Bost Sei Zazpi REAL

I love this place. Estamos trabajando. Esta obra es de Jesucristo y Dios. Y estoy agradecido por este tiempo tengo a disfrutar, ayudar y sentir un poquito de ella.

Elder Nelson and some of my missionary friends!

There was some kind of festival this week. I think it had something to do with flowers.

We wrote notes to the ward and hid them in the Hymn books. 10/10 would recommend!

I think I'm gonna buy a missionary name tag that says "Élderito" cuz that's what it sounds like whenever I say my name and all the folk acá think it's funny. 

Searching for the elect!

Knowledge is power

Élder Nelson and I found ourselves in "Sociedad" yesterday in a far-off land. We were invited by a member of our ward. We were grubbing on big ole shrimp, ribs, and rye bread with a professional saxophone player and his friends. It felt like a scene in How To Train Your Dragon in the mess hall thing with a whole bunch of beer and meat. Élder Nelson and I were talking in the language Euskera (kinda lol) while they were watching the Real Sociedad game. We won 4-3.  

Felt like a part of the culture 4 rëally!

Un pavo real (royal duck/peacock) pulled up on us

You know how your parents hate it when you disobey them, and how "mother knows best" or "just do it because I said so" type of thing? Well, it's the exact same with our Heavenly Father. Now I ain't no padre right now, and I still have a few years of liberty. But I lowkey have been taking notes of Lehi's example and of my Dad and of President Eastland and I've been reading the book, Gospel Principles to prepare to be a lit father but that's beside the point. Your parents want you to get home on time and to follow the rules. It's literally the exact same with God. 

"If ye love me, keep my commandments"

 My Spanish level has gone down since the MTC (let's gooo) we think it is cuz my AirPods don't work very good, hopefully!  They could not pick up my responses to the questions.

My lads

 

I actually like to read.  WHAT?!!!!!!

I also finished a book this week. I'm a changed man. Egun on!

Anxiously engaged!!

We are currently stranded in a city called Loredo trying to get to Santoña. We missed our bus this morning which means we also missed every bus we had already bought tickets to for the rest of the day.  Laredo is super dope! We already found some members of the church.

Picture from bus ride of the beautiful towns

Story of what happened on the way to our Pday adventure

View from the top of our hike in Santoña of the cliffs of Mount Busiero! I can't wait to come back here after my mission!  On top of the mountain you can jump off the cliffs (there are even stairs from the water back up the cliff) and rope swings!

In Spain, there are straight-up escalators outside taking you up the hills!

Hike up to the top of the mountain on PDay.  Luckily, my companion loves to run so we were able to make it to the top of the mountain and back down again in 51 minutes. All of the other missionaries were done with the hike but because we missed our first bus we missed all of our pre-bought bus passes on the following three busses so we had to book it up the mountain!

Lunch with my district on Day

Love,

Elder Ditto

Savage Mode

KAiXO! Howdy y'all. What's the difference between Sadness and Discouragement? 

Lots of train traveling this week!

On Tuesday we took the train to Madrid. The ride through the countryside around all the little pueblos is so beautiful. Madrid is a hype city, I hope to serve there one day and get to know the lads there. Elder Smith and I had our residency meetings (I'm almost legal now). 

I love this bag

I filled the brown leather bag with bastante copies of the best and most true book on the earth (The Book of Mormon) and then we took the train back to Sanse. The next day we went to Bilbao for Zone Conference. Elder Nelson and I only had 2.5 days in our area this week so that was really weird tbh. But we definitely made the best of it.

I honestly think we have the best Mission President! Shoutout to Presidente Eastland! He is a wise man . I like to imagine him as a Swordsmith forging and shaping us missionaries here in España into some absolutely SHARP and dope-looking swords. We all walked out of zone conference with increased knowledge and purpose. Savage mode. 

The élderes en Madrid

One thing he shared which I loved was about the sons of Mosiah. Alma 26:23-31 are some really good verses. 

The sons of Mosiah pull up with the intent to help out their enemies. And their enemies "laugh [them] to scorn." The Sons of Mosiah were out there in the streets preaching and knocking on doors but people were not receptive. They wrote, "When our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success." In this tough moment, the Lord helped them out and told them to keep on pushing. The difference between sadness and discouragement is FAITH. It's normal to be sad, but when we get discouraged this is when we lose faith; lose faith in ourselves, in our friends, in our talents. Whatever it may be...don't lose faith! Know that God can be trusted at all times. We can't choose other people's actions but we can choose to keep our faith. 

Alma 26:37

"Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen."

Here's a crazy story:

Our faces after we basically conducted a church meeting (once in a lifetime experience, hopefully jaja)

We had Stake Conference this Sunday (the actual meeting was in a different city) but some enormous miscommunication happened which resulted in only us, José María, a Turista from Puerto Rico, and 2 members in the capilla (church) in San Sebastián. Every single member was in the other city watching it in person. 10 o'clock and we are all huddled around the laptop to watch the Zoom for Stake Conference (because we didn't think about bringing an HDMI and there's none in the Church to connect to the projector). The Zoom wasn't starting because it starts at 11 am (not 10 am)! In ONE more HOUR. So Elder Nelson and I feel so freaking defeated. Absolute L. But, I take a breath, think for a second, remember that we missionaries probably don't have the authority to conduct a sacrament meeting, then start conducting haha. We sang a hymn, prayed, and started a testimony meeting. It ended up good. José María bore his testimony! Then the Zoom started and a thousand more tech problems arose but we ended up figuring it out. Ended up being 3 hr church.

Talent show with the zone, freestyle (from last week)

Super busy wack week. Never gonna forget it. Smile!

 Getting better at cooking. (Mom approval?)

Learn something random this week, this week I learned how to count to 10 in Euskera:

Bat, bi, Lau, hiru, Bost, sei, zazpi, zortzi, bedaratzi, hamar!

Read the book

Love, Elder Ditto

Teaching and Learning

God works in miraculous ways. It is super fascinating. A whole bunch of miracles happened in Spain this week and what an absolute privilege it is to watch and be a small part of the work of God. 

Hit up Pamplona this week on an exchange and saw the stadium where the running of the bulls ends.

Typical Spaniard door

There is a couple named Victor Hugo and Annie who live in a little house set up inside of a semi-truck garage in Zarautz. They are immigrants from Guatemala and have not attended church for about 2 years. God sent us to them on Thursday night. Annie shared with us through her tears how grateful she was for this demonstration that God still cared about her as she shared that missionaries usually meet with amigos and non-members, but how God still cares about her even though she is already a member of the church. The spirit was so strong in that lesson and I learned that Victor Hugo and Annie probably have more faith than I do. They are so awesome. 

Alma 17:9 "...they fasted and prayed much that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with them and abide with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God to bring, if it were possible, their brethren, the _________ to the knowledge of the truth."

My absolute G of a cousin, George.ditto@missionary.org started his mission today. God just acquired another prime instrument in His orchestra.

Jose Maria is feeling really happy with his decision to be baptized on the 30th of this month.

We put Claudia on date for baptism! She feels the peacefulness of the Spirit really strong when she prays.

Baliadas after a blessed lesson of 9 amigos with Elder Anderson.  A baleada is a traditional Central American dish, believed to have originated on the northern coast of Honduras. It is composed of a flour tortilla, filled with a smear of mashed "refried" red beans, crema, and crumbled queso duro.

Quick update on the language: I can understand almost everything, the rules and grammar mess me up when speaking. Level of a 6-year-old probs 

Life has many ups and downs. I cannot say that I am the best at handling the downs, so to fix that this week I am going to have more trust in the Lord, be more obedient, and smile more. 

españa vs pays vasco

I learned how to pray in Euskera last week:

Aita zeruko maitea. Eskerrik asko egun honengatik eta nire familiarengatik. Mesedez lagundu iezaguzu Espiritu Santua sentitzen. Jesukristoren izenean amen.

I actually cooked something that was good.  It was a mixture of potatoes, noodles, ham, corn, and cream.  It took forever to cook, though.

 

Trying to keep my freestyle skills 

Os quiero!

Elder Nathan Ditto

Finally Finding Families!!!

This week we had a devotional on Zoom with John Bytheway. It was about true identity. He talked about Moses. In Hebrew the name Moses or Mss (they take the vowels out in Hebrew) literally means "son of nobody."A pretty lame name can't lie. According to his name, Moses was a had no parents or family or nada. Quite interesting. 

We got to have dinner with a family in the beautiful town of Zarautz.

Snagged a pic of a Spaniard looking cottage on the way to Biblao

In the Pearl of Great Price we read the account of when God appeared to Moses. In verse 6 of the book of Moses God says to Moses, "Moses, my son." Moses is a child of God. Moses is a child of the King of the heavens. That's some real power right there. Moses has a divine destiny to become a King himself. And so do you and me! But, guess what happened right after God hyped up Moses. Yep, Satan slid up. And what did he say?, "Moses, son of man." The first thing that Satan tried to do was take away Moses' divine identity. Satan knows how much power, happiness, and faith comes from the knowledge that we are beloved children of God, and he is scared of it. And to finish the story Moses looks Satan in the eyes (which he doesn't have lol cuz he don't got a body) and says, "Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of His Only Begotten; and where is they glory, that I should worship thee?" Can we be like Moses and remember our eternal worth???? We are meant to become Gods and Goddesses so keep Satan in his place yo.

Old pic with me and my tío Elder Nebeker(from exchanges inSantander)

Two weeks ago we were in Loyola and met a family of four.  The mom is inactive (baptized like 30 years ago but doesn't go to church) and the husband and kids aren't members. Last night we had a lesson with them in the house of a member family and it was so lit. We played a game with cards that have pictures of objects on them like "your dream car," "video games," "running water," "scriptures," "temples," etc. The purpose of the game is you have the amigos eliminate one card at a time (the one that is the least important) and end up with the last six cards (the most important things), and they are pictures of scriptures, temple, testimony, family, church, and priesthood. They all loved it (there was nine people in the lesson!). The game was a gift from Sister Casteneda from back in yak. Big shoutout big love.

This picture of Jesus reminds me of Young Thugs álbum So Much Fun! La verdad es que para predicad de Jesucristo es so much fun!

This week Elder Nelson and yo tried switching companion study up a lil to make it more fun. We started picking a random object every day and thinking of as many analogies as we could related to that object. Rubiks cubes and the restoration is an easy dub (great apostasy). If you are a missionary and wanting some new fun ways to teach kids and even adults, use some object lessons. 

the district

We extended a baptismal date to JOSEMARIA. I love that guy. He pulled up to church today wearing a drippy white jean jacket and a nice belt and looking way fly. He arrived at the capilla like 30 mins early and chilled with us while we greeted people. He's so lit. He also has the plan to finish the Book of Mormon by tonight ahhaha. W. Please pray from him to keep up that desire to come unto Christ and enter the aguas de bautismo!

It's been raining a lot in San sebastián which I love. Boutta jugar fútbol with Spaniards. I love this. Send me an email (nathan.ditto@missionary.org) with your favorite things this week!

Rainy day

This is a tour of my apartment:

Love, 

Elder Ditto