Letter
God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in Him.” 1 John 4:16
Week 3 in Palma de Mallorca
Good evening from Palma de Mallorca, España!
It is Saturday night and we are enjoying a very pleasant evening getting ready for Sunday. The temperatures have been approaching the low 90s but yet the people keep telling us, “just wait until August! “ we’re not sure what we’re in for with the high temperature and high humidity in August. Today is our 24th day here in Palma and we are enjoying every single day. Tomorrow is Hermana Taylor‘s birthday and it will certainly be a different birthday for her.
Little my little we are able to make our piso (apartment) more like home. Hermana Taylor has spent a lot of time and energy making our piso more comfortable and enjoyable. We were able to purchase some curtains from IKEA and Lea put those up this afternoon after we paid for a local seamstress to hem the bottom of the curtains. This will certainly help to reduce the heat from the afternoon sun coming in our floor to ceiling windows on the west side. There are numerous fresh fruit and vegetable markets everywhere in this city as well as grocery stores within a few minutes walking. We bought some local peaches and apricots and grapes today and they are delicious! Our understanding is that the growing season lasts throughout the year so we should always have a supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. We purchase food almost every day as our fridge and freezer and cupboards are very small. We are grateful to be in a comfortable piso in a beautiful city on a fabulous island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We never would have imagined serving our mission in a place like this.
We would like to concentrate our comments this week on the amazing young adults that we have the privilege and blessing to associate with, and to serve alongside. In a very short period of time, we have grown to love these young people. They have incredibly strong spirits with very bright futures. In Spanish we call our group JAS, which stands for Jovenes Adultos Solteros,or young single adults. We actually have a few married couples in our group so we really only call them Jovenes Adultos or JA, pronounced “hah.” Hermana Taylor and I have been here for four Friday nights so far. We have a JA activity every Friday night. Historically, this has been a short spiritual message followed by a dinner and then games or activities. At this point, we have tried to follow that model. Many of these young people work and can’t arrive until well into the evening. We try to start at 8 o’clock but really don’t get started until about 8:30 pm. Hermana Taylor and I usually leave at about 11:30pm with the young adults still there usually playing soccer or games outside the church. This is a group of individuals that love and respect each other and get along very well. They love their time associating with each other. We have amigos of the church (non-members)who attend and participate every week which is awesome. Elder and Sister Dyer (we love them!) who arrived here about five or six weeks before us managed these Friday night events by themselves before we arrived. They help us greatly and are with us every Friday night.
Last night was amazing and very special. We spent several days this week preparing for the meal and also preparing for a spiritual message to share with them. Hermana Taylor prepared a wonderful meal of chicken salad sandwiches on croissants with fruit, chips and drinks. I probably mentioned last week but the fresh fruit and vegetables here are very plentiful and very cheap and very awesome. We decided to center our message last night on some of the things that President Nelson has shared specifically with the young adults. We used comments and quotes from his talk on January 23rd to 48 European countries, in which he spoke in part, specifically to the young adults. We also highlighted some of the wonderful things that he shared last Sunday in his worldwide devotional to the young adults. We started our message playing a video of the closing hymn from the Worldwide Devotional last week, Let us All Press On. By the way, we recommend that you all search that devotional and listen to that closing hymn. Knowing that we were going to use that video, we listened to that hymn several times throughout the week. Each time it brought tears to my eyes. We had prepared 11 different quotes from his talk in January. We invited 11 of the young adults to read that short quote and then share a personal comment about how they felt about President Nelson‘s words. It turned out beautiful and their comments were poignant and spiritual. Our attempt was to help them to understand how President Nelson is communicating with them at this point in their lives. He has shared that they have incredibly faithful histories in the pre-earth life and have amazing futures to look forward to. Two of the 11 who read quotes and made comments were amigos of the church. It was very heartwarming to have their personal participation.
Our opportunity here is to find each one of these young adults and to grow this program such that it will be a great blessing for them in their lives. The numbers who have come and participated each week has grown each Friday. Last night we think we had 23 at the activity. Hermana Taylor and I are getting to know many of these more personally and they are so kind to us and so patient with us as we try to communicate more effectively in Spanish. We also see these young adults at various other times such as at Institute class every Wednesday night and at their Branch meetings on Sunday. Our calling to work specifically with the young adults here is such a great blessing!
With our car and having perhaps more time than the young elders and sisters, we are able to travel around this island a bit. We have seen some amazing places including two little towns this last week named VilaFranca de Bonany and Montuiri. I’l share those photos on Facebook. Incredibly beautiful little towns!
The last three weeks have certainly taken us out of our historical comfort zone but this new world for us is amazing. We are grateful for all the members of these branches who are so kind and loving to us. We feel very welcomed, appreciated and loved. We wish to return those same feelings towards them.
We are grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ and we testify of his divinity and of his restored Gospel. We have been called to help gather Israel in a unique way for 18 months and to prepare these people and the world for the Second Coming of our Savior. These people and this experience are bringing us closer to Jesus Christ. We love him and we desire to serve him.
We love each of you who may read this and see our photos. We are so grateful for your love, support and prayers. We would love to tell dozens of little stories about our experiences here and share hundreds of photos but perhaps that may have to come at a later point. We also love these young Elders and Sisters. They work in challenging circumstances, with difficulty in traveling about and at times in intense heat and circumstances. They are so faithful and dedicated and are such great examples to us. Seeing them reminds Sister Taylor and I of our missions earlier in life.
Next time we’ll share some photos and little stories about two baptisms that we attended in the last week. I’ll also include a bit about a pearl factory we visited (and may have purchased something ?)
Vale, buenas noches a todo! Les amamos!
Élder y Hermana Taylor
