September 30, 2013
My Dear Family and Friends,
Wow, it´s Pday again! This week was insanely fast. There are only 2 weeks left of this transfer! What??? ¡Qué loco!
Anyway, last Pday Hma Roan and the Hermanas from Málaga 1 went
to the castle in Málaga! I have never been to a castle before, so it is
my favorite. It might always be my favorite. If you don´t have a
favorite, just pick this one. Google it! The name is Alcazaba I think.
But the few from the top was incredible. Like, I basically saw from a
really high point the exact view I had seen of Málaga when I first
googled it, but this was real life! However, the pictures are so perfect
that I´m pretty sure no one will actually believe I was there :p The
ocean view was INCREDIBLE and when I felt that heavenly breeze up there I
almost had to write a letter to my parents to tell them sorry but I
probably wouldn´t come home! But really, if you ever venture to Málaga,
see the castle. it´s also the perfect place to take engagement pics, so
Kelly and Aaron, you both should come! The castle is still standing but
it´s from the 11th century so it´s more like ruins, but it´s beautiful.
We also saw the Málaga Cathedral. And...wow. Just wow. I wish I could
somehow make you understand the magnificence of it but even a picture
won´t ever do it justice. the ceilings were crazy high and the stained
glass and we were just awestruck. But overall, super fun because we were
really in the heart of Málaga tourist area which i had not seen before
because we live where everyone else lives.
Also, my heart was stolen. Who stole it? Six perritos in a
basket. That´s who stole it. We were just walking to find our next
address and we ended up behind an older gentleman carrying this basket
that had 6 little Yorkshire puppies in it. We just about died. We
stopped the man and he told us they were 5 weeks old. I personally
thought that we should buy the whole basket from him and then sit on a
bench and have people approach us and we would let anyone who wanted to
play with the puppies as long as they agreed to listen to our message. I
thought it would be taking missionary work to a whole new level but
something inside me said President Deere might not think that way :p
haha. But en realidad, I hope they take care of my heart. I have never
wanted a puppy so badly before!
Tuesday we had exchanges with Hermana León. She is our Sister
Training Leader serving in Dos Hermanas and she came down for the day.
She is going home in 2 weeks so she is extremely experienced! We learned
a lot that´s going to help us! And she´s a native so it was easier to
talk to everyone! Tuesday night was pretty crazy though...Elder Gómez
had given us this reference of someone they talked to in the train
station and so we set an appointment. but it was later at night so it
was dark and in this really creepy part of town that we had never been
to before and so we got really lost but finally found it, but it wasn´t a
real piso, it was like a business, but it looked super creepy because
it was dark and empty and the windows were barred (not weird for a
business here but creepy because he lived there) but no one was
answering so we were just going to leave but then someone yells ¨Girls!¨
and at this point I´m ready to run but we checked and it was indeed
Asel, the man we were going to see. So we explained why we were late and
he says we should still come in (there were 3 of us so Hma León said it
was okay) so he has this huge set of keys and starts to unlock his huge
door and the bars behind it and then we go inside and then he locks the
door. So I´m like, ¨Great, we´re going to die...¨ and then he asks if
we want to watch TV, doesn´t wait for an answer before turning it on,
and then goes into the kitchen to get something for us to eat. So we´re
just sitting there, a little freaked out, and wondering what on earth we
got ourselves into. And the TV is in Arabic and he had told us he was
from Morocco. The Spirit wasn´t telling us that we needed to leave
though, but the Spirit wasn´t actually there either. It was a REALLY
eerie feeling. Like, we just felt...empty. So he comes back and starts
talking about the news that they were showing on TV about how thousands
of people are dying in Egypt (is something giong on in Egypt right now?
Can anyone confirm that?) and he just talks forever about all the issues
there and finally we say we´re here to share a message and so he turns
off the TV and all we asked was what the Elders had explained about our
church and then he went off again for another 10 minutes about the
Quaran and I honestly can´t really remember what he said but I guess he
reads the Bible too, and when we tried to explain the Book of Mormon,
all he cared about was what original language it was in and what God´s
name was (because he says it should only be Alah in scritpures). So
after we finally got out of there alive (I wish I had a picture, it was
CREEPY) we just started laughing. Then we called Elder Gómez and
complained that he didn´t tell us the reference was Muslim (because he
totally knew!) so that´s definitely my most interesting story of the
week.
However, thursday was zone conference and it was really great!
We got to hang out with the Deere´s all day and be inspired by them and
see lots of other missionaries from lots of zones in the area! I have
yet to see Victor because he´s in Cadiz which is the Sevilla zone, but I
got to see some MTC friends like Hma Lyons and Elder Landinez! I also
got to meet a lot of missionaries that I´d never met before. Pictures of
the conference are on the blog!
I have a new favorite family in the ward! It´s a Romanian
family and the parents only aren´t baptized because they are waiting for
papers to help them get married but the kids are all members and even
though they are mostly primary age, they are SO strong and they love to
read the BoM together and they highlight things and study it and they
LOVE to participate in the lessons and the 8 and 9 year old girls both
say all the time how much they want to serve missions! We have been over
there because they have family moving to Málaga from Romania and they
aren´t members so we are starting to teach them. However, they don´t
even have a place to live right now, so it´s hard to teach them when
they don´t have that basic need filled, so we´ll see how that goes. But
Alexandra and Paco are doing SO well! We had a good lesson with them and
they came to the baptism on Saturday! The people getting baptized were
mostly Ward 1 but also one girl for Ward 2. Paco enjoyed the baptism and
we could tell that there and also at Church yesterday he was really
focused even though the daughter Aroa sometimes was a distraction. We
are SO excited about them!
Friday was Hermana Roan´s birthday! She turned 20. Michael saw us
that day and we went to McDonalds and then Maria Angeles (the awesome
primary president) made her a cake and lots of food and decorated her
piso so it was a party! Also, Michael is teaching us Izbu phrases! Izbu
is his Nigerian language and it´s pretty awesome! So not only am I going
to come back fluent in Spanish, but I´ll know some African language
too! haha. Michael´s baptism is now the 12th of October (it could be
sooner but General Conference kind of messes things up in terms of there
not being Sacrament Meeting that day). We really really hope this date
works out. We hope to commit Paco to baptism this week too.
So, General Conference! I cannot tell you how excited I
am!!!!!!! I hope you are all excited too! Everyone should watch it! And I
really don´t know how it will work here. We´ve asked like everyone we
know and nobody seems to know...so we´ll see. I REALLY hope we can watch
it in English and since Michael speaks English I think we have a good
excuse. But either way, i´m really excited! We did not see the RS
general broadcast. The RS president here was sure that it was at 6pm
last Sat night but I was pretty sure that she forgot to account for the
time difference in Utah. Either way, there was the baptisms that nght so
I don´t think anyone tried to see it. But i am particularly excited
about this general conference because it will be the year mark of the
missionary age change!!! I keep trying to remember how I felt last year
at this time. A year ago I had NO idea that in a year I´d be in Spain.
Like, that kind of blows my mind. But in light of the anniversary, I
want to share this quote from President Hinckley (he said this years
before the change even happened!): ¨Many young women are serving
missions. Many are preparing to serve, not because they aren´t married
or have nothing else to do, but because they have a desire to serve and
therefore are being called to the work. The reason so many are going is
because in the next generation, Heavenly Father will be sending His
Priesthood Army to the earth. And He wants to send them to mothers who
have been properly trained and taught in the gospel. And what better
training can a young woman have than that of serving a mission?¨ I just
get chills every time i read that. The Lord changed the missionary age
because He wants His mothers trained because our children will really
need that strength. I am ridiculously excited to see the growth in the
Church over the next few years and am crazy happy to call myself a part
of it! All you young women out there, prepare to serve! Whether you
decide to go or not is up to you, but you should prepare either way
because the Lord has an amazing plan for you and your life! He has so
much faith in us and we WILL do amazing things.
Missionary work tip: If you ahve a friend to give a BoM to, write
your testimony in it first! That´s really powerful for them to read that
first.
Thanks for all the letters! I got letters from
Dad, Grandpa, the Walkers and Aaron! Mail is really needed out here! We
need support!
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