Great News!

Beautiful Galacia coast!

Great News!                                                                                     

This morning before leaving on our excursion to the coast we got a text from our Zone Leaders saying "iPads..." Elder Giforos and I had just been talking the night before about whether he will ever see the iPads that have been talked about for the past year. So we call the Zone Leader and he tells us that we are going to be an iPad mission and next week the entire mission is going to be gathered in Madrid for a digital mission training. I´m super excited to be able to go to Madrid and be with all of the missionaries there. This will be the first time that this mission has had all the missionaries from the North, the islands and Madrid in one gathering. I am excited for this great new tool that we will have. In a training that President and Hermana Jackson went to they learned this, "Elder Bednar said that instead of using cimeters, bows and arrows, we are using iPads to combat the enemy." This is exciting and good news.

The great news though is that this coming Saturday Richard is getting baptized. Not to count baptisms before they happen but I´m so excited that Richard has made this choice in his life. It has been a wonderful experience becoming his friends and helping him make the commitments and covenants in his life that will help him receive the eternal salvation to which we are all able to achieve if we follow the path laid by our savior. This is a great and and exciting time in Pontevedra.

Raquel also is doing well she is awesome. She feels that we were an answer to her prayer and so has accepted and felt the veracity of the things that we have taught. She has not been able to come to church the past couple of weeks because she had to work. We are praying that she can feel the importance of coming to church to motivate change that demonstrates faith in her life. I know that the Lord blesses all those who try to keep his commandments. As Nephi would say, I will go and do because the Lord will provide the way.

Other things that happened this week: On Thursday my companion was sick and so after attempting to go work in the street returned to the piso and I had the opportunity to listen to general conference. I missed a lot of General conference both because of the time difference and also the language barrier. But the opportunity to go back and review conference is one of the greatest blessings that we have in this modern age of technology. I am grateful to have a living prophet who leads and guides the church along with the apostles and seventy who help the work to move along. This is a great blessing in the lives of all who will listen to this message. I love feeling the spirit of conference.

Best foods that I have eaten this week, food is one of the best parts of my day to day life here in Pontevedra: Gluten free pizza with bacon, pineapple and corn, Gluten free lasagna made by Cecilia, the branch president’s wife, and blue fish that we ate with some members. The food here is amazing and the members are incredibly generous with the things that they have. 

The mission is the best, the work of the Lord moves forward and the Lord is in charge. I love this work and I love you all!

Elder Gustafson

 

My companion and I with a pig´s face. We were visiting a member who is going to make soup with it, saw it and decided to take a picture with it  because... why not? jaja