Sept 5, 2012

Welllll what a week it has been!! wow!  I have to tell you what, Mandy was right.  She told me my comp and I will see many miracles since we are both new here, or something like that... she was right.  The Lord has blessed us a lot.  Like I have said before, our teaching pool was pretty slim when I arrived.  Well since that, we have been really pushing on the contacts, member referrals, everything.  This past Sunday we of course fasted for more work, more people to teach.  Well the Lord has given us that.  First I would like to say the area book is a great way to find people, yes we have called many people, but we got one person.  He is gold.  When we called Jacobo, he said he just started to read the Book of Mormon.  Hmmm thats weird.  He said every time that I read this book, you all call me.  Must be a sign.. Right??  We just had a lesson with him and he just said, I want to be baptized.. on the first lesson! :) What a miracle!  That same day, we go out contacting in the ghetto part of Ferrol (not really ghetto, just a lot of apartment buildings and old places.) The first building we knock on has 13 floors. We pick the very top floor.  The first door said no, but let us in.  The 2nd door we knock, a man comes to us says no and slams the door.  During this time I would like to add we have been focusing on the less active members of the ward.  We fasted, prayed, worked a lot with the members just to find them.  Well we go to the next door... A different man comes to the door that we just knocked and tells us to come over to him.  We get to talking and he lets us in.  Hmm thats sweet.  We get to talk some more and he´s a less active, actually his whole family is less active.  He is about 70yrs old.  Has 2 kids and his wife doesn´t live with them anymore.  Just another miracle.  The Lord has blessed us so much in the past week. 

On the same end, this is a hard area, very hard.  Like I´ve said there are a lot of people that don´t believe in anything. They just think that they are here to die, it´s super sad.  I just say hi to people and they say "NO!" I was just saying hi. hahaha, oh well.  So Jana, I know how you feel now.  But this just means that we have to lean on the Lord even more now.  We need to let Him guide us.

I had a great experience with that the other day.  We had a good 2 hours to contact, so we just started to walk.  I just started praying to know where to go, what to do in this moment.  Well I see this building a couple miles off.  We started to walk to it and there is no one on the street.  A lot of old people and what not.  People say hi, we stop them, they say no, just no luck with this.  We finally get to this building. I said a silent prayer of what do I need to do here. This building was yet again a good 11stories high.  We knock every single door.  Each floor has 4 apts and we got 1 referal.  Yes, that seems kind of silly and wow, good job Elder Laubaugh, 1 referal. but to us that was a miracle. She was in her mid 20s, seemed to live with some other people and she seemed really interested, we made her think and she asked if we could come back.  I don´t know, to me that was a big miracle. 

Well on to some sweet things to talk about.  Yes the members still feed us... a lot, but I have learned to be a little better on my wording with things... And my comp has used me a lot. When we go over he just says, well Elder Laubaugh can´t eat a ton, he gets some weird stomach ache thing.  Or I just say, well, I am full, I´m sorry... okay heres some more... no, I´m fine, thank you. hahah ohh Members!

Well one neat thing about ferrol is that it is a stop in the Vuelta!  It´s like the Tour de France, but in Spain.  It is huge and we lit up that place. Ferrol grew a good 25,000 people, so we just took a good stack of cards and started contacting a ton of people. I also got some sweet video and pictures of the Bikers.  I will send you my card soon!! 

I also have to say that Elder Gonzalez is amazing.  He just is a wonderful companion.  He loves to work and has a great attitude.  I am having a great time in FERROL!!

Well Family I love you!! I love you all so much!! Have a great week!!

 

Love, Elder A!!