Adobe and Rootstech

Tibidabo

 Hola a todos!

It has been a crazy past couple of weeks! The city of Barcelona has been treating me very well, and I have been getting to know the area and the amazing people here. My Mission President has called me to be a Social Media Specialist, and so me and my companion oversee and manage all of the pages in our mission, and we help make content for these pages, and just whatever the missionaries may need as far as content and editing help. Now, I was honestly quite confused when President called us about the transfers because I have pretty much 0 experience in editing videos! So this past 2 weeks it has been a very big learning process, however, I think I am catching on fairly quickly, and me and my companion, along with the other 5 of us in the office, have a lot of fun together.

This past week we had Zone Conference, and Presidente and Hermana Galli gave us some pretty awesome teachings on the importance of prayer, and the bountiful amount of blessings we can receive for ourselves, but even more importantly for the people we teach. It really helped me realize that prayer, something very simple and something we do several times in a day, is still very powerful. They also talked a lot about Family History, and they shared some really powerful stories of the Spirit of Elijah, and that the thing that triggers people to let God prevail in their lives is studying their ancestors' lives. I don't want to brag or anything, but I have some really awesome people in my family tree, along with some amazing stories. If you haven't taken a look at your family tree, you should. Go to familysearch.org, make an account if you haven't, it's super easy, and play around with it. If you don't know anything about your family tree or don't know how it works, you can always send me an email, however, there is also an event called Rootstech that is happening this week. It is the biggest Genealogical Conference in the entire world, and this year it is virtual, claro, but free as well. The link to sign up is below, but it would not be a terrible idea to go listen to some of the presentations there, as I am sure they will all be beneficial!

https://www.rootstech.org/?lang=spa

Patriotic reminder, 76 years ago, February 23rd, 1945, American Marines hoisted the American flag on Mount Suribachi, on a little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Iwo Jima. Lots of respect for all those brave men who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I have some family relatives who fought in World War 2, and in other conflicts, and they have some awesome stories, so go look up what your family did back then!

Until next week!

Élder Van Wagenen

God Bless America, Viva España

Fotos:

1. Matching guampas😍

2. The boyz 

3. Tibidabo, a Catholic church on top of a hill overlooking Barcelona. It was rainy, so we didn't get any good views of the city, but it sure did make the Cathedral look super cool 

4. I saw Elder Whitehead this week!! It's been over a year! Dubs of being in the office.

Barcelona!

Guggenheim Museum. I will miss living right in front of it!

 Hola a todos!

It has been another great week here in Bilbao. Fortunately, we were able to meet with some people that were found through Facebook, and we had some really meaningful visits with some of these people. There is no doubt in my mind that the Lord is preparing so many people to receive the Gospel. A year ago, it was placing them in the perfect place at the perfect time so they would cross paths with the missionaries, but even though we aren't contacting in the street as we were, the Lord is still guiding people to us, just through Facebook! It is an awesome thing.

And, as the title of this email says, you may be wondering why I put Barcelona as the title, and well the reason is that I'm going there! This time to stay! We have transfers this week, and both me and my companion were not expecting any changes in our companionship as we have been in Bilbao at the same time, only 1 transfer. However we received a call from Presidente Galli, and he gave me the news that I was leaving! I am honestly super sad because I really love Bilbao, and with the strict COVID restrictions, I wasn't able to explore it very much, however it is hard not to be excited to go to Barcelona, especially since I've never served there. So we will see how it goes, but I am very excited!

In my last Sacrament meeting in Bilbao, I shared my testimony on a big thing I have learned in the last few months, that being how I personally receive impressions from the Spirit. As Doctrine and Covenants 11:21 says:

Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men.

I remember reading this scripture earlier in my mission, and sometimes it was frustrating that I would be in a visit with an amigo, and sometimes my mind would pull a blank and I had no idea what to say. Surely my level of Spanish has helped, but recently my testimony of this scripture has grown quite a bit. Several times this week, we prepared a beautiful lesson plan, and when we started to teach, the Spirit told us, yeah nice lesson plan, but we're gonna do something different. And that's just perfect! The Spirit is a way better teacher than me anyways! But I do know that as we have a true desire to receive impressions and personal revelation, we can, and we will receive, even in the very moment, we will know what to do, say, whatever it may be.

Until next week!

Élder Van Wagenen 

God Bless America, Viva España 

Fotos:

1. Guggenheim. The big dog statue thing is called Puppy and is covered in flowers. He is even wearing a mask!

2. Making cookies and delivering them to members!

3. Aupa Athletic!

4. Fer and Blanca, 2 members who own a fabulous panadería (bakery)

5. Last Sunday in Bilbao

Be better than yesterday

 Bilbao art museum. I recreated this photo from a movie, anybody have a guess as to which it could be??

Hola a todos!

It has been a really good week here in Bilbao, with some good enough weather to wear shorts and short sleeves! Although we certainly got some looks from the locals haha, but we had a very good week.

Something I have learned this week is never giving up, or losing faith. This week, we had set up lots of visits with lots of people. We would text these people beforehand, just to make sure we were all good to meet, to which they would reply sure thing Elders! And then when the time arrived, we would call them, they wouldn't answer, and then 10 minutes later sent us a photo of some rice, and then saying sorry Elders it's just that I'm actually shopping right now. And well, it is pretty frustrating because we love teaching people about something that will completely change their lives, but they don't seem to want it. This happened several times every day this week, and it was easy to lose enthusiasm, but we tried to not let it get us down, and we kept working. Well this past weekend, there have been some ads running on Facebook here in Spain, and well this past weekend we have received over 10 references, and have set visits with over half of them for this week. And so, I feel very strongly that the Lord knew and saw our efforts, and although nothing good may have come out of the visits, that never really happened, the Lord still blesses us.

And I think this applies to missionary work, but also any aspect in life. I have a pretty strong testimony of the concept that God won't forget about us. He knows every single one of us in a very individual way, and with that knows what we struggle with. Elder Bednar once said, “If today you are a little bit better than you were yesterday, then that's enough. And, if tomorrow you are a little bit better than you were today, then that's enough.” The Lord values our daily efforts in becoming more like His Son, Jesus Christ, and will not only help us in that path, but bless us as we continue on.

Until next week!

Élder Van Wagenen 

God Bless America, Viva España 

Fotos:

1. Cathedral in Bilbao 

2. Bilbao at sunset

3. This statue of a dog of flowers is literally called Puppy, and it sits in front of the Guggenheim museum right next to our piso.