*Knock Knock* Who's there?

The Holy Ghost is key in missionary work. The Holy Ghost is strong and it testifies of things that are true. "I know that the Book of Mormon is true" is an interesting sentence. "That's cool Elder Ditto, but what does that even mean??" I know that water is true. I know that 2 + 2 = 4 is true. Maybe you know that one fish two fish, red fish blue fish is true? When I say that I know the Book of Mormon is true, it means that when I read the book of mormon I want the principles I learn about, such as repentance through Jesus Christ, to be real and applicable to my life today. Through my own expiriences with feeling forgiveness and the Holy Ghost after repenting, I know the Book of Mormon teaches a true principle about repentance and forgiveness. And the Book of Mormon teaches a lot of other true principles as well. As you and I read the Book of Mormon the Holy Ghost will inspire us to apply the things we learn and we will gain a very real testimony of its truth. 

We have an amiga (investigator) named Lululemon, codename, she is from Honduras and is (was) very Evangelical for 15 years. She has talked to the missionaries many times and told them a few months ago she is not interested in our church, dale no pasa nada. But God let the Holy Ghost know about the situation so the Espiritu Santo zoomed down from the heavens and knocked on the heart of Lululemon. Lululemon looked thru the peep hole and saw it was the Holy Ghost, she considered her options and cracked opened the door to it, Holy Ghost made friends with Lulu and since that day, Lululemon seems to leave the door wide open to the Holy Ghost so he can revisit her heart whenever she prays, reads the Book of Mormon, comes to church, or meets with us. We have only met with Lululemon 2 times so far but they have been some of the most spiritual lessons I have been able to be a part of in a long time. She is an honest seeker or truth. and like the Book of Mormon teaches,  "by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things" Lulu is slowly accepting the restored gospel truths. God loves his children so much that he doesnt give up on them ever. I cant lie, I didnt have too much hope for Lululemon when she literally texted us that she did not want to meet with us. But God is was patient and gave her another chance. God has given me a lot of chances, and I am very grateful for that. God loves you.

Yo actually a crazy thing happened this week. My companion and I were walking down the only populated street in Alcorcon and suddenly heard a lady say "'El tiene brutes!" (he has crazy person spasms) but neither one of us had ever heard the word "brutes" before, but from the context clues I was pretty sure it meant something along the crazy spasm lines because bro was staring at me with a bloody nose and the lady, who was trying to hold him bad, looked very terrified. He was like a foot away from me and I started to realize I was maybe about to get in a fight so I was winding up my book of mormon, but then decided to run away, fight or flight I guess. As I turned to run he tried to grab my shoulder and as he did I RAN fast and he started chasing me. I was way faster than that man so I lost him easily and all was well. It was insane, super random and probably ended the best way possible cuz I didnt have to fight him or anything. 

Last night took an L but tonight I bounce back

Yo chavales whats good? 

Samsung phones lowkey got two features that apple does have (I think)

1. This thing called portapapeles, I think that would be like partable papers or sum in ingles, it basically saved the last 15 or so things you copied, and it allows you to copy and paste many things at the same time, super clutch.

2. you can split your screen, o sea, open two apps at once. missionary hack for sure, I can see you added themself to clase de ingles group chat and at the same time make a contact, without switching between apps. So nice. Imagine all the possibilities.

Apple lowkey gotta add those features.

Got a new comp, his name is Elder Sharp, his Spanish is impressively good. I fr have not been told so many times that my Spanish is less good than someone else's until this week, quite humbling gonna have to ether 12:27 it. Fun fact, I threw a party two years ago at BYU in the laundry room and Elder Sharp went to it, he has a video at the party of my talking to him for like one second, I asked him if "his footy" (footage) of the party was good lol, and now we are comps. We are working very hard, this area is good but it needs more miracles. 

Actually, God did some very very awesome miracles this week.

1. After church on Sunday a lady named Claudia from Colombia walked over to her companion escorted by a member and said "How can I get baptized?" Good Question Claudia, so we explained and she is going to make the best decision of her life soon.  She works an insane amount so that's gonna be tough but nothing too hard for Padre Celestial to finesse.

2. Yesterday we had planned three lessons and they all canceled. It was 5:30-7pm, bruh I was lowkey triste. So we prayed to know what to do and didn't rlly receive a crazy answer but the feeling and thought we both had was, "Keep working!" everyone's favorite answer. So we did so. And it was great. The coolest thing that happened was probably at 9:30pm we walked past a bench and saw 2 personas on it and my comp kinda looked at them but we kept going then I was like "wanna hablar con ellos?" so we did and turns out they both had talked to missionaries in Colombia, they wanted to talk to us. They were headed to Domino's pizza to eat, we walked there with them and taught them a lesson in Domino's and they bought us pizza, on a Sunday. A little goofy but I don't think it broke any commandments hopefully, we taught them so hopefully it's okay.

3. Life looks very fun in the US rn. I'm glad, life here is good too, see y'alls later.

PS The church released a new album and it is good, listen to Israel, Israel God Is Calling (instrumental)

Went to the Prado!

 - We went to the Museo del Prado in Madrid and saw some classic paintings.  A lot of the paintings and sculptures I had learned about in my Art 101 history class a couple of years ago. There was a sculpture of a goat head that was sculpted 15-30 AD, and Saturn eating Jupiter super classic.

- It rained a lot, that was nice

- Saw a dude graffitiing a wall for his job. And he let me spray paint the Plan of Salvation, then taught him about repentance, it was really cool honestly.

- An amiga from Pamplona Carolina got baptized on Saturday! The Glennys invited her to listen to the missionaries about 6 months ago, the Glennys are the best!

- we had a fiesta on Saturday to celebrate Día de Hispanidad and we ate many cultures.

- Transfer Week!!!  I am staying in Alcorcón, but with a new comp, Élder Sharp! Gonna be hype!

Love, Elder Ditto

Jesus, Jason, and Jeneral Conference

First things first, the second coming is pronto, so prepare yourselves. Secondly, President Nelson (the prophet of the church today) is a prophet of the Lord, and President Nelson will be preserved until he has done all God needs him to. He shared a crazy story that some goons tried to rob him and they pulled the trigger at Presidente Nelson, and the gun didn't fire. Good try goons, gonna have to think tat one thru next time.

Some of y'all might remember Jason, he is awesome. He lives in Torrejon (my previous area) but needed to get married before he could get baptized, and literally, every single opposition possible that could have arisen arose twice. But Jason and Fabiola are so faithful and patient and were able to get married on Friday and Jason was baptized on Saturday. Jason asked me to perform the baptism so I was able to zoom over to Torrejon to do it. Jason told me that the whole process helped him grow his patience "which I didn't have before" - Jason. Even though I personally thought Jason was so ready to get baptized 4 months ago, this is one of those times where I think that God has his own perfect time for things. Jason and Fabiola are legendary.

Favorite quotes from General Conference:

"The best is yet to come because the Savior is coming." - President Russell M Nelson

"Every sincere seeker of Jesus Christ will find Him in the temple" - Russell M Nelson

"Dont water a tree by splashing water on the branches." - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Teach with simplicity" - Henry B. Eyring

"Sitting on a church pew doesn't make you any more Christian than sleeping in a garage makes you a car." - Elder Buckner

Also, I finished the Doctrine and Covenants, it teaches us a lot about the Plan of Salvation, the organization of the Church, and that I need to trust in the prophet 100% as he receives revelation from Heavenly Father.

Love, Elder Ditto

Moises

This week was pretty crazy. 

In this mission, we are allowed to go to one "cultural event," which is usually either a Real Madrid soccer game or San Fermin if you are in Pamplona. So the bois and I fuimos a Real Madrid on Tuesday, basically double pday lol. And it was unreal. Real Madrid has to be the most classic soccer club ever! They have an anthem they sing to start the game when they score and to end the game. The song sounds like you are going to war.

Matias and Fabiana got baptized! They are 8 yrs old but they wanted us to baptize them so that was very special. Their mom Diana is a beast, she is a single mom and helps her kids so much.

More stuff probably happened, but I gotta preach.

Oh ya! How could I have almost forgotten? On like Tuesday we were like, "Where do we go?" And we went to a bench, always a safe option, and like 20 minutes later a inactive member of the church named Moises came up to us, he told us he wanted to pay his tithing and come back to church, we got his number and he came to church on Sunday, there's a lot more incredible parts to the story and ill tell you later. God loves his kids so he will figure out how to find em. 

Love, Elder Ditto

Stumbling Block

Hello blokes! This week was way good. some highlights:

1. Zone Conference with Elder McConkie and Sister McConkie and some other reuniones with them. They both speak so well and bring the spirit wherever they go. We talked about turning "stumbling blocks" into "stepping stones" in other words, turning opposition into opportunity and the key to doing so is a change of perspective. I have been focusing on changing my perspective on the little/big things every day with the goal of always being happy, easier said than done but ima try to do it like Dylan Kitt. 

2. We had Stake Conference on Sunday at the church next to the temple in Madrid. It was also very good, and a little sad because 4/6 speakers spoke in English and had a translator. I am grateful for English. A fire talk was given about covenants and ordinances. A covenant is an alliance between us and God and an ordinance is a physical representation of that. Ex: baptism. Covenant: keep commandments, serve others, take the name of Christ upon us, and endure to the end. Ordinance: go underwater then back up again. BUT the cool part comes now. In Italian the word covenant is alliance. In French, the word for a wedding ring is also alliance. When we covenant to Heavenly Father we are making an alliance, and temple marriage is another example! wordplay is my favorite

3. I am kinda sick

4. I am going to Real Madrid soccer game tomorrow!

5. We are teaching some cool people!

6. The Kingdom of God is on the earth and it's The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!

My dad sent me this picture of their stake missionary board.  So fun to see Cooper and my pictures up there together!

Perfecting Toward God

I met a guy named Stif this week (Steve)  Before my mission I thought Latino people's names were always Manuel or Jose but honestly it's like 50/50 between the classic Jesús and the dude named Peter, you never know. 

Satan, Sadness                            God, Happiness

                                                                      

         < - - - - - - - - - - -              - - - - - - - - - - - >

                   (sin)                      (repentance)

Ok, I hope that worked. I was thinking about this. We are all imperfect and live in a sinful world. In this beautiful diagram I crafted, the  (us) never can stay in the same place. We are either moving towards the  or the . If I sleep an entire day as a missionary, I didn't complete my purpose for that day, so it's bad and it's a sin, not a mega sin but it's definitely not moving me towards God. If I spend the whole day teaching people about Jesus, that's good and it helps me move towards God.

The  - - - - - - - - > motion on the diagram is repentance, we don't have to kill someone or steal in order to repent. If we want to become like Christ or God (pure intentions, loving...) it requires changing some things about us and starting new things about us. This is what repentance means! Repentance also is not an event, it is a way of life  If we strive to become like Jesús and Heavenly Father we will end up repenting every day! And it often is hard to repent or painful, and Jesus understands Kinda interesting and it's not perfect so lmk if you have thoughts. 

Exchange with Anciano Garces from Italy. We went to Usera, Madrid to eat ramen because it is literally China. All the signs and people are Chinese  It was a cool vibe.

My mom sent my Chik fil A sauce a while ago  and I put in on Arroz Chaufa at a member meal, it was a hit.

Stif and Maria pulled up to church without knowing really anything about the church. That's faith. Gonna see what's good with them this week.

Love, Elder Ditto