so much that He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ to suffer for each
one of us. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know if we ask for
anything in prayer we will get an answer from God. I know Jesus
suffered for more than just our sins. He suffered for our infirmities
and for our sadness and for our injuries. Christ lives. I love y'all
so much! Keep doing such great things in Georgia! Peace out y'all

Elder Bristol

Patience

Wasssssssup!!
How's it going back there in Georgia everyone!? Everything is going so
well here in Santa Caloma and I love it! The people out here are super
great. About a third of the people are Spaniards. Then the next third
are Muslims from Pakistan. Then the next third and Chinese who know 0
Spanish and 0 English. And then there are two American LDS
missionaries talking to everyone about God.
Everything is going great here though! One of the men we are teaching
is a Spaniards and he is so great! He is down to 2 cigarettes a day
and it is great! He is truly changing his life to come closer to
Christ! It's amazing to see the blessings of the Gospel in all of
these people's lives. We are really working hard. It is really fun. We
go out and just talk to everyone on the street and for the most part
everyone is pretty rude to us but then we just think back to the man
who is stopping smoking and that makes it all worth it! When we come
closer to Christ our lives truly are blessed.
What I have learned so much this week but what I have learned the most
about is patience. For the first part of the week I was getting pretty
frustrated with my Spanish and I was really upset. But then one
morning I was thinking and then it hit me. The thought was
like...Elder Bristol you idiot what are you doing, you know the
Spanish will come. Just be patient. So from then forth I have been
studying a lot about patience. In the scriptures there are so many
promises promised to those who are patient. If we trust in the Lord
and we are patient, then we will get what we seek for. Patience is
waiting or enduring a hardship without getting upset or frustrated.
That is what we need more of in this technology age. A lot of times we
want things and we want them now! But the Lord always knows what's
best for us. We just need to trust in Him and know that he knows us
and he loves us.
I know Jesus Christ lives and he loves us.
Peace out y'all! Keep doing great things
Elder Bristol

Badalona

Peace up from BADalona!!!
Wassup my friends and family!? I'm here in the mission field finally!
It great I got here Tuesday and got right down to work haha! I got my
companion and his name is Elder Mcnutt and he is from San Francisco!
He is a great man and super funny! We are already getting along really
well! How are you all doing?! How is Georgia Tech doing lol
But yeah I am here in Badalona. This place is nothing but a ton of
hills! I'm gonna walk out of this town with some rock hard calves lol.
But this town Badalona is great! it's great cause we actually have an opportunity to really change
some lives! I'm so excited! Badalona is basically the ghetto of
Barcelona so that is also really fun. Don't get me wrong though the
ghetto of Barcelona is still super nice haha but yes Badalona is
great!
My Spanish is coming along little by little haha. My companion is
really nice about it though. He has been put on his mission for a year
and he has a really good grasp on Spanish. So he does a lot of the
conversing until we start teaching lessons right now because most of
the words I know have to do with the Gospel haha. But yeah he
compliments it a lot which helps my confidence. Saturday was a tough
day for me. I was struggling with wanting to be fluent in Spanish
right now! But then yesterday I took a step back and was reminded that
this is the Lords work and the Lords mission so that really helped me
out.
We have a man who is scheduled to get baptized soon. My companion
found this man in A few weeks ago. He has made an absolute turn he has made
in his life. He committed to us that he wants to and is going to give
up smoking and be baptized! This is what I learned this week. I truly
learned how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change people's lives.
Knowing that God exists and He sent His son Jesus Christ to live and
die for us does change lives! I know Jesus Christ lives! I know that
he loves all of us!
I love all of you! Thanks to all y'all for your love!
Peace out all!
Elder Bristol

Final Week in the Mission Training Center

(DISCLAIMER: Jacob's group emails have not been going through so until he figures out whats wrong, if you did not get the email and usually do, check here for updates :) )

HOLA TODOS!!!!

How´s it going back home everyone!!!?? I miss all yall a ton!! It is crazy to think I really am in the city of Madrid right now! Like this is really a crazy feeling haha! You would think it would have hit me a little earlier than it has haha but it has finally hit me that I am here and I am here for the long haul!!

This has been such a great week though! I can finally say I am truly having the time of my life here! This week we have changed over to speaking only in Spanish here in the MTC which is super difficult for a ton of people, especially me!! This last Sunday we decided to speak only in Spanish and it is amazing the blessings we have seen come from it. We all actually know a ton more than we thought we did. I have learned more this week speaking only in Spanish than I have any time before now! If anyone is ever trying to truly learn a language, I suggest that you try your hardest to just speak the language. It really is difficult but I know it is worth it.

My companion and I are really getting along!!! It is going super well! He is so awesome and we have the Spirit with us all the time which is awesome! We both are going a little stir crazy though hahaha we just want to get out there to Barcelona. We are teaching teachers who pretend to be looking into the church every day, twice a day in Spanish and Elder Hunsaker and I are teaching some great lessons lately. The last lesson we taught had us both in tears because the Spirit was so stron and even the teacher was in tears. Even though it was a fake situation it really is amazing how strong the Spirit can be when you bear testimony of what you truly know to be true about God and Jesus Christ.

The Park this week was amazing!!! We get a different companion every week for the park every week and this week my companion was Elder Bird from Idaho. He was so cool!!! We talked to so many people! One of the most interesting people we met was from Albania who spoke no English. In the park, Elder Bird and I said a prayer to have the Spirit help direct us where to go and who to teach. We got this prompting to go talk to this guy from Albania. We get up to him and he has tatoos of guns and grenades on his neck. So already me and Elder Bird are like what the heck. Then he proceeds to tell us that he believes in the stars (which I respect but still we were like what the heck again hahaha). But then we started telling him about Jesus Christ and about how He lives and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he was so thankful to us for it because he said that in Albania he has never even seen anything that talks about or even mentions a Savior. It was so humbling to see that people could be so excited to hear about Christ who have never heard of Him before. Never judge a person by how they look.

The thing I learned most this week was bore to me on Sunday through my prayers. So I already said how on Sunday we changed to only Spanish and I was feeling completely overwhelmed. I felt like I could never do it and that I would never be able to express myself. So I said a prayer for comfort. It did not come at first. Maybe an hour later it just hit me like a brick wall. And at that instand i got the impression that God knows us. God loves us all more than we can even imagine. God knows our struggles and he feels for us when things don´t go our way. But most of all God is proud of us! He is so proud of us! As long as we are trying to follow Him and His son Jesus Christ, there is nothing we can do that He will not forgive or understand. Jesus Christ lives and God loves each and everyone of us!

I also really learned that the Lord can help you have the strength with anything. I prayed and asked for the strength to truly be happy and have the strength to be happy a lot this week and it was so great!! I woke up every morning this week truly happy and I stayed happy all day!! God really does answer our prayers!

Also I heard Tech lost to Clemson which is sad.

I love all yall!!! Keep up the good work!!! Peace out Homies

Week 3

Hola amigos!!!!!

How is it going back there in the States (and some of yall in Chile and Argentina)!!!!!!! I am having a great time here in the MTC! Spain is super cool! It was in the 100s for the past three weeks and then yesterday fall hit all at once hahahaha. The high today is 68 degrees which is ridiculous!!!! Three days ago the high was 100!!! Madrid is so cool though!!! But being here in Madrid just gets me more and more pumped for Barcelona!!! I am super excited to get there!!! I am over halfway through the MTC right now which is really cool and it is really starting to fly by!!! I can´t believe that in less about 20 days I am going to be out there in the field talking to real people in Spanish hahahaha!!!

My Spanish really is coming along! That doesnt mean email me in Spanish yet because I will not understand it probable hahahaha but I can hold my own in a conversation for the most part which is a really cool feeling!! Seeing as how I knew little to know Spanish coming in here to now knowing how to conjugate any verb into anything (except subjunctive haha) is pretty exciting!! I know it isnt me that is really hewlping me learn tho!! I know that is it only through Jesus Christ that I am able to be learning so quickly! Only after I turned to the Lord two weeks ago has my Spanish really improved!! Two weeks ago I was very frustrated and down and then this one missionary from Portugal gave a very powerful testimony! He said how in Europe not meny people know about the Gospel and how we have a super important role as missionaries in Europe because we get to bring the knowledge of the happiness that the Gospel brings to these people and we get to do it for the first time!!! That honestly turned my entire MTC experience around!! I am super thankful for his testimony!

We still go to the Park every Saturday and it is super hard to do every week hahaha!! We ride the Metro and try to contact there and it is super tough and then we contact at the park for 2 hours and then we sing in the middle of the park for 30 minutes which is really fun!!! This mission is so worth it!!

Somthing great I learned in the gospel this week is in Luke! When Christ is hanging on the Cross, suffering for all the sins of the people and suffering for all of humanity one of the thieves turns to Him and asks Him to save them! If I were Christ at that time and had just gone through all that suffering and this one stupid guy asks such a meaningless question in the grand scheme of humanity I would have been very selfish! But Christ does not do that!! Like he always does he turns outward and says to the thief to not worry because he is already saved!! This is such a great reminder to all of us!! Jesus Christ will answer all of our prayers! All we have to do is ask Him!! The Lord wants to help us out!! We just have to do our part to ask!

I love all yall!!! Keep up the good work!!!

Peace!!

Elder Bristol

First Week in Madrid

Hello everyone!!!! It is so amazing here! The Missionary Training Center in Madrid is so nice! It really is like staying in a very nice hotel! We get fed very well and the teachers are so nice! So there is no need to ever worry about me while I am herein the MTC. 

We arrived here in Madrid last Tuesday and me and one other new American missionary got here 4 hours before any other American missionary (50 missionaries got their flights delayed and arrived late so me and the other American Elder were here by ourselves with 8 native Portuguese speakers. They were speaking Portuguese so quickly and it was so overwhelming for me. I had never felt so alone or intimidated in my life haha because I had no idea what they were saying. Shortly after being so intimidated I got to meet the President of our Madrid MTC and he is an amazing man. He has so much faith in Jesus Christ and knows the scriptures so well. He was an investment banker for a Wall Street firm before he got called to be a mission president. That is another reason why I love him so much because I have a true interest in that line of work. So talking to him really calmed me down and I know that it was a gift from Jesus Christ that I was able to feel comfort and love shortly after being so intimidated and feeling so alone. 

The first amazing thing we did was go to a park on Saturday (4 days into learning Spanish) and proselyte and try to invite people to come unto Christ. It was so hard! My Spanish has improved a lot since I got here but it has not been easy at all. The park was no exception. Me and a missionary from Utah who also knew very little Spanish tried our best to communicate with the people. We found two people who were genuinely interested and I know that it was not us that got them interested but it was the Spirit of God that testified to these strangers that what we were saying could bring them joy and happiness. It was a total gift from God that we were able to even talk to one person about anything let alone the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We will go to the same park every Saturday until I leave the MTC so I hope I can communicate better each time we go there. 

Sunday's here are so spiritual. They are such a good break from trying to learn the language. Sunday's we start with a great church service and then our mission president gives a devotional that he thinks we need to hear and then later that night we have another devotional. We learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ for 11 hours on Sunday's and it is so inspiring. 

My companions name is Elder Hunsaker and he is awesome! He's from Logan, Utah and he is awesome!

Learning Spanish for 11 hours a day all the other days definitely is not easy though. It's easily the hardest thing I've tried to learn so far. What I have learned most from this week is that Spanish will come as I put my faith in Jesus Christ and recognize reason I am learning it (to bring happiness to other people's lives). This is what I want yall to learn from my experiences this week, we receive blessings from Jesus Christ only after we show our faith in Jesus Christ. Spanish will come as soon as I trust God and show that I know that it is not in my hands. But something else to learn is that blessings will not come until we act on our faith. Once we receive an answer from God we must act on that faith and show Christ that we love Him and that we will try our hardest for him as well. I love you all so much and I want yall to know that what I'm doing is worth it and I love Jesus Christ! Love yall!

- Elder Bristol