July 18, 2016

Hey everyone! Things are going well here in Ibiza, the weathers been
pretty cool this week and the branch is amazing here!!! I'm super
excited to be here! So this week has been a lot of resting(Elder Perri
has been feeling kind of under the weather) and getting to know the
members here. The Elders here have done a super good job and so now we
are just reaping up the rewards, I know that we can keep things moving
here but most of the elders the have served here have been ex-Zone
Leaders or are now Zone Leaders so the area's pretty great!
The branch president, President Gomez is super pumped!!! Every time he
sees us he says, "Baptism! Baptism! Baptism! We gotta be baptizing
every week Elders!" President Gomez is a super great man, he's
recently been called as branch president a year ago after 2 years of
coming back to the church after 26 years of inactivity in the church.
He has great faith and it shows in this branch! Haha he's been excited
because the branch has had 5 baptisms in the past couple months and
they all are really great members! And we also have two people who
possibly could be baptized next week!
One of the people who are going to be baptized this week is a 81 year
old, Ibizzenca(what the people from Ibiza are called) woman named
Mercedes. She's super sweet and really sweet! She's excited to be
baptized and she calls us her "nietos" which means grandsons.
The other lady's name is Mariana. She is Ecuadorian and has lots of
problems, but is a great person! She has been meeting with the Elders
for a while now and hasn't been able to get baptized for a while but
finally, things cleared up and got straightened out so we're helping
her get ready for this week or the next!
Another cool fact about the church here in Ibiza......the branch is
made up almost 100% of Ecuadorians! But that's okay, I LOVE
ECUADORIANS!! Ecuadorians are some of the sweetest, humble and loving
people I've meet in my life. The branch has about 30 active members
and usually 40ish show up to Sacrament Meeting.
On Sunday Elder Perri told me about a deaf member from Canada who is
in the branch and told me that I'd have to translate the meeting to
him, but writing it out on my iPad in English so he could read what
was going on. So that was interesting communicating with him, because
he doesn't speak Spanish either, so later I translated for him as he
taught a class to the young men of the branch about the Plan of
Salvation! It was actually pretty fun trying to figure out what he
wanted me to say then communicate it to the class of young men! Haha
Well yeah, things are pretty great here! It's getting hotter so
hopefully I can shed off a few pounds haha. Please pray that Elder
Perri can feel better so we can get back to work and help the people
here in Ibiza!! I know that this is the Lords work and that missionary
is one is SOOOO IMPORTANT! The Lord is anxiously waiting to bless all
of his children(including ourselves) and as we share the gospel with
EVERYONE we allow the Lord to bless all of his children abundantly. I
hope you all have a great week, love you!
-Elder Miller