Obedience & Blessings

My new companion, Elder Bartholomew

Pontevedra is the best. What a great week we have had full of miracles and amazing people. My new companion, Elder Bartholomew, is amazing. He is a great missionary who is excited to work hard and be here in Galicia. He has been out about a year and I'm excited to be able to work with him. 

This week has been a week of contacting in the streets. Every week we spend a lot of time contacting but this week we made the effort to try to talk with everyone as much as we could. I have seen the Lord put people in our path that are prepared to listen. There are a lot of people who don't want to listen to but every day the Lord has put people who are willing to talk and are great people. Elder Bartholomew and I have made a goal to be as exactly obedient as we can be in all that we do and we have seen the results in that. Besides just seeing the people that we have met and the miracles with our investigators I personally feel happiest and most confident when I know that I am doing all that I can do to obey the rules that have been set out. I know that the same is true for everyone. When we are obeying the commandments from God we feel the true joy that comes from having the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

This week with Pili we had another great lesson about the plan of salvation. I love this lesson because it always gives me a better perspective on life. When we have this perspective about life it is so much easier to be obedient. We are here to learn, progress, achieve eternal life and help others to do exactly the same thing. It is harder to be disobedient than it is to be obedient because when we are disobedient we miss out on the blessings from God and especially the Holy Ghost.

We have seen the blessings showing forth in the life of Victor as well. He continues to feel the spirit as he comes to church, reads, and prays. I am grateful for him and his desires to be better and be obedient to the commandments of God.

This is a great time in Pontevedra with great things coming up and I am super excited to be here with Elder Bartholomew.

Love,

Elder Gustafson

 

A park in Vigo we visited last p-day.

Went to the American store!

Lessons from Elder Giforos

 

 These last four months have been the best in my life. I am extremely grateful that I am serving here in Pontevedra and that I was able to be trained by Elder Giforos. I wanted to share this week some of the lessons that I have learned from him over the past months.

1 Open your mouth and share. As we are willing to open our mouths and have prepared ourselves always the Lord will fill it. Whether it is out contacting in the street, teaching a lesson, participating in a Sunday School class or in whatever other moment the important thing to do is to open our mouths. When we do this we can feel the Spirit guiding us in the things that we should do. I admire Elder Giforos for always being willing to open his mouth to share even when it is hard. He was always sharing the feelings of his heart with those around him.

2 Have a purpose in what you are doing. If you don't know what your purpose is why would you ever do it? When we can see the vision for our lives, for the area that we are working in, for our investigators we can then understand what we need to do to accomplish that purpose. When we lose that vision or purpose in our work we are not effective.

3 Love is the key. We first have Love for the Lord and then for our
fellow man then we will be effective servants of the Lord. I saw this this last week as we went to visit a member of our Rama who has health problems. When we got there he was visibly shaking and very sick. We sat down with him and tried to calm him down, made him some food to eat, gave him a blessing but still he was not doing well. Eventually he agreed to let us call an ambulance that came and picked him up and took him to the hospital. I am grateful for that moment that we had to be instruments in the Lord's hands. As we went and visited him at the hospital over the next couple of days I felt so much love for him and I saw the way that my companion worked with love for this great member. The member has recovered and is doing better resting in the hospital for a couple of days. I am grateful for Elder Giforos and all that he has taught which is far more than I could ever put in any letter.

I look forward to meeting my new companion tonight, Elder Bartholomew who actually went to High School with Elder Giforos. I look forward to being able to see a different way of doing missionary, work to learn from another great missionary.

Our investigator Victor could use your prayers to help him continue feeling the spirit and have desires to be baptized. Pili is amazing, as always she has really great questions and continues learning and understanding the doctrines. It is like light bulbs of understanding
keep going off.

I am grateful for all of you and your prayers on my behalf and on the behalf of those we have the opportunity to teach.
Love,
Elder Gustafson

Burger time!

Selfie with friends!

Milagros y servicio

This has been a great week of miracles and service here in Pontevedra. First miracle in Pontevedra was our investigator Marilo. We have been doing service for her and teaching her family which has been really a great opportunity. On Tuesday we went and taught her and her assistant in her flower shop the plan of salvation. During the lesson she stopped us and turned to her assistant and explained the Restoration to him perfectly. It was super cool and showed us how much she is learning comprehending and understanding what is being taught to her. At the end of the lesson she started taking pictures of the plan of salvation drawings that we laid out on the table and told us that she was going to go home and teach it to her daughters. It was definitely a testimony builder that service is a great way to find and create connections with people and then we have the opportunity to share this message with them.

On Thursday we went to Villagarcia to visit a recent convert family and got to teach them and help them in their garden which again was a great opportunity for service. Doing service has gotten to be one of my favorite activities of the mission because it always helps us to grow better relationships with the members and investigators. We also went to a less active member's house and worked in his garden tearing down thorns and weeds and are working to build our relation with him. I hope that the work that we are doing to clear the thorns out of his farm will eventually help him clear the thorns out of his life that are preventing him from returning to church. I know that this is possible and will only bring happiness for him.

Another miracle this week was with Victor. In order for him to get baptized this week he had to come to church on Sunday. So on Sunday morning we went to his house to pick him up but when we got there he told us that he was sick and weak because he didn't have money to buy food. He told us that he would see if he could come at 11 for the second half of the first hour. When he didn't pick up his phone at 10:50 and then didn't show up at 11 I lost hope. I was so sad because we would have to move his baptismal date again and that would not have been good because he is ready and has desires but just wasn't feeling good. At 12:45 he walked in for the last hour of church. I don't think that I have been so happy. I am grateful that the Lord helps people to do the things that sometimes seem impossible. It also showed me again that always we should believe and have a hope for those things which the God can do, specifically work miracles to help His children find the path that they should follow.

I love being a missionary and I love being able to serve here in Pontevedra where the members are amazing.

Love,

Elder Gustafson

Fear and Faith Do Not Coexist

July 22, 2015 

I love being here in Pontevedra. As our branch president always says this is the best Rama in the world. We have had a great week. Great news from this week comes in the form of quotes from investigators or people we talked with on the street.

Waiting for the ward mission leader

An older lady named Amable stopped us and told us, "you two are very handsome. If I weren´t Catholic I would be a member of your church just because you two are so handsome."

When we asked an investigator how he was doing giving up smoking he told us, "Smoke? I don´t do that anymore."

From Victor, talking about trying to find work that he could do without having to come home in pain everyday, "I don´t work to die, I work to live"

When teaching our invetigator Pili that if she reads the Book of Mormon, prays to know that it is true with a sincere desire, and comes to church that she can receive an answer from God through the Spirit that this is the true church, she said, "If it is so easy to receive an answer from God and know that it is true why then is not everyone in the world members of your church?"

This is a great question and one that I believe has many reasons but one of them is fear. In the scriptures there are two types of fear, the first is the fear of God which is a respect and love of God that leads to obedience and progression. The second, is the fear of worldly things or people. This type of fear leads to a stop in progression, every time. I realized this last week that I have had a fear of failure, in school, in learning, in trying to be innovative, in opening my mouth and speaking as much as I should. For me this is a problem because this type of fear does not come from God. In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul writes, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." If something does not come from God it comes from the World. For everybody fear is different, sometimes this is a fear that people will reject you because of your beliefs or will ask obnoxious questions if you come back to church or that your boyfriend will dump you because you are meeting with the missionaries, but no matter what it is it stops or at the very least slows progression. Over and over again it is this fear, especially a fear of change that stops people. People become comfortable in the situation in which they are and don´t want to change because change is hard and as humans we are sometimes frightened because we do not know what change will do to our lives. But, change is good as long as it is a change that leads to good. 

On Sunday our branch president gave a talk and said today is the day to determine what our future will look like tomorrow. In reality we often times cannot change the situation that we are in, in an instant of change. But as we continue making daily changes in our lives we will see the future begin to look brighter. I love that as a missionary I have the opportunity to invite others to make and keep commitments and eventually covenants that will be a blessing for their lives. We have found investigators who only need an invitation to act and make changes and they do it without fear. Others we have found and invited and lost because they were afraid of what might happen if they took steps to act. This is so sad because on occasion we are blind to our own faults or the things that we should be doing that when we receive an invitation by someone who knows that it would help us we choose not to accept it. I love being a missionary because I can invite, teach and re-invite people to take these steps and commit or recommit themselves to living the standards of the gospel, and see the light and joy that comes from overcoming fear and changing. I am trying to get rid of the fear that I have in my life and to increase my faith in my Savior, and my invitation to you is to do the same, look and see if you have fear of doing something good whether it is sharing the gospel with your friends, or going to church every week, or whatever it is that could be stopping progression and just do it. That is the best way to overcome fear. The Savior is there to help us, over and over again we are promised that if we are working to do better and overcome our fear that the Lord will be there by our sides. This I know to be true as I have felt Him over and over again by myside as I´ve had to do something difficult.

To finish, a quote from Elder Giforos who said, "If serving a mission means loving people it never stops." Love is the key, in the mission and in life. Our goal should always be love. In 1 John 4:18 we read "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." Love is the key to overcoming our fear. If we love God more than the World, more than our possessions, more than our own selves, more than everything there is nothing good that we cannot do. I love the Lord and am grateful to be His servant here in Spain at this time. I love you all and pray for you.

Love,

Elder Gustafson

The Pontevedra Triathalon swimmers

We had lunch at a 50s dinner in Vigo with Elder and Sister Arnett and the other missionaries. 

 

 

The Sower

Sunset over beautiful Pontevedra from our piso window

 

What a great week here in Pontevedra. We have been really busy which has been really good. I love being busy but it makes the weeks seem to fly by. News from this week: we received iPads and have been able to use them to teach and to study which has been really cool. I love being able to share videos in lessons or quotes from talks from the apostles and prophet. There is a great spirit that is brought in as we watch the bible videos made by the church detailing the life of Jesus Christ. I love being able to show part of His life and testifying that He lives and that we are part of His restored church! This is why I love the iPads because they help us testify of Jesus Christ and share our message in a more relatable way. (Also the camera is really good and we can capture the sunsets that we see each night from our piso window.)

This week in my personal studies I have been studying the parables taught by Jesus Christ during his ministry. One of my favorites is the parable of the sower which talks about a sower, someone who plants or sows seeds in the fields, and the types of earth where the seeds fall as they are sown. I love this parable because of how I can identify with it as a missionary and as a disciple of Jesus Christ. There are four types of earth where the seed or message of the gospel falls. The first is the hard trodden path where the seed falls but cannot take root and is eaten by birds. For me these are the people that we talk with in the street who are content with what they have in their life not wanting to improve or change anything to better their lives. These are the same people who lack faith to take action. The second type is those who land upon rocky soil. They grow in the gospel but when they encounter any difficulty they give up wither and die because their roots in the gospel where not strong. The third instance is those seeds that fall among the thorns. The thorns can be the things of the world. The seed is in good soil where things will grow but gets caught up in the things of the world and is cut off from the gospel. The fourth type is those seeds that land in good soil. In the good soil they can grow and receive nourishment in the gospel, but even still some seeds bring forth 30x, others 60x and others 100x. As a missionary I have the opportunity to see all four types of soils and it is a great blessing because it has helped me to see that those who have the most happiness are those who are trying to produce 100x the grain. They are giving their all to the gospel and trying to help others. As a disciple of Jesus Christ I love this parable because I can look at where I am spiritually and make sure that I am in the good soil, have the good roots to overcome the trials that will surely come, that I do not let thorns grow around me even if they don't appear to hurt me, and that I am trying to produce 100x what I am. In "Jesus the Christ" by James E Talmage he writes of this parable and says "In the parable we are considering, the Teacher depicted the varied grades of spiritual receptivity existing among men, and characterized with incisive brevity each of the specified grades. He neither said nor intimated that the hard-baked soil of the wayside might not be plowed, harrowed, fertilized, and so be rendered productive; nor that the stony impediment to growth might not be broken up and removed, or an increase of good soil be made by actual addition; nor that the thorns could never be uprooted, and their former habitat be rendered fit to support good plants." Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can always change. We can increase our soil and be producing 100x what we are. 

Other news this week we had a great couple of  lessons with Julio a joven (young) kid that stopped us in the street. He has desires to learn and to find the truth in his life. We also found a woman in the street named Pili. She is a teacher for the Catholic Church. It was really cool that as we were teaching her and answering her questions it was apparent that light bulbs were going off and she understood that which we were teaching in her heart. As we taught her about receiving an answer from God about which church is true she realized that she was going to have to visit our meetings. Even better than that though she came to church on Sunday with her son! It was really cool to see her there and we are excited to meet with her again! Victor wasn't able to come to church this week which was really sad but we are hopeful that as we continue to teach him he will feel of that Spirit again and have that desire to come. I could go on all day about the great people that are here in Pontevedra but we don't have time for that. I know that the Lord is guiding His work here in Pontevedra and that he has prepared people to hear the gospel. 

 

We have also been teaching an 8 year old boy whose sister has been bringing him to church but whose mother is less active. It has been really fun to teach him and get to become friends with him. His baptism was on Saturday and it was a really great experience. Always at baptisms there is a great spirit testifying that the step that that person is taking is correct. I love being a missionary for those days when we get to see another person taking steps to come unto Christ.

I love you all,

Elder Gustafson

  

We went to the concert of our ward mission leader as our cultural
event (we get one cultural event approved by President Jackson). He
played the piano and his friend sang.
This is us with the Serranos.

Hmmm?