Shorter than last week...

A little bit shorter this week than the week before today :).


Last week we had Zone Conference here in Murcia but 3 Zones of the mission were there so there were a ton of people :) I realized how old I am in the mission because I only knew like half of the missionaries there. Everyone else was super new! But it was nice getting to know a ton of new missionaries :). I didn´t get a whole ton out of the zone conference because I translated. But that was fun :). Everyone who didn´t speak spanish during the spanish talks and the Natives who didn´t understand English in the English talks wore the headset things and I sat in the back and translated into a microphone :) That was fun! :) haha. But I didn´t get a whole ton out of the conference because it was all going in my ear and out my mouth in another language :). But I will use the notes of the guys in my piso.


The AP´s also came down for exchanges with us so that was great as well! I learned a lot and the AP´s are really good friends of mine so we had a ton of fun :) It was nice for Elder Adcock to learn new things from someone besides me as well.


We had a funny experience happen to us last week. We walked into the house of some investigators and they let us in and we walked right into the beginning of a cooking class :). They wouldn´t let us leave so we took a cooking class that night and made pasta and vegetables and chicken and stuff :) haha. It was pretty fun. It was just hilarious because we had just walked in in the middle of a lesson thing and they were involving us and Elder Adcock had no idea what was happening! haha :)


Rosa and her family are going good :) They couldn´t come to church yesterday but they still are awesome and they LOVE it when we come visit them.


Yesterday at church the new Elder´s Quorum President in our ward started a project with all the Quorum. He gave us all a new copy of the Book of Mormon and we all are going to read 4 pages a day and mark EVERY time Jesus Christ is mention and keep the count written at the bottom of every page so that we can really build testimonies of the Book of Mormon and grow together as a quorum. It is really neat :) We are already really enjoying it.


They also announced yesterday at church that because of the growth in the last year in our ward, they are going to build us a Chapel here in Molina! And that it will be a STAKE CENTER! It will be the Stake of MOLINA when it gets done! And we are just a small town outside of the Capital! They are also going to open a branch in one of the little towns in my area! :) The work is going crazy here! :) We are so blessed and so excited to be part of this big growth here !:)


I love being a missionary! I hate thinking that I only have 1/4 left of my time left that is flying by SO fast!


Love you guys! :) Have an awesome week! :) Read The First Vision this week :)

Spa Day!!!!  A member wanted to try a facial product on them. 

I have a lot to talk about today :). And pictures! :) haha

I have a lot to talk about today :). And pictures! :) haha So gather ´round the computers, phones, and iPads. It´s story time!


So the first person I gotta talk about is Rosa. My first Sunday here, she came to church with a member and we got her information but we never really had time to visit her becaue we haven´t had work in the little town where she lives so we never went. On Elder Adcock´s first week here, I felt like we needed to stop by and visit her. We met her husband and here 3 little kids and they were just awesome. And we had an awesome first lesson with them. She talked about how much she believes in God because she used to be a crazy party person when she was younger but years ago her daughter had cancer in her leg and was told that she was going to die really soon and that they had to amputate the leg. Rosa prayed and prayed and said that she knew that God would save her daughter and she promised Heavenly Father that she would follow him forever and asked Him to please save here daughter. She came back the next day to the hospital and her daughter was totally fine. I was blown away by her faith. I knew that she was really special. They really wanted us to come back. So we set up a cita for the next week and went.


Last Tuesday we went to visit them again and we taught them about the Restoration. At the end of the lesson, Elder Adcock invited Rosa and her Husband to be baptized. He messed up a little bit on the Spanish so they didn´t understand so then I re-invited them but they still looked at us like they didn´t understand...so after a few too many seconds of awkward silence, I said ¨.....that was a question haha¨. She looked at me and said ¨I want to be baptized so bad.¨ And she told us a TON of things. She said that she has seen missionaries like us for a long time and something has always drawn her to us but she had never gotten the courage to talk to us. She said that she could just feel something different from us and she wanted to know what it was. For years she had that curiosity but never talked to us. Then a friend invited her to church when I got here. She came and saw us there and she could not believe that she had been invited to the Church that we were at. She still didn´t know how to talk to us but when Elder Letts and I walked up to her to talk she was super willing to give us her information. She had said at the lesson, ¨And now you guys are here and I love it all. I feel so happy, and so at peace when you guys are here and talk to us about this stuff.¨ She also said that for a long time she had people from other religions coming over but her husband never would stay and listen. He always left and didn´t want anything to do with them. But when we came he sat down with us and talked to us and read the scriptures with us and wanted to come to church. She said that just the fact that he was interested and also felt different was enough for her to know that we had something that no one else did.


She said, ¨If I had my way, I would get baptized tomorrow. But Gonzalo and I aren´t married. We have had problems with our papers here for a while and haven´t been able to get married. I know that that´s not okay in the eyes of God and that I can´t get baptized until we get married. But I´m gonna pray so that our last paper gets fixed so we can get married because I want to be baptized so bad.¨ We confirmed what she had said and said that we would be praying with them. The Spirit was just SUPER strong though. It was like the most crazy miracle lesson ever! She is SO prepared! We had another awesome lesson on Saturday but we didn´t have a ton of time so we just did a little fun lesson about faith for the kids but it was still so great and she talked more about how they had been waiting all day for us to come over and had been looking forward to it so much.


They came to church yesterday and loved it. We have another cita with them tonight :). Please pray for them so that they can get their situation fixed and get baptized! :) And think of someone YOU can invite to church. Maybe the same thing can happen! :)


Next thing, so ever since I got my trainer´s call, I have been super happy but part of me was dreading it a little. I had the attitude of ¨Well this will be fun but it kinda stinks because we have so much work right now and now I have to do it all by myself because he isn´t gonna know how to help me.¨ The last 2 weeks I have just had the attitude that I´m all by myself. And to be honest, apart from Rosa, everything was just going terribly. All the baptismal dates we had set have been all so busy that they haven´t let us in, so we couldn´t teach them and they didn´t come to church and almost all of them lost their dates. I was getting so frustrated and then write before one planning I just knelt down and said ¨Alright Heavenly Father, I can´t do this by myself anymore. I NEED you to guide me and tell me where to go. I´m not doing this how you need me to do this so I need YOU to help me out right now.¨ I asked him to put the names of the people we needed to visit in mine and Elder Adcock´s heads. When the prayer was over we wrote down all the names down on a Post-it that had come into our heads. Maria, Segundo, and Kevin were a few names. I had never met Maria because she was NEVER home so I was a little doubtful but we wrote her down at a time that we felt prompted to put. Then I called Segundo and he told me it was impossible to see him that day. We knew Kevin was going to be busy also. So I was pretty frustrated haha.


But we went to work. There was a HUGE delay in the road that made it impossible to find a place to park so we lost a TON of work time in the morning. We walked really fast to Maria´s house because we knew we were behind. We got there RIGHT as she was getting there. I was like ¨Wow, God really helped us out on that one. If we would have arrived earlier we would have left without seeing her.¨ Then we only had 30 minutes left to work, so I said ¨Hey man, if we can get 5 people´s information in 30 minutes we can go get a Kebab.¨ Then I prayed to know where to go. I felt like I was being led to weird roads but we were finding people that seemed really interested. Then I saw a guy from far away walking away from us and I felt ¨Contact him¨ so we caught up and I talked to him and guess what his name was.... Segundo. That is NOT a popular name. We got his info and we´ll be teaching him soon.


Then we had about 5 minutes left and I said one last prayer to know where to go. I remember that I literally saw the sign of a store in my head. It was far so I started walking REALLY fast. I couldn´t get the image of that store out of my head. When we got there, we were sweating and I was like, ¨Alright! Who do we need to contact!?¨ and there were only a ton of really old Spanish guys outside. I was like COME ON! haha. So I look down at my agenda to look at something and then I hear Elder Adcock yell ¨Hey Kevin!¨ and I look up and Kevin is walking toward us!


I could not believe that all that had happened. I could not believe that I could almost literally SEE the hand of the Lord that day. I learned a REALLY important lesson: I am NEVER alone in this work. It´s not my work. It is HIS. And I need to trust HIM. Not myself. He had been waiting for me to lay down my pride and put my trust in Him. And then He guided us to exactly where we needed to be. I will never put my trust in myself again without first depending on the Lord. Not a single name that we had seen in our heads had failed us that day. It is a day of the mission that I will never forget and it definitely has become a huge turning point in the mission as well.


Well, It´s been a long email. But I just wanted to share my testimony with you guys that I KNOW that this Gospel is true and has been restored in its fulness and is found in this Church. I know that Heavenly Father knows his children and loves them and is trying to get all of them home. He is always with us and he will never leave us hanging if we will only put our trust in Him.


I love you guys. Have a great week :)


Elder Marchant

Molina!

I can even park the car like a Spaniard now :)

  

Hermana Guerrero ended the mission in my Zone :)

 Me and Sinver

  Jamón! We are Spanish! haha :)

I'm so tired...

I am so tired.


However, I fear being chastised again by an angry mother so I will try to make this email exciting:).


First of all, Elder Adcock is a STUD! :) He speaks Spanish really well for how much time he has in the mission. He really studied hard in the MTC. In Spanish, if you say ¨Tengo prisa¨ it literally translates to ¨I have haste¨ wich means ¨I´m in a hurry¨. Everyone is constantly saying it when we stop them in the street. I tried telling Elder Adcock that there is a disease going around in Spain called ¨prisa¨ and if anyone ever told us that they have it, we have to run. I was so excited for someone to say it to us but he already knew what it meant :( haha. So he is really good! :).


I DID get a good joke on him though :)... So in the missionary cars, if we are ever in reverse, the missionary who is not driving has to get out and help back up. But Elder Adcock obviously wasn´t used to waiting outside of the car when we go back to it so we both got in. I waited a minute and then said ¨Hey man...if we were ever to be walking out at night or something and some guys came and attacked me to mug me, would you back me up?¨ and he said ¨Yeah man, of course I¨d back you up.¨ Then I said ¨ Good. good.....And if a ton of crazy people came and started to Bible bash us and stuff, would you back me up?¨ And he said, ¨Yes. I would back you up, man.¨ and then I paused and said ¨So......will you back me up?¨ I was referring to him getting out to back me up in the car but what I didn´t realize during the course of this joke was that a man in the car in front of us had gotten out and was looking at us really weird and staring at us from across the street and he was crazy looking, so Elder Adcock thought that I was planning on jumping out of the car to beat up this guy so he says, ¨What? like right NOW!?¨ And I said ¨Yeah man, jump out and back me up.¨ And he was thinking the whole time that we were gonna go beat that guy up :) hahaha! I laughed so hard when he finally told me what was going through his head during that joke! :) It was a funny little bonding thing though :)


I just got back from Concilio with Elder Landinez ( My Zone Leader Companion). It was so stressful haha. We are the only car without a GPS and I wasn´t going with anyone who knew how to get there. As Nephi says, ¨I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.¨ :). I seriously was super stressed out for the entire 6 hours there and 6 back haha :) We never got SUPER lost :). And we made it on time to everything haha.


But Concilio was totally worth it. We don´t have zone meeting this month so all of concilio was directed towards us as leaders. President Deere talked to us a lot about the new President that is coming; about accepting change, especially changes in leadership. He talked about the things we need to do to prepare for him to come. It was a super spiritual meeting. President Deere knows that we just love him so much and that it´s hard for us to accept that he is leaving soon. But when he testified to us about knowing that the new mission President had been called of God, you could just feel that he KNEW it and that he was so humbled to have accomplished what he has in the mission and that he knows that the new President will do even greater things. I LOVE President Deere.


Well...that´s the best I can come up with for this week because I am too exhausted to think beyond that :) haha. But everything is going great :). The mission is awesome. So awesome in fact....that I was so busy thinking about how much I love it and how tired it makes me that I forgot to bring my camera cord :). I also blame part of it on Elder Letts because he took a ton and forgot to email them to me yesterday :). There will be pictures! :) And they will be worth the wait! There ARE pictures on the mission blog of me so go there and look at the last few weeks of stuff :)


I love you guys! Have a great week! :) Study a good talk this week! :)


Elder Marchant

Elder Marchant got his second "Kid".

Alright....so I just got back from Málaga. My kid´s name is Elder Adcock. He´s from San Clemente, California. He´s 19 and he seem pretty cool so far :). I will send you a picture next week and tell you more about him as I get to know him.


Last week was my last week with Elder Letts :( So much has happened and it´s been so crazy lately that I don´t even remember anything that happened. All I know is that we are doing really good and seeing lots of success and miracles :). Saying goodbye to Elder Letts was the worst but I will see him next week at Concilio because he is going to Sevilla to be a Zone Leader still. :) He was easily one of my favorite companions. We got along amazing from day 1 and we were ALWAYS having fun with each other. I have lots of pictures to send you guys of us too :).


I only have 20 minutes to email so this is really short but I wanted to just tell you guys what is going on :).


I spent the day in Torremolinos yesterday working with an Elder while I waited to go pick up my companion. It was so fun :). I went and ate lunch with the Lugones family and visited a ton of old investigators :). I might go eat lunch with Inma and Lorenzo next week before Concilio too :).


Everything is going great and I will send a better email next week :) Love you guys!


Elder Marchant

PS...I don´t know when I will be emailing next week because I have Concilio again...I´m the worst haha :) Sorry! But I will find time and send a good email and lots of pictures :) haha

EASILY THE BEST WEEK OF MY MISSION!!!

EASILY THE BEST WEEK OF MY MISSION!!!


So this last week in the mission we had a week of Setting Baptismal Dates. I will refer to them as ¨fechas¨ because that is how you say it in spanish and it´ll take me forever to write this if I don´t write it like I say it.


So at concilio at the beginning of the month we set a goal as leaders that we would set 250 fechas in one week. Before the week started, Elder Letts and I set a companionship goal of 12 and a Zone Goal of 45. Our district (which consists of us and just one other companionship that lives with us here in Molina) set a goal of 20.


We saw SOOO many miracles!!!! Elder Letts and I went CRAZY! We invited literally EVERYONE to be baptized this last week. We found 9 new investigators. They are all AWESOME! And we ended the week with....19 fechas :). We set more than any other companionship in the mission. I hope not to come off as bragging. I just want to tell you guys how extremely blessed we were. We DEFINITELY do not deserve the blessings that the Lord is giving us right now and to have seen the miracles that we did last week. As a district we set 32 out of our goal of 20 :) So by the end, we set over 1 tenth of the mission´s fechas just in our 2 companionships in Molina. As a zone we got 55 out of 45 and as a mission we set 272 as a mission. We are being so blessed in this mission. The Lord wants the work to grow SO BAD here in Spain! He is just waiting for us to forget about ourselves and serve him with all our hearts, minds, might, and strength. We are hoping to have MANY baptisms very soon :). We are SO grateful and really very humbled. We learned how to get down on our knees and ask for blessings and then get up on our feet and work hard and do what He asks us to do.


In other BIG news....Yesterday we had interviews with President Deere. I talked with him about a few things and then he said ¨Elder Marchant, this next transfer you´re going to be training a new missionary.¨ I FREAKED OUT!!!! He had told me that I would train again because I only did half of Elder Cowley´s training but when I became a Zone Leader I ruled that out because that never happens. But I will stay being a Zone Leader and train a new missionary at the same time!!! The other Zone Leader is gonna live with me here in Molina but we won´t go out and work together! :) I am so excited!! Because I am a WAY better missionary now than I was when I trained Elder Cowley!


One of the reasons I will be training is because we found out that the international drivers license is only valid for the first 6 months of Residency in Spain. So President needs to put a new missionary with me to drive legally. I was just getting the hang of driving in Europe!! haha :) But I am SUPER excited! I´ll be going to Málaga on Monday for trainer´s training and come back Wednesday probably :).


I´m kinda scared because we have SO much work right now and I will be basically completely in charge of it by myself because I will be with a brand new missionary. But training brings so many miracles so we are bound to still move forward like crazy! :)


I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!! I am so happy all the time!! :) The Promise from the first Presidency in Preach My Gospel is so true. That we will experience more happiness and joy preaching the Gospel to the Lord´s children than we have ever before felt :) It is so true!! :) I love you guys and I will be praying for you and let you know what´s going on next week! :) Love you guys! Have an amazing week! :)


Elder Marchant

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!

I´m not feeling much like a big email today :). Just been working on a lot of personal ones. Tell everyone that:


¨I´m doing great! I will have big news next week because we have some BIG goals and a LOT of work to get done! We are having a week of setting baptismal dates. We have set HUGE goals in the mission, zone, district, and companionship. So I will let everyone know all about it next week! Just don´t have a ton of time to write a big email today. We spent 7 hours in the mechanics getting the car fixed today haha :). Expect an email on TUESDAY because we have interviews with President on Monday. Love you all!¨

 We had a wedding this week in the ward of a couple who has been waiting a year to get baptized! :) It was awesome! They were baptized also yesterday :) They are so cool! :)

 Our Molina Homies! :)

Davis (member), Edison, Randy (member) and Kevin (Edison´s brother who we are also teaching. He has a baptismal date!) on the bottom.

 Adrian and Edison with our chapas :) Adrian is a member. Edison is a kid we are teaching. They came to the wedding and we had tons of fun with all of them :)

We have been SO exhausted lately!

Well not a whole ton has happened in the few days since my last email.


We have been SO exhausted lately! We don´t know if it is because of the travelling and concilio and meetings. We also had a few exchanges with the APs and with a couple companionships in our zone. So we have been SUPER TIRED all week long. It´s kinda nice to lay in bed at night exhausted though :).


So we spent some time planning Zone Meeting. Which was really good! :) I really enjoyed it. Then on Friday, after Zone Meeting, I went to Lorca to do exchanged with the District Leader there. I have never walked so much in one afternoon! haha. Every single plan failed and that missionary didn´t really know how to plan according to specific sectors so we spent the entire day just walking the same huge street up and down and up and down all day long!! haha. And I had come straight from Zone Meeting so I was wearing my suit shoes that I never wear. So I was hurting. Haha :). But He is a good Elder and I got to get to know him well. There is also another companionship in that piso and one of those Elders is going home this transfer and he is training. So I got to know an awesome Elder that I had never met and is leaving, so that was nice :). And his kid who is knew and who I had only talked to on the phone. That was also nice :).


It´s hard having a zone that is so spread out because there are several missionaries that I only get to see when we have big meetings.


Today we went and played Padel. It´s SUPER fun! It´s like tennis and racquetball put together. So It´s like tennis but you can play off the walls. I´m terrible but it is super fun :).


Well...I really can´t think of much else that is going on. Oh! I gave a talk on church about the importance of gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. That was good :). I like our ward too. Our Gospel Principles teacher always talks about deep doctrine and it makes me super scared to bring investigators to class but we are gonna talk to him about it. And he was sick this week so the missionaries taught the class anyways :).


Well....que tengáis una buena semana! Have a great week! We are gonna keep on tearing it up here! :) Hope to have my license this week! :) So we will see what happens ! .)


Love you.


Elder Marchant