Monday, July 28, 2014

Lugo Adventures


Hey Family!

We had a pretty good week this week. Just working really hard with Junior to get him baptised this Saturday!

He has been doing really well. We were able to meet every day this week except Saturday because we were in Sarria right outside of Lugo. He has already dropped coffee and tea which is good. He should have his interview on Friday. Hopefully all goes well. We are really excited for him. 

We were only able to meet with Margarita once this week because she went down to Alicante to visit her son. We are keeping a daily contact with her so we don't lose her. Hopefully she makes it back before Friday for her interview but shes not entirely sure yet when she will get back. 
 

Other than that we had a pretty good week. We were able to visit Isidro in the hospital again. He is doing pretty well. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read. He's excited to find out. 

We met a really nice lady named Monica this week. She was walking in the street with groceries so we offered service and she declined. But we talked with her on the way to her house and were able to teach her there in the door of the building. Cool new investigator we have now, and at the end she let us carry her bags up. 

We have been doing really well on area book work lately. Yesterday we met with a lady named Erika, a dominican lady. She was taught by the missionaries about a year ago and was more than happy to meet again.
 

We have a super cool youth right now who is preparing for a mission. We go over to his house every Monday for FHE (Family Home Evening)  because his step dad is a recent convert, super nice family. Anyways he has been really willing to help us out lately because he wants to learn how the missionary life works. It's a nice blessing we have. 

We weren't able to learn how to make the kebab sauce. The guy who was going to teach us, the day we went, his boss was there so we couldnt do it. But we still ate kebab and it was still delightful.

Hope everyone has a great week. We hope this week turns out well. We should be able to end this transfer with these two baptisms.

Love you all!

-Elder Stevenson







 
 
 

Monday, July 21, 2014

ONE YEAR!


Hello Family!


We had a really good week this week. Not as busy but still super amazing.

First off we had some great miracles yesterday. Margarita has been really sick lately and so we go over with our Branch President to give her a blessing and she just was not doing well. We gave her the blessing and then she just laid down on the couch as we read scriptures, and general conference and sang to her. About 15 minutes later she felt so much better. The fever had gone down and the shaking from all the pain stopped too. We were then able to talk to her because she had her strength back. We talked about a branch activity that we are having on the 2nd of August and we talked about having the baptism that day also and she said yes!! We tried to have it in the river where we are going to have the activity but since we have a font (well blue tarp thing) we cant. But the ward party will be a nice activity after it.

Castle in El Ferrol
 

Also on Saturday, we were calling everyone trying to set up appointments. We call a man named Junior who had met with the missionaries before. He didn't know a time to meet but we invited him to church and he came! And during Sunday School, he tells us he wants to be baptized! He wants it next week but we still have to teach him everything so we talked about it and set the date for the 9th of August. We are really excited for these two baptisms!
 

On Wednesday, we had a zone training in Santiago which was nice but rough on our day because Santiago is super far and the bus leaves super late! But we had a 2 hour long conversation with an Irish lady on the bus ride back. In the training we talked a lot about not putting limits on our abilities. And how we can better our teaching so that the investigators understand and feel the spirit more. So we quickly put it into practice. Thursday we met with our new Brazilian investigator Joana and taught the restoration. We made sure to ask VERY specific questions to her and to leave a lot of space after the first vision. We probably sat there for about 30 seconds but she just sat there pondering and then looks up amazed! It was such a great lesson.


Super good week! Full of powerful visits. So this upcoming week is pretty big. I'M GOING TO HIT A YEAR! It's super weird to think about but to look back I have loved every minute of it. I have grown sooo much in testimony, maturity, a ton of different things. I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to be here right now. Each day is a huge blessing. Thanks for all the support! So excited for this up coming year! It will be full of even more miracles. 

Have a great week! I love you all!

-Elder Stevenson




 

Monday, July 14, 2014

Lugo Cathedral and Stadium


Hey Family!

We had a really good week this week! Things have picked up really well! 

Members are doing really well on helping us. I had more member present lessons this week in a branch of 20 than I did in a ward of 120. So that's pretty cool.
 

On Tuesday, we went to a city on the outside of Lugo to visit a less active and he's super cool only he can't come because of work. But he's strong on testimony. We are going to visit him this Saturday and he has a friend who owns a doner kabab restaurant so he is going to teach us how to make the sauce. I'm pretty excited. I could then open my own kebab in Utah:P Then we met with our super cool investigator, Margarita. She is most likely getting baptized in 2 weeks so we are working hard towards that goal. She is super cool! She loves to share the gospel with her friends! She got us 4 references this week and 4 new investigators. One of them being a super solid family from Colombia. Can't wait until she is a member. We also met with Oti and her member friend this week. We talked about baptism and the holy ghost and it was a really good lesson. She's just not sure if she wants to settle on just one church so we re-enforced the Book of Mormon and the importance of it. 
 

On Thursday, our branch president went out with us and it was a super good day. One of the lessons was with Margarita. Then after that we went and passed by some of the female investigators we have so that way if they answered we could go in the house. We had a lot of success with that.
 

Friday, we went and did the same thing. We went to the hospital to visit one of Margarita's friends who got his foot cut off because of diabetes. So we went to comfort him and pray with him. It was a really good experience. Then we met with Margarita's other friend, the family, and we had a super great lesson with them. They have gone around to all the other churches and didn't feel it. So they are giving us a chance and so we are excited! They were going to come to church but then Sunday morning the mom woke up with an allergic reaction so they couldn't come.
 

Saturday, we were finally able to meet with a reference that we got from mormon.org. She had one of our cards and decided she wanted to meet with us and she is super cool! From Brazil and has a super heavy accent so it's pretty cool and she goes to an evangelist church but just for tradition. She said she just goes for something spiritual but she doesn't feel like it's the one church. She's excited to meet with us, and we're excited too.

This week just played out super well. Tons of help from members and from Margarita. We're super thankful for it. It was a week full of miracle new investigators. 

Hope everyone had a good week. Congrats to Sean and Chad for the big win yesterday. After Spain got kicked out, I was going for Germany. 

Take care. LOVE YOU ALL!

-Elder Stevenson

Monday, July 7, 2014

The River and Santiago de Compostela


Hey Family!

We're having a super good time here in Lugo. Things are going pretty well. It's a super tiny branch but they are doing somthing about it!

We had a super cool day on Tuesday. Had a lesson planned with a less active and so we're waiting for him at the church. Then this man comes walking in and I think it's the less active but wasn't quite sure so I start talking to him and stuff. Then he ask me if Tino was there (the less active) and I was just like, "uhhh no not yet" We waited a little longer and then had the lesson. His name is Juan and he is a friend that Tino invited to meet with us! He's super cool! We have only had one lesson with him so far but he accepted the invitation to be baptized. We are going to meet with him tomorrow and will try and set a date.
 

Also Margarita is doing super well! We had a lesson with her on Thursday and while we were having the lesson a man from the evangelist church comes up and starts shooting off all this anti mormon stuff. But it was all stuff where they don't understand what we believe and so we are going to meet with him on Thursday. While he was talking, she said she didn't feel the spirit at all and so shes glad she found the true church where we have the spirit. She also planned a super cool ward activity. Even though we don't have many members it still turned out really well. And she said her son is coming up in like 2 weeks so she's going to get baptized soon!! We're super excited. 

We have another super cool investigator whose name is Oti. She is a friend of a member. We had a lesson with her Thursday night. The next day she was talking to the member and talked to her about the spirit that she feels when she meets with us. So thats super cool.We have another lesson with her tomorrow.
 

It was a really wierd 4th of July this year. No fireworks, no family bbqs but we did make some good hamburgers. That was so nice. Hope you all enjoyed it.
 

We had some cool p days. Last week we went down to this river in our area and checked that out. It was pretty cool. Then today we went to Santiago de Compestela and checked out the Cathedral there. It was nice seeing the famous building. Super Catholic city though. There are churches every 5 feet!

Hope everyone has a good week! Love you all!
-Elder Stevenson