Elder Hirst week 68

2:45 PM

Monday- We had mission council down in Fuengirola in the mission home and it was really good, we talked about goals and plans for the year. We also ate some amazing chile from Hermana Andersen who is an amazing cook

Tuesday- we had more mission council, and then took a train and arrived home late

Wednesday- That evening we are preparing the recent convert from nigeria here, Morrison, to go to the temple this week with the ward to do baptisms for his ancestors so we spent some time at the church to help with some family history stuff. It was way fun. Then we contacted the rest of the night

Thursday- We had our ward Christmas lunch today and it was a huge success! Many members brought their nonmember friends there was a really fun talent show. We were able to get some references that live in our area, some who look like they could have some great potential. We also performed a talent as missionaries, and i got to play my clarinet and it was a good time. That evening we went and visited Morrison and he had some friends there. They heard we were coming so they prepared a big dish of Fufu which is a very typical Nigerian dish and it was great. It was elder Owen's first time trying it so it was funny. The rest of that night we just passed by some people and talked with some more people in the streets

Friday- we had zone meeting in the morning with our whole zone and it was very good. Then that evening we had companion exchanges with the elders serving in cordoba. I was with my good Chilean friend Elder Pesce and we had a great night. First we had received a call the previous night from the missionaries in Albacete that one of the members there has an aunt who wanted a blessing and that she was in a hospital in sevilla. We went and found the lady, she is from Romania but lives in a pueblo like 2 hours away from sevilla, but we gave her a blessing and she appreciated it. Then we passed by the woman we found the last week in the hair dressing shop, and she starts her cancer treatment this week so we explained that we could give her a blessing of strength so that everything would turn out well, and it was a very powerful experience. Then we read a chapter in the book of mormon together. She seems like she's going to have so much potential. After, we taught a less active family in our area and had a very good lesson about the commandments

Saturday- we spent the morning just contacting tons of people. We were able to meet some great people. Then we ate lunch with some amazing members, David and Maria. Then we had another awesome activity. We had a stake beneficial concert to collect food for the poor, and the group performing was a very good orchestral group from Sevilla, and it was awesome, we had one of our new investigators there that we met at the christmas lunch named Isaac. He's 17 and the boyfriend of one of the members

Sunday- church was awesome, Isaac came and during the second hour we shared a lesson with him with the new young men's president who just moved into the ward. It's awesome the ward has also organized a group for the ward temple trip this week that doesn't plan on entering the temple, just having a tour of the MTC in Madrid and receiving a tour of the temple grounds as well as having some discussions. Isaac is actually going to go on the tour so that'll be awesome!!!! But all in all it was a great sunday.

This week was really amazing, i'm enjoying the work so much right now. We're meeting some great new people, we're continually learning, and we're having a good time doing it. I am so happy that my mission has been the best experience of my life, being able to serve God is the best thing in this world.

The orchestra at church