Vive España: The Best Gift

Merry Christmas!

This last week has been AMAZING. For the majority of this week, we have been preparing Rosa, one of our investigators for baptism. She is a very amazing lady, and I think I talked about her a little bit before. She is from Bulgaria, and she has a lot of faith. Because of the language barrier it was very hard for us to communicate our message to her at first, but as time went on, she started reading from the Book of Mormon (in Bulgarian), and she started to really show how much faith and desire to learn that she really does have. Our last lesson with her before her baptism was amazing. She talked about Nephi and building the ship and how he was willing to do what his brothers were not. She really knows and feels that this Gospel is true. The day of her baptism was amazing. Really, a gift just to be there. Her family came out to support her, and she kept telling us how nervous, but excited she was to get baptized. I remember walking down into the fount and realizing how big of a moment this was for her. She was just about to change her life, and completely become a new person. Literally, in a matter of seconds, she was about to become a spiritually reborn person. It was amazing. Unfortunately, her dress was very loose, and I ended up having to baptize her four times before she got completely submerged. She joked about how now, she is EXTRA clean from her previous life, and that I got a lot of practice for my next baptism. She's great. We had our first recent convert lesson with her, and she was telling us about how she felt, when she received the gift of the Holy Ghost after her baptism, that a weight was lifted off of her. She is so much happier now, and has so much confidence in herself and in her faith. It is a miracle, and our own little Christmas miracle that we've gotten to enjoy here in Alicante.

Also, today we found out who our next mission president and wife will be....drum roll please....DarVel and Marilyn Anderson, from Blackfoot, Idaho! They sound great and still have a while before they get here, because President and Hermana Deere will finish in July.

We're really excited about this upcoming week, with Christmas! It's very different to see Christmas without the mountains covered in snow, or just no snow in general. It has been pretty cold, which is so different from when I first got here. But we've noticed how great the message of the gospel ties into the message of Christmas. God loved us, so he sent his son, and approximately 1820 years later, he restored his church so that people everywhere can be happy. It's really the same message. God loves us. He wants our happiness and is so willing to make us happy, we just have to be receptive to him. But his son really is the best gift he could ever give us. He really is the best gift. A gift of unconditional love, and unconditional sacrifice. During this time, it's such an opportunity to remember him. Remember what he's done for us and remember why He did what He did.

This Gospel is amazing. Share it with someone today, because it will really change their life and I know that it will make them happy. That's the purpose of the Gospel, and with God as its founder, it can make every person happy, if they choose to let it into their life.

Thank you all for all that you do, I love you so, so, so much!

IT'S A GREAT DAY TO BE A MISSIONARY!

Elder Weenig