April 7th

My late Birthday!!

My package arrived - after the Madrid Post Office kept it hostage for a month!

Excited over my  In-n-Out t-shirt! Thanks

Mis queridos amigos,

Conference was great!!! The talks were so inspired and I learned a great deal from it. This week has been good but challenging as well. I feel the need to keep pushing harder and harder each day -  which is probably a good thing.

Tuesday we had a pretty decent day. A lesson that went well with Rigoberto on the Book of Mormon and a few others throughout the day. We worked hard though and had a great time with Irina and her family at night. They are awesome and so strong in the church.

Wednesday was the first district meeting for me! I think it went well. It was great to see Elders Smith and Malan. They were serving in Mostoles when I was in Fuenlabrada and now they are up here!! It was a good day though. We had a lesson with Gracian who is still strruggling to act on what we teach. We had a great family home evening meeting with Amanda and her father Julio! Julio brought a friend over and at first it was weird but it got better as the night went on.

Thursday we planned the week and then went to Rosa's! They have like 4 sons and so it is always fun to hang out and joke around with them a bit. They are good kids and two of them are almost done with their missionary papers. After we headed to Jacobo's with Hermano José Martínez and had a good lesson on General Conference. I found some great scriptures on the Nephite General Conference in Mosiah 2:1-9 and he liked it! After we had english class which went well and we had a lesson with Luciano. He is soo close to making the committment but just doesn't feel ready yet. He is a great guy and our bond with him has really grown. I just know how important these things are for him and I can't wait for him to get baptized! Its going to bless his life so much.

Friday we had exchanges with Elder Malan! It went really well! A lot of people cancelled on us but we kept looking for those intercambio milagros. It actually happened on Saturday morning when we were contacting. We received like 7 references in a few hours and were super excited about it! Elder Malan is a great elder and I enjoyed the time to be with him.

On Saturday we switched back, studied 12 weeks and then headed to GENERAL CONFERENCE!! We were so excited and every time they announced who was going to speak, Elder Nickerl and I would freak out and get even more excited haha. I truly know that we have a living prophet today and I feel so blessed to be able to hear and understand his words. The Apostles were amazing as well and there were so many talks that I loved. You should all watch them because they are life changing! Sunday was pretty much just all General Conference. We watched it in Spanish here in the church building and I felt bad that Elder Nickerl  had a difficult time understanding.  I remember last October I felt the same thing and it was frustrating.

Well that's this week! I've got a busy week next week filled with intercambios and hard work to be done so wish me luck!! Keep on being who you are and remember that you are all children of God! I know this church is true and I am so grateful to be out here serving the Lord and spreading the great news. Love you!

ps.

Mom - Big news!! I got your package!!! The vans are awesome and thank you for all of the treats and other presents as well. It was my first 'birthday party' thing in April - haha but it was great. Thanks for the pictures!! I liked them a lot! Good job on taking the advice from Elder Ballard, that talk was great! General Conference was great!   Elder Scott translates his own talks into spanish so that was good!

Thats so awesome that you met up with Elder Nickerl's mom! She seems awesome and her stories remind me of you!

Good luck with replanting the  garden Mom!  How's the avocado tree? Gosh I can't believe Carol is getting married!! Thats so crazy! Sounds like its gunna be a fun reunion down there in California! Thank you for everything.
Elder Franklyn