Sept. 13th Updates

Hola from Madrid!! Haha just kidding. Es un chiste. We are still hanging around Provo! Definitely getting antsy though! We hear all sorts of cool stuff about our mission and it makes us want to leave! I've seen a bunch of people that I hadn't thought I would still be here to see, and that's one reason it feels super weird. Hopefully we will be out of here in a week or two.

It's been really cool to recognize how the Lord uses us as instruments in answers to other people's prayers. I have had some pretty neat experiences about where something I have said, done, or was that I came to find was an answer to somebody's prayers. Especially when it pertains to the Gospel!

The Spirit here is so powerful, cuyo fulgor or gloria no admiten descripcion! I've learned so much in this past week and I sometimes wonder how I can retain it all. Hermano Barton and us all had a super powerful experience on Saturday night in class. After singing our opening hymn, it was really spiritual so Hermano Barton asked if we could sing another for his desires/benefit. He told us later that he said that the Holy Ghost told him that we needed that experience too, so we ended up singing all the verses of each person's favorite hymn in Spanish for like an hour. Then after we were all in tears and filled with the Spirit, we wrote in our journals while Hmo. Barton asked us tons of inspired questions and then it was just waterworks after that. We bonded so powerfully as a district and in our personal relationship with the Holy Ghost, Heavenly Father, and especially of our Savior Jesus Christ when Hmo. Barton took an hour or so to talk about the Atonement instead of doing our progressing investigator. It was amazing! Then all throughout the week the talks and workshops and class lessons have been on the Holy Ghost and conversion, which just reemphasizes to us the things we've learned, and I can't tell you how many times that happens in the MTC. Everything here is inspired and directed by God in Heaven, and it is such a testimony builder.

As for our visas, this last week we've heard rumors of missionaries going to Spain getting their visas. We've heard of one Hermana and two Elders who got theirs this last week, and we heard that Elder McKeagan (one of our zone leaders going to Madrid when we first got here and was reassigned to Salt Lake) just got his too. So we have hope again!! Hopefully sometime next week we will be able to get ours and leave! It sounds like you leave as soon as you can after, like within the next 2 days after. We are definitely excited to go!

Well, I've got to run now. I love you all! May God's blessings of health, guidance, and love and Spirit be upon you! Muchas gracias for your prayers and support! They're really the only way missionaries learn and grow as fast and as much as they do, because it's definitely not all come from my faith! Nos vemos hasta la proxima semana!

Elder Coombs