Another Week

Elder Gustafson and Elder Hendrix with an Elder just leaving to serve in Argentina.

Another week has gone here in Torrejón. Life here is good! We have had kind of an interesting week. We have had the privilege to do a lot of service for ward members. We got to teach in an Elder's Quorum activity about studying the scriptures which was interesting. We taught about how to really learn from the scriptures and talked about at least 7 points of doctrine that we can pull from the first verse of the Book of Mormon. I love being able to be taught from the scriptures by the Holy Ghost as we read. Really having the Spirit with us as we study is the way that we learn through the studies that we have. We then talked about answering the questions of the soul with scriptures. We posed the question "If God loves his children why do bad things happen to good people?" And then gave them 7 minutes to find a scripture verse or story that answered that question. One of my favorites to answer that question is in Doctrine and Covenants 58:2-4. I challenge each of you in your next study of the scriptures to search for one of the questions of your soul or to take the one presented above and look for answers in the scriptures. As we do that with a spirit of humility and prayer we will find answers.

We have also been helping a lot of the Africans here with talks that they are preparing for sacrament meeting. It is really cool to be able to get to know so many different cultures here in Spain. We have Romanians, Africans of all countries, South Americans, Central Americans, and a couple of Spaniards here and there. It makes the area really interesting. I realized last night that we had not taught a full out lesson in Spanish in a week because most of our investigators are African. I love it though and African food is delicious. On Friday we had intercambios with the Elders in Azuqueca and so we all eat together at about 2 o'clock. Later we went to an African lady's house and ate African fried rice with Turkey which was delicious but she brought out a pot of rice about a foot in diameter and just as high just filled with rice that we were expected to eat. We did the absolute best that we could...it was a fun experience until we walked out and my companion threw up behind a car. The next day he was completely out of commission. Good news though, he is better now.

Other happenings from this week, Leo is not really engaged anymore in learning because he needs a job so bad that he can't focus on other things such as the gospel. He needs our prayers now more than ever. I am grateful for your prayers on his behalf. We also have been continuing in our teaching of Felix which has been absolutely great! He is starting to involve himself more and more in the YSA activities here which is super cool to see that transition starting to happen from the missionaries to the ward members. He is really just the coolest person ever! Keep praying for him and his progress. He came to church for all three hours this week!!!!
Anyways we are doing well here in Torrejón life goes well. I pray for you all back home every day!

Love,
Elder Gustafson