Week 10 -- December 9, 2019

Martians and Chicken Feet

Hola everyone!!!

It was another great week here in España!!! The weather wasn't awful a few days, which was super awesome!!! We even got to play soccer with some of the kids in the neighborhood. Something that I learned was, you don't have to actually be good at soccer, you just have to be willing to push the other person harder than they push you

I mean I'm no expert on Fútbol, but the rules must be different here than in the states!!!

On Saturday our Zone decided we wanted to go crazy with contacting and finding as many people as we could!! We set a goal to get 100 numbers that day in our zone, which means about 10 numbers per companionship! We had a ton of appointments already set up for Saturday, so we didn't have as much time during the day when the sun was actually out and people were actually happy to go contacting, but we had about two hours that night and talked to as many people as we could and ended the night with a grand total of zero numbers!!!

Haha not what we expected but hey the Lord works in various ways, and sometimes you just gotta put your trust in Him! But it was really cool, we started talking to this family on the street, turns out they're all members!!! They were all baptized a year ago but just don't come to church!! So we talked to them for a long time and they're the sweetest people ever! When we invited them to church, they said, "We want to!!! But we aren't going to give you a definitive answer because we don't want to let you down!"

TENGO FE!

Another fun contacting story from Saturday night, we starting talking to this guy and he seemed just a little bit out of it. We asked him where he's from, (because literally only like 10 percent of the people I've met are actually from Spain, and people LOVE to talk about their home country!) And he responded with, "Soy de MARTE!!!" In English, I am from MARS!!! And we were like, oh wow that's so cool, how'd you get here?? And he informed us his spaceship was just around the corner, behind that building, and that Martians don't need to hear messages about Jesus Christ. Fun times!

So my comp is from Peru and always talks about how good the food in Peru is. Well we met someone from Peru who invited us to eat with him and my comp was super excited. So yesterday we are eating and its delicious chicken and rice and then a soup he was so pumped for and said it was so good! So I start eating the soup, and its like fine, not great but not terrible, and all the sudden I look down and there's a chicken foot floating in my soup! It was the nastiest slimiest looking thing I've ever seen. So afterwards, i was like, um Elder Toro, is it normal to eat chicken feet? What the heck was that

and he was like oh my gosh you dont know how to eat right

and he was dying of laughter. Bleh freaking nasty nasty nasty

Another fun, rather more spiritual, story from the week. In the area book, we have like 500 phone numbers of different people, so we often take an hour and call as many as we can and usually end up with 3 or 4 appointments. Well we made an appointment with a lady who did not seem too interested over the phone and when we went to her house, there was a problem with the bus, so we had to walk for 30 minutes in the pouring rain and we get there and she was one of the nicest people I have ever met!!! She is from Africa, and she said she met with missionaries about a hear ago. About halfway through our conversation, she was like all casually, "oh yeah I have a son on a mission" and we were just like what?? Seriously?? And we thought she was probably meaning for a different church or something, but no she has 7 kids, and one of her sons is serving in Ghana right now!! He's the only member in their family, she has no idea how he came to know about the church but one day he called her(he still lives in Africa while she's in Spain) and told her he was going to serve a mission because he knew he needed to and it was The Lord's work!! So that was really cool! And it was really cool as we testified about the Book of Mormon and The Restoration, to relate to her that her son, right now, is doing the exact same thing we are and that we know with all our hearts we are doing the Lord's work!! What an amazing blessing!

I want to close my email by talking a little bit about a topic that's been on my mind a lot this week. It's something that we literally all have access to, but I feel a lot of the time we fail to recognize how much power it really has and how much we can really do through it! The Atonement of Jesus Christ, is singlehandly the most important thing that has ever happened on this Earth. That's a straight fact because what is our purpose, why are any of us here at all? A lot of the time scriptures can be confusing and we have to really study to understand the meaning, but very simply, Moses 1:39, tells us exactly what our purpose is, to receive eternal life so we can live with our Father in Heaven and families for eternity. And how can we do that? God's plan is perfect, there aren't any loopholes, there is only one way to do it, and that is through the Atonement. Guys, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not complicated, we don't have to guess, it's very simple. We know our goal and have been given the way to achieve it.

So why in the world do we not take advantage of it more often??

Jesus Christ, our Brother, sacrificed literally everything for us! I want you to read 1 Nephi 21:16. Think about the prints on his hands. What do those really represent? What does it mean to you personally to know that Jesus Christ has physical scars for you.

I'll leave it at that, I just want to invite all of you, especially this time of year in the Spirit of Christmas, really ponder what The Atonement means and ask yourself why the heck am I not taking full advantage of it?

Digo estas cosas en el nombre de mi Salvador, Jesucristo Amén.

Tenga una buena semana:)

-Elder Boden

Pictures!!!

1. Super awesome sunset Saturday night!