A Lost Elder

Hola Familia!

How is everyone?

I hope you just all murder those Reeses, and just enjoy the wonderful mountains and fall leaves! Woah trunky:)

My goodness what a week!

This last Tuesday was transfer day, and also was the latest Ive ever stayed out ever in my mission. Les cuento...

We got a call that a dear little Elder was coming down to the south, from Gallicia. So you don't have to get out a map, that is the top left corner of Spain. THE furthest place in Spain from our dear Murcia. He took a flight, and a train, was supposed to get in at 11:30 pm. No pasa nada. We head over there to the train station, and wait, only to find out that the muchacho missed his train, and wasn't going to get in till 2:00... muy bien:)

We waited for about an hora, then received a message that his train broke down and had returned to... Madrid... muy muy bien:) the pobre cito. He didn't have a phone or anyway to contact anyone outside of Facebook messenger and he didn't have wifi. We caught word that he was in a taxi, and heading toward a mall on the other side of our area. So we trekked our way on foot towards the mall. We got there, and waited about 2 hours, until 2:00. No Elder. We then worried that he actually had gotten to the train station and so hustled our way back. He wasn't there. We had no, NO, way of knowing where this poor elder was. All other Elders were asleep, long ago, save for the Secretary my friend Elder Richardson who could do nothing but stress out his mind in Barcelona.

Finally our phone "dinged" and this Elder was active on facebook. Yaaaaaaaaah! He was in a hotel in the outskirts of our area about an hour away walking. We started our trek, now 3:00 am not a bus to be found. We managed to get him a taxi and finally home. He had taken a taxi that would have cost him more than any missionary has, but tender mercy, he made friends with a very rich French man, who paid his way there. Big wins.

MUY BIEN!

I passed half the week working with Elder Patey and Elder Beher, while my son was out getting his residency in Barc. I missed him.

It was fun though with the other two. Elder Patey, is teaching me so much. I think he is the most loving happy individual I've ever met.

I also had one of the greatest lessons about the restoration ever. I taught with Elder Patey, she lived in their area, so we were trying to pass her. We watched the video of the first vision, the new one, and we all felt the spirit. We invited her to be baptized and come to church. Booom and she came. Very excited for her.

Last night Elder Calderon and I were in the outskirts of our area, knocking doors of some antiguo investigadores. We finally got to this one door, and found probably the most broken family environment Ive ever seen. They let us in, and the room was filled with smoke, and they were all sat watching television, with drinks of something, and passing a cigarette of some kind. The women was pregnant and was complaining about the restrictions of drinking on pregnant women, and the man sat drunk, and completely ignored the women and her mother as she yelled across the table, and spoke to us. We tried to share a message, but they wouldn't let us speak, and they made it clear that they didn't need God. She then received a call from her children in Seville

who, from the little I understood, would not be seeing her any time soon, as she was with another man.

My words don't really give that experience justice.

Walking away, though, Elder Calderon and I came to the conclusion, it just felt like that Satan had won that family. He had just won. They were trapped in a purposeless smoking circle. We thought about not only the "family" we had seen, but the child soon to come, and the orphans in Sevilla.

We concluded that, THAT is why we do what we do.

We are fighting for the family from the proclamation to the world.

I love you all, please remember that Love, Hope, and Faith they are all a choice.

And to put your family first.

Until next week,

Elder Gardner👍😁