Curtis, Alex

This week was kinda uneventful in terms of the work, since Elder Madsen and I drove down to the Madrid mission office on Tuesday, and I didn't pick up my new comp, Elder Allen, until Saturday. But I got to help the travel elders with transfers, have some awesome lessons over the phone, and see a bunch of my friends from around the mission!  Elder Allen is from California, really tall, and ready to work! We're going to do everything we can these next transfers to help the people I've met here in Santander to progress and have God more present in their lives!  We really only had Sunday to work this week but we shared a Palm Sunday message with a lot of people. Those who welcomed Christ to Jerusalem that day welcomed Him as their King. They got that right. But they didn't understand everything that was about to happen and didn't fully understand who this man that they admired so much was. Often our faith is like that, where we don't understand fully God's plans...

I'm going to describe this week in scriptures... Genesis 5:3:  "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth" We got transfer news, and I'm staying here in Santander to train again! Training Elder Madsen here was amazing, and this area we started from scratch has really come into its own! We'll be driving down to Madrid on Tuesday for Elder Madsen's ID card appointment, and on Saturday night I'll drive back up with my new comp. I'll probably train him for these last two transfers of my mission, so it would be accurate to call this new guy "the son of my old age" (Genesis 21:2) The rest of the week was pretty good, I actually got pretty sick and took a whole day to stay inside with some stomach pain. With some help from the mission doctor I'm on my way to full recovery. Two scriptures come to mind to describe my experience this week: Moses 1:9  "And the pres...

(Ignore the part about fire) It has barely stopped raining all week, but we've actually been really busy. And on Sunday it started to hail so much that a couple of people made snowmen out of it, but we had more visitors at church than ever!  This week we started teaching a few new people and had a few awesome member visits. In both cases it's all about checking on and making suggestions for their spiritual habits. If we can help people feel the Spirit through those things and they allow us to spend time as their spiritual personal trainers, they will progress because they open themselves up to God. I've said it once and I'll say it again, it makes a *massive* difference in the lives of people if they pray and read the scriptures and make decisions with God's commandments in mind. They will do what they need to to receive God's blessings and will have the peace and happiness that comes from preparing to live with God. We talked about this with a guy named Christo...