Curtis, Alex

Been a busy week! Like I said last time, I went back to my first area, Talavera de la Reina, on exchanges last week. I ran into a couple of members that I haven't seen in forever, and Elder Landheim and I taught some cool lessons. The only downside is that I got sick while we were there and was half checked-out the rest of the week. We didn't have to stop working at all, but it's just annoying to be sick. We had a great week though! We taught our friend Nataly about priesthood authority- she's known about the church and attended pretty consistently for almost a year buts still isn't sure if she should get baptized, so we've been focusing on the 'why' of what we do in the Church and the 'how' of receiving answers from God. And we focused on how our message means nothing if Joseph Smith lied about being a prophet, translating the Book of Mormon, or receiving the priesthood. Specifically, getting baptized without priesthood authority is taking a bat...

.. for I am going to prove it to you  by the Bible !" -Joseph Smith ^we'll come back to this Started the week with an exchange in Valladolid, which is an awesome city north of Madrid. I went there last year on exchanges so it was fun to be back, and the workday I spent with Elder Tufuga was great.  Back in Alcorcón we had a really great week, tons of success and Spirit- filled lessons.  Paula's family are coming along nicely, we taught them about the Plan of Salvation and invited them to keep reading the scriptures. We've noticed that they have a lot of respect for things written there, especially the Bible, so we do our best to back up what we teach with the words of God to His prophets. We're trying to help them have a good family scripture study habit. Pedro's also learning a lot, with the epistles of Peter in last week's Come Follow Me, he wanted to know why everyone was talking about salvation for the dead. So we finished the Plan of Salvation with sup...

Genesis 12:1-3 1 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:  2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:  3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee:  and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed Abram (later Abraham) is being told to pack up his stuff and move. He's living in an idolatrous culture but the one true God has chosen him to establish a His culture, or covenant people, in a new land. That covenant culture has followed God's instructions (or tried their very best) ever since. The covenant to follow God through His representatives was passed on through the house of Abraham, the house of Israel, the Jews, the "primitive" Church of Jesus Christ, and the restored Church in the latter-days. And though God's covenant with those who follow Hi...

Heavy stuff first: We started teaching a Facebook referral who's a 25 year old Spaniard. That *never* happens. Turns out she wasn't really raised with any religious background but a Catholic grandma. She's agnostic but still wanted to meet with us for some reason, so we had the unique situation of explaining to someone why we believe in God. Usually people either take God as a given or they're so atheist that they only believe in yelling at Christians, so someone who doesn't "already know everything" and wants to hear our side is a novelty. Here's how I explained faith to her: Most of us haven't looked God in the face here on earth, but none of us have seen air either. Instead, we know there's air because we feel the wind in our fave or see the effect that it has on the world around us. We have  incomplete information  about the air, since it would be nice to be able to use our most powerful sense to learn more about it. That being said, we kno...