It's April!

From: Morgan Miller (elder.miller@myldsmail.net)
Sent: Wed 04/01/09 10:26 AM
To: terryandlaura@msn.com

Happy April Fool’s Day! We are in Segovia right now doing email. We had an exchange and I went to Valladolid with Elder Scott from Los Angeles. It was a good exchange. We were there from Monday before pedidos until we switched back here to do the piso (apartment) check in Segovia. Today we have a preparation day with Elder Boyce and Elder Muller here in Segovia, and Elder Scott and Elder Moreno, the Valladolid elders we did exchanges with. It should be fun to see Segovia today and maybe for the last time on my mission. I love Segovia. It is so charismatic and nostalgic.
So now for the update on Angel; he is doing great and progressing towards his baptismal date the 18th of April. He walked 35 minutes to church this week, the walk we did with him the week before. Even though it was Daylight Saving Time, he still made it right on time. Also, he came to Thomas´ baptism on Friday.
So now for Thomas’ story from the start until now; firstly, he is from Kerala, India in the south, and speaks perfect English with a way funny accent. He was in Mongolia a year ago teaching English like he has done also in Hong Kong, mainland China, and Maldives. He saw on the internet, video footage of President Monson meeting President Bush, and that was his first contact with the church. Then he found the local LDS church in Mongolia near his house, but didn’t attend. He went to the Czech Republic and studied a little more in Prague for an international certification allowing him to teach throughout all of Europe. Then he came here to Spain. That was 5 weeks ago. Four weeks ago he located the Madrid temple and attended church at the stake center. Elder Dubray and Elder Cummins referred him to us because he was staying in our area. Thankfully Thomas called us that Sunday night and we met the next day. We met with him 4 or 5 times a week with 6 different members to prepare him for his baptism on the 27th (Friday). It was just amazing from the get go with Thomas. He was so elect and prepared. Thomas was living in a co-ed hostel like I have said in other emails. The problem with him getting baptized was only the living situation. Thanks to Andres de Batres going to the piso visits with Thomas, and John Freddy finding the pisos online and then setting up the citas (appointments), everything worked out - even though when he moved in with Quirico, his wife kicked Thomas out. When we were trying to find another place for him to stay, we kept running into pisos who wanted just men in there piso, but just wanted gay men... so that wasn’t going to work out. Right now Thomas is 44 years old, and finally got baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. He bought himself triple combination scriptures after he had known about the church for only a week or so, and is just dominating in his scripture study. It was a bumpy road with crazy money and piso problems and scheduling stuff, and then the Ward Mission Leader was 20 minutes late to Thomas’ baptism and didn’t have the programs. Thomas had to drop his chastity problems and quit drinking coffee, but everything worked out. He is just awesome, and I recognize how much the Lord blessed him every step of the way.
The missionary reduction in Spain starts as my group leaves in July, and the mission will only receive 2 or 3 missionaries to replace 13. Then they will just keep receiving fewer missionaries than are going home until the mission is at 64 missionaries, which makes one companionship for each of the 32 units (branches and wards) in the mission. So the affects will firstly cause the city wards like Barrio 5, the other 7 barrios and then the suburb wards like Mostoles, Leganes and Alcala, to reduce to just 2 missionaries. So immediately there shouldn’t be cities without missionaries. But once the mission is spread thin and a city explodes with success, they will pull missionaries out of other areas to put them in areas where the work load is unbearable. What does this all mean? The members will have to step it up and be full-time finders. Elder Bednar told us he has only seen baptism numbers go up after the missionary number went down, so it’s a good sign. The Lord has huge plans for Europe and this mission.
Hey, so have a great next week. Thanks for keeping me posted on everything.
Much love from Spain!
Love, Elder Miller

Love, Elder Miller