July 16 - Baptisms and more Baptisms!!

The last week wasn't actually anything too exciting. Oh wait... we had a baptism!!! Yeah, another one. We have been blessed with a lot of miracles here in Elche. The ward hasn't had a baptism in over a year and we just had three baptisms in the last three weeks. Elche is on fire! All of the prayers and little things the members have been doing are finally bearing fruit. Another testimony that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. To be honest, I don't even remember if I sent you the photo of the last baptism we had, so I will send you both. It has been a great miracle and blessing. I actually think that it is my favorite baptism just because of the great miracle story behind it. I think I might have told the story before but I will tell it one more time:

About two transfers ago we visited a less active member named Isaac Torremocha. He was a really good guy but he was pretty much done with everything. He was just laying on the couch and didn't really want anything. In fact, he is only in his 40´s but has already had two heart attacks. He isn't overweight or anything he just has poor health. Well, he had pretty much given up and we aren't really sure what we did but the next week he started coming to church and that itself was a miracle. A long story short, the two daughters both got baptized this last Saturday and their mom is on the path to baptism. Their goal is to be sealed a year after the mom's baptism. It was a great service the last week. I baptized one of the daughters and one of our recently returned missionaries baptized the other. Elder Jordan didn't baptize either of them only because he arrived 3 days before the baptism. Anyways, here are the photos of the baptism.

Also, this last Friday we had another one of those days called Dia de Diamante. We were to have no citas and only contact all day in the streets. As a mission we  got more than 2600 futures in one day. All of this with the goal of having more than 70 baptisms or more in August. Anyways, the mission is going great. I have to do some traveling ths week. We are going to Alicante to have interviews with president on Wednesday and then on Thursday I have to go to Almeria to grab my DNI card so I can stay here legally for the last three months of the mission haha. Actually, my old card has been expired since February, so I am only going to grab this card and have it for a few months but it's necessary in case the police pull me over for whatever reason. Anyways, I will take more pictures and we'll talk soon!

Love

Elder Card

Elder Tiger

July 2

That reminds me of a quote that the MTC president, Ralph W. Smith said while I was at the MTC in Provo. He said there is no such thing as selective obedience. It is a way to do it the convenient way and that doesn't exist. When we break just one rule or commandment, we let Satan know that we are willing to break more. That kind of impacted me a lot since I can still remember it. Anyways, that trip sounds like it will be super fun. Make sure to take a lot of photos, and if you run into any return missionaries over there from Málaga Spain make sure to tell them Elder Card says hi. If I remember right there are a few RM from this mission that live in that area haha. Keep your eye out!! Until next week!

Love
Elder Steven Card

Baptisms

Okay, okay, I have no excuse for not writing. I have just been a bit on the lazy side but now I am back! Not only that but we had a great past couple weeks!!! I was really stressing out for awhile because we had a baptism scheduled for two Saturdays ago and we couldn't get in contact with him (Mauricio is his name) until Wednesday and that was pretty nerve wracking. Well, we finally did get in touch and all went well. He entered into the waters of baptism and is a happy man. I sent a picture of that as well of us missionaries in front of a fountain in Elche after the baptism to celebrate.

What else is new?? Well a few days after having that success we met with another one of our investigators and he surprised us by setting his own baptismal fecha!! He will get baptized in two Saturdays and he is pumped, and so are we. We also have been working with this other family and the two daughters are getting baptized this Saturday. As you can see we have been really busy and so I have been trying to do other things. Don't worry though it is still all written in the journal event hough it isn't very well recorded here on email. We are all really excited and so is the mission. This ward hasn't had a baptism in over a year, and now within three weeks we are having four. It really is a testament to hard work and that God does work miracles. 

We also met our new mission president, President Deere. He is a super cool guy and we all are really excited for him to be here. He brought two of his children with him as well. So the mission house is a young hip place lol. We are all pumped for this new mission president. Soon I will get a picture for ya. Anyways, I am really sorry that my emails have been kind of failing over time, but I will try and do better and not be as lazy. Until next week!!! Thanks for all!

Love

Elder Card

PS: Oh yes, we got transfer calls. I am staying but my comp is leaving which means after only one transfer together he is leaving. My new comp is Elder Jordan. I am excited to have him come over. He meets me on Wednesday! Wish us luck together!

June 18 - Are You the Chosen One?

Well this week went by super super fast. It was a pretty fun week actually, and now things are taking a turn for the better. Yesterday we had a record amount of investigators come to church, at least for us. We had 6 people come to church and all of them were brought by a member. It was great. People are progressing like crazy. Hopefully we will see a lot of progress here this week. 

Last week we sadly said goodbye to President Clegg. He will still be here for a couple weeks but it was his last "public appearance" if you will. We had a zone conference in Murcia and so we took the train ride down there to attend the conference. There we watched some of his home videos from before he came as a mission president, and then we watched another DVD of photos and funny videos he had gathered during his years as a mission president here with us. It was a touching and really funny video. He made copies for each of us. We then separated into three groups into three different rooms. The first room we wrote our final goodbye note to the Cleggs to put into a book and also signed a piece of patchwork. Then, in the second room we wrote our welcome letter to the Deere family who comes soon, and then in the third room we had our last one and one time with the Cleggs. There, he gave each of us his personal contact information, a list of "rules" and advice that he put on a list and laminated it for us haha, and he also gave each missionary a ring. On the ring is engraved PRO, and on the inside of the room is inscribed, "I will pray, read and obey everyday." It was pretty cool. I still wear mine. I figured he gave it to us to wear not to put away, so I have it with me now.

The rest of the week went really well. We saw more and more miracles like we did last week. For example, my companion is from Africa, and grew up in Portugal and so he knows how to speak Portuguese. Well, we were knocking on doors and this lady answers the door and just by the way she was talking Elder Barbosa figured that she could speak Portuguese and so he starts talking to her in Portuguese. She was from Brazil, and once you hear your native language you just will let anyone into your house so she let us in haha. There, we impressed her even more. While we were talking I saw that she had a Rubik's cube on the table unsolved. I asked her if I could try and solve it. She told me that she had been working on it for years and had never figured out how to solve it. Well, I told her I could try and do it, and not just solve it, but solve it in under three minutes. She told me to try it, and well I did it and Barbosa timed me and I solved it in 2 minutes, 43 seconds. She just was speechless and started to bust up laughing. She told me, "Wow.... you are special. You, my young friend, have a gift. You must be one of those chosen ones." hahahahaha. Needless to say we got a return appointment haha. 

Another cool language story. Our area is just covered with Africans, and the majority come from Senegal and Mali. Well, just for fun, I have been trying to learn a language called Bambara, it is the language spoken in Mali. I've been learning how to say the normal hellos and goodbyes and Gospel terms from one of our investigator friends who is from Mali. Well, usually I am fairly timid to try and speak it with the Africans in the street but last week I finally tried to contact someone in Bambara, and it worked haha. I actually had a 45 second conversation with a guy from Mali in Bambara before I lost what he was saying and we had to start in Spanish again. It was a cool experience and we got his info lol.

Well, until next week! I hope everyone is doing great! Stay in touch!

Love

Elder Card