Week 25

Beloved friends and family,

 

First off, as always, I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!!I have officially been out for 6 months--WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?!?!?

 

My Letter to President:

 

Dear President,

 

I´m doing fantastic, and our companionship is more united than ever! I´m trying to make clear communication a more comfortable and sincere practice between us--I know that as we work to strengthen our personal relationship with the Savior, and our united relationship with the Spirit, we will be able to help families strengthen their relationships of love between their loved ones--including our Father in Heaven.

 

Many of our promising investigators are leaving on vacations for the winter and will be gone for a couple of months. Accordingly, we have increased our finding efforts. We have seen miracles in contacting, and especially in knocking/caroling, and we have several families that we plan on visiting with this week. We want so badly to be able to give our Savior the best Christmas gift we can give Him--entire families through baptism!

 

We have organized a Branch effort to give Jesus a gift for Christmas. The idea that came during Personal Study became a reality yesterday. We called up the Branch President, and worked with him and other key members to put together a sort of devotional for the last hour. We watched Élder Ballard´s Saturday Afternoon talk; invited the members to follow the prophets; kneeled down as families and made lists of people who they could invite to church; and then we totaled it up.

 

The Ibiza Branch´s goal is to help 45 people come nearer to Christ this month, through invitations to come to church activities, and casual conversations about what they love about the restored gospel. We've also got a voluntary calendar for a Continual Fast for this month--the next two weeks are practically booked already! Whether or not we end up baptizing 45 people this month isn't the issue. I want to help my Ibiza Branch family--if we can't get any fishes in into our Boat from our conjoint efforts, at least we will grow in the attempt, and become a Branch where everyone's Fishing line is actively searching.

 

Baptism--the fish that won´t get away THIS month! Not on OUR watch!

 

Simply,

Élder Zubeldia

 

Small talk: It's fantastically humid and wintry! I think I might be the only person enjoying winter over here!! We had Thanksgiving with the Smiths--an American family who is living in our area (Spanish law has required all schools to teach 1/3 of the material in English, and teachers who speak English are in short supply, and so are imported). It was great!! Our zone of the Islands is setting a goal of contacting 30 people a day (low goal, right? it's actually harder than it might seem, especially in our area, where the people seem to be hiding--but that's easily solved by *), and it's great because the number is something that I can use to motivate my companion to try and speak to Spanish more.

 

*We've been contacting up a storm here on Ibiza (almost literally--it's raining a ton!). We find people on the street (young, old, man, woman (except young girls who look our age -- I don't want to play to all of my companion's strengths), muslim or otherwise), and we knock doors. The latter is especially fun, because people live in apartment complexes, and you can only get in if the portal is open at the bottom. Miracles happen though, and every once in a while, we feel prompted to push (my companion thinks I just randomly try to barge into doors), and we find ones that are open!! When people try and close on us, we tell them that we just want to sing a Christmas song for them; to share the Christmas spirit with them--works almost every time! We even do this for Muslims, even though there are obvious reasons to not even try with them, AND GET THIS: we have a visit with a less-active/non-practicing muslim next week! We also have some visists with ACTUAL Spanish families next week!! Miracles happen when we cheerfully work as hard as we can, focus on our purpose, and let our happyness and love for what we do show.

 

We had some hardened Albanian hobo try and fight with us, and then he ended up giving us a bag of about a dozen fishes that he had just caught. Our favorite Romanian family gave us an enormous fish as well, and probably 6 pounds of Romanian bread (my companion doesn't like fish, but the bread is amazing!!). We don't have hardly any money because of bus fare and lack of reimbursals, but Mami, your prayers are working -- people are still giving me food in the streets and in visits!!

 

Other fun: our investigators drove us home when we missed the bus -- they took us the whole 45 minute drive, even so late at night! But since we don't want to bother people, and we need to learn from our own mistakes somehow, when we missed the bus the other day (it being the last bus), we walked. Turns out it takes about 2.5 hours to walk from one side of the island to the other. Now we know! From now on, we will make a more concentrated effort to get to the bus on time. :)

 

I'm so excited and grateful to be a missionary, and to serve with such wonderful people (leaders, companions, our little branch). Our loving relationships in life are the most important--especially those with our family, earthy and celestial. To improve our relationships we need to improve our communication. We can do that by reading the Book of Mormon, praying, listening, and coming to church. Take time to do these, and to invite someone else to do the same this week. You will be blessed!!!

 

Final question: what do YOU want to give Jesus Christ for Christmas?

 

I love you!!!

 

Simply,

Élder Zubeldia