Welcome to Parla

How do you walk as they say in Spanish?

Well, I'm serving now in this branch in the second to most southern
area of this mission. My new companion is 6 foot 6, younger than me in
the mission, and is from Spokane Washington.  We have little to
nothing in common except the fact that we are both dorks.  Not gonna
lie, when I got the call to come to this area, all I heard was some
pretty negative stuff.  When I first got here, I was kinda stressing
out over that and I kinda let my mind be dominated by that. It's
pretty different here than the islands. I had a moment like the one in
Jaws where he is like "We are gonna need a bigger boat." At one point.
But after calming myself down a little bit and going to work a little,
we've seen that this area has a ton of potential, and we are resolved
to work as hard as we can here.

One of the most spiritual experiences from this week was in a lesson
we had from a man from Uganda.  I got to teach in English for the
First time in a while. Wowsers, it was one of those lessons where it
was nothing that we said, or nothing we did, but we felt the Spirit so
strong as we testified to this man that this gospel has the solution
for any problem.  We testified of the Savior, of the Book of Mormon,
of the truth of our message, and man the spirit was incredibly strong
in the room.

One thing I have learned in the mission is the importance of preparing
ourselves to receive revelation by the spirit.  We had an incredible
priesthood meeting with the stake presidency in the Islands right
before I left.  The first counselor went over President Eyrings talk
with us again and used the analogy of a sponge when you put it in
water, and a rock when you put it in water.  He ended by saying that
as we soften our hearts in this way before every meeting we have in
the church, we will take away much more at the end of the meeting,
versus just being barely touched by the water.  It's a principle I am
trying to apply as a missionary to be better. I'm trying to be as
obedient as possible and preparing myself as much as possible, so that
I can receive revelation each and every day. As we do this, we will be
able to touch the hearts of others as we testify to others and say
exactly what they need to hear to feel the spirit.

I'm so grateful to be here in Parla, and for the opportunity to love
the people of this branch

Elder Baron