Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Las Islas



Well this week was alright, I am very glad to be with my new companion here in Palma and now we can just do work and baptize the world!! Concilio was really good yesterday, it is always so inspiring and you can fell the spirit so strong with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders there. It is always a great meeting

We came out with 7 baptisms as a zone to end February, which isn’t bad; the most the zone has baptized in like a year I think and we were the 3rd highest in the mission.  Before the islands used to be the ¨harder part¨ of the mission but we are trashing that reputation as we speak!! We are seeing so many miracles and the work really is going forward in a great way.  And now in March we have 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays to baptize and confirm.  We gotta get it!!! We should get off to a good start this week with 3 or 4.  Just gotta get to 11!! So we need to put in our part as well and find some people and capitalize on our investigators

I wasn’t in my area hardly at all this past week but we did see one big miracle in it. On Sunday a member came up to me to invite us over to eat with her and teach her husband who is not a member (but they live together so we are working on that). But I remember the first 2 times we went to eat with her it went very slow and went over the hour allotted for eating visits. On Sunday she came up to me and generously asked us over for dinner again. I wanted to say no because I was concerned about staying so long for an eating visit but something made me say yes (maybe because I love the members so much I have a hard time saying no to things). We went there and sure enough things were going slowly...BUT… she had a nonmember friend there named America and so we shared a message with her about the first step of the gospel...BAPTISM. America asked how long it took to get baptized and I told her if she does her part, 2 weeks. She was surprised and really wanted to hear from us. We gave her a Book of Mormon and left and went back the next day. She had read and said she wanted to get baptized and gave us the number of her daughter to teach. QUE MILAGRO!!!! We hardly had done anything but she knew the Lord put us together and in her words she said that she couldn’t deny what 3 jovenes with such pure hearts teach. The only let down was she left for Peru and will be back in a few weeks. She lives with the member and so she will tell us when she gets back. By us trying to be obedient with the eating visits, the Lord blessed us with a miracle and future baptism. 

So that is about it for the week, off to a new start with the month!!! And next week Elder Kearon from the 70, counselor in the Europe area presidency will be giving us training so I can’t wait to learn from him!!! Love you all!!


Elder Farah

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Transfers

Well transfers are this week and my boy Elder Burnett is leaving and is going to Castellón!!!  I am so jealous and really just want to switch him spots and he can be zone leader and I will go to Castellón and see all the families there.  I wrote down all the people he has to see and say hi to for me, it was a big list!! So jealous.

But my new companion will be Elder Mcdermott.  He went to Alta as well!! But a year younger than me so I never really met him until now. He is coming out of the office after being the president's secretary so now I am training him on being a zone leader. No worries after like one transfer they put me in charge of training a new zone leader and he has like a year in the mission.  Hopefully the zone doesn't fall apart in the next few weeks ha ha.  But I am really excited to be back with the zone leader companion. President has put all the zone leaders back together now and we are just going to do work and baptize the world.

We have six baptisms up to this point in the zone and 4 four on fecha for this week, so we just need to find a miracle and we could get the baptism record of 11!!! We are so close, I can taste it!! President in a leadership meeting this past week in the two day conference invited us to break the record and he said if we do it, food would be involved somehow.  So I gotta get it !! ha ha food plus a record sounds good to me!!

Other that that just fighting the war out here, we had a lot of less active people in church Sunday. President stressed that this past conference in working with them more.  And now we are just trying to baptize and find new people.  But my comp won't get here untl Monday after we are in concilio this Sunday so I will be in a trio all week with my other piso mates and my area might suffer a bit...no worries!!

Valentines Day was boring but we ate lots of chocolate. But who need girls anyway when I can be a missionary fighting against Satan!! So much better.

Love you ALL!!

Elder Farah

Friday, February 14, 2014

The Life and Times of Elder Farah





The Life and Times of Elder Farah







Milagro!!!

Ok so miracles totally exist, I already knew that thanks to my mission, but I love getting a re-confirmation almost every day here in Spain.  But get this...

We were out contacting one morning and Elder Burnett says "Hey lets go try passing by Francisca,¨ (our super old grandma that was supposed to be in the hospital for weeks) and I thought,"well no effort is wasted," even though it had only been one week since we last talked to her and she said she was going to be in the hospital for a few weeks. So we knock her door and her granddaughter-in-law answers and says she isn't home but then we asked her if she left the hospital and she said yes. So we get back on the street and think she couldn't have gone far, she always goes just to the park and the farmacia. So we started looking for her in the street. We go to the park, not there. We start walking in the direction of the farmacia and find her walking with her cane in the street!! This happened Wednesday, we talked to her and she still wanted to be baptized and then she was baptized Saturday!!! and confirmed yesterday. What a miracle!! And the branch stepped up big time in helping her, since she is older. She was so happy and so were all of us.  

It was so crazy that we found her in the street and that she got baptized only one time, the member that did it, did it flawless. It was so great!! All of God's children need to return to him.  

This week we have a two day specialized zone training with President and Hermana Pace.  So we have a ton of things to set up and get the zone ready for this conference and get things set up.  So we have a lot to do today and tomorrow before Wednesday but we are excited to learn from President and Hermana Pace and they are making us teach as well. 

Hope all is well and happy Valentines Day!! my valentine is going to be my companion Elder Burnett, ha ha

Elder Farah

Monday, February 3, 2014

Finally Feelin' Better!!!



Ok so i finally got all my stinking problems under wraps.  My knee is pretty much better, still a funny bump but it is just my blood cells doing their job and will go away over time.  The prescription allergy pills are great and don’t make me tired!! The doc said they were like the strongest ones he had, and they work so now I am not sniffling por fin (I think my piso would have killed me if they heard it one more time) and my toe is feeling better, I have been soaking it in water and pushing the toenail up like I had been told to do just so it doesn’t grow inward and get ingrown and infected again. So life is good!!

This week was the district conference and the Paces were here, because technically President Pace is over the district since it is not a stake yet. The adult session on Saturday night was so powerful and the district choir sang a remix of “Love One Another” and it was pretty!!! And then us 12 missionaries here sang “Praise to the Man,” and an hermana has a killer arrangement on it and so we sang it.  Not a dry eye in the house!! It was one of them moments where the spirit slapped me in the face on how true this church is, and I am pretty sure it slapped everyone else ha ha because people were all crying with smiles. Got to love the gushy moments I get on the mission!!
Our 88 year old grandma entered the hospital and we don’t know when she is coming out. It was so sad!! We want to go see her and she thanked us for everything and said when she gets out she wants to be baptized. But her family won’t let us visit her in the hospital because they don’t like us Mormons...go figure!! But hopefully she gets out soon and can be baptized.

We have an 18 year old Dominican that just needs to come to church this week and can be baptized on the 15th. We can’t buy a break these days! Ha ha but we are going hard and somebody will be baptized really soon. Me and the other zone leader companion also ran the zone enfoque this last week, the 2 hour zone meeting where we explained what we learned in concilio.  So it was a good, busy week.  But this week we should just have a time to do pure work. Me and the zone leader are going out to an area this week to do interocmbios because they are struggling way hard.  

Yeah that’s about it, going to a light house today. I will send pictures next week!! Love you all!!
Elder Farah