He is Hastening His Work!

 

Today, it will be hard to keep this short. There is just too much! The photo above is proof that God is in the details. The BarcelonaTemple was announced quite some time ago. The lot is purchased, and the Church has been trying for some time to get all of the permitting done that needs to be done. The Temple Lot actually is in the city boundaries of Sant Cugat which is just over the hill from Barcelona. The problem is that the city seems to have been "slow rolling" this whole process. Apparently when you turn in the application for permits they have something like 3 months to come back with an answer. Either to allow you to build, or what they aren't in agreement with. What has been happening over and over again, is the city would go 2 months and about 25 days and then come back with a list of things they don't like. The Church would then make adjustments and resubmit only to wait another 2 months and about 25 days again; over and over again.

We have a couple in our mission named Elder and Sister Rees. They are humanitarian service missionaries. They have spent their time in Spain working with non-government organizations (NGOs) who work with the government. For some reason the government will not work directly with ANY religious organization without a "middle-man" NGO of some sort. They work out projects that the Church can assist with and organize resources and help getting the funding from the Church to the NGOs to work the projects to help care for people. They go around and try to get meetings with mayors of different cities to let them know what the Church can do for them, and then basically say "How can we help you?" Most of the time the mayors are very surprised that the Church isn't asking for special favors or anything in return. A key piece to the puzzle is that way back during the pandemic there was a serious shortage of masks. No one could get them. There was a sister in one of the Madrid stakes that found a place where she could get 30,000 masks, but they were only going to be available for a very short time. She told the stake president about them, and he immediately said "buy them! We'll use stake funds to do it." She did so. 2 weeks later she contracted COVID and died. However, those masks went to help a Catholic Charity headed by a Nun named Son Lucia. Apparently she is a really highly placed Nun in the church and works closely with the Pope. She became a close friend to the Church, and the Rees' inherited this good will when they came to Spain. They have worked with her on many different projects. 

I know, this is long, but bear with me because it's good! The Rees' had been trying for some time to meet with the mayor of Sant Cugat. They just could never get an appointment after many attempts. They happened to mention to Son Lucia that they were having this problem, and she responded "I know him, he's a personal friend of mine, I will get you in." The Area got wind of the fact that the Rees' were going to meet with him, and immediately decided that they were not going to be allowed to go alone. They sent Elder Angel Gomez from the 70 along with a couple of public relations people to attend the meeting. The Rees' sent in their agenda for the meeting which was all about humanitarian aid forward, and were a little nervous that the Area people would try to jump on the problems with the temple log-jams. 

Anyway the meeting started, and the Rees' began their presentation. One of the city people piped up and said "we're more interested in asking questions about this Temple of yours than humanitarian aid" to which the Rees' said "we have not come here to talk about the temple, but if you will wait until the end of our presentation, if there is time, we would be happy to answer your questions" (perfect response). At the end of the presentation there was a video which talked about the Giving Machines. The Rees' told us that the Spirit came into the room and affected everyone there. It was then that Elder Gomez said "Now, we will talk about the temple". He went on to tell them about what temples are for, how they are different than normal meeting houses, what types of covenants we make in them, and how the temple would be a major blessing to their city. He also showed them pictures of the Madrid Temple. Son Lucia said "this is great, I'm learning a lot of things I didn't know about temples". One of the city guys said that the latest thing they had heartburn about was that we would have "offices" in the temple which would make it a business. Son Lucia said "now wait a minute. I have offices in my convent. That does not make it a business, and I can't see why they should not be allowed to have offices in their Temple!" How could they argue with a Nun?!?!

Anyway the miracle is that the Mayor promised Elder Gomez that he was not aware of the hold ups that the church was experiencing, and that he would personally make sure that things get taken care of. We shall see if he is a man of his word. Now, think about the chain of events that took place leading up to this pivotal meeting! A sister sees an opportunity to get masks days before she contracts a deadly disease and dies. The stake president seizes the chance even though his budget probably would be stretched thin. This leads to a friendship with Son Lucia which has blessed many lives here in Spain and has created a lot of good will between the Catholic Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then she was able to not only get this meeting with the Mayor, but was instrumental in helping him see that this temple should be built. The Lord was in the details in ALL of this. 

We are praying that we might be able to see ground be broken while we are here. That would be AWESOME! 

As for us, this week has been busy (big surprise there right?). We have been working with a bunch of missionaries who are going home in a little over a week. It has been one of the biggest blessings of our mission to get to work through the MyPlan program with these missionaries. It has been so sweet to get to know them better, and help them set some goals for themselves that will pay huge dividends if they stick to them. We love it.

We know that the Lord is, indeed, hastening His work. It is very evident in all that we see happening here. I had one of the missionaries share something in his MyPlan that has touched me. He said that "Both faith and fear require me to believe in something unseen. I get to choose which I believe!"  We hope that we can all believe in Faith over fear. Our Savior is there and will help us through whatever thing we face. The world is getting crazier all the time, and He will be the only one who will be able to give us peace. We need to trust Him.

We love you all endlessly. 

No pics today...Sorry.