A week full of Miracles

Hello one and all,

Well it was a week full of miracles here in Tortosa. I am truly blown
away at what I have seen this past week. It could be one of the weeks
where I have seen the hand of the Lord in the work the most. I am
truly happy to be working here and I believe that I have truly
adjusted to the life here in a pueblo!

We were blessed with two wonderful miracles this week! Last Monday
while we were buying groceries during preparation day we were stopped
by a 18 year old girl from Nigeria. She asked what we were doing here
and why we were dressed with a white shirt and tie. We told her that
we are missionaries and got her phone number. Then later Monday night
we found her again in the street and said hello and set up a visit for
the next day. Then the lord put her in our path a third time that
Monday night and we just began to teach her a little right there! Then
in the visit the next day we taught her a little about baptism and she
told us that she wanted to be baptized and explained to us that she
knew there was a reason God had put us in each other's paths. She then
came to church on Sunday and told us that she will be there every
week! We are so excited to be seeing her baptism here in a couple of
weeks.

Our second miracle was a man named Hernán. He is 48 years old and from
Ecuador. We had a visit with another man one day but when we went to
the other mans house he wasn't there. But Hernán was there and he
opened the door! He said he really wanted to meet with us so we set up
a visit with him. We met with him and he said he truly wants to change
his life and that he is so happy to be meeting with us. He also
expressed his desires to be baptized to start his life again. It is so
great to see people with such great desires to start their lives again
with baptism and confirmation! I love this mission.

So we will be seeing their two baptisms here shortly. We are so
excited for them!

Elder Cushing is great! This week I really admired how much he cares
about the people here. He is very sympathetic to anyone that needs his
help its so great! I am learning a ton from him and I'm very excited
to be here in Tortosa!

Elder Bristol
Enviado desde mi iPad

A Wing and A Good Amount of Prayers

Hello everyone!

What a week we had here in Tortosa. We are working super hard and
seeing a lot of miracles happen in front of our very faces. It is
amazing! I love this mission and I am super excited for my time here
in Tortosa. We are having a great time truly trying to help people
enter into the Kingdom of God!

This week's miracle is an amazing one! When I got here to Tortosa we
decided to really go after this one man named Dani. He has been
attending the church here for 3 years but has never made the decision
to be baptized and join. So when I got here we started teaching him
some powerful lessons about the importance of baptism and they went
really well. But then this week instead of a lesson we decided to do
something a little different. We decided to pray with this man until
he got an answer as to whether or not he should take the step of faith
and be baptized. We ended up praying for over 30 minutes with this man
and little by little he told us that he was receiving more light and
in the end he told us that he would get baptized in the upcoming
month! We were amazing at how God truly answered this man's prayers. I
felt the Spirit super strong when we were praying and I knew as well
that he needed to take the step. So we are super excited for him and
are super excited to see his progress towards eternal life!

Elder Cushing is amazing! He is always super positive and really
happy. It's actually really amazing how happy he always is and I love
to be around him. We get along really well and I'm glad to be here
working with him!

Something interesting I learned this week is that God truly knows us
personally and answers our prayers. So if you ever have a
question...just ask God. He's always there waiting for you to ask him.
Just like any father he just wants his children to communicate with
him! There's no better way than through prayer.

Something interesting about Spain is the amount of people from
countries from Central and South America! Half of the people we are
teaching right now are from Honduras. Honduras is a great country and
I can testify that they know how to cook as well lol.

Love y'all,
Elder Brsitol

 Arm wrestling a man named Miguel from Cuba

Tortosa Here I am

Hello Everyone out there in America!

Everything is amazing out here in Tortosa. It is about 20 times as
pretty as Badalona. But Badalona did have about 20 times more people.
I'm in a nice pueblo in Spain! It is a great place and I love being
here.

Our miracle from this week is a man named Enrique. Enrique is great
and has big desires to be baptized. We found him the first day when we
were together. We then set up a visit with him for the next day and we
had a great first visit with him. We taught him about our purpose and
missionaries and about baptism. He loved it and expressed his desires
to be baptized. We told him that we would help him prepare for a
baptism in the middle of April. He loved it and said he was super
excited for it. We also were able to teach his wife and some friends
that also live in the house. They are a great bunch of people. Oh yeah
and they're from Honduras. I love the people from Honduras, they are
super nice and all have very simple and sincere desires to follow
Jesus Christ!

Tortosa is a lot more of what you think of when you think of Spain.
Most people that live in this city are native Spaniards and they are
actually a lot nicer than the Spaniards I knew in Badalona!

Elder Cushing is great. He's my new companion and he is amazing. He
wants to help the people out here so much and he has such a great
attitude! He is always happy which is amazing! I'm excited for our
time together!

Have a great week and Happy Birthday to me,
Elder Bristol

Tortosa Here I Come

Hello to all!!
Well it was a very bittersweet week! So I'm getting transferred out of
Badalona. Badalona was great! I learned a lot there and just had a
great time! I've seen myself grow a ton there and I've had such good
experiences. Saying goodbye was pretty tough as you can imagine. 6
months is a long time to be somewhere and that's what I just had. I
just had a great 6 months. Elder McNutt, Muncy, and Simon were great
companions and are great men! This past week was really good though. I
got to say goodbye to a lot of people from the congregation and to a
lot of people I helped baptize around here. It was a very bittersweet
moment.

But here I come Tortosa! Tortosa is a land of miracles! Missionaries
have not been in this city for very long so there are a lot of people
prepared and just ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are
really excited. My new companion is Elder Cushing and he is from South
Jordan, Utah. He is amazing! He is also nearing the end of his mission
so I think I am going to be able to learn a ton from him!

But yeah there's not a ton happening! It was sad saying bye to the
missionaries I had lived with for the past 3 months but that's ok!
Time marches on.

I just want everyone to know that there is no greater service than the
service of God!

Love y'all,
Elder Bristol

This is Jacob and Miguel, Miguel is someone that Jacob baptized and Jacob thinks Miguel is awesome. 

1 More for Badalona

Here we are! With one more great week here in the promised land of Badalona!

How is everything going? Everything here in Badalona is going well.
Elder Simon and I are truly learning a lot and working hard to help as
many people get baptized as possible here in Badalona. We are truly
working hard but more than anything we are working smart. We are
finding a lot and helping a lot move towards baptism.

Our miracle of the week is one of our Honduranian friends named Betsy.
We found her a couple of weeks ago. She lives in the house of one of
the people we were visiting. In the visit with the man we were
visiting we started talking to her and she expressed her desires to
come to church with us and to be baptized. We were really excited and
we've worked hard to make sure she had a good experience at church. It
was a great. She came and loved it. The members of the congregation
did a great job of saying hello to her and making her feel welcome.
She is really excited for her baptism on the 25th of March as well. We
as well are very excited for her.

We have a lot of people that are really excited to get baptized in
this area. It's amazing how much I have seen this area transfer in my
time here. In the beginning the work was good and everything was going
well but now the work is going amazingly well. The work is exploding.
Elder Simon and I have been swamped with visits these 5 weeks and it's
been so good. We have had a lot of success together and we are still
seeing a lot of success. This has truly taught me that you get out
what you put in. If you put in 100% of your time and effort into a
worthy cause, the Lord has no choice but to bless you.

I have learned so much from Elder Simon. He has helped me so much. I
truly feel like I have improved as a missionary 100% as I have been
blessed with Elder Muncy and Elder Simon.

Here's something I don't think I've told anyone lol. I've been serving
in this city named Santa Coloma for these 5 months. We walk around in
Santa Coloma everyday. It's just the name of the congregation is
Badalona. But yeah it's basically the same city but it just has a
different name. So there's something for ya!Learn something new
everyday!

With love,
Elder Bristol

Sweet Home Badalona

Hello to all,

Things are going super well out here in Badalona! Elder Simon and I
are working super hard and we are seeing miracles left and right!
Can't beat that Melbourne-Atlanta combo out here in Barcelona, Spain!

The miracle from this week is a woman named Elizabeth. She is from
Nicaragua and just arrived here in Spain six months ago. She is the
sister of a member in our congregation out here in Badalona. The
sister who is a member is struggling right now with her faith so we
have been working closely with her trying to help her stay loyal to
God for the past month or so. This last week she invited us over for
dinner and told us that she was inviting her sister who is not a
member to come hear from us as well. We had the lesson with Elizabeth
and after the lesson she said she would definitely get baptized and
that she was so happy to hear our message. She told us that these six
months have been tough for her because there are not a lot of people
who believe in God and that her faith has been tried lately as well.
She said about a week ago she was thinking that something was missing
in her life. When her sister invited her to hear a message from us she
said she could not say no. She told us this was the answer to her
prayers and ended the lesson with us thanking us for everything and
crying of joy. It was a wonderful moment. It is so humbling to see the
Lord work through you in ways like this.

Elder Simon is amazing. He has truly taught me how to work smart. Most
missionaries know how to work really hard but Elder Simon knows how to
be the most effective and how to most effectively bring souls unto
Christ.

In Spain basically everyone uses public transportation. We do not get
anywhere if we don't walk, ride a bus, or ride the metro or subway.
It's a bit different having to rely on others to take you everywhere
but now I'm used to it and I love it!

Here's to another great week,
Elder Bristol

We have karaoke and they made me sing this song. I found out I do not
know this song lol. Like at all. But it was fun.

"Come unto me"

Hello Georgia!

We had such a great week this week! Elder Simon and I are having a
great time together and learning a lot.

We had three wonderful baptisms this last week. Two of the children
were children from the Peruvian family that are so great. We found
this family in the street about a month ago and then we couldn't get
in touch with them for about two weeks. Then after two weeks Elder
Simon and I passed by their house and they were there. They invited us
in and we invited them to church for the next day! They said yes and
all came to church. And then we set up a visit with them for that
Tuesday and right then we set a baptismal date for the children for
this past Saturday. To make the baptism even better it was the
mother's birthday. It was a great service. Madeline also got baptized
this past Saturday and her story is a bit different. For a long time
we have been trying to help her get baptized but her mom was impeding
her daughter from being baptized for personal reasons. When Elder
Simon got here we decided to be bold and have a lesson only about the
baptism of the daughter. We did that and came out with a miracle. She
was baptized a week later! This Saturday was wonderful! Baptism is a
great way to spend a Saturday here in Spain.

Elder Simon and I get along really well. He is a great missionary. We
are on the same page as a companionship in our desires to baptize and
in our desires to push the work along here so we work well together. I
really admire how smart he works. I'm learning a lot from him this
transfer from how smart he works.

In Spain they eat yogurt or a fruit after every meal and it is
amazing. I absolutely love it. There's your Spanish fact for the week.

Elder Bristol