Alright now i saw the pictures better. Thanks mom for sending those again. They look good!! Sorry Greg and Brittany i forgot to congratulate you last week. FELICIDADES!!! Seriously im so happy for both of you. Finally one of the brothers supports Mike in having kids haha. Hope everything goes well with the pregnancy. Im praying for both of you.
We had an incredible miracle with Luz Marina so im just going to jump into it. Luz Marina is from Colombia. Shes the mom of a recent convert Angelica (Elder Pericle and Elder Johnson baptized her last year with her husband Alex and their 8 year old son Daniel). Luz Marina was going to be baptized in November but ended up having to go back to Colombia the day before her baptism for an emergency to see her dying mother. She just got back from Colombia about 2 weeks ago after being with her mother when she died. We had a short with her 2 sundays ago after church and talked to her a little bit about Gods plan and to see if she wanted to keep preparing for baptism. She told us that she wasn´t sure but that she would keep coming to church and let us know if she wanted to start preparing for baptism again. We didn´t want to keep pressuring her, so we just left it at that. Then this last saturday, we had a visit with her, Angelica and Alex. Elder Prieto and I had planned to teach her the whole plan of salvation and focus a lot on the importance of baptism and becoming eternal families. When we started teaching about life after death and the spirit world, she stopped us and asked me, "Elder Reeves, I was talking to my mother the day before she died. As i talked to her, an overwhelming feeling of peace and calm came over me and I knew everything was going to be alright. Where did those feelings come from?" As she asked me that inspired question, I thought back to my experience when Emily passed away. I was able to testify to her that those feelings come from the Holy Ghost and that in times of need, it acts as the Comforter and gives us that peace and that hope that everything will be alright. I testified to her that her mom lives, that Emily lives, and that we will one day be able to be eternal families if we just follow the path that God has made for us. We then taught her about how after baptism we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and we can have that constant companionship for the rest of our lives. Then out of nowhere she said, "I want to be baptized." WOW. It spirit was so strong and powerful. We set the date for the 9th of march. One of the biggest miracles Ive seen on my mission so far. I love the Spirit and I love the plan of salvation. I know God has a plan for each and every one of us. If the whole reason why I had to go through the trial of losing Emily was just to be able to testify to Luz Marina about the plan of salvation, it was worth it. My understanding and my testimony of Gods plan started that day in December of 2005. Its a testimony that can never be lost and will forever grow stronger.
The other family that we contacted that came to church called us the other day and said that they talked to their family in Madrid and they told them that everything about the church is wrong so now they dont want us to come over... huge bummer but pray for them so that they will be ready in the future. Everything else in life is great. Love you all
Elder Reeves
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Bilbao week 9 - New families
Wow so many things are happening at home!! Mostly happy things, but i´m so sorry to hear what happened with Mckenna and Tanner. They will for sure be in my prayers. Keep me updated on how theyre doing. Dad congratulations again with your new calling. So amazing. AND ALLYSON AND TIM!!!! FELICIDADES!! The pictures turned out a little small and upsidedown but i still enjoyed them.
It´s weird because there´s some new missionaries coming into the mission and when they meet me they say, "hey i heard your mom talk in the MTC! She´s an incredible lady!" Good work mom. Thanks for all that you do. I pray for you a lot with how much you have to teach and talk. Love you.
We saw a lot of miracles this last week. The first one is that both Susansa and John got baptized!! The baptismal service was one of the best i´ve seen. We were able to do it with another family that was baptizing their 8 year old son, so almost the whole chaple was filled with people to see the baptism. A lot of non members were there. John ended up only being 8 years old as well but it was still an incredible experience to see this family come together and participate in this ordinance of the gospel. On sunday they weren´t able to come to church because their little daughter got sick and they live in a pueblo an hour away from the chapel. So they´ll be confirmed this sunday. Another miracle we saw was a family that we saw in the street this last saturday. As soon as we saw them, it was almost as if we didn´t have to follow the Spirit because we knew that we needed to talk to them and it was just so natural. It was a family of 5. The mom Marcia, the dad José, 12 year old son David, 10 year old son (dont remember his name) and their little daughter probably like 3 years old. We talked to them for about 3 minutes and testified of the restored church. We got their info and invited them to come to church the following day. They said yes! But we still werent convinced because there are so many people who tell us they´re coming to church and then they end up not coming, so we asked them if we could call them the following morning to make sure that they were still coming. They agreed and then left. The next morning at about 8:45 we called and Marcia answered and said, "I´m just waking up the kids and getting them ready! We´ll be there at 10." We were kinda shocked, first because it was the right phone number, and second because she said she was getting ready to come with the whole family!! But we still had little faith. When we got to church at 10, they werent there. We waited for a little bit but they still didn´t show up. We went out about 10 minutes later to call them and see if they were coming. We called and Marcia said "we just leaving piso! We´ll be there soon." The whole family arrived about 15 minutes later. It was such a huge miracle. They stayed for sacrament and the 2nd hour but then had to leave. We had a visit set with them yesterday but the parents ended up not being able to meet with us yesterday so were going to visit them later on this week. I know that there are prepared families who are searching for the gospel. We just need to open our mouths and preach the word.
Love you all family. You´re in my prayers.
Elder Reeves
It´s weird because there´s some new missionaries coming into the mission and when they meet me they say, "hey i heard your mom talk in the MTC! She´s an incredible lady!" Good work mom. Thanks for all that you do. I pray for you a lot with how much you have to teach and talk. Love you.
We saw a lot of miracles this last week. The first one is that both Susansa and John got baptized!! The baptismal service was one of the best i´ve seen. We were able to do it with another family that was baptizing their 8 year old son, so almost the whole chaple was filled with people to see the baptism. A lot of non members were there. John ended up only being 8 years old as well but it was still an incredible experience to see this family come together and participate in this ordinance of the gospel. On sunday they weren´t able to come to church because their little daughter got sick and they live in a pueblo an hour away from the chapel. So they´ll be confirmed this sunday. Another miracle we saw was a family that we saw in the street this last saturday. As soon as we saw them, it was almost as if we didn´t have to follow the Spirit because we knew that we needed to talk to them and it was just so natural. It was a family of 5. The mom Marcia, the dad José, 12 year old son David, 10 year old son (dont remember his name) and their little daughter probably like 3 years old. We talked to them for about 3 minutes and testified of the restored church. We got their info and invited them to come to church the following day. They said yes! But we still werent convinced because there are so many people who tell us they´re coming to church and then they end up not coming, so we asked them if we could call them the following morning to make sure that they were still coming. They agreed and then left. The next morning at about 8:45 we called and Marcia answered and said, "I´m just waking up the kids and getting them ready! We´ll be there at 10." We were kinda shocked, first because it was the right phone number, and second because she said she was getting ready to come with the whole family!! But we still had little faith. When we got to church at 10, they werent there. We waited for a little bit but they still didn´t show up. We went out about 10 minutes later to call them and see if they were coming. We called and Marcia said "we just leaving piso! We´ll be there soon." The whole family arrived about 15 minutes later. It was such a huge miracle. They stayed for sacrament and the 2nd hour but then had to leave. We had a visit set with them yesterday but the parents ended up not being able to meet with us yesterday so were going to visit them later on this week. I know that there are prepared families who are searching for the gospel. We just need to open our mouths and preach the word.
Love you all family. You´re in my prayers.
Elder Reeves
Monday, February 11, 2013
Bilbao week 8 - John out of nowhere
Congrats Krist on the wedding!! Hope everything goes great for you two. Now just one more wedding this week! Sorry i cant be there Ally and Tim. Enjoy the cake for me and send me lots of pics. What temple is it again? Salt Lake?
That´s crazy that you met President and Hna Hinckley mom! They´re incredible people. I learned a lot from them. I really have been blessed to have the best mission presidents anyone could have. Except for the missionaries that served in Riverside with mom and dad.
So we went to teach our investigator Susana this last Saturday who has been preparing to be baptized for this weekend the 16th. We had to teach her a couple of more commandments and everything went well, accepted everything like always. Pedro, the husband, is less-active and we knew that their oldest son, John, had never been baptized. We had planned to ask them about John after we taught the commandments and if he would like to be baptized with Susana this weekend because it would be so special for them if they could get baptized together. Before we could even ask, Pedro asks us, "my son can be baptized too, right?" We said yes and asked how old he was just to make sure that he was 8 years old and then Pedro says, "he´s 9 years old"!! We had no idea that he was 9. The whole time we´ve been teaching Susana we were thinking that he was 8 and so we hadn´t been focusing too much on him during the lessons. So now Susana wants John to be baptized with her this weekend! We´re going to teach them a couple more times this week before the baptism just to make sure John has learned everything. I know it´s not really important that he gets baptized now that he´s 9 instead of 8 (he really should have been baptized when he was 8) but it just made me gain a stronger testimony that really the Lord knows the goals that we set as missionaries and he wants us to accomplish those goals. He provides the way so that we can help His children enter into His pathway and start their progression towards eternal life. Pedro and Susana will be able to start their preparation for the temple and hopefully in a year be able to be sealed for all eternity as a family. I love the gospel. I know that God´s plan is for us to be together forever and I´m so grateful for that plan.
Miracles are happening everywhere here in Bilbao. Seriously i´ve never been happier as a missionary. I know this is the Lord´s work and I know he guides it. His Spirit is real and it can be a true guide in our lives if we are worthy of it and truly listen to its promptings. Love you all. Have a great week.
Elder Reeves
That´s crazy that you met President and Hna Hinckley mom! They´re incredible people. I learned a lot from them. I really have been blessed to have the best mission presidents anyone could have. Except for the missionaries that served in Riverside with mom and dad.
So we went to teach our investigator Susana this last Saturday who has been preparing to be baptized for this weekend the 16th. We had to teach her a couple of more commandments and everything went well, accepted everything like always. Pedro, the husband, is less-active and we knew that their oldest son, John, had never been baptized. We had planned to ask them about John after we taught the commandments and if he would like to be baptized with Susana this weekend because it would be so special for them if they could get baptized together. Before we could even ask, Pedro asks us, "my son can be baptized too, right?" We said yes and asked how old he was just to make sure that he was 8 years old and then Pedro says, "he´s 9 years old"!! We had no idea that he was 9. The whole time we´ve been teaching Susana we were thinking that he was 8 and so we hadn´t been focusing too much on him during the lessons. So now Susana wants John to be baptized with her this weekend! We´re going to teach them a couple more times this week before the baptism just to make sure John has learned everything. I know it´s not really important that he gets baptized now that he´s 9 instead of 8 (he really should have been baptized when he was 8) but it just made me gain a stronger testimony that really the Lord knows the goals that we set as missionaries and he wants us to accomplish those goals. He provides the way so that we can help His children enter into His pathway and start their progression towards eternal life. Pedro and Susana will be able to start their preparation for the temple and hopefully in a year be able to be sealed for all eternity as a family. I love the gospel. I know that God´s plan is for us to be together forever and I´m so grateful for that plan.
Miracles are happening everywhere here in Bilbao. Seriously i´ve never been happier as a missionary. I know this is the Lord´s work and I know he guides it. His Spirit is real and it can be a true guide in our lives if we are worthy of it and truly listen to its promptings. Love you all. Have a great week.
Elder Reeves
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Bilbao week 6 - Giovanni makes the step
Hey family, dont have time because i wrote way too long to president.
So the miracle this week is something that actually didn´t happen in our area.... it happened back in Barrio 3 of Barcelona. Giovanni got BAPTIZED!!! I seriously was so excited when the ayudantes told be that he was preparing for baptism this last weekend. I dont know if you remember but he was the husband of the less active woman, Marianela, that Elder Keeler and I contacted in the metro back in August i think it was. He was truly a miracle and was so prepared since the very beginning. I´m not sure what Elder Cerqueira and Elder Archibald did but they helped him see that necessity to be baptized and he did it. It doesn´t matter that I wasn´t there for the baptism or that I wasn´t able to see him make that step in his life. What makes me happy is that he´s entered into the pathway of God. He is progressing in God´s plan of salvation. For me that´s the most incredible happiness that anyone can ever find. Like Alma the younger said his joy comes from seeing his brethren truly repent and come unto their Savior. I love it. And i love Giovanni.
Anyways love you all and hope you all have a great week. Thanks for your emails and prayers.
Elder Reeves
So the miracle this week is something that actually didn´t happen in our area.... it happened back in Barrio 3 of Barcelona. Giovanni got BAPTIZED!!! I seriously was so excited when the ayudantes told be that he was preparing for baptism this last weekend. I dont know if you remember but he was the husband of the less active woman, Marianela, that Elder Keeler and I contacted in the metro back in August i think it was. He was truly a miracle and was so prepared since the very beginning. I´m not sure what Elder Cerqueira and Elder Archibald did but they helped him see that necessity to be baptized and he did it. It doesn´t matter that I wasn´t there for the baptism or that I wasn´t able to see him make that step in his life. What makes me happy is that he´s entered into the pathway of God. He is progressing in God´s plan of salvation. For me that´s the most incredible happiness that anyone can ever find. Like Alma the younger said his joy comes from seeing his brethren truly repent and come unto their Savior. I love it. And i love Giovanni.
Anyways love you all and hope you all have a great week. Thanks for your emails and prayers.
Elder Reeves
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