Bilbao week 1 - 2013 baptismal goal

Wow the little nieces and nephews have changed so much. Sorry I wasn´t able to talk for long with all of you. I would have loved to talk longer but i guess that´s the curse of huge families huh? Mom and dad, hope things are nice and hot in Mexico. Oh by the way, ask uncle Robert if he knows a couple named Angel y Maite Lizarralde. They were some of the first converts in Bilbao back in 77 and Angel is now the stake patriarch. They´re so good!! They said they met an Elder Reeves back in the day.
The miracle that I want to share was the incredible experience that we had today in concilio with President and Hna Pace, the ayudantes and the Zone Leaders. Because it´s the end of the year (we ended up with 484 in the year of 2012!!! Didn´t break 500 and didn´t reach our goal but really we feel so blessed for the year that we´ve had and the souls that we´ve helped come into the fold of God.) we were talking about this next year and what was going to happen: what was our goal for the year, how we were going to get there, what we need to focus on, etc. As we talked about the goal for the year of 2013, we went around the room, every zone leader giving their comment and their feeling to what the goal should be. 750 was talked about A LOT and we really were leaning towards it. I also felt good about it and thought of the vision that Pres has for the mission of 1000 baptisms. I talked about how it would be good for us to be able to catch the rhythm this year and hit 750 and set us up for next year to hit the 1000. Then, the turn came to Elder Archibald to talk. He´s the new ayudante that replaced me that has more faith than any other missionary that I´ve ever met. He´s incredible. He sat there for a second and then with tears in his eyes said, "President, when you announced your vision of 1000 baptisms in this last conference, I knew we could reach it. And I know that THIS year we can hit 1,000 baptisms." There was silence in the room for a little bit and the Spirit was so strong. After Elder Archibald, other missionaries began to talk about their personal experiences and the excitement they had when Pres Pace announced his 1000 vision. It became very real to us that the Lord wanted us to set the goal for 1000 baptisms. It was something that everyone could feel and it made me really know that we are in a hastening, that the Lord NEEDS His work to go forth and that He is preparing people with His angels all over. I´m so grateful for the faith of President Pace and for the faith of Elder Archibald. I had lost my focus on the vision thinking that this year we could work hard and then next year accomplish the goal... But why wait??? If Heavenly Father needs His children saved and entering into his path right now, there´s no time to waste. I know that we´re going to reach 1000 baptisms at the end of this year of 2013 and I thank my Heavenly Father for giving me the opportunity to participate in this second harvest of souls here in Spain. We are going to see miracles.
We talked about some things that we can focus on this year to be able to accomplish this goal and some more revelation that President Pace received was that the whole mission needs to do the 12 week program for new missionaries again in every companionship. There are about 15 visa waiters in other missions right now and with the change of the age of missionaries there´s going to be an explosion of new missionaries in our mission and every single missionary is going to need to train. We´re going to become even more dedicated preach my gospel missionaries and be able to help more people receive testimonies of the restored gospel and want to be baptized.
Seriously, I cant tell you how excited I am for this new goal. It´s going to take a lot of faith and a lot of hard work. We´re litterally going to have to become missionaries that we´ve never been before and do things that have never been done before. But nothing is too hard for the Lord.
Family I love you all. It was soooo good to see all of you and talk for a little bit. I know Heavenly Father has so much in store for me, Elder Prieto and for the wonderful people of Bilbao. Pray for us. Pray for our goal. And pray for the people that God is preparing so that they may be able to recognize the spirit and have the desires to change and dedicate their lives to God and His gospel.

Agur (i think that´s how you spell goodbye in Euskera. Sounds like "ahguhr"),

Elder Reeves

Barelona week 25 - Elizabeth´s miracle of a conversion

Fam,

Dont have a lot to say because we´ll be talking tomorrow. I´ve got some surprise news for you all... You´ll find out tommorrow!!

But i just wanted to share the whole story of Elizabeth and the huge miracle that she was. Elder Cerqueira and I had just gone through a series of finding a lot of prepared people, setting fechas, and then falling through. We were a little discouraged and didn´t really understand why things turned out that way, but we kept working hard and trying to fulfill our responsibilities as ayudantes and as servants of the Lord. A little while later, the Hermanas in Barrio 1 came to us and said, "Elders we have an investigator that showed up to church and she lives in your area. She told us she wants to be baptized!" We met her and had a visit with her a couple of days later. We were super excited but a little afraid because she was in a difficult situation. She´s 21 years old with a 3 year old daughter that was taken away from her and her boyfriend because they couldn´t provide for her. She had just broken up with her boyfriend but was still living in the same room as him. She wasn´t working and couldn´t move out of the piso because it´s the only support she had and she couldn´t afford living outside of the piso because her ex boyfriend and his family helped pay for rent. The government told her that she needed to stay in a stable place to be able to get her daughter back. We had set a baptismal date for the 15th of December but knew it would be a little hard to keep her progressing because of her situation and because we were going to be travelling a lot for Zone Conferences. As we were out of her area, we tried to call her and follow up as much as we could with her reading and her prayers. Members also helped her and invited her over to their house and everything. During those weeks her ex boyfriend moved out of the room, she slowly was stopping smoking, and was always reading and praying. When we got back from Zone Conferences on the 13th, she called us and asked, "am i still getting baptized on the 15th?" Because we still had to teach her a lot, we reset the fecha for the 22nd. We taught her the rest of the lessons and she stopped smoking. She accepted and committed to keep all the commandments. The members continued to grow to reach out and love her. This last Saturday she asked me to baptized her. Elder Cerqueira confirmed her yesterday. Such a huge miracle and blessing. I know this is the Lord´s work and that His angels are preparing and helping people to accept the gospel and be baptized. And eventually go to the temple one day. I love missionary work.

See you all tomorrow! Love you

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 24 - Elizabeth and the Book of Mormon

FAMILIA,

Well for everyone i wont be able to see on Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Hope you have a wonderful time together and that you remember the real purpose of celebrating Christmas. Christ is our Savior and our Redeemer. Let us all give Him gifts this next year by giving Him our hearts and dedicating ourselves even more to Him. I love Jesus Christ and i love his gospel.
Allyson, sorry in the last email i just kind of freaked out and didn´t say CONGRATULATIONS!!! I really am excited for you. Even though i wont be there I wish you the best and hope that everything goes super well with the wedding. Tell Tim welcome to the fam.
As far as Skype goes, I think that we´ll be calling around 8:00 PM our time which would be 1:00 PM your time? is that right? or maybe 12:00 PM.... I cant remember the time difference. But it will be on the 25th. Could someone send me there account info with the password and i could just get on that account and call from it? That would be the easiest i think. If not then i´ll find a different one.The miracle that i want to write about is about Elizabeth. She´s not in the best situation because she´s still in the same piso with her ex boyfriend and other people but because they have a 3 year old daughter that is in a care center for little children, she has to stay in a stable place so that the government can give her her daughter back. If she moved out of the piso she wouldn´t be able to pay for rent because she isn´t working. Pretty complicated but she plans on getting her daughter back and then being able to move out. The miracle is that despite all these problems in her life, she´s been able to stop smoking, live the law of chastity and make all the necessary changes to be able to be baptized. She tells us that every time she has the desire to smoke, she just feels bad and she doesnt want to smoke anymore. Elder Cerqueira and I feel like it´s because of the power of the Book of Mormon. She´s now at the end of 2 Nephi and loves reading. She feels more calm and happier every time she reads it. It´s her way of getting her mind off of her problems. It´s incredible to see the power of the Book of Mormon work in her life. She´s going to be having her baptism interview tonight and her baptism is this weekend. She´s had some more problems come up during this week because satan knows the blessings she´s going to receive but we´re praying that she´ll be able to overcome them and make this step so important in her life.
Pray for Elizabeth.
Love you all like crazy. See you soon!

Elder Reeves

Los fotos

November 26

December 5

November 23

Barcelona week 23 - My time in Barcelona continues

Hey fam,

Yes, Carrie and fam i got your little package. Thanks so much!!! Loved it. I gave Elder Cerqueira some of the fruit leather and he wasn´t too fond of it haha those portuguese dont know what´s good for them. Mom and dad, I talked to President Pace and I gave him your letter about me extending and it´s official! I´m extending for 2 more weeks!!! I´m super excited. It´s not very much time but i know the Lord is preparing something for those extra weeks.
Allyson.... WHAT!?? You´ll have to save some wedding cake for me. It´s weird having one of my closest sisters get married and move on in life. So many people are getting married right now, it´s freaking me out. Family, Friends, returned missionaries...Well today we just finished transfer meetings and sent out the new transfers. The miracle this week is that I´m staying as Ayudante! My 5th transfer! and 4th with Elder Cerqueira!! Haha I seriously am so grateful for the chance to stay and learn more from President and Sister Pace. I know there´s still something the Lord needs me to do in my area and for the mission. I´ve been praying hard that Heavenly Father will help me become even more the missionary that He needs me to be. Every day I find so many ways I can improve and I try to repent and become more consecrated. I love it. Dont have too much more time to write but i´ll give you a brief update on the area. A couple of our investigators haven´t been able to progress too much because we´ve been gone but we still have Elizabeth, the one who is living with her ex boyfriend. We taught her about the law of chastity and the importance of living it, before and after baptism. The next day we called her and she said that she had read the pamphlet and she understands how important it is. She still wants to be baptized on the 22nd. She really has been being prepared and taken care of by angels. We´ve been out of our area, but the other missionaries on the other side haven´t. We´re praying that everything goes through and that she´ll be baptized without problems.

Love you all like crazy. I´m praying for you all the time. Thanks for your support and your emails. The church is true

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 22 - The plan of salvation is real

Hello fam,

I got the package!! Thanks so much mom and dad for sending that. It was way too complicated but it worked out in the end. I was almost positive they had already sent it back to the states. I´ll wait to open everything for christmas. As for my release date mom.... not the biggest fan of thinking about it but yeah i´ll be finishing up the 12th of june. I can talk to Pres Pace tonight as we drive up to Lleida to see what he thinks. As for me, I would love to be able to have you and dad see my mission and visit some people. It wouldnt have to be a long trip but i would love to do so. I had also thought that maybe it would be possible to have me come back on the 12th and then come back 2 weeks later with you and dad when youre done with your things for relief society? It´s something that a lot of missionaries have done to come back and visit with their families. But i´d also love extending for 2 weeks as well. What ever works the best will be fine.
Well this week and next week and the week after that are probably the busiest weeks that i´ve had so far as ayudante. This week we started Zone conferences and have already taught at Valencia, Barcelona and Hospitalet. Im getting this email sent off really quick before we head up to Lleida tonight. It´s our zone conference for the month of december mixed with our Christmas conference. it´s SUPER good. So we´ll be in Lleida for tomorrow, then on Saturday, i´m going up to Bilbao to be with the Zone leaders up there while E. Cerqueira stays in Lleida with the zone leaders and then he´ll come up Sunday night to Bilbao and we´ll have the zone conference in Bilbao on Monday. Monday night we drive back to Barc and Tuesday and Wednesday we have transfer meetings, which will basically take up both those days. Then Wednesday night we fly to Palma to finish off in the Islands on Thursday next week. Finally we´ll get home on thursday night and have the weekend to be in our area a little bit, but then it starts up again on monday and tuesday when we spend the whole day doing things for the missionaries going home and the news coming in. This is my 4th transfer as ayudante so we´ll see what happens. I´m pretty positive i´m staying for another. President seems like he wants me to be here until the new year. Which is totally fine, I know the Lord still has things for me to do in this area.
Also just wanted to add my testimony about Emily now that we´ve past the 7 year mark. It´s been an incredible experience being with the Lopez family in my ward during these last couple of weeks. I´m not sure if anyone remembers, but i wrote about 2 months ago about a member named Nuria who had cancer? Anyways, she passed away on December 1st. Her husband, Enrique, is completely active and the 1st counselor in the bishopric. They have 2 daughters Miriam, 21 i think, and Marta, 15. Both daughters are inactive. Well Miriam has been super interested in coming back to church this last month of her mother´s life. We started visiting them regularly every week and teaching them basically as if Miriam was an investigator. She´s been coming to church for like the last 5 weeks and we were able to visit them 2 days before Nuria passed away. At the funeral on December 2nd, as i talked to Miriam, i told her about how it was a special day for me as well because it was the day Emily had passed away. I bore her my testimony that the plan of salvation is real and that her mom and Emily are alive and happy. She asked us if we could come back to teach her more about the plan of salvation. We went on tuesday and taught her and her boyfriend about the Spirit world and about the 3 kingdoms. As I testified of life after death, I knew - just as sure as I know that I, myself, am alive - that Emily and Nuria are alive. That they are with our loved ones, James, grandparents, others, and that they continue in their eternal progression towards eternal life in the celestial kingdom. I have no doubt of the truthfulness of the gospel. I have felt Emily´s presence and her help in the work. Everything has been prepared and made possible because our Savior, Jesus Christ came to the world and overcame the world. We are made free through Him. Free from physical and spiritual death. I love the gospel. I love Jesus Christ. I love Emily. I love my family.

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 21 - Elizabeth falls from the sky

So this last week was a huge blessing. Elder Kent Richards from the Europe area presidency and his wife Sister Marsha Richards came to tour the mission and Elder Cerqueira and I had the incredible opportunity to travel with them and Pres and Hermana Pace. On tuesday we had the conference here in the Hospitalet stake center, then we took a plane to Bilbao and had the conference there on Wednesday, then we took another plane to Valencia and had the conference on Thursday, and then that night we took the train back home. WOW i learned so much from those two. Elder Richards talked a lot about how to teach - simply and powerfully with a lot of questions... something that Elder Cerqueira and i had forgotten a little bit about. He talked about how as leaders in the mission and in the church all we have to do is teach the doctrine and correct principles and then invite others to apply in their lives. It´s like the new youth program they have for sunday school classes that we need the investigators to DISCOVER the gospel for themselves. It was just a spiritual feast the whole week. We were able to talk to them personally a lot and ask them questions and learn from them. Heavenly Father really just blesses me with so many opportunities i literally dont feel worthy sometimes to receive so many blessings.We didn´t have very much time in our area this last week but the Lord just poured out even more blessings upon us. On friday night, the Hermanas from Barrio 1 called us and told us they had a referral of a girl named Elizabeth who came to their ward on Sunday but she lives in our area. On saturday, barrio 1 was having a talent show night and Elizabeth was going to be there so we set up with the Hermanas to meet her right before it started. The next day as we got to the church, the Hermanas came up to us and said, "Elders, we´ve been talking with Elizabeth and she told us that she wants to be baptized! Come meet her!" We went and talked to her for a little bit and set up for her to come to church the next day and then we would visit with her Sunday night. She came to church and told all the members that she wants to be baptized and then when we met with her last night she easily accepted the fecha for the 15th. What in the world? She´s from El Salvador and is 21 years old and has a 3 year old daughter. Turns out that she lived in Madrid before and went to church for like a year but could never be baptized because she was living with her boyfriend. They just got separated and she decided that she needed to change her life and help raise up her daughter in the Gospel. She´s incredible. It was just a pure miracle from the Lord that came unexpectedly. People are being prepared everywhere. We just need to be worthy of the blessings and be able to teach like Elder Richards taught us so the investigators understand and gain their own testimony of the restored church.
We´re still working hard for our goal of 600 and we´re hoping to see a huge jump of baptisms in this last month of December. We´re at 447 baptisms as of yesterday and we´ve got 5 weeks left to see the miracles of the Lord come forth. We´re already seeing them right now so we´re super excited to see how it turns out. Thanks for all your prayers and especially to Mandy and Cambria for your letters!! I loved them. Made my day. Love you all

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 20 - Que Viva Stalin

Wow, i´m so sorry to hear about Lesley and the baby. That´s so hard. Send her my love for me. As far as the package, mom, I did receive a notice in the mail saying my package is here in Spain. But they needed my info and some other things to be able to go get it. Well... the office Elders dont know where that paper went. So i´m praying that we can find it before the package gets sent back to the states. Packages usually get stuck like that if it´s a big package or if they think it´s worth a lot.
So in our mission, it´s never been the norm to go and knock doors. I´ve probably knocked like 50-75 doors in my whole mission. It´s just something we´ve never done. Well, President Pace, being a man called of God and set apart to receive revelation for the missionary work here, has asked the mission to focus more on knocking doors. Contacting people in the street or in the metro is great. I´ve done that my whole mission. But it´s a ton harder contacting someone, gaining their trust in the contact, getting their info, setting up a visit and then finding them there at the visit later on (if they give you the right info). On the other hand, if you find a family knocking doors, you already know where they live and it´s a whole lot easier to get in if they accept. So we´ve been trying to do that in our area...On saturday, we saw a miracle from knocking doors.. well actually ringing the timbres. We stopped at a random building and we started ringing from the top of the intercom where all of the buttons are and the first couple of pisos didn´t want anything. We thought about leaving and trying a different building but then thought, "No, let´s finish this building." We kept ringing until we had been rejected by every piso in the building. So, we left and went on our way looking for another building to ring when an OLD, OLD Spaniard man walked past us going about 0.1 mph. He was wearing a hat that said "Viva Stalin" (or in english, long live Stalin). Elder Cerqueira and I laughed to each other and after about a minute of trying to decide if we should go back and talk to him, we decided to go back (we were really hoping to just be able to get a picture with the hat). As we walked back to him and started to talk, he gave us a weird look and then tried to speed up his walk and get away from us. We didn´t want to give the man a heart attack so we let him go. Just then, another younger, latino man walked past us and said hello as we said hello to him. We didn´t think much about him and started on our way again. Then, the man came back around the corner and said, "Elders! Want to come to my house and drink a Coca Cola?" Never in my whole mission had something like that happened to me. But of course we said yes and we went with him to his piso. His name is René from Paraguay and was baptized there about 12 years ago when he was 22. Him and his girlfriend want us to come back and keep teaching them. It just showed to Elder Cerqueira and I that as we do our part to follow the counsel of our leaders that the Lord blesses us, in His own time, and His own way.
I love the work of the gathering of Israel. I´ve learned so much on my mission and i´m still learning every day. My life will forever be dedicated to the Lord and the building of His kingdom. Love you all. Happy thanksgiving!! Nyall, enjoy some turducken.

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 19 - Nohemy and missionary work

You saw MIKEY TAYLOR in TAIWAN???? What?? Oh man, i didn´t even realize you would be going there! I´m so happy that he´s doing well and going strong. I miss that kid a ton. Valerie and Allyson happy birthday!! Sorry if i had time i wouldve sent you a gift or something. Hope you had a great day and party. Love you bothI wanted to write a quick miracle story about our investigator Nohemy. She´s working on getting married with her husband so that she can live the commandments and get baptized. She understands everything so well and has more desires to get baptized than I´ve ever seen in an investigator before. We´re only visiting her about once a week now, maybe twice, because she cant progress until she gets married. But every single time we visit her, she surprises us more. This last week we went to her house and she had invited her friend, Christie, who was one of our old investigators. We stopped teaching Christie before because she felt pressured and didn´t want to come to church or get baptized. Now Nohemy reads with her in the Book of Mormon and the pamphlets and talks to her about baptism andcoming to church. Nohemy brought her to church a couple of weeks ago and now she wants to come to church every week again. Nohemy is not only sharing it with Christie but with other people from other churches that contact her in the metro or other people that talk to her about the church. She´s already telling everyone she´s Mormon and she loves it. The Lord prepared her so well and she´s so amazing. It´s like people say here that she´s "una miembro seca" (a "dry" member that hasn´t gotten wet in the waters of baptism yet). Once she´s a member she´ll be the most faithful member ever.
This work is true. We´re seeing a lot of trials but I know the Lord is in charge of His work and He´ll make it happen. We´re still working for our 600 baptisms this year. Pray for the mission and pray for our investigators so that we can hit our goal. "Has God ceased to be a God of miracles? I say unto you, NAY." Love you all

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 18 - Some woman´s talk in General Conference

Sorry i didn´t give you much time to write me back anyone but we´re having prep day today because we´re going to have meetings all week with president to do transfers for next week. Sounds like your both loving Asia mom and dad. Take a lot of pics for me. Mom you´ll be happy to hear about this this story...
So we went to our correlation meeting with our ward mission leader on thursday last week and he asked us to go visit Nuria, the one who has cancer and is on her last stretch, and her family. The next day, we called her husband Enrique and he told us to come over as soon as we could. A couple hours later we went with the other Elders to share a quick message. We sat and talked for a little bit and Nuria was there just cracking jokes with Enrique and sharing the huge love that she has for everyone. I was super surprised how good she was looking and how full of life she still was. The doctors had already sent her home because they cant do anything else for her and they gave her about a week to live. We spent the next 20 minutes just talking and having a good time. Then we said a prayer and starting sharing our message about Jesus Christ and how he has suffered and felt all of our pains and sicknesses. Nuria kept sharing her testimony about how she knew that was true and then said, "There was a talk given in the last general conference that really hit me and was perfect just for me. It was from the 2nd counselor in the relief society. I loved the talk so much that I´ve gone back and listened to it a couple more times". I haven´t told very many people about you, Mom, just because i´m not one to draw attention to myself but I just smiled as she said it and all the other Elders were just looking at me laughing to themselves. Elder Ríos turned to her and said, "what a coincidence, because that´s Elder Reeves mom!" She kept talking for a second not really realizing what Elder Ríos said and then stopped and said, "WHAT??" Haha it was pretty funny. But at the same time it was a really sweet experience to be able to connect with Nuria and bare testimony of God´s plan for us. The Spirit was super strong and it was a huge blessing to help Enrique and Nuria feel more of God´s love for them.Other than that, this last weekend was a big learning experience about patience and faith. The Lord blessed us so much to be able to hit the standards of excellence in our mission again but the people that we need progressing haven´t been progressing like we´d want them to. Nallely who is supposed to get baptized this weekend didn´t come to church yesterday and after talking to her on the phone she said that she hadn´t been feeling well. We had another visit set up with her later on last night and we confirmed with her about an hour before but then she didn´t show up. After that she hasn´t answered our phone calls. It caught us way off gaurd because she always does what we ask her to do and she never fires us. We´re afraid because she works in Hospitalet during the whole week and we wont be able to teach her the rest of the commandments until saturday, the day of her baptism. This could be 2 weeks in a row that our baptisms have fallen through. We´re praying that some miracle happens and that we´ll be able to meet with her before then and finish preparing her for baptism. We had 7 people that came to stake conference but not one of our fechas came to church. It was a tough day yesterday overall but it just amazes me how the Lord keeps teaching me to trust in Him. I know He wants us to baptize and I know we will. It´s just a little stressful when we´re at the end of the year and we need to hit our goal of 600. I´m praying a lot and I´m excited to see what Heavenly Father has in store for us and i´m hoping that it comes quick! Satan is working hard to stop our investigators from progressing, but he´s not going to win.
Keep praying for our investigators, fam, we need them all. Thanks for being the best fam bam in the world

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 17 - The work of the Lord increases

Sorry fam this is going to be a quick one because i had too much fun looking at all the pics. It just makes me mad thinking about how fast the mission is going and i´m not thinking about home at all but seeing these pictures makes me really excited to be with my crazy nieces and nephews again. I love them all so much.We´ve been finding so many prepared people in our area. It´s so amazing to see the hand of the Lord in this work. The miracle that we´ve seen in this last week is that we had 6 people preparing for baptism with a specific date. Sadly, Elizabeth and André that should´ve been getting baptized tomorrow ended up having some doubts and aren´t feeling ready for tomorrow. So we´re going to move them for another weekend. Then we have Nallely who is preparing for next weekend and she is SET. One of the most prepared people that i´ve taught in my mission so far. Then we have the family of Patricia, her 18 year old son Victor, and her 16 year old daughter Michell preparing for the 17th. Patricia is the older sister of Marianela, the wife of Giovani who got baptized in Ecuador when she was like 13 years old. We´ve literally had no time to rest because the Lord is blessing us so much that we´re constantly teaching and constantly finding new prepared people. These last 2 months of the year are going to be the biggest months we´ve seen as a mission!
The work of the Lord goes on and the preparation for our Savior is being made even more evident (im not even sure if that´s a real word) in our days. I love being a missionary and I love my family

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 16 - Elizabeth and André

Hello fam!

CONGRATS JESSICA AND REID!! I think that´s number 3 that has been born since i´ve been gone? That´s a good name, Brynlie! I´m sure her middle name is Ryana or something close to that. Dad, i´m glad everything went well with the surgery and that´s everything´s recovering. Why did you have to get surgery in the first place? sorry missed that part of the story.
The mission is so good. I say this way too much but i seriously love it. I cant believe that some of my friends are already heading home. It scares me. But i´m so glad i´ve still got time and i cant wait to see the miracles that are coming up. We see so many every day i cant even count them. We have 3 people preparing for baptism right now. I´ll let you know what happened with 2 of them...
A week ago, we went to visit our investigator Elizabeth and her 11 year old son André. They had had a date to get baptized before but because of her work schedule, they couldn´t come to church a couple of times and we were´nt able to teach them everything. In the visit, we asked them about baptism and invited them for the 3rd of November. Elizabeth was really unsure about it and didn´t want to commit to the date. We told her to pray about it and ask God if she should get baptized that day. A couple of days later we went back and visited her. We asked her how her prayer went and how she felt. She said "I felt good. I want to keep preparing for baptism on the 3rd." They came to church this last sunday and André even sang and participated in the primary program with the rest of the kids. Prayer is real. God answers prayers. Our other person with a date is Nallely. We contacted her in the metro and she came to the hermana´s baptism in the other ward on saturday and then came to church on sunday. She´s preparing for the 10th.
Nohemy is SO GOOD and she has so many desires to be baptized. The only problem... she´s not married!! That´s the worst part about missionary work here in Spain. About half the people living together aren´t married. Nohemy knows she needs to get married but her husband isn´t too open to it. She´s praying for him so that he´ll change and hopefully that he´ll start accepting us teaching him.
We´re finding new people every day that are prepared. We´re seeing more miracles than I ever thought possible. We have the goal to baptize 600 this year and we´re right at about 400 so we gotta get a move on. I still have complete faith that we´re going to reach our goal as the mission keeps working hard and stays obedient. The Lord and his angels are doing their part preparing people, now we just have to find them and baptize them. I love the mission family. I hope it never ends. I love the people here. And I love you all

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 15 - Hermana Nuria´s testimony

Dear familia

Thanks for all the news about the church mom. It´s so incredible being able to be part of the church in the last days and help prepare the way of the Lord. People really are starting to recognize us more and are having more desires to listen and to learn. We see so many miracles every day in the mission.
Fast sunday yesterday was perfect for our investigators. Nohemy showed up with her 3 year old son, Joel, right when sacrament meeting was starting and loved the sharing of testimonies of the members. There´s an hermana in the ward, Nuria, who´s the wife of the 1st counselor in the bishopric and is about 50 years old and has cancer. No one knows how much longer she´s going to live but she´s one of the most faithful members there are. Despite her condition and going through kimo therapy, she still does her best to get to church every sunday. She got up yesterday with her husband at her side and bore her testimony about the truthfulness of the gospel. It was POWERFUL. I looked over at Nohemy and she was crying! Everyone in the chapel felt the Spirit and many other members got up to bear their testimonies after her. It was perfect for Nohemy. She´s been preparing to be baptized for this weekend but because of her work schedule and our schedule we haven´t been able to teach her everything. So we have another visit with her today and we´re going to try and push it for next week. The power of members testimonies is a lot more personal for investigators than our testimonies as missionaries, because they see the members as real people who are experiencing the gospel in their lives and have true testimonies of it. We also visited Victor, our other investigator, after sacrament and he shared with us that he felt the Spirit so strong and received a sure answer that this is God´s church during the testimony meeting. He knows he´s getting baptized but he just has to get married!! Hopefully he and Juana will be able to soon. We invited him and Juana to talk about it again and for him to pray about a fecha when he should get baptized.
The Gospel is real and we have the great privelage of being members of the true church of Jesus Christ. Thanks for all your examples. I´m where I am today because of the incredible family that I come from. Love to my family

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 14 - Miracle of conference

Seriously i´m super sorry fam for not writing for 2 weeks... I wrote that email last week and didn´t realize that it didnt go through. Hope you´ll forgive me.
General conference was the BEST. I love general conference more every time that i watch it. Crazy revelation by President Monson!! Our missionary numbers are going to fly up! I think so many more people will be going on their missions. Actually here in Spain was one of the countries that allowed boys to go at 18. But now the whole world is going to be going on missions. We were super excited when we heard that. Still dont anything can beat how surprised I was when mom was called as 2nd counselor though... But mom you´re so incredible that i should have been expecting it.
The miracle we saw this last week was the power of God in getting our investigators to conference to hear His words and His servants. Saturday afternoon we didn´t have any investigators able to come but on Sunday we had a lot of investigators that had told us that they were coming. Sunday morning we woke up and headed out to see the priesthood session and as we went down in to the metro stop, there was a strike going on with the Barcelona metro system and the metros were only passing by about every HOUR (not very uncommon on work days, but the fact that there was a strike on a Sunday is almost unheard of). Elder Cerqueira turned to me and said, "wow, Satan´s smart. The most important Sunday and Satan throws out a strike so that people cant get to conference." I realized at that moment that Satan really was trying to stop our investigators from coming. We walked to the church praying the whole way that our investigators would be able to make it and hear the word of God. God heard our prayers. Nohemy couldn´t make it to any of the sessions because of work but she got to the church at 4:00 (during the break in between conferences) and we were able to put a session on a computer and she and other members who didn´t make it on time were able to watch the session of conference they missed. Elizabeth and André got an hour late to the session they were trying to get to but they got there right at the intermediate hymn and were able to hear Elder González, Elder Holland and President Monson speak. Luckily Victor lives pretty close to the church so he was able to come with Juana and the fam and see all the sessions on sunday, including priesthood session. Nohemy, Elizabeth and André all have fechas to be baptized. Every day in the mission makes the battle between God and Satan more real in my eyes. He is real. He doesn´t want us to have the happiness and the eternal life that comes through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But even more important, Heavenly Father is real. And as He sees our true desires and our faith, He provides the way.
Hope you enjoy this email seeing that you havent received any for the last 3 weeks haha LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 13 - The Lord does His work

SORRY FAM!!! I sent this email last week but it didn't get sent because it had too many pictures. I´ve tried to send it again a couple of times just barely but it isn´t working so i´m going to try to send it again with just one picture. Still alive and still love you.

Elder Reeves

Sorry i didn´t write last week... didn´t have time. Mom, you are incredible!! I just might have received permission from President and Hermana Pace to watch your talk on the internet because they loved your talk so much. Dad, I had no idea you had that disease. I´m so grateful that you recovered and that you have been able to raise us kids with mom. I love you both.Our investigators with baptismal dates are progressing incredibly well even though we´re not in our area all the time to teach them or follow up with them. Nohemy, from Honduras, has been reading the Book of Mormon and marking scriptures and reading all the pamphlets. She understands everything almost better than any other member understands them. We met her our first week here in this area but were never able to meet with her because we didn´t have her phone number. We remembered about her and passed by her house and now we´re teaching her. Our other 2 investigators, Elizabeth and André (mother and 11 year old son) from Peru were contacts in the street. They are progressing exactly the same. They understand everything so well and they feel the truthfulness of it all. That is such a miracle and such a testimony builder to me that this is the Lord´s work. He is able to do His own work if we let Him and if we are worthy of His help.
Elder Keeler just left home yesterday. It was a really weird feeling driving your own companion to the airport. I loved being with Elder Keeler. He taught me so much and was such a dedicated missionary. After he left, I felt pretty overwhelmed as more weight of the mission fell onto my shoulders. I prayed for the Lord to help me and I read something Elder Keeler had written me right before he left. He said that I dont have to worry about the stress of being Ayudante. All I have to do is love the Lord and serve Him with all my might and He will make up the rest. I´ve definitely seen that, especially with Nohemy, Elizabeth, and André and I´m going to do everything possible to stick to that and serve my Heavenly Father, serve my mission president and the rest of the missionaries in the mission, and especially serve the children of God in this part of Barcelona.
Pray for all of these people, Giovani and his family and Victor so that they can come to general conference and receive their answers. I cant wait for conference. Always take advantage of this blessing of conference. We will all receive answers and the guidance that God has for us right now in our lives. Love you all. Enjoy some pics.

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 11 - Answered Prayers

Wow I didn´t know that President Pace had sent a letter to both of you mom and dad. He impresses me more and more each day. I seriously have grown so much love for him and Hermana Pace and thank Heavenly Father every day for the chance that he´s given me to be able to work with both of them. Next to you, mom and dad, they´re one of the most amazing couples I know. President and Hermana have so much love for everyone. Every missionary in the mission just cant get enough of them because they feel so much of their love. I think they´ve been to their home ward here in Barcelona like twice since they got here because they just love going out and being with all the saints all over the mission. They are incredible.Well the miracles keep happening with Geovani and his family. I was gone in Albacete these last couple of days on an intercambio with 2 Elders who are kind of struggling right now (it turned out super well and we found a lot of good people to teach. I´m praying that they´ll start to see success there) but Elder Keeler and Elder Cerqueira went and visited Geovani and his family on Tuesday. They watched the Joseph Smith movie (the full one) and the family loved it. Geovani said that he wanted to be like Joseph Smith with his diligence and his faith. They invited all to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. Well, last night when I got back here in Barç, Elder Cerqueira called them to follow up on how their prayers went. Geovani said that he already knew he was a prophet before he prayed but that he still got a confirmation from the Spirit, Johan the son felt the Spirit as he prayed, and the daughter Jovana after praying got up and opened up the Book of Mormon and just started reading. ALL 3 of them had personal answers directly from Heavenly Father. We couldn´t believe when Elder Cerqueira told us what happened after he got off the phone with Geovani. We were so grateful to the Spirit and the key role that it plays in the conversion process of investigators. It´s those kind of experiences that help investigators obtain their own testimonies and move forward with faith and confidence in the Lord. We´re hoping that we can have a visit with them tonight and set their baptismal date for sure.
When I was on the train back from Albacete (about 5 hours long) I had some good time to study and ponder. Dont worry i also found some opportunities to share the gospel. But I read a verse in 2 Nephi 9:18 and it really hit me hard. All of those that endure the crosses of the world will inherit all the God has prepared for us. The love of God is great and His wisdom is perfect. I´m so grateful for the opportunity to serve my God and my Savior and carry a little bit of the cross that Jesus Christ carried for us. I love my Savior and I love this gospel. Until next week.

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 10 - Contact the elect

Hello fam

I dont have a lot of time but everything´s going super well. The mission is going up in numbers and we´re starting to see a ton of miracles all over the mission. Elder Cerqueira has been doing intercambios all over the mission while Elder Keeler and I have been helping at zone conferences and teaching. Victor is still reading and is starting to notice more and more the truthfulness of the gospel. He´s still reading but we havent been able to set a baptismal date with him yet. We have so many good people we´re working with. We´re going to be seeing a lot of miracles here soon.This last Saturday we went to go visit a part member family that we found about a month ago contacting the less active mom in the metro. We had been contacting everyone in the metro and were just arriving to our stop. We could have stopped contacting because we were about to get off the metro but we saw the mom seated accross from us in the metro and seemed to be a nice lady so we started talking to her. Turns out that she was baptized Ecuador when she was like 14 i think and went to church for about a year but then stopped. Luckily she was getting off at the same metro stop as us so we were able to walk with her for a little bit and get her info. She is now married to her husband, Geovani, and they have 2 kids, the son Johan who is 14 years old and the daughter Jhovana who is 12. None of them are baptized. We´ve only been able to visit them like twice because of our schedule travelling and their work schedule. We´ve invited them to be baptized and Geovani told us that if he comes to know that this church is true that he´ll stay faithful for his whole life and bring his whole family and all his friends to church. This last Saturday we were able to visit Geovani. The rest of the family was gone but we taught him about the restoration and watched the movie with him. He LOVED it. Then on Sunday he came to church with Jhovana for the first time. LOVED church too. We have another visit with them tonight. We never would have found them if we hadn´t contacted that last lady on the metro. I love contacting. Pray for this family so that they can all come to church and start progressing together towards the temple.
I´m so grateful for our family and that we´re all sealed together for time and all eternity. You´re all examples for me and am grateful for your prayers. Mom good luck with everything in your calling. Hermana Pace is excited to listen to you in a couple of weeks. P.S. cant WAIT for general conference.

Love, Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 9 - Zone Conferences

I´ve just kind of given up trying to recognize the neices and nephews. Theyre so huge! Thanks for the pictures of your birthday mom. Seemed like a wild party with all those crazy sobrinos that i love so much. Cant wait to see them all again. Just kidding, i can wait a while... as long as i´m here on the mission.These last couple of days have been a whirlwind travelling around and giving these zone conferences. But i´ve loved every second of it. We have such incredible missionaries in the mission and there´s something new that i learn from each one of them. We first started out flying to Palma de Mallorca (one of the Baleares island) saturday night and then we were there for all Sunday and had the conference Monday morning. Then we flew to Valencia Monday night and had the conference Tuesday morning. We have a little break to write the fam this morning but tonight we drive up to Lleida for Zone conference up there. This sunday we take a train to Bilbao and have the conference on monday and then we have zone conference with Barcelona and Hospitalet Wendsay and Thursday. Never thought i would travel so much on my mission.
This last Sunday i was on splits with Elder Bronson and Elder Weiss in Palma. After church, we went to go visit an investigator, Jaime, who had been coming to church for a while with his girlfriend, who is a member. We sat down with him and the family and we found out that he had listened to the missionaries a lot before but he could never get baptized because he had a problem with smoking. For years he´s been trying to give it up but has never been able to. Now by some miracle, he has stopped completely. I never heard how he ended up being able to stop but he doesnt have any problems now. Elder Bronson talked about how all these years he´s been putting his faith in God and has been trying to repent and now he´s further along the repentence process by giving it up completely. Elder Bronson asked him what his next step will be. He said, "well now i just have to get baptized!" He is now preparing to be baptized on the 15th of this month and will be getting married to his girlfriend on the 21st. God is preparing His children. This is the second harvest of Spain.
We luckily have time to go visit Victor today in about an hour which will be super good. We´re going to try to get a date set for him and try to figure out how he can either get married to Juana or move out. He´s been reading 20 pages a day in the Book of Mormon. Incredible man.
I love the people here in Spain and it just makes me wanna punch a wall realizing how fast it´s just slipping away from me. I love all the missionaries and i especially love my companions. I have the best companions ever. And I have the best family ever. Love you all

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 8 - To the rescue

Hello family!

Today was the first full preparation day that i´ve had so far as ayudante. It´s been a good rest. Now back to the work. And no mom, I was in the office for 4 transfers. So in total i´ve been here in Barcelona for almost 9 months. I know every back street possible in this city. I love it though.President Pace has been teaching a lot about the "rescue" work that President Monson wants all missionaries to get involved in around the world with menos activo work. The Lord literally has been puting menos activos in our path every where. We´ve found probably over 5 people who haven´t been to church since they moved here to Spain because they were scared to be in a new country or who just haven´t found the church. Last night we had another visit with a family in our ward, the 2 kids are active (Madelin is 18 and Piter is 17) but the parents are divorced and the mom Juana is inactive. Her boyfriend Victor has always been believing in God but has never understood why there are so many churches. In this visit with them, we started listening to Victor´s story and then the story of Juana and the kids. Their conversion stories brought the Spirit so strong. We testified of the restored church and the Prophet Joseph Smith. Then Victor asked us, "how can you be so sure that this is the true church? You all must of had some kind of sign to believe so strong in the church." We asked him how he feels when he prays and he told us that he always feels peaceful and like he´s free of guilt. After teaching him of how the Spirit communicates with us, we taught him about the Book of Mormon and how everything we believe is based on that book and how he will feel that same Spirit by reading it. He was so interested and had so many desires to start reading. Then the 2 kids jumped in and said "we can even read as a family too!" It was so perfect. The mom told us how good she felt and how she knew and has always known that this is the true church of God. It was such a powerful lesson and the power didn´t come from us as missionaries, it came from the testimony of the family. They are such an incredible family and the joy that comes from being able to help a less active family and help someone find the Gospel is the best feeling ever. I love being able to work with the less actives.
Alright gotta get going. Thanks for your prayers and for your love. Love you all

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 7 - New transfer, new changes

Congrats jack on the wedding!! Sorry i couldnt be there. Hope everything went super well. Where´s the honeymoon at?? Thanks for the pics val.Well, it´s been a transfer since President called me in. Crazy. We just finished transfers... well kind of. We had 4 nuevos come in yesterday, another one today, and one more tomorrow. It´s been pretty wild. They sometimes come on different days like this because of visa problems. But they are such amazing new elders. No new sisters this transfer. And 3 more elders are still waiting for their visas. The mission is SUPER young right now and we lost a ton of experience from older missionaries who have gone home in the last 3 transfers. They´ve been big transfers with a lot of leaders going home. That´s why President received some revelation with us ayudantes as we were doing the changes for transfers. In our transfer meeting, we were doing all the changes in companionships and areas and something just wasnt clicking. After a couple of hours of switching things around, President sat in his chair and stared for a minute at the board and said, "what if we brought in a new ayudante and we had Elder Keeler being a travelling ayudante?" So we brought in another ayudante! His name is Elder Cerqueira from Portugal!! He´s amazing. He´s only been out about 10 months but is just so good. So Elder Keeler will be travelling around and helping some companionships for his last transfer. It was an incredible experience being in that transfer meeting. After that change everything else just fell into place.
We got fired a ton this last week, planned and unplanned visits were falling through everywhere, and we were at a point where we had run out of back up plans. We tried to stay diligent and to keep contacting as we were making our way to pass by some other people. We were dead tired and had talked to so many people that day but we knew the Lord would bless us for staying diligent. As we were walking by a metro stop, out walked what looked to us like a little family, a man, woman, and little girl. As they came out of the metro stop, they were smiling and just looked golden. Walking up to them, we asked them if they were a family - come to find out that it was just 2 friends and the daughter of the lady. Her name is Rosmari from Bolivia and he is José from Mexico. We talked to them for a little bit and testified of the restored gospel. Rosmari seemed super interested but José was a little held back. We then invited them to come to church with us the following day and we promised them they would feel a different spirit there and that they would receive answers. They told us they would come and gave us their numbers. The next day, we were waiting at the door of the church and they still didn´t arrive. It wasn´t too much of a surprise because a ton of people say they´ll come and end up not coming. Church was about to start and we figured we give them a call and see if they were coming. Rosmari picked up her phone and said, "i´m just getting my daughter ready! We´ll be there in about 10 minutes." 10 minutes passed by and still nobody. After about 20 minutes and being maybe too persistant, we called again and she told us she was on her way and just a couple minutes away. Then she showed up with her little 2 year old daughter, José, and José´s daughter who´s partly deaf. It was such a miracle. Both of them showed up and José brought his daughter! They stayed for all 3 hours and just loved it. José was asking us about baptism before he left church. We´re meeting with Rosmari tonight and hopefully José will be able to be done with work at that time and come too. It just increased my faith that God blesses us as we show our love for Him and His work through diligence.
Gotta go. Love you so much fam. Keep being awesome.

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 6 - The miracle of Adrian

First I just wanted to say before i forget.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMÁ!!!
...

Ok didn´t mean to push send on that one but at least i know you got it. Seriously though, i hope you have the best birthday ever and hopefully have some time outside of your office in Salt Lake. Maybe you can throw a party with the Quorum of the Twelve. Make sure you take some pictures if you do. Thanks for the hilarious pictures Reid. Ally I´m not so sure i´m grateful for your picture. Lets just say you should be glad i didn´t show Elder Keeler.
Anyways, I wanted to write about the whole story about Adrian, our Bolivian boy that got baptized this last weekend. Little side note before I start the story. When Elder Keeler and I had our interviews with President about a month ago, he promised us that if we strived to be exactly obedient and to fulfill our duties as ayudantes that the Lord would provide for us and that even though we´d be out of our area, we´d be able to baptize continuously and frequently. It was a really spiritual experience and I trust 100% in the Lord´s promises through His servants. So going back to Adrian, he is the most incredible little kid ever. Elder Salmon and Elder Haikola, who we live with, actually teach his grandma Flora and found Adrian there at her house. Turns out that he was always at Flora´s house during the day because his mom, Silvana, works so much. Elder Keeler and I had been struggling getting home at exactly 10:00 every night because we were just getting used to the area and there was always something that came up that caused us not to get home on time. We were always getting lost, or we missed the metro and had to wait longer, or whatever would happen and we´d get home a little late. Finally one night we got home on time. That night, Elder Salmon came up to us, not knowing about the promise Pres Pace had given us, and said, "we´ve got a reference for you! It´s the grandson of Flora. He´s always at her house but his mom lives in your area. He wants to be baptized." It really seemed insignificant to us that we had received that reference the same night that we got home on time and I honestly forgot that it was that same night. After the baptism, Elder Keeler asked me if I remembered what day it was that we received the reference of Adrian. Of course I didn´t and so he reminded me that it was the first night that we got home on time. Adrian was baptized and confirmed on sunday (there was a primary activity on saturday so we pushed it to sunday). He´s almost read the whole kids version of the Book of Mormon. Silvana got up during the testimony part of his baptism and said how much of an anchor Adrian is in her life - always telling her to come to church, always praying with her, always telling her how he wants to be an eternal family. No wonder the Lord commanded us to become as little children. They´re pure vessels of the love of God.
I love this Gospel. I love the happiness and the truth that is contained therein. The priesthood authority and power we have is real. I wouldn´t want to be anywhere else right now than serving the Master, our Savior. He lives.

Elder Reeves.

Barcelona week 5 - Time flys when you´re flying around Spain

Wow it´s been so much fun being able to go around the mission and see all the beautiful areas with Pres and Hna Pace. Last week we had specialized training with Hospitalet and Barcelona, then on saturday we drove up to Bilbao, were there for the weekend on intercambios, and then had specialized training with their zone yesterday. Monday night we drove down to Lleida and then had their training this morning. We drove back after that and got home tonight. These last couple of days are seriously a blur. But it has been such a blessing to be with all the other missionaries and learn and grow from them. Tomorrow we´re catching a train and going down to Valencia and then coming back home on Thursday. On sunday we´ll be catching a flight to go to the Baleares Islands and have specialized training with that zone Monday morning, which will be the last zone. 2 days later we´ll be starting the transfers process which will go for at least 2 days. SO CRAZY. It´s been hard though having to be out of the area and not being with the investigators or members. We´ve got to learn to work a lot better with the members so that they can visit our investigators while we´re gone. Good news is that after tranfsers, we should have a couple of weeks free to work in the area. Then after that we start another round of Zone Conferences. Oh and we´re hoping to be having a baptism this weekend of a little 8 year old boy named Adrian from BOLIVIA!! His grandma got baptized a couple of years ago and we´ve been working with him and his mom. We havent been able to meet with Silvana too much because she works a lot. She wants to be baptized too though. Quick little miracle and sweet experience was that Silvana wasn´t coming to church with Adrian and he later went up to his mom and asked her why she didn´t go to church with him. She said that she was just so busy and tired that she couldn´t go. Then he asked her, "But don´t you want to live with me forever?" Sweetest thing ever. Adrian is incredible. Pray for both of them!

Alright gotta get going. Hope everyone´s doing well. Love you all

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 4 - Quick one

Hello fam!!

Sorry no time to write this week. We´re doing specialized training all over the mission and we´re just about to head out to Bilbao for the weekend. Pictures are better than words, so here are a few. Love you all. Thanks for all the birthday wishes!! Still feel the same!

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 3 - Cut down because He loves us

Mom and dad in Australia huh? Feel free to keep an open bed for me when I´m back, Jon and Leah. How long are you going to be visiting there? What other trips have happened this summer? Oh by the way I just got the wedding invitation for Jaclyn´s wedding. It said my attendance to the sealing would be appreciated... Hopefully I can be there in spirit. But CONGRATS jack!
So a little bit more about us here in Barç. We live in a 4 man piso with Elder Salmon and Elder Haikola. Elder Salmon is from Alabama and he´s training Elder Haikola, quite the large Fin. Yes, he´s from Finland and he´s probably about 6´ 5 and just has no fear about anyone. I´ve tried some pretty weird candy that he brought from Finland. They´re the best though. It´s so much fun living with them. Our ward is a big ward and we meet in the nicest stake center I think i´ve ever seen. I´ve heard that it´s actually the most expensive church building in Europe, minus the temples. Our bishop is a new bishop from about 4 months ago and we´re really focusing on trying to help the bishop and strengthen the ward and the members. I love our ward.This week was definitely a humbling week though. I think Elder Keeler and I came into this area probably a little prideful thinking that we were going to do so amazing and expecting to just see huge numbers from the very beginning. We have for sure had to rely on the Lord a lot this last week. We had pretty much our whole week set up from making phone calls and talking to different members. One visit after the other just kept falling through. I´ve been taught over and over again that this really is not my work, it´s His. All we have to do is do our best and be obedient and have the Lord and His angels do the rest. Every thing that we pass through in this life is for our good and our benefit. It makes me think of the analogy of the beautiful garden bush that was flourishing and growing big thinking that nothing could stop it, until the gardener cuts down its branches and brings it back low to the ground. The bush thinks at first "why would you do this to me? I was growing so big and was so beautiful but now you´ve cut me down." The bush didn´t understand that after being cut down, its roots would grow deeper and it would grow back stronger and even more beautiful than ever. After passing through "the trial" it tells the gardener, "Thank you for loving me so much as to cut me down." Sometimes I forget about the perfect knowledge that God has and His plan that He has for us. He gives us our trials so that we can be even stronger and more beautiful than before. It´s not very fun in the moment, but it´s the best thing that could´ve happened in the end.
The good news is that we still have incredibly prepared people that we´re teaching. Verónica isn´t progressing right now because she found work and she´s been gone for about the last 5 days (typicle trap of Satan. Happens to almost every investigator at some point because it´s so hard to find work and then the first thing they find they take.) and Cristi came to church but left right before we took sacrament because she was stressed and was tired trying to keep track of her 3 year old son. But we know that everything will work out and that they´ll be back progressing and going strong. We´re praying A LOT.
Another miracle is that Patricio, the dad of our miracle family back in Hospitalet, got baptized on Saturday!!! It made me so happy for him and for his family. The children are progressing too but just slower and the mom is being a little hard right now. But I have faith that they´ll all be baptized really soon.
Love you all,
Elder Reeves

Another small miracle

Quick little thing i remembered. 2 track coaches from BYU visited our ward this last sunday because there´s some kind of race here in Barcelona. They both served here in Spain. We started talking and I told them about my 2 years running. They were shocked/kinda mad that I hadn´t ran my first year at BYU. They told me that they would be waiting for me when I got back from my mission. Haha we´ll see how that goes. Loves

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 2 - Miracles everywhere

Good morning fam!

Thanks so much nieces and nephews! Did you make that picture just for me or was it some one else´s birthday and it just worked out that way? Haha either way i loved it. It just throws me off every time I see how big they´re getting.
I love my companion Elder Keeler. He´s an incredible missionary. He has so much love for the work, the missionaries, and especially for the people that we´re teaching. He´s got a fire that is just super contagious. He´s always looking for more opportunities to find the elect and to bring them the gospel. I´ve already learned a ton from him. He´s from Spring Texas that´s just right outside of Houston. He graduated in the same year as me, but instead of going to college he just went straight out onto the mission. He´ll be finishing up in October, so i´ll most likely be his last companion. Oh by the way mom and dad, Elder Keeler´s best friend that lives just 3 streets down from him back in Texas is Elder Stephenson who is serving in Riverside! I´m pretty positive i never met them but apparently they used to do everything together.It was Friday morning and Elder Keeler and I really felt strongly in our companionship study that we needed to look for more opportunities to serve. We prayed in every prayer that day for opportunities and we were constantly looking for them throughout the day. There wasn´t a huge change really on Friday, just a couple times being able to help people with their suitcases exiting out the metro or other little things - but we felt like we did everything we could that day to find those opportunities. Saturday morning as we were studying again, we got a phone call from out Elder´s quorum president, Tomás. He said, "Elders, there´s a lady that has been living in our piso for the last couple of months who needs help moving out to her new piso. Can you come and help us?" We went up there and met this lady, Cristi, who´s from Peru. She´s in the process of getting divorced and has a 3 year old son. When we arrived, she was SO grateful. We helped take all of her boxes and suitcases to her new piso and by the end of helping her, we had met her good friends, Joel and Neomí, that lived close by her new piso, and another couple, Mario and Alejandra, that live in her new one. We were able to teach Mario and Alejandra and we have another visit for this Friday. We´re hoping to be able to visit soon with Joel and Neomí to teach them the gospel. Just from the simple act of praying and searching for these opportunities to serve, the Lord blessed us with this HUGE miracle. All these people are so prepared and so open to receive the gospel. Pray for them! I know God answers prayers. I know He wants us to find those who are prepared for the gospel so that they too can receive these blessings.
We have another lady named Verónica that went to the baptism of her friend Julia 2 weeks ago in the Barcelona 1 ward with her husband Enrique. They loved it! They´re from Peru and also have a 3 year old son. We finally were able to meet with Verónica yesterday (Enrique was working) and we taught her about baptism. She accepted a date to be baptized on August 11!! We´re just hoping and praying that she and Enrique are married. We´re going to find out in our visit tomorrow. Pray for them!
There´s also another baptism of a girl in the ward named Evelyn. She´s been a member pretty much her whole life but, sadly, her register in the church system got lost or just never put in. So she´s getting baptized again hopefully this weekend! If not, then it will be next weekend. Pray for her and for her family, who a lot of them aren´t members, so that they may be open and receptive to the gospel.
This area is incredible and the Lord is just POURING out His blessings on us. I really have seen how exact obedience brings blessings. I´ve always strived to be exactly obedient but Elder Keeler and I are really focusing on doing every little thing right the best way we can so that we can have an assuraty (sorry not sure how thats spelled) that God will bless us and keep continue pouring His blessings upon us.
I love you all so much. Thanks for the pictures and for your support.

Elder Reeves

Barcelona week 1 - 1 month too much

Well... so you heard the news, eh? It was a pretty big shock to me. I feel pretty inadequate and humbled to serve with President and Hermana Pace, especially to be able to help them get to know and adjust themselves to the mission. I just feel like the Lord relys on me a TON and I dont rely enough on Him. That´s definitely something that I´m coming to recognize and something that I´m working on changing. So this is what happened...
Friday morning last week, Elder Littlefield and i had just left piso to go out teaching in the morning. As we were arriving to the metro our phone rang. Elder Littlefield answered and it happened to be Elder Keeler, my current companion, and he said, "I´m calling on behalf of President Pace. He wants both of you to come into the office at 2:00." He hung up and then told me what happened. I thought, "oh no. I think one of us is getting transferred." I thought of the fact that Elder Middleton was leaving and that there would have to be a new ayudante and I immediately felt ok because I knew Elder Littlefield is perfect for that. But then I realized he only has 3 transfers left and the fear came back to me. After teaching in the morning, we went to the office. There were 2 other missionaries from our district that were there, Elder Greep (who has one transfer left) and Swenson (has 2 transfers more than me in the mission). President first called in Elder Greep who, afterwards, walked out silent. He wouldn´t tell me what happened so I just waited patiently... somewhat. Then Elder Swenson walked out after his interview and he said, "I cant believe we´re both going to the islands!" Their companionship has been serving in our zone but they both got transferred out and are going to 2 different areas on the islands. Big change for them. Then President called in Elder Littlefield. He was in there longer than the other 2 Elders so I was starting to wonder what was going on. I still had an uneasy feeling that Elder Littlefield or I would be Ayudante and I just prayed that the Lord would help me feel that whatever was going to happen was His will. Elder Littlefield walked out and President called me in for last. We sat down and the first thing he did was pull out a 25 anniversary book of the Madrid mission back in 1998, i think was the year. He flipped open to a page of him and it had his picture when he was a missionary, his info, some miracle experience, and then a picture of his family back in 1998. It was super neat. Then he flipped to another page. It was the page of Uncle Robert Reeves. It also had his picture when he was a missionary, his miracle experience, and then a picture of their family with all of our cousins. After reading the miracle experience, he started to get choked up and he turned to me and said, "your uncle was my first zone leader when I got to the mission. Every time I was with him or even just looked at him, I wanted to be a better missionary. He made a huge difference in my mission. I have seen that same quality in you. And I dont think it was a coincidence that we went out together my first night here in Spain. So, I would be honored and would love to be able to work with a Reeves again with you as my ayudante. Can you do that for me?" I sat there for a couple of seconds in silence amazed at the love that I felt from President Pace at that moment. I of course answered yes.
Even though I only had one month out of the office, i feel like ive learned the most in these last 6 weeks with Elder Littlefield than I have in my whole mission. I seriously and soooo grateful for that chance I had to serve in Hospitalet. I love Hospitalet. Its been amazing to see how the Lord has been preparing me for this. I still feel WAY inadequate and that I need to step it up a ton more but I honestly feel the support and preparation that God has given me. I´m excited to be able to work with President and Hermana Pace. They are so incredible. Every day they impress me more and more. There are some changes and there are some different focuses but i´m just going to embrace them. I know that President Pace is called of God. I know that he was prepared to serve here at this time and i´m just lucky to be able to follow him around and see him receive revelation for this mission.
I love my mission fam. It´s going way to fast. Oh by the way, Elder Keeler and I are being whitewashed into Barcelona 3. It´s the 3rd ward here in Barcelona and 2 other Elders were taken out and we´re being put in. There is another companionship with us here too. We´re way excited and we know Heavenly Father has been preparing so many people, especially families. We´re going to see tons of miracles here. Love you all. Pray for me. Pray that I can sleep. We´ve gotten like 6 hours of sleep in the past 2 nights. Haha good welcome to the ayudante life!

Elder Reeves

Hospitalet week 5 - La Familia Alvarado

Bon día family

That´s so weird that Valerie is already done. I remember thinking when she left, "wow, when she goes home, i´ll have a year in the mission." I´m pretty sure that was just 2 days ago when I said that. That´s how fast time has gone. it´s been such a blessing being able to serve side by side with you Val. Thanks for your experiences and for your testimonies. I´ll just keep goin with Emily by my side.
Going out with President Pace was so much fun. I love the Paces so much. They say hi by the way, mom and dad. It´s weird to think they were just with you a week ago. Anyway the miracle i wanted to share was actually from the visit we had with President Pace and the family Alvarado. The Alvarados were a reference from a member and they came to church last week for the farewell of the member´s son who was leaving on a mission to the Dominican Republic. The whole family came: Patricio (padre) Nancy (madre) Patricio (hijo 18 years old) and Antoni (hijo 12 years old). They loved it and agreed to meet with us that night in the house of the member that invited them to church. That night we taught them the restoration and invited them to read and to pray. We lost contact with them for a couple of days because they went to Valencia where they had been living, but then brought all of their things and moved in with another member, Jonni Ocaña. We found out about them coming to live with Jonni and we set up to visit them on Friday night. When we got to their house, the 2 sons were just leaving to take their dog on a walk but they reassured us that they were coming back. After eating a little bit and Patricio and Antoni coming back, we started with a song and prayer. We asked them if they had read and prayed and they said they werent able to because of all the moving that had to do in the last couple of days. Immediately we opened up the Book of Mormon and said we were going to read with them. We taught them about baptism and read 2 Nephi 31. Elder Littlefield invited them to be baptized but they were a little hesitant. We pulled out our baptism plan and told them that we would set a date as a goal and if they felt like they weren´t ready by that day we could move it. They agreed and are preparing for the 21 of July to be baptized as a family. President Pace testified throughout the visit and promised incredible blessings for them as a family. The spirit was so strong. They came to church again this last Sunday and Patricio the father even got up and bore his testimony in front of everyone. He testified of how God can really change lives and how he´s starting to enter into the path of God with his family. It was incredible. I love being part of God´s plan in helping families become eternal.
This Lord´s work is a work for families and the Gospel is what every family in this world needs. The Savior suffered and died so that we can be with our families together forever. Let´s all show our love and gratitude for what He did by helping other families receive what our family has. Love you all like I love my mission.

Elder Reeves

Hospitalet week 4 - Lucky number 13

What in the world happened to the Stacy family? I litterally almost cant recognize any of them. Especially Aidan. Haha he´s huge!! Loved the pictures though. Thanks for sending them.
It was super funny because when we got on for emails, Elder Littlefield opened up his email from his parents and said, "oh look, my parents met President and Hermana Pace! Here´s a picture from them." (Elder Littlefield´s dad is the Manager of prefield services for the missionary department and has his main office in the MTC) I looked at the picture and thought, "i wonder if mom and dad met them" Then I opened up the email from mom and there was pretty much the same exact picture of President and Hermana Pace. Haha i´m sure you´ve met Elder Littlefield´s parents, mom and dad. Or at least seen them. Elder Littlefield and I were actually assigned to take President Pace out on splits with us his first night out in the field on friday... haha we´ll see how that goes!
If i´ve never told you why my lucky number is number 13, here´s another reason why..... This last week we really focused on getting people to church and asking for the members help in inviting and bringing friends to church. We focused on 3 strong member families and got a lot of referrals from them. They said that they would do everything they could to bring their friends to church. Luckily, one of the families, Los Luque, have a son who is leaving on his mission this week and was going to be giving his testimony in sacrament meeting, which gave a lot of investigators more reason to come. Saturday night, there was a birthday party for another girl in the ward, Carmen. We knew that a lot of members, including the Luques, and their friends would be at the party. We stopped by and shared a message with everyone and reinvited all of the investigators to come to church the next day. We were a little afraid because Saturday was the día de Sant Juan and everyone was going to stay up late at parties, which would make it harder for them to come to church in the morning. Elder Littlefield and I kept praying for a miracle and that these people could come to church. The next day, only one investigator family of 4 was there as sacrament started, or at least I thought there was. Then Elder Littlefield turned to me and said, "I think there are 7-8 investigators here right now". As I looked around and harder to where the members we had visited were sitting, and found there were 4 more investigators sitting with different members. We were up to 8. About 10 minutes later, in walked another investigator family of 5 that Los Luque had invited. 13 people in church. It was the biggest miracle I´ve ever seen in church. After sacrament, we met all of them and are working with the members to set up visits and teach these incredible children of God.
Well we gotta go right now to our last "concilio" as zone leaders with President Hinckley right now. It will be an amazing meeting. I´ll let you know how it goes. Love you all

Elder Reeves

Hospitalet week 3 - Bitter to sweet

Buenos días de Hospitalet a todos

Girlcation huh? Nice! The girls are finally catching onto the trend. Don´t party too crazy. Haha. Sorry I havent read any of the other emails yet (I print them out and read them when I have more time) so if i dont answer anyone´s questions it´s not my fault.
This week was a little harder especially because of not having anyone come to church. It really showed that a lot of our investigators are not progressing as they should be and that we have to let some of them go for a little bit. It´s been super crazy because we´re starting to see around the mission right now that Satan is attacking hard. We only had 2 baptisms in the whole mission this last weekend... probably the lowest EVER. That was the bitter part. President sent us a text on Friday and asked everyone to start a fast on saturday and fast for our investigators, members, and areas so that we can fight against the work of Satan and see the success that God wants us to have. Yesterday we finished our fast and continued praying throughout the day as we passed by other people/members. As we were walking in the street, we found 2 new families who want to hear more and in a visit with a member we found another couple. 3 new families that the Lord has prepared. We have plans to visit them again this next week and share them the wonderful news of the restored gospel. I know that through fasting and prayer, along with diligently looking and finding, the Lord puts prepared people in our path.
I kinda lost track of really how everything in this work is the Lord´s, not mine. Every good thing and every blessing that we see is not because of my skills or my knowledge as a missionary. It´s because the Lord loves us and wants us to have success. I know Satan starts attacking like crazy when he knows something good is about to happen (Joseph Smith right before the first vision) and as we keep praying with all our hearts pleading for the Lord to release us from the grasps of Satan, we will see the miracles. That´s the sweet part.
Fam if you ever have doubts or are feeling the grasps of Satan come down on you, pray with all your might. Know that he doesn´t want us to have the blessings of the gospel and he´ll do anything in his power to stop us. Keep praying, keep fighting. It´s all worth it in the end. This is the Lord´s work. Love you all

Elder Reeves

Hospitalet week 2 - Rebellious Nerea

Bon día mi familia!
I feel like i just wrote... oh wait, I did! I´m finally having a normal preparation day today. I finished training Elder Watkins this last Friday so now I can just stay in my area. FINALLY! Elder Salcedo also just left to Utah this morning. He´s going to be in the MTC probably for 9 weeks (poor man) and then he´ll be serving in the Ogden mission. So if you ever meet an Elder Salcedo mom and dad, that´s my adopted hijo.
I´m learning a lot being zone leader. Our zone is the best zone in the whole mission. Our missionaries are working super hard and are seeing a lot of miracles. There is this couple that just got baptized in the Cornellá ward with which i had that oportunity to do their interview for baptism. They´re from Colombia and were way way way religious in some church in Colombia. But then when they moved here to Spain they couldn´t find their church. Their uncle is a Bishop up in Bilbao and he sent the reference to the Elders in Cornellá. They started teaching them and they just ate everything up. When i did their interviews they were both telling me how much they just want to go out and do missionary work and spread the gospel. They´re incredible. We´re right on the path of hitting our goal of baptizing 14 this month finishing this last weekend with 7 in total. The Lord is preparing people all over. It´s a little hard though because 7 of our 10 companionships in our zone has a new companion and almost every time there´s a new companion, the investigator pool starts over. So once we get over that hump, people will be getting baptized left and right.
We´ve been teaching this girl named Nerea that is the girlfriend of a member in our ward. She´s española, 17 years old and comes from a deep Catholic background like all spanish people. She´s been taught before by other missionaries but she´s never been able to progress much because her mom is against any other religion besides catholisism and because of that she´s never been able to set a baptismal date. She´s almost always at the house of her boyfriend Jairo (from Bolivia) and she´s learned everything about the gospel because the whole family are members. She´s told us tons of times that she wants to get baptized but her mom wont let her. Her mom told her that when she´s 18 she´ll be able to make her own decision. Well... her birthday is June 27th. She´s so ready and has so many desires to get baptized. The miracle was that yesterday she came to church! We asked her how she was able to get permission from her mom and she said, "I didnt! I just told her that I was going over to Jairo´s and then I wanted to come to church so I did!" Haha pretty bold, but it was a miracle for us and she loved being there. Once she turns 18 she´ll be baptized as soon as she can.
Love you all. Happy birthday to those who´ve had one or who are about to have one!

Elder Reeves

Hospitalet week 1 - No time

It´s been pretty crazy going back and forth from my area to here in the office so I haven´t had a preparation day in the last couple of weeks but I´ve finally found some time to write! My preparation days are on Monday now but since the office has them on Wednesdays i haven´t been able to have them because i just go back to my area and work on Wednesday.

The miracle I wanted to share actually comes from this last Sunday. I had heard a lot about the members and how incredible the ward is from Elder Middleton but in this last sacrament meeting I really saw the truth of it. As you know it was fast Sunday and I had wanted to get up to introduce myself to the ward and to share my testimony. Bishop Gilier, who was directing the meeting, finished baring his testimony, turned the time over to the members and as soon as he sat down, IMMEDIATELY about 15 members stood up and started making their way to the front!! As I sat there for a second thinking how crazy it was that so many members were getting up at the same time, I realized that if I didn´t get up right then I would have no time to bare my testimony! So I jumped up and got up to the front as fast as I could. I ended up being able to bare my testimony and I told the members how impressed I was by them and by their testimonies. I really have never even seen that happen on the mission so far - I dont even think back home I ever saw that. I truly have seen how the excitement and the help of the members makes this work of the Lord run. I know we will see SO much success in this ward. Baptisms EVERY WEEK!! That´s our goal and we´re going to be working with these members so that we´ll be able to see that goal be put into place. I love the Hospitalet ward and I love you fam. And yes we had the baptism of Daniela this last saturday. She´s 10 years old, from Honduras. Her brother who got baptized like a month ago baptized her. Huge miracle. Bon día

Elder Reeves

Daniela's Baptism

Oficina week 25 - Curve ball

Sully as high priest eh? That´s super neat that you got to set him apart dad. Julie and Brett are in the other ward right? And what?? Kidney removal surgery on Sam?? When did that happen? I´m so glad to hear that everything worked out good.
Transfers went way well actually. Only a couple bumps and mistakes but it turned out really well and i think President and Hermana were super happy about how it turned out. All the 21 viejos went home this morning. Huge hole in the mission but it´s alright because we´re in the second harvest of Spain. There are prepared people everywhere.
Well here comes the curve ball. The talk of transfers doesn´t end here because....... I got transferred!!! I totally thought this wouldn´t happen because my replacement hadn´t come 3 weeks in advance before the transfer like they usually do here in the office when someone is getting transferred. I´m now in Hospitalet (city right outside of Barc) and I´m Zone Leader with Elder Littlefield!! Super crazy. Totally didn´t see it coming. I pretty much dont know anything about Elder Littlefield because i just moved to Hospitalet last night. I´ll let you know about him next week. But he´s amazing. He´s been out for about a year and a half and he´s been Zone Leader for 2 transfers. I´ve always wanted to serve with him, he´s so humble and such a powerful missionary. My replacement, Elder Watkins, just got here yesterday to the office, so President told me i have to come in every day and work with him during office hours and train him. Then every evening i go back to my area! It´s going to be pretty hard because, first off, i have no idea how to be Zone Leader and secondly, it will be hard to learn the area only working there for a couple hours every night. But i guess i already know how that is. It´s alright though because we´re in a trio right now in Hospitalet with a Visa waiter who´s going to be serving in Utah. His name is Elder Salcedo from Peru! He´s lived in Spain since he was 9 and got baptized with his mom when he was 16. He´s so good. So Elder Littlefield and him will be working the area while im here training in the office. Huge change! I´m way excited though. It will be neat to get to know the zone and help them to become missionaries that baptize every week. Elder Middleton, the ayudante from England that i´ve been living with for the last 3 tranfers, was zone leader in Hospitalet right before becoming ayudante and he said Hospitalet is incredible. I´ve heard that investigators just drop from the sky and the members work super well with the missionaries. Referrals everywhere. We´ll be having a baptism this weekend too.
Keep praying for me because i REALLY need them now haha love you all. Adeu a tots,

Elder Reeves