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
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
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
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
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Barcelona week 6 - The miracle of Adrian
First I just wanted to say before i forget.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMÁ!!!
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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.
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.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
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
Alright gotta get going. Hope everyone´s doing well. Love you all
Elder Reeves
Saturday, August 4, 2012
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
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
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