Knocking on the doors of Spain

Two More Elders in Castellon!!

Ok so first of all we are getting two more elders this next transfer!! So we have to move again, and I just got more responsibility. I have to find a piso in less than two weeks and then move us and I have to split the area. President told me to carefully pray and split it. But I am having trouble finding this piso. In Castellon there aren’t a lot of pisos with four rooms and two bathrooms, which is what we need to live for the four of us.  And I hate looking because I feel like I am wasting time but we have to do it. I hope we find one soon because transfers are in two weeks!! And I might be going, but with these elders coming in I might be staying. I have no idea.

But the miracle that we saw this week was with knocking doors. We found a menos activo knocking doors, which was a miracle in and of itself.  He has been coming back to church and bringing his 8 year old daughter as well. And so one day we set a visit to go back and when we got there his wife was there ready to listen! She is Spanish and he is from Chile and she was waiting for us to come teach her about Joseph Smith. This menos activo had already explained so much to her. And so we taught her and I am very excited to go back.  She is very receptive and I know that this man would do anything to have his wife and daughter baptized and have his family in the gospel. He wants it so bad and is reactivating very quickly as well after like 15 years. I am praying to baptize his Spanish wife and put his family in the gospel, it will be so great!!

I am excited to have two more elders here in Castellon with us, but watch as soon as I find the psio and everything and split the area they will transfer me ha ha. But I am just following orders from President so we will see!! Transfers are the 11th of June I think.  I don’t want to go; I love the people here so much!! 

Love you all lots and hope all is well.

Love,

Elder Farah

Another Week Down!!

So I had an amazing experience this week!!!  We had Elder Teixeira from the Quorum of the Seventy visited us and it was incredible!! Before the conference there was a meeting for just the leaders of the zone and that was really special and I learned to lead my district better!! Then we had about a five hour conference with him after.  He talked to us a lot about finding people because that is the problem here in Europe, finding people to teach!! He told us the story of how the missionaries knocked on his uncle’s door one night, and from there went on to baptize 40 people in his family in a period of three months.  That is insane!! Especially back in those times!! And it was so incredible that he is a convert, and now is a General Authority.  I felt his love so much, and his wife was really funny as well.

How could I not talk about the miracle of the conference this week? And how much of a testimony builder it was for me, and how I know that Elder Teixeira is a man called of God, and is the man called of God to lead the church here in Europe.  I learned so much from him, and the miracle story about him and his family was incredible. I even had the opportunity to have a personal interview with him after.  President picked like five of us missionaries to have a five minute personal interview with him, and I was lucky to be one of them!! I almost feel like I wasted it because I was just in so much awe to be sitting with a General Authority, at his feet. But he is such a loving man, and we all left so inspired. 

We all left with a lot of animo to hit the work hard and find, so that is what we are going to do this week.  Transfers are in three weeks and we will probably change, I might leave. So if I do leave, I want to leave my companion with a lot of work to do here in Castellon for these incredible people. But things are good, just gotta find peeps this week!!

Love,

Elder Farah

Happy Mother's Day!!

Feliz día de las madres!!!

I hope that all the moms enjoyed themselves on mother’s day, and it was so great to call the family yesterday!! It was so great to see them and I can really feel the blessings that they receive from me serving a mission. I maybe can’t see them but I can feel them and the Lord’s promise really is true, that everything will be fine as long as we serve with our heart mind and strength, and the rest is in his hands and that will never fail!!!

But my miracle has to do with a menos activo again. We finally got in with this lady that I have been trying to visit for weeks. She just randomly showed up to church one day a few months back. Turns out that she was less active for about ten years when she moved here and then randomly one day the Holy Spirit moved her to go back to church so she found it and came back. What a miracle she did it on her own!! And now we are trying to help her learn everything again, and she is married to a Spanish man who we are going to try to work with. She has lots of faith that he will at least listen to us. Working with menos activos works miracles for them and others. And I just pray and hope that I can finally get a Spanish baptism, they are hard to get in with!! But when we have a foot in the door like this it makes things easier. So the grand plan is reactivate this woman who is super strong, have her set the example for her husband, then teach and baptize!! Ha ha so we will see how it goes. 

Well that’s really about it, my family already knows everything about my life again ha ha. But it is such a blessing to have families in our lives, and my companion has such a strong testimony about families and mothers. He always says that they are a little piece of heaven that we have here on the earth. And it is so true!! I am so grateful for my family and my momma :) Happy mother’s day!! 

Elder Farah

One More Week!!!

Happy almost Mother’s Day!!

Mother’s Day in Spain was celebrated yesterday, but not too many people celebrated it in the ward because they are all Latinos and celebrate it the next week ha ha.

Alright my miracle from this week would have to be the fecha that we set!! A man named Arturo. He is the most humble sincere man that I have ever met in my entire life. The answer that humbled me the most was when I asked him, “What do you wish from God in your life?” And he told me, “nothing.” And I was a little surprised at first and I said “nothing?” And he said to me "I have lived a great life, with a family, and God has given me this world to live in and I thank him for everything that I have." Now you need to know that this man lives in complete poverty and his piso is really cluttered and poor. But he is the most grateful, humble person that I have ever met. To me, that was incredible. Sometimes I feel like I am the one learning and that the investigators are teaching me!! All I ever do is learn, and it is great. And we will be going down on the 25th!! We are very excited for him and, as always, just trying to look for more people to teach and put in our pool of people.

Another great experience I had was this stake meeting. The stake presidency, all the Bishoprics in the stake, and all their missionaries had a meeting. (There are 6 wards) so we traveled to another city and President Pace was there as well. So our whole zone was there of course.  But the stake president wants to work, and wants us to baptize. He just put the word to us and told us we all need to be united and work together.  This is great to hear and it will help a lot to have more help from the ward and the bishopric.  But it wasn’t just that, it was that I could feel the priesthood power so strong in this room.  Think about it, all missionaries, bishops and their counselors, and the stake presidency.  It was incredible!! There was so much authority and power in that room, and we all left so inspired wanting to do work, and wanting to do work effectively. It was such a great experience.  And so hopefully we get more help from the ward soon!!

Alright well happy mother’s day to all out there; this last Sunday was very sweet with all the testimonies, especially from the youth and YSA about their moms. And it was very touching and just made me think of my mommy. I love you mom!!

Love,

Elder Farah