Week 58 - Sr. Missionaries, Temples, and Keepin' it real

We had a great week this week! I am one of the luckiest missionaries alive - I have spent thus far the entire mission with Senior couples right around. The ones living here in Alcalá are Elder and Sister Schwartz. They made us an excellent dinner on Sunday, and we always ask them about their work. They´re Family Search missionaries, spending time in old Spanish archives taking pictures of old books for people´s reasearch. How cool is that? Tonight we´re taking Elder Schwartz to a lesson in English, because he doesn´t speak any Spanish, and he´s going to talk about family history. I´m really excited. We talked about the eldery in the church on Sunday, and President Benson really had a point -  we can learn a lot from our Grandmas and Grandpas. If only I had more time to write them letters...

Not sure if I mentioned this already, but we had an interesting schedule change a few weeks ago. We leave piso an hour earlier and do comp study during MedioDía, which is tough because we hardly have mediodía at all anyways. Makes for an even more overall feeling of being tired - a tough schedule with 10 miles of walking per day, and then we take away the hour we had for dinner. It´s beginning to take its toll :)

We had two intercambios last week, which just made the whole week fly by. One of our miracles came from my second day here in Alcalá, when we accidentally found a menos activa who hadn´t been to church in years. Well, we have now had a couple of great lessons and then her 18 year old daughter went to the JAS activity and had a great time! We´re feeling good about the member work because now the members aren´t just involved - they´re committed to the salvation of these people and won´t give up if things don´t go well. That´s a problem I´ve seen a lot, just a lack of persistence and giving up on people who don´t progress the way we want. What a pity to think so blindly, as the bishop would say. (And yes, he woke us up 30m early this morning with a text saying, "Buenos días, campeones.")

We had a great district meeting on Wednesday last week, and we´ve got a great zone training coming up. And then, we´ve got the TEMPLE!! That´s right, for the first time in a year, I´ll be going to do a temple session. 10 days. And I´ve got some seriouls struggles with being a District Leader. My district is acting up, as I expected at the beginning of the transfer. I did my best to see them plainly at the beginning and some people really surprised me. They can do a lot without But some of the things I was told might happen, did happen. And that just causes a huge dolor de cabeza. I have learned a lot about relying on the Lord. I simply cannot solve these problems. But, as I look for what HE wants and what HE thinks, the revelatory answers just become bright and clear. I know that I can do a lot - I have. But I couldn´t do this without his help. The Atonement is REAL! And who would´ve thought I realized that working with other missionaries of all people? :) They´re not suppossed to be the ones giving me headaches.

Elder Stew.

P.S. Don´t read that like I´m depressed or cynical or angry. I´m doing great. Just frustrated every once in a while. 

At Zone Conference