The Spain Barcelona Mission: ¡Nuevo!

The Spain Barcelona Mission: ¡Nuevo!: Rumors of the arrival of Elder Escobar have been circulating for weeks! The missionary system included him in the group of missionaries sch...

Día de Sant Jordi

We've had a great week once again. :) Things are going so well here and we're always busy and moving from one place to another. It's definitely been the busiest and the best part of my mission so far! Yesterday was a holiday in all of Cataluña called Día de Sant Jordi. I wrote about it a little last year but just briefly, it's a day of books and roses. Usually the guys give girls roses and then people give away books as gifts. And since we have a great book, we organized an activity here in our ward to give away copies of the Book of Mormon so that people could read it and learn more about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We organized it in such a way that the members came to help us out and we sent them out in little groups of two or three and they talked with the people themselves. :) We even had some investigators who came to help out and they were some of the best ones! :) It was incredible to see the success that we were blessed with. We had five boxes full of books and our goal was to give away all of them. The only thing was that we only had about an hour to do so. But when we all came back after an hour of working, no one had any books left! :) It was incredible! I didn't even think that we'd be able to give away that many in such a short amount of time. But it was so fun and such a good missionary opportunity. And more than anything, it helped the members catch the spirit of missionary work as well. They all came back excited and with lots of stories about how it went and many of them had phone numbers of people who were interested! So we'll be calling a lot of people in the next few days, ha-ha.

The rest of the week, as I said, has been fantastic! There's this one family of a mom, dad, two daughters, and then a niece and nephew whom we are teaching and their progress is just amazing. The mom is a member but has been inactive for a longgg time. We began teaching their family and the kids were really excited to come to church and have been participating in the activities as well. The dad at first didn't really seem too excited. He said that he respects everyone's beliefs and that we could come but he's not gonna change and is just there to listen. Well, that's what everyone says, ha-ha. Over the past two weeks we've seen a dramatic change in him and his family. As we've taught their family they've begun to pray as a family and read in the scriptures as a family. They feel terrible whenever they miss church and they are always excited when we come over. The dad more than anyone has changed the most. He said at the end of our last visit that he has noticed a difference in his family. He said that before, they'd all be doing their own thing and just not do much together. And he said that ever since we've been visiting his family, there has been a different feeling in their home. A feeling of more love and a different spirit and he said that we are always welcome because we have been changing his family. I've been out for some time now on my mission and I've experienced many things like that. And every time something similar happens, I'm just amazed at how the Lord can touch people and change lives. I feel that I am doing my part and I know that I am fulfilling my purpose as a missionary. And there is nothing better! :) Sharing the gospel is the best thing that we can ever do in our lives and it is the one thing that will bring us the most happiness and the most blessings. So get to it! :)