October 17, 2011

Feria, Iceland, Vera, and More!

¡Hola familia!

It sure was a crazy week! In Spain, every city has a Feria that they will do once or twice a year. This week is Huércal-Overa's Feria. It is like Christmas for the Spaniards - they take the whole week off and everyone goes completely insane. One man even yelled at us from his car "what are you doing here?! Its the Feria!!!!" Apparently we're not even allowed to live here during Feria. On Thursday we had the pleasure of listening to dance remixes of every pitbull song ever blasting from the giant feria dance party from 10:00pm to 7:30am. Luckily it ends tonight or tomorrow, so we will finally be able to get back to normal missionary work soon.

On Saturday, in order to avoid the insanity that is all of this town right now, we went to "open" a new town called Vera. It was pretty dead there (once again, Feria - yes, it really does affect every surrounding town as well), but at least the people weren't (too) drunk. We did find a hidden treasure, though: a GIANT British super market called Iceland. They import tons of food from the UK for all of the British people that live in this area. It was a little pricey, but we had a blast exploring a real supermarket for the first time in far too long. Unfortunately British supermarket food still doesn't measure up to American supermarket food, but it is still far above the Spanish pickings!

The little work we have been able to do around here recently has been going very well. Right now we have 3 awesome investigators and are hoping to get them baptismal dates this week! We have another investigator in one of our "pueblos" (cuevas de almanzora) who is very excited about the church but might be going to Valencia. For awfully selfish reasons, we hope he stays :). But, either way, there will be missionaries where he is going!

Well, I'm just about out of time this week. I heard an interesting example this week or the week before - I don't remember if it was in conference or somewhere else, but I have thought about it a lot. When we feel something - for example, stub our toe, burn ourselves on a hot pan, or anything else - we know that feeling is real. If someone tries to tell you that you DIDN'T feel your hand get burnt, you'll tell them they're crazy. So, why do we doubt the Spiritual feelings we have? We try to explain them away through mitigating circumstances or keep them as uncertain. When we feel the Spirit testify truth to us, we must believe it, just like we would believe any other feeling. I'm so grateful for the Gospel. This church is true. There is no way it could not be true. The Book of Mormon is a true record and cannot and WILL NOT be proven false. It is impossible - people have tried for nearly 200 years now, and it still stands as a true record and testimony of Jesus Christ. The most important evidence, however, is the witness of the Spirit. I hope we can always remember that!

I love you all so much! Have a great week!!!

Elder Mockler

P.S. The first photo is by some REALLY weird statues we found in Vera. The second is us rejoicing over our Iceland haul :)



This one is from the mission blog:  Elder Taylor, President Clegg, Elder Ferguson, Elder Gibson, and Andy

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