Wednesday, August 15, 2007

after 5 weeks

hey everybody it is wednesday here in spain at 1 50 pm. we are emailing today, because it is a holiday here on the 15th of july, so our CCM changed the p day to wednesday while the teachers take a day off. it has been amazing here in spain. i have been having an absolute blast. today we had a general authority (area authority over europe i think). he spoke to us about conversion and baptism, and just missionary work in general. actually he spoke to us for over 2 hours, and the meeting was 3 hours total. it was crazy hard to pay attention after the intermission, because the heat had been turned up and we were all in our suitcoats.

saturday was an amazing day in the parque. my companion for the day was french and going to france on his mission. he knows spanish very little, and his english is also limited. it was amazing to work with him, and have amazing spiritual experiences. we found an older woman while she was picking up little pebbles and gathering them in a bag, very weird. but she was amazing. first she spoke english which was an absolute blessing for me.It was absolutely amazing to be able to teach in english. i can teach in spanish, but it is so hard to understand and comprehend the native spanish speakers. We taught her the entire first lesson, and she was very open to our lesson. we gave her a book of mormon.

Elder del bel was able to share his own experience of reading in the book of mormon for the first time. also he was able to share his conversion from being agnostic at around age 21. he is now age 25, and an amazing district leader here at the mtc in spain. it was awesome to hear his testimony and learn from him as we taught this wonderful lady. he truly was blessed. several times the woman complemented him on his english, and how impressed she was that he had no french accent. Every time i have talked with him it has been in very broken english with a french accent. also we were able to talk to another man about the statues in the parque. elder del bel was able to speak amazing spanish, and also understand what the man was telling us about. they conversed about the history of france and the history of spain, and about their lives. they talked about catholicism, and about the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. it was way beyond my vocabulary that is limited to the lessons and disscussion of the gospel. i know that it was beyond elder del bel's vocab also. we also gave this man a book of mormon. he was amazed that is was free. these two conversations took up an hour and 15 minutes, which was the entirety of our parque experience. my companion elder finlay had a funny experience, looking back on it though it was really a pain in the neck. he was getting up out of bed and did something funky to his neck. he wasnt able to get up because it caused him so much pain. we did exchanges and searched for the doctor, and then the presidente because we couldnt find the doctor. we couldnt find the presidente either. all we could do was wait until someone found the doctor. i just sat around in my missionary attire, and read "our search for happiness" (a very quick read, and a book that i have really enjoyed). it took 2 hours for the president to come, and he sent me down to study with my district. the doctor showed up eventually to help elder finlay, and it turned out that he pulled a muscle in his neck. the doctor compared it to pulling a hamstring, but just not quite as painful. it was all and all an interesting experience. because he hurt his neck we couldnt go to gym the next day and decided to go to the mall. it was a short walk away, maybe 15 minutes. it was neat to see the selection of shops in the mall, but none of them were useful. we wanted to get ourselves each a pair of indoor soccer shoes to use outdoor on the soccer court... anyways the two shoe stores, and one on the way were all closed, for no good reason except that August is the vacation month in spain. we heard an amazing song at a devotional, it was "come thou fount of every blessing". it is amazing, and i suggest you look it up. thanks for all the support, and the letters or emails. the church is true and god loves you.

love,
elder miller

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