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