Another Week in the Books!

Hello family and friends!

What a week. We have been so crazy busy and this week will only be even busier. But the good news is we will be baptizing my first investigator this Saturday! And hopefully our other one too. We are being so blessed here in Zaragoza and are leading the mission in baptisms. We are so lucky to be in this city. The members have been helping us out a lot too, it really does mean a lot to us. Missionaries need all the help we can get ha ha. So don’t ever be afraid to help them out or just give them a call!! And this week is the week we receive call for transfers, it is already the sixth week!  I am pretty much staying for sure but I am just hoping and praying that my trainer doesn’t leave me. He has been here four transfers and that is pretty long. If he leaves it will be like me getting a new coach in the middle of the season, because they have you in training for 12 weeks here because of the language. So I really hope he doesn’t go!

So my miracle for the week. We were talking to one of our investigators who has a baptism date but was really unsure about it the last couple of times we talked to her. She said that she hasn’t received a firm answer yet, so we were trying to push the envelope and set a date with her last week. So we got there to begin a lesson and my trainer said alright, you got this one or in other words, take the lead. So we got our prayer and our greetings over and then it was my turn to start us off. But I felt inspired to ask her something, but I didn’t know what. So we sat there in silence for about 30 seconds while I thought. And an inspired question straight from the heavens came into my head and I asked her, “how are you feeling about your baptism?” And then she said without hesitation, “I know that I need to be baptized now, and I know it is what I want to do.” Me and my companion wanted to jump out of our chairs!! But had to stay professional  ha ha. But it was just a miracle and I am so glad that the Holy Spirit is always there to help anyone, and I am so thankful to have it as my other companion on the mission.

Ok sorry, still have to write president, so I need to go to stay within my hour! But I love you all and really appreciate all the support I receive from all of you. I always love hearing from family and friends. So let me feel it!! Ha ha. The Gospel is true and I love the mission.

un brazo y mucho amor,

Elder Farah

Crazy Week As Always

Well here we are again on Preparation Day!!!

Alright. So we set three more baptism dates this week, one for the 29th and two for October 6th. We are being so blessed out here in Zaragoza with miracles! It is incredible but at the same time we are working so, so hard out here. My trainer has taught me how to work as hard as possible and it is paying off big time. I am always tired and sometimes we barely have time for lunch but it is so worth it. So again it was made known that I was the fat elder out of the group. We were eating at a member’s home yesterday and she said I looked like I could eat the most and gave me a ton of food, and I had to choke down like half of it to finish. So I asked her, “Do I look like I am the fattest here??”  And she said, “No, just the biggest.” We all started laughing ha ha it was funny.

And I was able to baptize my first person!! It wasn’t our investigator or anything, it was the sisters’. But they asked me to baptize this woman. Her name was Happiness. Cool huh? And I was sitting next to her before the baptism and she looked so happy and was telling me how great she felt. After I had baptized her and was changing I just thought to myself what an amazing opportunity it was that I just had; to bring one of the Lord’s children back to him. And I get to do that for 2 years!! It is great. We just have to work really hard to get to that point.

Ok my humbling experience for the week, all I do is get humbled out here. After the baptism we had a lesson with our baptism date for the 22nd, which is on the 29th because her husband is out of town that weekend. Anyway after the baptism we had limited time to get all the way to her house on time. So we are just sprinting and running as fast as we can to get there. We took like 3 different buses, and ran to her house so by the time I got there I was sweating so bad in my suit while carrying my wet clothes and backpack. We saw that their bikes were outside so I thought, good they are home. We rang the bell to get into the apartment, no answer, call her phone, no answer. Then someone came out of her apartment and we just walked in and walked up to her floor. I get up there and I could hear that they were home. I rang the doorbell, nobody came. I tried calling her phone again but this time it was turned off. So then I called her husband’s phone, and as I did we could hear it ringing on the other side of the door. He picks it up and tries to tell me him and his wife aren’t home. How dumb does he think I am? I was so mad but I just bit my tongue and said we will see you at church tomorrow.

I was just fuming on the way home. This is her salvation and they just lied straight to my face. We had broken our backs and jumped through hoops to get out there, and they just flat out lied to us. But as I was on the bus mad, the Spirit humbled me. And the thought that came into my head was about Jesus Christ and what he did for us. Christ suffered and died for us and I don’t think we have any idea what he went through or the pain he felt. He did all that for us, and we sometimes choose to ignore what he did and do unrighteous things. That is how I felt, I am doing everything for these peoples salvation, and they ignore it. But that is exactly what Christ did for us. We can’t even begin to comprehend the pain he went through because he loves us more then we will ever know. Whenever I think my mission is hard, I have no room to talk. We will never even come close to feeling or knowing what Jesus did for us. The Atonement is real, and I know that now more than I ever have before.

So that just made me want to be a better person, and I was humbled by that night. Just know I love you all and this work is real, it is truly amazing. Miracles are real and the Lord’s hand is in everything we do and this is his work.

Love,

Elder Farah

VALE!!!

So this week was a crazy typical mission week. A bird pooped on my shirt while I was walking, our bus crashed into a truck while we were on it (don’t worry I am fine, it just startled us), we were teaching a lady on a bench and my companion got hit in the head with some dough from someone standing in a piso above, not many people like us. We ran after probably every bus to catch it too. And since I am the fat kid in my piso I sat down on my bed one night and popped the frame out of place and just hit the floor. It was so funny. We fixed it, but it was just funny.

A Muslim started to Bible bash with us in a park and tried to tell us that it was impossible for Mary to have a virgin birth with Christ so he does not believe he is the Son of God. I just felt bad for him that he felt that way, and didn’t believe about Christ. So he just went off and me and my companion didn’t want to hear this so this is what I did; just absolutely silenced him. I remember Dano and Adam Lee telling me to do this if this happened to me. I just cut him off in what he was saying and bore my testimony with as much power and conviction as I could. Then we just stood there in front of him and he was silent. I gave him a pass along card and said if he needed any service to call us and we walked off. After I bore my testimony, we didn’t hear another word out of him. The power of Christ is so real, and the power of a testimony is more powerful then I have ever realized on a mission. I bear my testimony probably like 30 or 40 times a day. It is incredible what the spirit and power of God can do.

So my real big news...drum roll please...I set my first baptismal date!!!!!!! I was so excited. I still am. We had to work hard to teach her and convince her, she didn’t commit after the first lesson. But we went and taught her again the Plan of Salvation and that is what did it for her I think. After we explained the Celestial Kingdom and how she could be there forever with God, Christ and her family she accepted it. So she is set for the 22nd. But in order to be baptized here you have to come to church twice. So thankfully she came yesterday so we didn’t have to move it. I will always remember my first baptism so I am very excited. It was my miracle for the week.

We are working with a mountain of less actives as my branch president would call it. Not a whole lot of investigators, but lots of less actives. I didn’t realize that we would do that as much as we do. We haven’t taught a whole lot after lesson 2, since the area was white washed we are still looking for investigators, and with less actives we teach things that they need. We do have one investigator that all she is waiting for is an answer from God to be baptized. She even came to church yesterday, 20 minutes late, but she came. It was a miracle she did. So we are meeting with her tonight so hopefully church did it for her. And I had the idea to fast for her on Saturday to receive an answer so I hope she does.

Well I think that is all I have time for now; the language is the same, slowly but surely every day. Our mission goal for baptisms this year is 600. We are around 350 right now so please pray for the Barcelona Mission to achieve this goal. DO WORK!!!

I love you all and would love to hear from you :)

Love, Elder Farah

P.S. I am going on my first companion exchange tonight. Very excited.

A Message and Photos from Sister Pace

Hola!

We love your son! We couldn't be more thrilled to have him here. He is going to be an outstanding missionary. We can tell all ready. I don't know if you got this photo, but I am going to send you a couple. We will be with him tomorrow for Zone Conference and I will send you another pic.

Thanks for sending us such a wonderful young man! We love him!
Sincerely,
Sister Anne Marie Pace

Elder Farah with President and Sister Pace

Elder Farah and his companion, Elder Tirado, with the Assistants to the President

Elder Tirado and Elder Farah are assigned to labor in Zaragoza in the Spanish Riviera

Work Work Work!

Hello family and friends!!!

My first full week in the mission. It is really true how the days are so insanely long and we are so tired but by the time church came on Sunday, it was a shock on how fast it came. And church here is a zoo, but our chapel was filled this week!! It was so incredible. There are people from all over the world here such as Africa, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Columbia, and many other countries. So we teach a lot of Africans and they are so accepting of the gospel, so about half of our branch is African and they have separate English classes during Sunday school that we normally teach. The Spaniards on the other hand aren’t too accepting of the gospel. They are a lot harder to teach but we try our best and I have faith that there are people prepared for us, I just have to find them.

For the record, modesty is a huge issue here. I have already seen things I wish I hadn’t!! But it is just the culture here. My area in Zaragoza is so beautiful. It is so pretty!!! And the weather has been really nice the last couple of days. It was so hot when I first got here but now it just feels nice. Hopefully it won’t warm up again. I love walking as a missionary too, it is just relaxing until someone yells at us or we try to contact someone and they yell at us. I have never been rejected and yelled at so much in my life, well maybe I have ha ha. But it is really tough work and it is frustrating sometimes when we spend 40 minutes getting to somebody’s apartment and they aren’t home but we just keep the faith and keep pressing on. We have been working so hard since we are white washing this area. Being trained in one is hard but I love it.

Not much time but I know that this work is true. We see miracles every day. Our mission goal is 600 baptisms by the end of this year; we are somewhere in the 300s. Please pray for this goal, we have faith to get it but have a lot of work to do. I love my Heavenly Father. I know he is helping me with my Spanish, it is coming very slowly. And my head hurts by the end of the day after focusing for so long but I just need to practice patience. I might not have any left after the mission ha ha. I love you all, the church is true!!

Elder Farah

 

Daniel's District

 

Celebrating Elder Tirado's Birthday

 

Elder Farah's Address

Elder Farah's new address is:

C/ Cesareo Alierta 23-25, 502
50008 Zaragoza
Espana

He would love to hear from you!