Might look forming but it's good stuff

Alma 59-61 

The last time I read these chapters I didn't learn much but President Eastland did a personal study with us and I learned a lot.

Pahoran: president

Moroni: chief captain

Moroni was leading his army in a battle and they were getting destroyed and Pahoran wasn't helping by sending food and more soldiers. So Moroni was angry and sent a letter to Pahoran saying how bad of a person he was. 

Pahoran's city actually got raided or sum so he couldn't actually help Moroni, even though he wanted to. Pahoran wrote this to Moroni:

v.9 "And now, in your epistle (letter) you have censured me, but it mattereth not; I am not angry, but do rejoice in the greatness of your heart. I, Pahoran, do not seek for power, save only to retain my judgment-seat that I may preserve the rights and the liberty of my people. My soul standeth fast in that liberty in the which God hath made us free"

Moroni was wrong, but Pahoran didn't argue with him. Something really hard is knowing that what someone did is wrong and then not letting it ruin/change relationships or trust. Lowkey super hard to do, but it's what we have to try to do. 

- We found a mural of LeBron James

- We are currently in Cuenca, España. I will throw some pics abajo. The OG city of Cuenca was built on a lil hill/ledge thing and it is sick.

Love, Elder Ditto

Clay Court

Yo yo! 

Pictures: 

1. Today was super fun. I played tennis for the first time on a clay court! I felt like Carlos. Playing on clay is pretty similar but you can see where the call marks on the clay and I think if you are really cracked you can get some crazier spin. Elder Romrell pulled up too, I love that man.

2. This was after a miracle lesson during an exchange. His name is Douglas and he is from Guatemala. Earlier that day I logged into the Facebook account of one of the elders in that area (San Sebastian de los Reyes) and published some announcement's for a soccer activity their ward does every week. Douglas pulled up at like 7pm and played until 10pm and everyone in the ward was loving him, after we taught him with a recent convert named Richard and it was very spiritual, Douglas said many times that he had been looking for ways to have peace and joy but not finding it and he thinks now that Jesus and his church is the way to do it, he is right!

3. During the same intercambio (exchange) he drove to El Molar and it was really prety.

4. My mom is the best so she sent me a letter

5. Elder Romrell got me right

6. Madrid

7. A good lesson we had with a lady from Gabon, Africa and members from Nigeria and Cameroon helped out, they are super awesome.

During the exchange I played soccer in my church shoes and I got massive blisters on my feet, the next few days until now I have been duct taping them.

I am in Moroni 6 and will finish the LDM this week in Spanish!

We had a great lesson with a recent convert (someone who has recently gotten baptized) on Sunday with a family of members of the church from Columbia. We ate absolutely delicious grub and then shared a message about the Sacrifice of Jesus and the Sacrament and the spirit was totally there, I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and also that we have the chance to 100% focus on Him every Sunday in church, the sacrament needs to be a reverent time, do what you can to make it more reverent this Sunday! And if you haven't gone before, go, it's the best!

Elder Ditto  

Thanks Padre Celestial

Hola mis queridos amigos. El Padre Celestial, Jesus, y el Espiritu Santo balled out this week here in Torrejon de Ardoz. There was a plethora of cool miracles that happened and I wanted to share them with vosotros.

1. We were knocking doors on Friday at like 4pm and entered stealthy into a building and then started knocking those doors. Actually in Spain it is way more normal to ring there personal doorbell and not knock on their door. So we rang the doorbell of this house, they let us in (big W) then we taught them (big W), then the lady said, ¨our doorbell hasn't worked for 2 years, so when we heard it we had to come see who it was.¨ The Gospel is so important that doorbell had to work, because when we left she had us try again and it didn't work anymore.

2. We were walking around and saw two doods with groceries so we went over to help them, they turned out to be members of the church!

3. We had like actually 28 people play futbol with us on Saturday, it was low-key too many people but it was lit because we just used it basically as a waiting lobby for people we could teach. 

4. Four families pulled up to English class??? There was like two people when it started, then the fams pulled up. I love families!

5. We have 6 eggs and a little bit of rice, nothing else. So today after church we were like, uhh idk what we are gonna eat, then the Lord provided and members invited us over to grub.

6. A guy named 4136 (codename) has came to church 12 times and wasn't rlly that interested with meeting with the missionaries and learning in the past, but he went to YSA camp (a camp thing for 18 to 26 yr olds) and felt the spirit super strongly and today after church told us he wants to get baptized. The Holy Ghost is strong!

7. Jarome and Fabione (also codenames) hooly crap, if you are reading this far, you are a real one, and you have made it to the ultimate miracle of the week. They are trying to get married so Jaromiuos can get baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, its been like a 4 month process, Spain is trash in this aspect, and... idrk exactly how it works but they are probably gonna be able to actually get married super soon. It's one of those miracle you just say, Thanks Padre Celestial.

Paella

Love, Elder Ditto

Good Day Sire

I found an absolute sanctified banger this week:

Where can I Turn for Peace by Alex Coffey and Mitch Davis

3 Nephi 26:13, "...the Lord truly did teach the people, for the space of three days; and after that he did show himself unto them oft, and did break the bread oft, and bless it, and give it unto them." 

Ayo, did you know that?? After Jesus first visited the Nephites and instituted the Sacrament, he often pulled up to their church services to bless and pass the sacrament. Jesus for sure had some other important things to do but he made time to visit the ancient American continent for sacrament meeting. Go to church!

New companion, New Transfer

Flash back to the couple of hours I spent in the Dalles, TX airport on my way to Spain.  Excited for Cooper!!

Big shoutout to Cooper for receiving his mission call to Lubbock, Texas. I knew a little of the Texas anthem, "lone star ..." but I totally forgot it. You are gonna learn so much and help so many people Elder Ditto! He is gonna start December 23 so we won't see each other in person for a little less than 4 years. 

Someone wise once told me that what you do on pday is what your life is gonna look like after the mission. Today has been a very good pday hasta ahora. We planned the day, exercised, ate, cleaned, got ready for the day. I don't want to be a bum when I get back from my mission. 

This week we talked to a lot of Africans, I love Africans. - Elder Ditto

Rollercoaster

Luke 6

32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that love them.

35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Sheesh, that hits. Lowkey a week with some ups and downs for sure. Some cool things were that we had a lit activity for our ward, a talent show, and like 50 members pulled up! I sang my song, Rhodes, I lowkey forgot like half of the words lol, kinda a good sign that I haven't been thinking about that stuff too much. 

Elder Romrell (my old comp) left to do bigger and better things so I got a new companion, Elder Thacker. He is from Heber, Utah, and is really nice, has good Spanish, and is a good teacher. WE are gonna have a blast. I got a haircut today, one of those classic Mexican homie cuts. Some triste things. One of the Recent Converts is having some troubles right now, just the way she goes, so if you wanna pray for my boy that would be awesome. 

Shoutout to Cooper for getting his mission call soon, my guesses would be Copenhagen or Nashville. I am proud of you bro! I hope you read this lol.

Here are some pictures of things in Madrid. Have a good week a todos.

Pday Hike

Recording studio with my new friend

Love, Elder Ditto

España lowkey in it's prime rn

Que va chavales. Just wanted to start off by talking about how cool España is right now jaja. 

Won EuroCopa vs Inglaterra! 

Carlos won Wimbledon! 

San Fermin (running of the bulls) is happening rn, and tour de France started in San Sebastian area mas o menos. 

It's a super guay time to be in Spain frfr. God is good

Three things I am working on right now as a missionary:

1. Showing love and enthusiasm for the gospel through my body language, might sound crazy but it's true.

2. Loving and helping members share the Good Noticias, 

We have been doing some fire lessons with this outline: Teach a principle (ex. temple and families can be together forever), ask, who do you want to see in the temple with you (or just any inspired Q), give ideas of how and when they can share about the principle (temples), PRACTICE one time with them (so fun and funny), invite them to do it for reals that week.

3. Having and keeping faith. I feel like towards the middle part of the mission it can be easy to forget to strengthen your faith, whereas in the beginning, you are basically running solo on faith (don de lenguas, teaching, learning, everything) so I am trying to build and study faith.

Jhimmy got baptized and confirmed on Saturday. He is a rapper (Big Eddy is his rapper name) and he does Wing Chun (martial arts). He has changed a lot over his life and has received 100% forgiveness for all his past sins. Big Eddy x YC colab? no se, ya veremos.

Our amigo, Jason is more prepared for baptism than me, but he isn't married to his girlfriend yet because they don't have a document. If you could pray for Jason twould be greatly appreciated. I feel like God is in the process of mixing up a nice miracle in their family right now and it is crazy being (kinda) involved in it.  

Sometimes I think about this missionary work 19, 20, 21 year 21-year-olds are in and think about how insane it really is. And then I remember that it's God's work and he really just have to trust Him and work hard. This week I am going to try to trust Him more and be more obedient. 

Love, 

Elder Ditto

Triple Threat

Happy 4th of July folks! Looks like everyone had fun, we did too. Cooked up some burgers in the church parking lot after an exchange.

We had 3 exchanges last week! So many, and kind of hard to work effectively in our area, just cuz I wasn't with my comp too much. It's hard to stay focused and plan everything out but I did enjoy the exchanges a lot. 

Here are some things I learned:

1st Elder Christiansen: he is very willing to receive advice and he is a humble guy, also that comp studies are important. I'm gonna have to try to do comp studies with my future wife.

2nd  Elder Bernard: show your personality! Spanish is tough for him and he is working on it a lot, even though he can't fully express himself in Spanish words, everyone we talked to that day knew exactly what type of guy he is...funny and happy. I am trying to show my love in my body language.

3rd Elder Buchanan: go with the flow. We cut a menos activo member's hair, it was fun. They work right in the center of Madrid, SO MANY PEOPLE!

Muchas cosas. This morning we had some time to watch a "The District" video about finding thru members of the church. It was so fire. Those misioneros in the videos are goats. I love meeting, serving, teaching, and working together with the members in Spain, they are so faithful and courageous. If you are a member of the church and are reading this, Send me ideas for how I can love the members more. Good stuff! God has a great work and I want to be a part of it 

Love, 

Elder Ditto