Apparently, You Know You Speak English....

.....if your teeth are really straight.    Anyway, that's what Lara says, according to some people in Spain.  :)

Here's her communique for this week:

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Hopefully this letter is a bit more satisfying and a lot less depressed-sounding than last week’s.  I seriously had no time at all to write and I was stuck in a silly situation that made us an hour late getting back to our area at the end of P-day.  I promise I wasn´t as depressed as that letter made it sound like I was during the week.

I haven´t had anything too bad with the language.  Obviously, there´s a lot I don´t know, but I can usually express what I need to express.  Thank you, Heavenly Father, for all Your help in that sphere.  A bunch of times I open my mouth and then close it without having any idea what just came out.  And that never happens unless I´m listening to the investigators instead of thinking about what I´m going to say.  Seriously, the less I think about how to say something in Spanish, the better the Spirit can guide my words.  It´s awesome.

The food here is SO good.  Seriously SO good.  The bread is totally different but it´s delicious and SUPER cheap and EVERYONE has it with EVERY meal.  YUM.  We eat a TON of chicken, potatoes, and rice, but it´s always different and always really good.  Yesterday we had an FHE at the church to say goodbye to two families who are moving out of the ward and I ate this thing that was like a dumpling, sort of, but just bread, and it tasted like heaven. I have no idea what it´s called or who made it but it is DELICIOUS.

I already knew about Manisha and Ben, thanks to Nina.  Congrats to her!  That´s so exciting!  And congrats to all the graduates.  You make me feel old.  I feel like I just graduated and you are all still really young.  I guess not. 

This week was a lot better.  Let´s start with the fun stuff that happened.  First off, the family of Meni and Jesus Galvez.  I think I´ve mentioned them before--they´re a couple with 7 kids and only one of their children is active.  He´s a temple sealer, and they´re both INCREDIBLY strong in the gospel.  Anyway, we were eating at their house, and we finished the main meal (during which he kept asking me "why aren´t you eating more?" even though I had already eaten a TON of food) and then he went into the kitchen to get the dessert.  His wife and two of his kids were at the table with us and we were laughing because we could hear him digging around in the freezer for the ice cream.  Eventually he came in without ice cream but with a bag of little cakes, kind of like Little Debbie type things but not fake like Little Debbies.  They were real, baked, Spanish food. His wife stares at him and asks, "When did you buy those?" He says, "Oh, I got them when I went to the store the other day."  She says, "By yourself?"  He nods and then his whole family starts laughing and his daughter says, "I know exactly what happened.  You went to the store by yourself and the girl selling them was young and cute and she totally guilted you into buying them."  He jokingly denied it but his wife said, "Yeah, that´s what happened."  It was hilarious because he´s so nice and such a typical guy that we could all picture in our heads the scenario.

We also had a birthday dinner at their house on Tuesday for their youngest daughter, who I think turned 22 or 23. It was really fun.  Their family is hilarious.

On Tuesday we went to ANOTHER birthday party earlier in the day for Aitana, who is maybe my favorite girl in the ward. She was turning 7.  Her family just got baptized in December, and it´s amazing to listen to their testimonies and everything they´ve learned.  Her dad, Jhony, has an amazing understanding of the gospel.  He is going to help so many people develop their knowledge of it as well. 

It´s really funny how much all the young girls who are 6 or 7 LOVE me.  Seriously, at church on Sunday they all just come and talk to me and draw me pictures and everything.  I love it.  I hope they remember me and that they will serve missions some day!

Now let´s talk about Andrei.  He´s AWESOME.  We taught him for the first time last Sunday and now we have had 5 lessons with him, he´s read a TON of the Book of Mormon (in four days he had read up to Words of Mormon) and he´s come to activities and to church.  He´s read probably every word on mormon.org and he asked us after the third lesson for the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price.  It is amazing how prepared he was for the gospel.  The last lesson we had with him, he was saying that he wants to keep studying more before he decides to get baptized because he doesn´t want to take such an important step without knowing exactly what he´s doing.  I told him that I knew that as he continued to study, he would come to a knowledge of the truth of the church and of the Book of Mormon.  He stopped and looked at me and said, "No, I already know that this church is true and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  I just want to learn everything I can before I get baptized.  But right now...I want to be a part of this.  I love the environment of the church and how it´s like a big family and everyone has been so kind and welcoming to me."

Being me, I almost started crying.  (Surprise, surprise.)  It was amazing to hear that after 5 days of meeting with us, he could say without hesitation that he knows the church is true and the Book of Mormon is actually the word of God. 

The most amazing thing though is the change in him.  In the first lesson, he was a little rough and gruff and didn´t smile and didn´t want to answer our questions but was willing to read and to learn more.  Yesterday at church he smiled a TON and talked to a bunch of people.  It´s incredible.  I love the peace and joy that this brings to EVERYONE, no matter who they are or what their story is.  THE GOSPEL IS TRUE, AND THE ATONEMENT IS REAL.  That´s all.  Hopefully today or tomorrow we will set a date for him to work towards for baptism.  Keep him in your prayers!  He´s a little worried about what his family will think because they´re Romanian Orthodox Christians and have been for a long time.  But I don´t think there´s much that´s going to keep him from baptism with the testimony he already has and his thirst for knowledge. :)

Funny event of the week: My companion and I got a bit of flirting from a drunk 70- or 80- something year old man who was nice and friendly but drunk and old. He analyzed our personalities based on our appearances and tried to speak English with me.  

Not 5 feet later, we got some more flirting from an 18 year-old Muslim boy who kept asking if he could have our number and if we wanted to go dancing with him or to a club or something.  He was horrified that we never went to parties as missionaries.

We nearly died laughing on the way home after that.

Quick fun fact: People here know I speak English because my teeth are really straight. Generally they think I look British or Romanian, not American, and I even had a girl tell me yesterday that I look Russian.  It´s kind of cool.  And also, when they see my last name, they ask me if I speak German.  Haha. Hahaha.  No.

Best of luck to you all this week!  Keep the prayers coming for us here in Spain!  We need all the help we can get!

Con cariño,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

The Rain in Spain....

...has apparently been staying mainly in Torrejon.

Here's Lara's latest:

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I literally have NO TIME AT ALL right now to email and it´s really stressing me out.  SO sorry if this is really scatterbrained and full of typos and doesn´t make any sense.  I´ll try my hardest.

Gah--this week was rough.  We had almost no appointments and spent the entire week in the rain and freezing cold (it was totally in the 40´s all week and pouring rain) trying to contact people on the streets when there wasn´t anybody on the streets. It was frustrating because I didn´t feel like we were doing anything.

But then on Friday we finally had lessons--like 6 of them all in a row.  It was insane.  We were running from one side of the city to the other ALL DAY LONG.  

Our best lesson on Friday was with Herbert.  He´s planning on being baptized into the Catholic Church soon, and when we talked to him before, he didn´t really understand why our religion was so important.  During planning, we decided that we had to be bold.  So in the lesson I just went for it.  I bore my testimony boldly and surely that this church is the only way for us to have a fulness of joy and that I know it´s true.  I don´t know if it changed his mind, but for the first time I wasn´t frustrated with myself after the lesson because I had followed the Spirit and I had been confident and straightforward.  

We also had yesterday our first lesson with a new investigator Andrei who is from Romania and has only lived in Spain for 8 months.  He doesn´t have a job, and isn´t completely fluent in Spanish yet, but he can understand us and respond to our questions.  At the end of the lesson, we gave him a Book of Mormon and promised him that it would help him find peace and joy in his life.  He rattled off to us a bunch of questions he had about life and his struggles with finding a job, and I could think of an exact answer to every question he asked in the Book of Mormon.  It was amazing to realize that so many answers can be found there and can bless our lives. 

Today is my cumplemes and it´s been exactly 2 months since I went into the MTC!  I love being a missionary and I´m excited to see where this continues to take me!

I hope you all have a great week!

Hermana Lara Schaumann

Since I managed to catch Lara's email at the time she was emailing and respond immediately, she was able to send back a few responses to my questions as to what she needs:

 I would appreciate it if you could send hard copies of pictures to me, because it´s really hard trying to print stuff off here.

And yes, the mosquitoes are ATROCIOUS.  I use bug spray, for sure.

"Stumbling Blocks?" or "Piedras de Tropiezo en Escalones" (according to google translate)

Here's Lara's latest email, a little shorter because we got to talk with her via Skype on Mother's Day.  :)

And I successfully figured out how to post pictures.  Victory!  Here she is with her trainer, working on a service project sewing pillows for a children's hospital, and with the sisters in her Spain MTC district.  

She is really loving the people there in Madrid, and says she feels a lot of love and support especially from the members.  One of them so kindly allowed her to skype us from their home last night!  :)

Trying to get an idea of what Lara is "seeing" each day, I tried to find pictures of Torrejon on the web that I could post, but have been unsuccessful so far.  We did use google map to get a street view from parts of the city, and also checked out tripadvisor.  There is a "Parque Europa" there, with models of the Eiffel Tower, Tower Bridge in London, the Trevi Fountain in Rome, and  the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin among other things.   

Now, on to her email......

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¡Hola todos! ¿Que tal?

It was fabulous to see and talk with the familia last night.  You all looked great and Jared even looked buff. Maybe he is finally starting to gain a little weight.

This week has been crazy.  A lot of disappointments.  But I am not in the least discouraged.  I´m noticing a lot of my weaknesses, though, and having to correct them.  In the Provo MTC we were sitting next to two teachers at lunch and I heard them discussing the scripture Ether 12:27.  "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.  I give unto the children of men weakness that they may be humble, and my grace is sufficient for all my who humble themselves before me, for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then I will make weak things become strong unto them."  (Sorry if that´s not exactly right, I'm translating it from Spanish/relying on my memory.)  The teacher pointed out that seeing our weaknesses and realizing our flaws is a sign that we are coming unto the Lord.  So the more flawed and weak and humble we feel, as far as our own abilities, the closer we are to the Lord and the more worthy we are to ask for and accept His help.

We got to go on Tuesday to Campo Real, which is a little pueblito out in the middle of nowhere.  It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  All the houses have red tile roofs, and the town is built on a hill, and there are cobblestone streets that slope and curve down the hillside.  I love it so much.  I think we´re going back tomorrow.  The only downside is that we have to ride a bus for 45 minutes up and down the hilly countryside to get there.  Not too fun.

We have 5 new investigators this week.  One is a friend of a YW in the ward, and he came to church last Sunday.  He´s 16 years old and his family is affiliated with all different churches (Catholic, Evangelist, Jehovah's Witnesses) and he´s tried all of them, searching for the truth--just like Joseph Smith!  He is really interested in religion and believes very firmly in God and wants to know how to be closest to Him.  The only problem is that his parents might not be so keen on him getting baptized.  

Our other new investigators are all very religious and were pretty accepting of the message of the Restoration.  The problem with ALL FOUR OF THEM is that they´re living with someone to whom they aren´t married. NO ONE in Spain is married except the members of the church, pretty much, which is so sad to me.  Two of them are a couple that´s investigating together, and I have absolute faith that as they come to gain a testimony of the gospel, they will have the desire to get married so they can be baptized!  With the others we would love to get their parejas (this word doesn´t exist in English...it means your co-habitating significant other) to come to lessons with us as well, but everyone here has crazy work schedules and it´s really hard to teach both at the same time.

So, that´s the noticias from Spain!  I love it here and I love being a missionary.  I´m so excited to see how much I will continue to grow and become a disciple of Christ so that I will stay converted for the rest of my life. 

LOVE YOU ALL!

Con cariño,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

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Her email reminded me to re-evaluate "stumbling blocks."   I just re-listened to Steven Snow's "Stepping Stones and Stumbling Blocks" from BYU Devotional of Sept. 11, 2012.   Great! 

 http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=2068

The biggest adjustment.......

....is apparently the light switches.  :)

Here is Lara's email from last Monday.  (Obviously her mother is kind of slow in updating.)  She is now serving in her first area, Torrejon.  It is a suburb of Madrid, and the location of the National Space Agency headquarters and a military air base.  They had several holidays last week--Labour Day, and The Fiesta de la Comunidad de Madrid  

We emailed her a list of questions we could ask her during the call, so she would have time to think them over beforehand.  But she misunderstood and answered them ALL in her email.  I don't know what we are going to talk about now. ;)   

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AGH I have never seen so many questions in my life. I´m going to TRY to answer them all but I don´t know if that´s even possible.

 

How many members in your ward/branch? 

probably somewhere from 100-120.  They´re almost all from South America.  There are maybe 4 or 5 Spaniards in the entire ward.  They´re super nice and really supportive of the missionaries. 

What is the church building like? 

ít´s pretty small (at least smaller than I´m used to) and only our ward meets there.  It´s in a good location pretty close to the train station and is pretty convenient for almost all the members

What is the town like? Rural, small town, small city, med. city, large city? 

I have no idea. It´s like...Europe. I have yet to see a "house" because everyone lives in apartments above the stores, etc. There are a ton of cute little parks and fountains and things, and the plaza is super awesome.  This week was "festivo" (holiday) for something and so everyone was out of school Wed-Fri, and on Saturday we had a lesson in the plaza and we were there a few minutes early and we got to see this huge parade with everyone all dressed up in flamenco dresses with giant flowers in their hair and all that stuff.  There were even oxen pulling some cart with white flowers and glass chandeliers.  It was super fancy and SO Spanish.

What does the area look like? flat? rolling hills? A lot of trees? 

It´s pretty much flat, a few hills (enough to make it interesting) and sort of dry-ish. We live in Alcalá de Henares which is two train stops away from Torrejón and so we ride the train in and out every day.  The landscape is super pretty--there are a bunch of wildflowers.  The poppies are especially beautiful.  There aren´t a ton of trees, no.

How hot is it? How cold is it? How often does it rain? 

It was FREEZING and rainy the first few days, but now it is just about perfect.  Short sleeves with maybe a light jacket.  I´ve heard it´s going to get REALLY hot soon, which I´m not really looking forward to.

How is your companion? How long has she been out? Is her family LDS? Do they support her with letters? Life member or   convert? 

Hermana V is from France and she speaks NO ENGLISH.  Fortunately, we both know enough Spanish that we haven´t had problems yet communicating or teaching.  She´s been out for 8 months and I´m her first trainee.  Her mother and grandmother are LDS, but her father was not (he´s no longer living.)  Her grandmother faithfully sends her a letter EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  She´s technically a convert, since she got baptized when she was 11 or 12, but she´s been in the church her whole life.  She has one brother who´s 19 and is thinking about preparing for mission.  She looks almost exactly like Freema Agyeman (sorry if I spelled that wrong), the actress from Little Dorrit and Doctor Who.

Are you sleeping well? 

Yes.  I´m so tired when I get home that I can´t help but sleep well. :)

How is the food? What is the best food you've eaten? What is the weirdest food you've eaten? How many dinner appts do you get? 

So dinner appointments don´t exist.  We have lunch appointments, and we get a bunch of them.  They feed us SO much.  Holy cow. But the good thing is that I´m not hungry when we get home, so I usually just eat 2 meals a day.  All the food has been REALLY good.  I haven´t yet encountered anything questionable.  We eat a lot of chicken and potatoes and rice and salad/soup.

What do you usually eat for breakfast? Lunch? 

Breakfast is whatever we want, so the same as in America. Cereal, toast, yogurt, fruit.

How are your clothes? Shoes? Socks? 

My clothes have been fine so far, although I hate having such a small selection to choose from.  My shoes are super comfortable and I found some AWESOME socks at a store called Primark which is the CHEAPEST place in the world and has a ton of really cute stuff. I´m going to try to get some more maybe next P-day.

How are your feet? Any problems? Do you need more toothpaste? Deodorant? Vitamins?  

I´m fine on all that. My feet sometimes hurt just because I walk 500 miles (and I would walk 500 more), but that´s just going to happen.

What is your apt like? Is it in a big building? Are your neighbors friendly or scared of you? 

So I thought our apartment was super nice until today, when we went for P-day to Léganes to visit some other Hnas for a Cinco de Mayo party (because we´re Americans and we think we´re cultured when we celebrate Mexican holidays) and their apartment is SO nice and colorful.  They have a spiral staircase and everything.  I´m kind of jealous.

But ours is fine. We live with two other sisters who are serving in Alcalá and they´re really nice.  I have yet to meet our neighbors since we´re rarely in our apartment and we don´t get back until 10:30 at night.  The building is normal size, 3-4 floors with 4 apartments on each floor.  ALL the buildings are the same size here.

How far away is the Mission Office? How many in your District? 

Well, I have no idea because we never go to the mission office. There are 12 in our district.

Where are they from? Who is the District Leader? Zone Leader? How often do you have Zone Conference? 

They´re all from the US (except Hna V, obviously) and almost half of us are brand new.  DL is Elder Cardwell, who is also serving in Torrejón with Elder Weixler, who worked at Hatch Family Chocolates. Funny the way things work out.  I don´t remember who the zone leader is and I have no idea how often we have zone conference.  We haven´t had it yet.

 

What do you usually do on P-day? What service do you do? How often? 

As I already said, today we´re having a 5 de Mayo party.  I have no idea what we usually do, though.  I guess I´ll find out. :) We do service every week.  Last week it was and this week again it will be a ward service activity.  Last week we made pillows for a children´s hospital (I think.) And I have a picture but I forgot to bring my camera when we left this morning.  I´ll send pictures later.

How many investigators? 

5 who are coming to church, but we just got like 6 new ones this weekend.  We have one who just got baptized a couple weeks ago.  Mostly we´ve been trying to contact new people.  We found a Peruvian man on Saturday and taught him the first lesson yesterday and it went really well.  He has a ten year-old son who is really interested in what we´re teaching.  When we left, he was devouring the Book of Mormon and asking us who all the people are in the pictures and everything.

 

As to how I´m adjusting to Spain, the answer is pretty well.  It´s not TOO different, just a different structure to things, and I really like it.  The things I can´t adjust to are 

a) the milk.  It´s not usually cold and it´s super creamy and sweet.  I don´t like it at all. 

b) THE STINKING LIGHT SWITCHES.  I have come to realize that there is some unstated law in Spain that you can´t put a light switch IN the bathroom, it has to be outside.  So basically every time I go into a bathroom, I have to come back out and turn on the light. Hopefully I will get used to it eventually. 

c) the doorknobs, which are sometimes smack dab in the middle of the door.  What is up with that?

Tell Sam CONGRATULATIONS from me.  That is AMAZING. He´s going to love it!

 

Thank you for the quotes from Elder and Sister Bednar.  I have really grown to LOVE Elder Bednar from the MTC.  His "Character of Christ" talk that I watched the first Sunday in Provo has absolutely changed my life. I think about it all the time and it has shaped my decisions, goals, and actions.   We watched another talk from him last week in Madrid about recognizing the Spirit, with the 20 mark note story and a few others. I love his simple way of explaining the gospel, and the way he just answers my questions straight away without any hesitation.  

I have loved having real study time every morning and being able to discuss the things I´ve learned with my companion.  I am up to 2 Ne 11 in my paperback Book of Mormon, and I highly recommend that everyone study the Book or Mormon concentrating on a certain theme.  It´s awesome, and I have learned a ton.  Granted, it takes forever, but es vale la pena (it´s worth it.)

 

I love you guys.  Good luck Jare Bear on your AP tests! Is school almost out for you?  Here the kids still have a month and a half to go!

 

Pues, I think that´s about it. ¡Os amo muchisimo!

 

Con amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann