HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!! How many is that now? Is the grey hair coming in? Thank mom and dad for reminding me that it´s your birthday... haha i´m sorry for everyone else if i´ve forgotten your birthdays. I think the only ones i remember are mom and dads, the twins and eric´s. It´s pretty pathetic.
Thanks for seding the email mom from Sister Clayton. It was really fun to talk to him. He told me that he had family in the Mueller Park area but I dont think he mentioned any names. The world is REALLY small in the church. That´s sweet that you got to go listen to Keller´s homecoming! You´ll have to give him a hug for me.
Anyways. Good news! Yessica, Yexenia and Yara all got baptized and confirmed!!! It was such an incredible moment to see 3 sisters enter into the path of God. It all came from a simple contact that Elder Prieto made as we walked in the door of a building to go visit a recent convert. Another man had walked into the building right before us and walked into the house of Yessica, Yexenia and Yara. As we walked in, we saw Yexenia with the door open and instead of going up the stairs to go visit the recent convert, Elder Prieto turned and walked straight up to Yexenia. We started talking to her and then Yessica came to the door and we met her. We set up a visit with both of them for the next day and gave them the restoration pamphlet. The next day i was on an intercambio in Burgos and Elder Prieto went to visit them with Elder Watkins. The sisters had read the whole pamphlet and loved it. They taught the restoration and set a fecha with the 3 of them. We kept visiting them, they kept reading in the Book of Mormon, praying and coming to church and really progressed super well. Our only worry was the word of wisdom because Yexenia loved coffee. We taught it and she didn´t understand why she had to give it up and she told us, "I dont think i can stop. I NEED to drink it" She said it without realizing that she really was addicted to it. We talked to her about how Heavenly Father wants us to be free from those addictions and she said, "wow, now i understand why i need to stop". So she stopped drinking that day. They started living all of the commandments and really felt and saw changes in their own lives. Their baptism was incredible. Yexenia asked me to baptize her and Elder Prieto baptized Yessica and Yara. It was a perfect day.
We´re trying to meet with their mom, Sol, so that she can start learning about the restored gospel but its hard because she´s still working a ton. She wasn´t even able to come to their baptism which was sad. But I know she´ll be able to be baptized one day and they will all be able to become an eternal family. An eternal BOLIVIAN family, dad. it´s too bad that they´re from Santa Cruz and not too big fans of Cochabamba. I´ll have to send you pictures another time because it´s not working here where i´m doing internet. Sorry
Life is good family. Remember that the greatest happiness comes from growing closer to our Savior and our Heavenly Father and making our will their´s. Love you all
Elder Reeves
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
Bilbao week 4 - Marriages left and right??
Val and Evan, just adding onto my list of people getting married and engaged while I´ve been gone! But seriously i´m super excited for both of you. Welcome to the fam Evan!! It´s good to know that i´ve got awesome in-laws. That includes you too, Tim. Hopefully i´ll be able to be at your wedding at least Valerie?? Haha if not it´s all good. I´ve been to quite a few in our family
Things are going well here in país vasco. We actually have some sun today! Probably the second time i´ve seen sun in the last week. Yesica and Yesenia came to church yesterday and are progressing well. We´re praying for them so that everything turns out good and that the baptisms go through. I wanna share the miracle of when we set a fecha with Susana. Susana is from Ecuador and is the wife of a less active named Pedro. He was baptized about 6 years ago i think and hasn´t been to active for the last couple of years. But he has a strong testimony of the gospel. We went to visit them on Saturday and we taught them the restoration. It wasn´t the most spiritual lesson because they have 3 little kids that were running around the whole time and going crazy. But as Susana listened you could tell that the Spirit was touching her heart. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes without hesitation. We set up her conversion plan and set the date for the 16th of february. At the end of the lesson we invited her to say the closing prayer. As she prayed, she thanked Heavenly Father for the chance that He is giving her to prepare for baptism and just started crying. She cried in silence for about a minute. We all stayed there kneeling as the Spirit testified to all in the room. It was so incredible. We invited both of them to church and she said she was coming for sure but Pedro wasn´t too sure. Yesterday, both of them showed up to church with the help of another member. They´re doing great. Tons of miracles are happening here in Bilbao. I love it. I love the people.
Well family im out again. Love you all. Try to not have any more weddings while im gone haha
Agur,
Elder Reeves
Things are going well here in país vasco. We actually have some sun today! Probably the second time i´ve seen sun in the last week. Yesica and Yesenia came to church yesterday and are progressing well. We´re praying for them so that everything turns out good and that the baptisms go through. I wanna share the miracle of when we set a fecha with Susana. Susana is from Ecuador and is the wife of a less active named Pedro. He was baptized about 6 years ago i think and hasn´t been to active for the last couple of years. But he has a strong testimony of the gospel. We went to visit them on Saturday and we taught them the restoration. It wasn´t the most spiritual lesson because they have 3 little kids that were running around the whole time and going crazy. But as Susana listened you could tell that the Spirit was touching her heart. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes without hesitation. We set up her conversion plan and set the date for the 16th of february. At the end of the lesson we invited her to say the closing prayer. As she prayed, she thanked Heavenly Father for the chance that He is giving her to prepare for baptism and just started crying. She cried in silence for about a minute. We all stayed there kneeling as the Spirit testified to all in the room. It was so incredible. We invited both of them to church and she said she was coming for sure but Pedro wasn´t too sure. Yesterday, both of them showed up to church with the help of another member. They´re doing great. Tons of miracles are happening here in Bilbao. I love it. I love the people.
Well family im out again. Love you all. Try to not have any more weddings while im gone haha
Agur,
Elder Reeves
Monday, January 14, 2013
Bilbao week 3 - Singin in the rain with the 3 Y´s
Dearest fam,
Holy SNOW!! wow i cant even remember what that much snow is like. I´m just glad i´m not the one in the picture of dad snow blowing it all. Haha sorry dad that must have been miserable. but i guess you´ve done it enough times to know what it´s like.
By the way mom and dad, not sure if you know but my personal visa card just expired. I dont know what you have to do with the account or anything but just so you know it´s expired. I dont think you have to worry about sending me another card, i took out some money from the account before it expired and it should last me.
Well here in Bilbao we haven´t been seeing any snow but..... it RAINS like crazy here. Seriously it rains at least once a day. I had no idea it was this crazy. I´ve gone my whole mission without an umbrella and then getting here i need it every day. Luckily there was a saint hermana from our ward that gave Elder Prieto and I these small umbrellas that fit in our breif cases so we´re able to pull them out whenever it´s necessary. I guess that´s what you get when you live somewhere so green and beautiful. I think i finally understand what it must be like for Elder Marsden there in the rainy state of Washington. It´s great fun. it´s even raining right now as i type.
The miracle that we saw this last week happened yesterday. Yesica, Yesenia, and Yara all came to church!! We had planned to call them yesterday morning to remind them and then to go pick them up at their piso at 9:30. We called them and woke them up and everything was going perfect. Then as we walked out our piso to go pick them up, Yesica called us and said that their mom and just called them and told them that she wanted them to go somewhere with her for her work. We talked a little bit more about how important it is for them to keep God´s commandments and keep preparing themselves for their baptism. Their was a little bit of silence and then we asked if they could call their mom and explain to her the importance of them coming to church and Yesica said yes. We told her that we were still coming to pick them up and that we would be there in about 20 minutes. The whole way there I was just praying that everything would turn out alright and that the mom would be fine with them coming to church. When we rang their timbre of their house, Yesenia opened up the door and all 3 of them were ready to go! They all came and loved church. It was a huge miracle. They´re progressing so well for their baptism and their mom is fine with them getting baptized. We´ve only been able to talk to her once but she loves us. She told us that we could come over whenever we want and teach her daughters. The only problem is that she works so much that we never see her. We´re hoping that in the future we get the chance to teach her and help her be baptized as well.
Life is good family. Being a servant of Jesus Christ is the best. I love the ward. I love Bilbao. I love my comp. Love you all
Elder Reeves
Holy SNOW!! wow i cant even remember what that much snow is like. I´m just glad i´m not the one in the picture of dad snow blowing it all. Haha sorry dad that must have been miserable. but i guess you´ve done it enough times to know what it´s like.
By the way mom and dad, not sure if you know but my personal visa card just expired. I dont know what you have to do with the account or anything but just so you know it´s expired. I dont think you have to worry about sending me another card, i took out some money from the account before it expired and it should last me.
Well here in Bilbao we haven´t been seeing any snow but..... it RAINS like crazy here. Seriously it rains at least once a day. I had no idea it was this crazy. I´ve gone my whole mission without an umbrella and then getting here i need it every day. Luckily there was a saint hermana from our ward that gave Elder Prieto and I these small umbrellas that fit in our breif cases so we´re able to pull them out whenever it´s necessary. I guess that´s what you get when you live somewhere so green and beautiful. I think i finally understand what it must be like for Elder Marsden there in the rainy state of Washington. It´s great fun. it´s even raining right now as i type.
The miracle that we saw this last week happened yesterday. Yesica, Yesenia, and Yara all came to church!! We had planned to call them yesterday morning to remind them and then to go pick them up at their piso at 9:30. We called them and woke them up and everything was going perfect. Then as we walked out our piso to go pick them up, Yesica called us and said that their mom and just called them and told them that she wanted them to go somewhere with her for her work. We talked a little bit more about how important it is for them to keep God´s commandments and keep preparing themselves for their baptism. Their was a little bit of silence and then we asked if they could call their mom and explain to her the importance of them coming to church and Yesica said yes. We told her that we were still coming to pick them up and that we would be there in about 20 minutes. The whole way there I was just praying that everything would turn out alright and that the mom would be fine with them coming to church. When we rang their timbre of their house, Yesenia opened up the door and all 3 of them were ready to go! They all came and loved church. It was a huge miracle. They´re progressing so well for their baptism and their mom is fine with them getting baptized. We´ve only been able to talk to her once but she loves us. She told us that we could come over whenever we want and teach her daughters. The only problem is that she works so much that we never see her. We´re hoping that in the future we get the chance to teach her and help her be baptized as well.
Life is good family. Being a servant of Jesus Christ is the best. I love the ward. I love Bilbao. I love my comp. Love you all
Elder Reeves
Monday, January 7, 2013
Bilbao week 2 - Refined 2013 goal
Dear family,
So the day after sending my last email, President Pace sent us out an email to all the Zone Leaders and told us that he had a pretty sleepless night. He was praying a lot about the new goal of 1000 that we had just set. In the end he received the revelation that the Lord was pleased with the goal we had set but that we needed to focus more on a weekly basis than a yearly basis. So... the new goal for 2013 is 20 BAPTISMS per WEEK as a mission. As we baptize 20 a week, we will finish the year with 1000 baptisms. We still have the vision but we´re going to focus on hitting weekly goals and adding up to our vision of 1000. We had our zone training this last wednesday and everyone´s super excited about the new goal.
Well I´m falling more and more in love with Bilbao. We´re seeing a ton of miracles. This last week we walked into a building to go visit a recent convert and as we walked through the main door, there was another man that was walking into his piso. Elder Prieto said he had always wanted to knock that same door so we went up and starting talking to the girl that had opened the door for the man. Within a minute her sister came to the door. We presented ourselves really quickly and then set up a visit for the following day. The next day while I was on an intercambio in Burgos, Elder Prieto and Elder Watkins went and taught this Bolivian family (yes dad, they´re from Bolivia). The father works outside of Bilbao and only comes back every 2 months or so and the mom wasn´t able to be there for the visit. By the end of the visit, Yesica (19), Yesenia (18), and Yara (12) all had fechas for the 26th of this month. Yesenia and Yara came to church yesterday but Yesica wasn´t able to. We taught them yesterday after church and they´re progressing SUPER well. Yesenia asked us what she needs to do to become a missionary! Man, they were such a huge miracle. Tonight we´re going with them to a family home evening in the house of another member. Miracles!!
Alright, dont have much time to write but I´m doing great. Today for preparation day we went and saw some beautiful mountains here in the north. It´s crazy beautiful here. Love it.
Agur, Elder Reeves
So the day after sending my last email, President Pace sent us out an email to all the Zone Leaders and told us that he had a pretty sleepless night. He was praying a lot about the new goal of 1000 that we had just set. In the end he received the revelation that the Lord was pleased with the goal we had set but that we needed to focus more on a weekly basis than a yearly basis. So... the new goal for 2013 is 20 BAPTISMS per WEEK as a mission. As we baptize 20 a week, we will finish the year with 1000 baptisms. We still have the vision but we´re going to focus on hitting weekly goals and adding up to our vision of 1000. We had our zone training this last wednesday and everyone´s super excited about the new goal.
Well I´m falling more and more in love with Bilbao. We´re seeing a ton of miracles. This last week we walked into a building to go visit a recent convert and as we walked through the main door, there was another man that was walking into his piso. Elder Prieto said he had always wanted to knock that same door so we went up and starting talking to the girl that had opened the door for the man. Within a minute her sister came to the door. We presented ourselves really quickly and then set up a visit for the following day. The next day while I was on an intercambio in Burgos, Elder Prieto and Elder Watkins went and taught this Bolivian family (yes dad, they´re from Bolivia). The father works outside of Bilbao and only comes back every 2 months or so and the mom wasn´t able to be there for the visit. By the end of the visit, Yesica (19), Yesenia (18), and Yara (12) all had fechas for the 26th of this month. Yesenia and Yara came to church yesterday but Yesica wasn´t able to. We taught them yesterday after church and they´re progressing SUPER well. Yesenia asked us what she needs to do to become a missionary! Man, they were such a huge miracle. Tonight we´re going with them to a family home evening in the house of another member. Miracles!!
Alright, dont have much time to write but I´m doing great. Today for preparation day we went and saw some beautiful mountains here in the north. It´s crazy beautiful here. Love it.
Agur, Elder Reeves
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