So just to start off, we have started to see progress in our area. We started up a family night where less active members and investigators can come that live in Gibraltar, because they would have to cross the border and take a long bus ride to Algeciras to come to church. Gibraltar´s like a really big treasure hunt. Basically we´re trying to find a lot of old members and investigators that used to exist and we´re working off a lot of clues and different suggestions that people who either used to know the church in Gibraltar or used to go there, and a lot of the time, we end up on wild goose chases, but then there are some really cool little miracles. For example, Denise. She is a fifty year old Gibraltarian woman who is just amazing. She takes us out to lunch once a week. We searched for her building for days, trying to ask the people that lived around her, and asking if they knew where Georgeston house was. It turned out that Georgeston house didn´t exist, it was George Don house that we were looking for. (The importance of having good records among missionaries was highlighted at this moment. As well as the importance of having legible handwriting). Anyway, we found her, and she is an investigator who almost got baptized fifteen years ago when the church was in Gibraltar. We´ve started teaching her again, and she is coming to the family night. She´s great.
Hey fun fact of the day, did you know that Gibraltar was one of the first missions ever opened up? Apparently, because the people speak English, it was opened up around the same time as England and other English speaking countries in Europe. Cool right? It´s been shut down periodically over the years due to lack of members, members moving out of Gib and insufficient organization (apparently two branches existed here at the same time without one having knowledge of the other). But now, we have a plan to get a branch started up here permanently so that we can finally have a branch here. My goal is by the time I´m forty that someone will receive their call to the Gibraltar mission. But that´s a future step. Right now we have to concentrate on finding investigators and getting a church here.
Also, speaking of Gibraltar, we´ve had lots of fish and chips this week. We had a senior couple come down from Fuengirola to visit Gibraltar and they took us out to go and eat fish and chips. The next day, Denise also took us to the same restaurant to eat fish and chips again. It was pretty funny because we had the same waitress. I wasn´t a big fish fan before coming to Gibraltar, but the way they fix fish and chips is fantastic. It´s usually cod, and if you put a lot of salt on it, it makes it taste even better.
Another surprise came on Friday. We´d just come back from Gibraltar and we´re eating lunch in our flat when President called. Our reception´s really bad in our apartment, so I had to ask him to repeat it three times, but I am training! I´m really excited. Elder England will be going to Alicante, (the promised land), He´s so, so lucky. I miss Alicante a lot, It´s a fantastic city. Today I will travel to Fuengirola to be trained on how to be a trainer and then to get my new companion. I´m a little bit nervous. We just opened this area. I was praying about it because I felt really worried and under qualified on how we were going to have success when a scripture came to my mind, D&C 6:36 ¨Look to me in every thought, doubt not, fear not¨ And it´s true. God asked us to do a lot of things. A lot of which may seem impossible or extremely difficult. But when he calls us, he also qualifies us to be able to do the things that he wants us to. I´ve never felt such a feeling of calmness and just good feeling, that everything would be okay, and that so long as we´re doing the best that we can and we´re living the way the Lord wants us to live, He will bless us.
As far as investigators go, Pepe! He is absolutely awesome. I´m shocked by how much he has accepted in such little time. He has quit smoking and has committed to come to church. I´m so proud of him. He´s older, and he said that he felt something that he´d never felt before in our church. (He´s the one whose son took us to church in his car). That feeling made him want to get baptized. He is a miracle. We´re working with him and hoping that he can get baptized.
So wow. The week´s been great. This experience in La Linea and Gibraltar has been difficult. I have changed a lot since I left Alicante, and it´s made me grow a lot, and for that I´m very grateful. I have been able to see and appreciate the tiny miracles that we receive. It´s made me very, very grateful. I have come to love it here. It was not a very easy start here, but I have had a really hardworking companion, and we have been able to see a lot of progress here in La Linea and Gibraltar. I love being a missionary. It´s a fantastic experience. We get to grow a lot.
It´s a great day to be a missionary!
Elder Weenig
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