Week 14 -- Jan. 6, 2020

January 06, 2020

New Decade Brough Massive Allergies

Hola everyone!!!! It was another great week here in ESPAÑA!!!!!

Last week we went ice skating on Preperation Day, tons of fun!!!! (Until at Zone Conference our President told us, "hey here's a reminder, you can't go ice skating " go us

🤫🤫) Didn't even fall, just couldn't walk afterwards!!

For New Years Eve, we got permission to stay up till 12, which was a ton of fun, I was just dead the next day, waking up was not a fun thing to do

We ate with the Hermanas with a family from Nicaragua, and ate steak and beans and it was delicious!!! Woke up the next morning and still wasn't even close to hungry, but we were invited to lunch with the Hermanas and a different family from the phillipines and we ate way too much food, and when we were leaving to go to a different appointment, they told us to come back afterwards, so we did

I can honestly say I dont think I've eaten more food in one day in my life, but it was amazing!!!

Crazy story this week, Friday night, we get a text from the mission President saying, "please call me." Which is always scary to get unexpectedly from your mission President.. We called him and he said, "Hola, Elder Toro, there was a problem with 3 missionary's visas, and they have to go to Salt Lake City, so we need you to take one of their spots as Zone Leader in the South" we were thinking he meant when transfers come, in 4 weeks, but after asking when, he said, "in 3 days." Sooo tomorrow I am getting a new companion out of nowhere!!! That was a crazy surprise! I'm super excited, but super sad because Elder Toro was awesome! He taught me soooooo much about the missionary I want to be!!

Also, another fun surprise this week was waking up one morning with red spots all over my entire body! The doctor says it's a crazy allergic reaction to something, but I have no idea what it could be to. Possibly food or laundry detergent, but I haven't figured it out yet! Fun times!!!

I want to share some things I learned from our Zone Conference this weekend which were really inspiring to me. First I'll share a story that President Galli shared with us. He said a long time ago he had this crazy crazy detailed and very bizarre dream about his friend who died five years prior. In the dream his friend told him very explicitly he needed to tell the wife of his friend every single detail about the dream. When he woke up he fought himself about whether or not to tell this woman he hadn't talked to in years about a random dream that made no sense about her husband. Finally he decided to just send her an email with every single detail. She replied and told him thank you a million times and told him that the first 2 years after her husband's death she would frequently have these detailed, fun dreams about her husband, but never has them anymore. She was feeling so alone in her life, and felt as if God and her husband had possibly forgotten about her. That day she had prayed her heart out that she would have a dream that night about her husband. She woke up devastated until she read his email. She said the random stuff in the dream were things that only her husband and her would have known about. She said that if she would've had that dream, she would have just thought she'd forced herself to have that dream, but no, it came from someone else. That is absolute proof that God literally knows every single person so individually, He knows exactly how to help you and knows every little detail about your life. He will always answer your prayers! Also it's a good reminder that we seriously need to listen to the spirit, because these little promptings to do something that you don't understand, could very well change someone's life. Just always be ready to be a tool in the Lord's hand!(:

I don't have much more time (spent all of it working people in Fútbol and ping pong today) but I'll share one more quote I loved this week, from Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

"The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing We have to place on God's altar. The many other things we 'give' Are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us!"

Love you all! Read your scriptures! Have a good week!

-Elder Boden

Pictures!!

1. Just chilling looking like a tomato.