Nelly left on Wednesday. We had a goodbye dinner with her, Gisel, and Pepe. It was a bittersweet goodbye, because even though we would not be able to teach her anymore, we knew that she would be well taken care of. She also told us something that really stuck with me. She told us she wanted us to know that if we ever thought that our mission´s were not worth it or that we were wasting our time, to not think it, because she had found the truth. She wanted us to know that she, a daughter of God, had recognized who she is, and that was what made all of the difference. It was a really special experience. She called us right before she boarded her plane for Peru, and it was one of the hardest things to hang up. She really is a great woman, and told us that she as going to try and bring the rest of her family into the church.
It´s been a great week. Really. Church yesterday was proof of that. We were sitting in priesthood, getting ready to start the meeting, when all of a sudden walks in one of our investigators, whose name is Antonio. Antonio´s a middle aged Spanish man, who we had invited to church, but really didn´t have much faith in him turning up. Thankfully, God is able to work miracles regardless, and Antonio told us that he just had a feeling to come to church that day, even though it was really cold outside. (It actually has become quite cold outside now. Granada has snow on the mountains.) Anyway, Antonio sits down, and leans over to me and says ´You didn´t call me.´ Now, this is one of those moments where you remember that you were supposed to do something but it slipped your mind and someone catches you for it. I was supposed to call him that morning to remind him to come to church, but he came on his own accord. Very cool.
In terms of other news, we did an exchange with the Elders of Jaén. As zone leaders we do exchanges with every district leader each transfer, and this transfer is a only four weeks, so we are a little pressed for time. Anyway, Elder Black is our assigned driver, but we wanted him to be able to travel to an exchange, so we made arrangements for one of the new missionaries to come and be with me so that we could still use the car. It was an adventure teaching someone to drive in Spain. Especially someone who has never driven in Europe before. He did well, We avoided most cars, and we got to where we needed to go. But I did gain an appreciation of Elder Black´s parallel parking skills. We ended up teaching Gisel on that exchange. The first time since Nelly had left. We were a little bit worried about Gisel, with Nelly leaving. We were not sure if she was going to want to keep coming to church or whether she would start to lose the desire with her friend gone. But Gisel is not like that at all. Instead, she has done the opposite. Now with her friend gone, she has begun to invite her friends to come and learn about the Gospel. It was incredible, because when we sat down to start teaching, she told us that she had invited a friend to come and listen to us. We were about to start the lesson when her friend showed up. We started teaching the lesson, and were going pretty well, but then Gisel jumped in and did an incredible job of testifying and teaching. She has a desire to serve a mission, and I can already tell that she will be an incredible missionary. She just needs to get baptized first -- December 20. It has never seemed so far away. But we are praying for her, and the ward has really taken her under their wing. There is a family from Venezuela who live here and they are really helping out a lot. They had us over for dinner yesterday and they told us that they were very, very impressed with Gisel. They talked about her powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon. Elder Black and I joke that she´s not really even an investigator anymore. She is a ´dry member´ (someone who lives the Gospel without having been baptized).
Things are going really well. We are seeing a lot of miracles. I am very lucky to be here. It really is a great day to be a missionary!
Love you,
Elder Weenig
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| Goodbye dinner with Nelly -- Elder Black, Pepe, Nelly, Gisel and I |
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