.....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:
******************************
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
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