May 25, 2011

~ Hey, I really liked the story you sent me last week about the mound of gold flakes that the wise man had collected over time. It is something that I´ve been thinking of these past months. Ever since I started practicing golf it´s been a topic that´s fascinated me, and these past months I´ve been realizing just how powerful is diligence, and just how powerful are the good habits that we create. If we do a little bit everyday it´s amazing what we can accomplish. The mission has made me love reading and studying the gospel. It is such an interesting topic. I wan´t to study the gospel everyday of my life. I´m starting to understand what Nephi meant when he said that his heart pondereth continualy upon the things of the Lord. The scriptures are awesome. One of my old MTC teachers teaches sunday school and sometimes preisthood on sundays, and this sunday he said that the spirit is like the refiners fire, that purifies us, and as we search diligently to have him in our lives more often he will purify us and will take away our impurities. The spirit will take away our desire to sin, and purify us from all wrong tendencies. I know that´s true, and I know that when i´m striving everyday and every minute to have the Holy Ghost in my heart I want nothing more than to do good, and to help those around me. Being diligent and constant is hard but you just got to make up your mind and do it. Like two weeks ago I found a scripture that basically explains this and I thought it was cool, it´s in alma 13: 26-28 or something like that, it´s towards the end of the chapter. It talks about praying always and then it says that the more that we have the spirit, the more it will make us humble and meek and submissive The same teacher at the very end of sunday school recited to us the first vision, I can honestly say that I know that God the Father and Jesus, the creators of the universe appeared to Joseph Smith and talk with him.
We found a family of five from Ecuador that are golden. We think they all might be baptized besides the baby. Everything´s going great, it´s been lame cause we´ve had bad allergies the last month and a half, but I think they´re almost over. I have Zyrtech and claritin that someone left here, and I take them but they don´t help as much as they did when I used to take them in the states but it´s all good, I´m feeling way better than I did two weeks ago. Thanks for giving me this oportunity to escape from the world to know the One True God.
elder ross

May 11 - 18, 2011

~ Thanks for everything. Zone conference was awesome, I hadn´t seen so many missionerys since the mtc in provo. We taught good, and our demostracion was cool. It was good to hear from you on the phone. We have some good investigators that are progressing quite a bit. Everything is going good, and today we had a great p´day we went to a huge park and rented bikes for free and rode everywhere, and then we played ultimate frisbee and that was awesome after so much time without playing. Everything is going great thanks for everything and the shirts and ties and the singing card, and for raising me in the gospel.
elder ross

~¡Familia mía!
so seeing my trainer with his fiance was amazing. One of the coolest lunches I´ve ever had. It was so crazy seeing his face again we just kept looking at each other and laughing, there were sooooo many stories that we talked about it was awesome, he´s such a great kid. So I gotta go, we´re going to make arepas with a venezuelan guy. and then we have some lesson we´re going to teach. The ham is definitely not all gone yet, I don´t even think it´s close to half way, and it´s so good. So our best investigator asked us if she could talk to us after sacrament meeting, and we were kinda scared, but then she asked us if she could get baptised in June, and we were speechless. It was so awesome to hear someone want to follow Christ. She is going to be a member really strong in the church and we´re stoked to be in the service of the Lord.
elder ross
I love you guys!

April 13 - 20, 2011

~ Eveything thing is great. I can´t believe i´ll be 23 in a couple semanas, I still feel 15. Last week they baptized a girl, that I started teaching and that I taught for a while in Las Palmas. So that´s cool. Anyways my companion is awesome and the other two elders that we live with are awesome too. We played soccer this morning and we beat all the young men in the ward many times, my comp and the other are from england so they play really good, and so we scored a bunch. Sorry I can´t write more one of the elders lost his wallet in the metro and we had to run around trying to fix everything the last couple of hours, everything is good, I´m excited about BYU in the fall with elder solari, it´s gunna be awesome, thanks for everything.

~ mucha gracias por todo, I talked to elder sanchez and he said that they got the package for Maria and that they gave it all to her, and that she was amazed and grateful that you sent it all to her. Thanks. I miss the islands a lot, I hope that it won´t be too long before I get to go back. We don´t travel as much, and we just use the metro and the buses to get around. We have an awesome zone, and a great district. We´re teaching some awesome people as well. I´m so glad I´m with elder Tyndale. He´s awesome I hope I can end with him just cause we have so much fun working together and talking to the people. For my birthday and to comemorate and end my time here in spain I want to buy a ham leg, so today I´m going to buy one if it´s alright. Thanks for everything it´s so great to be in the service of the lord.
elder ross