Training – Jared Stark

Hello everybody,

Good day to you all. This week was a long one, but a good one.

On Monday, we went to Sanlúcar Fernando for zone p-day. It was a bit crazy because that evening, I had to take a train to Sevilla to spent the night, and Elder Kassing went to Jerez to stay with the Elders there. I caught a train early Tuesday morning to get down to the mission office, where all of the missionaries that were training were, and they gave us the trainer’s training. After which, we were driven up to the mission home where all of the new missionaries were waiting to get their trainer assignments. I think that we were more nervous than they were haha. I was assigned to be companions with Elder Clark, from Moses Lake, Washington. Training him has been a really good experience so far. We’re been getting along really well, and it seems like it’s going to be a great two transfers. Although it was sad saying goodbye to Elder Kassing, it’ll be a good experience with Elder Clark.

Wednesday mostly just involved traveling back to Sanlúcar. It was pouring rain most of the day. It always seems to rain hard on transfer day. It had rained enough that parts of the train line from Sevilla to Málaga were flooded out, so we were sent on a long, cramped bus ride to get there instead. Later in the day, we actually found out that there was a train from Málaga to Sevilla that had left right before ours was scheduled to leave that derailed and had injured 35 people, so it was good that neither us nor any other missionaries were on that train. There’s actually another companionship in our district that is pinkwashing / training in one of the Puerto areas, so we were with them the entire journey. Needless to say, it was a relief when we finally made it back to Sanlúcar.

Every Thursday, we play a game of Fútbol. Lately, attendance has taken kind of a nose dive. after showing up to play and it being only us and two other guys that came, we played for a little while, and then spent some time walking around in our Fútbol clothes, contacting jóvenes in the street playing Fútbol. It sounded like a lot of them that we talked to were down to come. We even walked past some of them last night, and they recognized us and were confirming where and when it is. It’d be great if we had a higher turnout this week.

Then, on Friday, we had interviews with President Andersen. Which is unusually early into the transfer. Also super soon for the new missionaries who just were interviewed by him two days ago. It was really good though, as always. It’s not unusual to see President only 2-3 times a transfer, but last week, I saw him four out of seven days.

Well, the work here continues chugging along. There were a few minor setbacks this week though. First, Alfonso, was baptized two weeks ago, still isn’t confirmed because be couldn’t come to church yesterday due to a family situation. Second, we’re having a difficult time figuring out when we can visit Alba and María and their family, because we haven’t been able to teach them in over two weeks now, and that’s been kind of frustrating. Also, we called Alejandro, who I think I wrote about last week, and he told us that he probably won’t be able to meet with us again for a few more weeks. Furthermore, a few other of our investigators are out of town at the moment. But, on the bright side, Maru and Ángel were able to come to church yesterday, and both keep progressing little by little. Yessenia couldn’t come, but she’s doing good too. And, the schedule for the coming week is already looking like it’ll be a good one. So we’ll see.

We’ve been having a fun time trying to incorporate #IluminaElMundo #LightTheWorld in our every day work, and it’s been going well so far. Although really everything that de do for missionary work is service already, it’s been nice having an extra charge to do more things we probably otherwise wouldn’t do. Go to http://mormon.org and see for yourself what you can do to make the difference in someone else’s life.

A nice quote I found this week comes from the book, Adjusting to Missionary Life. It says: “Using these resources will enable you to rely on the Savior Jesus Christ and His Atonement. He is the ultimate source of help in dealing with the demands and stresses of missionary life.” I like that because it is true that there are a lot of good things out there to help us cope with the trials and hardships that come to us all in life, but Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of help. I like the way that President Nelson said the following in his April 2017 General Conference talk, Drawing the power of Jesus Christ into our lives. He said:

“When you reach up for the Lord’s power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours. When the Savior knows you truly want to reach up to Him–when He can feel that the greatest desire of your heart is to draw His power into your life–you will be led by the Holy Ghost to know exactly what you should do.

“When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done before, then His power will flow into you.

I know that promise is true for I have felt it in my own life. And, I can’t think of any better time to stretch towards the Savior than this time of the year when we celebrate his birth.

Love you all,

Élder Stark ??