July 1, 2013

Hello everyone!

Another week gone flying by! We had a pretty good week, not too hectic with office stuff, although we did have to get up at 5 this morning to take the APs down to the train station and then get some stuff to President to take up north with him. So I´m a bit tired.

Last P-day we went into Madrid and did a tour of the Plaza de Toros, the bullfighting ring. It was pretty cool, although smaller than I thought it was. It was self-guided tour with audio clips, so I learned some cool stuff about bullfighting and how it works. I´m still not sure if I would want to see one. It´s interesting though because they talked about how the bull and the torero, or matador, are both part of the performance. The matador is supposed to outwit the bull, but not mock him, he has the highest respect for the bull. It´s interesting all the drama and stuff that goes into it. 

This week we finished teaching all of the lessons to Markitos, the son of a formerly less-active family we´ve been teaching, and he is going to be baptized on Friday. It doesn´t count as a convert baptism because he is only 8 years old and his parents are members, but it will still be a cool experience. He is such a great kid, and it´s been wonderful to see his parents return to the church. 

Speaking of less-active families, we visited a member this week, Brother Morales. He is totally active and his oldest son and his daughters are as well, but his wife and middle son are not. We visited him and started to share a message about the family using the Proclamation. He stopped us partway through and said how beautiful the message was, but how terrible and embarrassed he felt that his family wasn´t there to hear it, that they didn´t want to hear it. Then as we continued his wife came in and sat down. We summarized what we taught and then shared the most important part: the responsibility that parents have to raise their children well. We taught that parent have a responsibility to teach their children the gospel and provide the best for them, and that if they do, they will find happiness in their families. It was a great lesson. Then yesterday the entire family showed up at church, even the son who wasn´t there for the lesson. I was super happy, but not as much as Brother Morales. 

We had another lesson with Estefania, but she didn´t come to church again. She expressed some doubt about the restoration, and about praying to know if it´s true, but that´s OK. All in time, we just need to keep contact with her and emphasize praying. 

We also finally met with a family that we talked to on the street weeks ago. It´s funny too, because we keep seeing them everywhere. They live right by the church. But we finally met with them! It was a bit of an awkward lesson because when we contacted them in the street we didn´t really have time to explain who we are or what we do. So we explained our purpose and had a lesson 0 with them. It went well, but afterwords they said we couldn´t meet again for 2 weeks at least. That´s when I realized we should have taught the first lesson so they could really feel the spirit strong. I felt like we should have while we were teaching, too, but didn´t do it for whatever reason. That´s the worst feeling, knowing you didn´t do what the spirit was telling you to. We´re planning on maintaining daily contact with them though, so hopefully that will help them feel our love and the spirit. It should be interesting finding ways to contact them everyday. They have potential though, and it would amazing to teach an entire family!

Haha, the mailman just came in with my package! Thank you so much!! You guys are the best! :D You know my favorite candy and those brownies sound amazing! Let´s see if I do them as good as Mom. Where on earth did you find that time capsule letter? I´m afraid to open it. . . :P Dad, I absolutely love that comic! Happy Father´s Day :) And thanks for continuing my collection of Avengers Legos. Ironman is the best! :) Thanks so much for showing your love for me. You´re the best! I love you guys!!

One final thing before I go. We got to see the Work of Salvation broadcast yesterday. It was amazing! I really enjoyed it. So many good messages. Most of all I love the vision they portrayed of missionary work, of what is possible if we have faith. If we all work to increase our faith we will see miracles. Now is the time to put more effort in. It amazing to see the Lord´s work increasing and moving forward. I was particularly impressed with the video segment of the family where each member does something to share the gospel. Everyone has something they can share and someone they can talk to. I was wondering if you have any goals or plans as a family to share the gospel? I know it´s something we´ve never felt very comfortable doing, but like in the video there are many different ways to do it. Most importantly is just to show love. I would encourage you to talk as a family about how you can each be a part of this incredible cause. We wouldn´t want to miss the wave :) 

I love you all more than I can ever tell you. Thank you so much for all you do for me, every single day. Even so far away I can feel your love and prayers. I hope you can feel mine as well. Be safe, until next week.

Love,

Elder Cousins