¡lluvia todo dia cada dia!

Mostoles Beauty!

Hola Familia! 

This week was very powerful, cold, and wet!!!

the cold day!

It was about 50 degrees and raining like every day this week! I had to have a coat, scarf, and umbrella. This just doesnt happen in California!

So this week. Monday right after p day, we taught a lady named Lupe. She is Spanish, 45, and has lived here for a while. She believes all religions to be true but was baptized Catholic. She has had a Book of Mormon since 1980 though! She showed it to us and it's super old looking! We taught her the restoration and she liked it. We met with her again yesterday and  that's how I know Mostoles is good because we finally had lession number two!!!! I havent taught it until yesterday! She invited her friend Jorge too and so we were able to get a new investigator from that. We invited two members to our lession and it was the wrong members that we thought and it was actually a less active who likes to bible bash. We had already taught the entire lession when they showed up and so while Elder Gillam was talking to Jorge the two ladies started freaking out and so I had to do something to fix it. I stopped them and just bore my testimony and just promised Lupe the blessings of reading and praying. It was one of the most spiritual things I have ever felt in my life. And I know she felt it too. She doesn't want to change but I asked her if God tells her these things are true if she would be baptized? And she said yes. So we kind of have a date. We meet with her Wednesday. Elder Gillam hadn't heard anything I said but when we were walking he asked what happened. Because he said he was just hit with the spirit. It's things like this that just solidify my testimony and make me want to share it at all times. 

All of the Rain!

Wednesday, we taught a man named Juan Carlos. he is 34, Spanish, and is Christian. He was the very first person we had talked to in Mostoles. He was on his bike and started yelling ´´testigos!!´´ (jehovas witness) and so I had to clarify. We talked a bit and he invited us over. Turns out he lives with an inactive member whose active parents just so happened to randomly stop by when they haven't done that in 2 months. Super awesome lession. The spirit was super powerful there too and he wants to change super bad. He feels the truth with us. We meet with him again Wednesday.

 

Elder Malan and his trainee

 

Thursday, I went on companion exchanges with Elder Smith. It was a day just for finding and we found. 9 new references!

Don't fall asleep on the train.    = D

We taught one on Saturday. Juan. Professor of Physics at a university here. 30 and once again Spanish! He lived in Maryland for years doing research so he speaks fluent English and prefered that. we taught the restoration relating it to science in a way. He loved it and has tons of super powerful questions. We are meeting again Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday because that's when he's open and he just wants to hear from us.

Other than that we taught English classes, family home evenings, and we did some door knocking and have had quite some success! It's easier to talk to people indoors right now!

Well that was my week. Super powerful like I said and a great start up to our new area. I thought I would share some things I learned this week too. We also had stake conference because we switched stakes. One man spoke and he talked about a digital diet just like we would a regular diet and also not to pull others down. Just becoming better people. This morning I was reading in Jacob 5 talking about the olive tree and it really relates well to missionary work. I challange you to study it this week. Learn from digging deep into it. also there is a thing I found in my study journal that I wrote in the mtc that's  good guidance. 

"The Spirit is not an intruder. He is our guest. What do we do for guests? We prepare. Clean the house, prepare ourselves, make everything as perfect as possible. when we invite, he will come in."

Have a great week everyone. Thanks for the birthday wishes! Dad hope all goes well with your foot and I was actually going to play basketball today but felt like we shouldn´t but when I play I will be safe. Happy Halloween!

Love,

Elder Stevenson

 

PS  The other elders in our old ward go to Maja once a week. Love you Mom, glad to be your baby.

 



Good thing I can cook. We have been making beautiful food creations lately- Thanks for teaching me to cook!



 

Surprise!

Hola familia!

So the reason this is called surprise is: On Wednesday night we got a call from the APs that they were closing Majadahonda. We were sad but we now know why the Lord didn't want us to have a piso! We are now Móstoles elders. It's where we have been living the whole time and now we work there. It's so nice having 3 more hours in my day! But we did have to start at zero again which
kind of sucks but its all good.

 

The  last days in Maja this week. We ended our p-day early so that we could teach this guy named PePe, he is a very nice man but after he very nicely rejected another visit. Then we met with one of our less active members who has been struggling lately. I hope we were able to help her out a little bit. On Tuesday, we taught an English class and then stopped by a couple people but they didn't have time for a full visit. Wednesday, we went to some of the old investigators who didn't have a phone and we were able to find a lady. She invited us back the next day and then we got the phone call. = (  went and ended our English class and said bye to as many members as possible.

Then Thursday, in Mostoles. we did tons of contacting because we had no one. We were able to teach a man named Ceasar, the lesson went really well but he didn't give us his number so we have to rely on if he is at the library at 8, most of the time he is not. Friday we just contacted more and worked with the ward missionaries. There are tons of ward missionaries in this ward. I love it! Saturday we had a memorial service for a lady's son, who had died a while ago but every year they do a remembrance. She invited tons of friends and then introduced us to them. It was a great time for the plan of salvation. We have lessons with these people next week. Then Sunday, we had dinner at a house that has more people in there house than Majadahonda has members!! Sooooo many people. Later, we were able to help out a lady who is 86 and can't move much. It was some great service.

 

Today, we went to Parque Europa- Super Cool Park!

 

That meat the man is carving is an entire pigs leg. I did get all of the postcards, thank you. Our zone conference is on the 1st so I will get my birthday package then. And to Kent and Diana... FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS A TI!!!! well I should go soon.

Love you all!

-Elder Stevenson

 

"Parque Europa is located in the suburb Torrejón de Ardoz, 25km from the center of Madrid. There are 17 miniature monuments of famous European sites and a piece of the Berlin wall throughout the park.  Each landmark has a sign with information about the monument and the country in which it's located. There are also food venders and water park attractions. The Parque opened in September of 2010."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That transfer flew by!

¡Hola familia!

That transfer flew by! I'm super afraid if the whole time is like this!

This has been a great week though!

On Monday and Tuesday, I went on exchanges with Elder Nunez, a zone leader from Texas, super great elder! We went and taught some lessons and then we went to this park and met a 17 year old Dominican named Emilio. He is a super great kid! Kind of was nice to get a little taste of Matt's mission. We taught him the restoration and they are going to meet with him again and his family. Later this week we met like 5 more Dominicans! 

Wednesday, we taught a man named Saul he reciently lost his job and then found us. We taught him and we were supposed to meet Thursday but we haven't been able to get a hold of him!! I'm super sad because he is a great man that the Lord has preparred for us. The spirit was sooo strong in the lesson. I just hope we can find him. 

Thursday, I went on intercambios again with Elder Cloward, also a ZL, so yeah! we wanted to work super hard in the street because all of our lessons canceled. We did we taught 4 lessons in a row in a span of 20 feet on benches! And also recieved 7 references including a lady who was a media referral, who other missionaries did not get a Book of Mormon to! So I did. We are going to start teaching her next week. Her name's Letizia she's from Romania.

Elder Davis, Ha! He knows the Sawyers!

 

 

Our investigator with a baptism date has been working a lot lately because her boss is in the hospital. Yesterday in the street we saw an investigator that we had dropped because he asked us to but we saw him and decided to see how he was doing and found out he is the nephew of Doris!! And she was right there with him!! I was so happy! We are going to start teaching her outside of her work during medio dia! It was a miracle we found her because her phone hadn't been working and she has been at work a ton!

When you work hard the Lord blesses you. That was verrrry big this week. Our usual references are 10 each week but we talk to everyone we can and get to be their friend and they listen. We got 26 this week.

This part is for Sean, Chad, and Dad. There is a lady in our ward who speaks German and  I was able to talk to her a bit.  I also talked to these Germans in the metro! New known fact. I suck at German. Mom, I have met Elder Nielson. Didn't know his dad grew up with Dad.

That has been my week. Oh and we are still in Majadahonda but we lost like half of our district. Crazy tranfer week. They opened up Segovia!

Have a great week!!

Love

Elder Stevenson

 

                                                     Photos of Segovia!

The Temple and General Conference

Hello! Feels wierd saying that!

This week went very well!

On Tuesday, we went over to a lady's house who was a reference from Las Rozas and we taught her the restoration. And she said she just felt right and so I commited her to baptism and she said yes! The spirit was super powerful and everyday my grows testimony more and more. I love it! We set it for the 26th of this month! But in order for it to happened that day she needed to come to conference but she had to work! We will work with her on that. It's just super tough with Spain's economy. Hopefully she can come to Stake Conference next week. 

With this week and next I will have been to the temple grounds 6 times! Tons of travel! But it's a great place to be!

 

 

We also taught a member's husband, who is not a member. He knows everything is true except prophets. So we invited him to conference! Come hear one and see what you think! But he did not show up so we are going to try and watch it with him at his house this week. 

We tried to meet with Adriana some more but everytime we have gone she has not been there. It's tough because she has no phone! So we just have to go by everyday and check up.

We got some good contacts this week. With one, I went up and started saying all of this stuff in Spanish and then she just looked at me and was like, "I speak English, sorry." And I was just like, "Oh, I speak that too!! Way better than Spanish in fact!" We talked a little about families and she agreed to meet this week. We also found a lady who had talked to missionaries in Peru but then moved to Majadahonda and there weren't missionaries. But we found her!

That was pretty much all the work because we were gone 3 days. But other great things happened.

 Conference was absolutely amazing! So many great talks. We watched Saturday morning live then went home and then Sunday at 11  we saw priesthood session, at 2 the Saturday afternoon session,  then the Sunday morning session live and didn't get to see Sunday afternoon. So give me those highlights! Some of my favorites were President Uchdorf's on doubt your doubts http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/come-join-with-us?lang=eng, Elder Holland's because it gave me peace about having dyslexia problems because I grew from that http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/like-a-broken-vessel?lang=eng, Elder Ballard's was great for missionaries http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/put-your-trust-in-the-lord?lang=eng . I thought a lot this morning on how I''m going to apply all I learned as a missionary. I know this was said 1000 times but member references! Please do for the California missionaries what I pray for myself everyday! We can contact for hours get one person who in all reality has a sincere interest in learning about the gospel but member references more than always are sucessful because of the love that member has for them and how much they want their friend to be happy through that. It was just a super great conference. Cool getting a mini shout out from Ballard. Also Elder Dyches http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/wilt-thou-be-made-whole?lang=eng and Elder Maynes http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/the-strength-to-endure?lang=eng were here with Elder Ballard so tons of people I have met spoke!

Also, I need Sister Parker to send me a short Email on how to do family history for a guy we met. Thanks!

Well have a great week. I love you all! 

Love

Elder Stevenson

P.S. Got the package when we went to the temple. Thank you so much!! Tons of good stuff.