Humildad, Vacaciones, and A New Stake

I forgot to post last week, so both of Lara's emails are down below.  Feel free to skip this side note, and get to "the good stuff."  The news from The Canary Islands is that they are creating a Stake there on Sep. 22.  That's big news, because from what I understand they've never had a stake there before.  Not even when they were their own mission.  

Here's the church news article about the Canaries from 1990.   http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/19557/Gospel-takes-wing-in-Canary-Islands.html   To summarize the history of the church there:  the area was opened in 1978 by none other than Lara's uncle, Elder Scott Jensen, and Elder Gill.  It grew rapidly at first, and was made its own mission in 1988.  Over time, the growth slowed down tremendously, going from a peak of 18 branches down to 10 in 2006, when the mission was dissolved.   It has been a part of the Madrid mission ever since then.  So, the members there are quite excited that it is now going to be a stake.  

FROM LARA Aug 19:

Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 7:52 AM
Subject: Humildad

I´ve just tried 5 different ways to start this email, and none of them are really working. So I´ll just dive into it. 

Harrison and Jonathan got baptized on Friday!  It was AWESOME.  But I have to back up to do this story justice. 

All week long we saw Harrison. and he was still getting places late but he was SO happy and so decided about his baptism.  All he could say was how happy he was and how he couldn´t believe that he was actually going to get baptized!  So Friday afternoon he invited us over to his house to eat for mediodia. We had never been to his house because we always just teach him at the church or in a park of wherever. We figured out on the map where he lives and it was really far away.  So we went with the elders up there.  Luckily the elders got there first and when our bus came, they were there at the stop to tell us where to get off.  As we were walking to his house, they told us to prepare for a humbling experience.  And yeah, it was humbling.  He has nothing: no running water, no electricity, not even a real roof to his house.  I almost just burst into tears walking in the door.  We had no idea that he lived like that.  He´s always so happy and content that we had no clue.  The minute he saw us come in, he just beamed and told us "This is the happiest day of my life!"  He cooked us lunch on a propane tank that he literally constructed a stovetop over out of cement blocks.  I was so humbled to see that the gospel is literally all he has and he is so, SO grateful for it. Maybe one day I will be that strong and good of a person that if I have the gospel, I don´t want for anything. I was amazed to see that.  I couldn´t believe that I was supposed to be his guide and mentor to teach him the gospel when he is so much a better person than I am. 

Then that afternoon we had his baptism.  We wanted to just bring him with us but we had to come back early to fill up the font and so we couldn´t bring him so early.  He told us that he was going to get a ride with his friend to come down at 5:30.  We made sure he had money to take the bus in case his friend couldn´t drive him  And so we sat there in the church waiting and waiting and waiting...6:00...6:15...6:30...We were helping Hermana Buhler get the food ready in the kitchen and there were extra rice krispie treats and I was so stressed that I just stood there eating and eating them.  We knew he was going to come, we just didn´t know when...and then at 6:40 he came running in the door and got changed! Everything was perfect for the baptism.  Just to listen to his and Jonathan´s testimonies at the end was one of the most amazing things I´ve ever experienced. And for once, a decent number of members came to the baptism.  Usually almost everyone there is an investigator. The members were so good at talking to and accepting them both.  I even caught a glimpse of Jonathan just sitting there and crying talking to the Buhlers after the baptism.  We walked Harrison back to the bus stop and the whole way he just kept thanking us over and over for everything we had done, which honestly doesn´t seem like much at all. 

Then on Sunday Harrison wasn´t at church at the beginning...and he didn´t come until 10:35!  (Our church starts at 10.)  So he´ll have to be confirmed next week.  Jaime´s going to pick him up at his house and drive him down so he´ll get there on time.  They´re both almost perfect people.  I´m just waiting for them to get translated.

As far as everything else... I got a pedicure on Saturday from our investigator Stella.  It was super fun and it felt so good but she was laughing at me the whole time because, as you may or may not know, I have EXTREMELY ticklish feet, and I flinched every time she tickled me, which was a lot. But now I have really cute toenails!  They´re purple with little white flowers on them. 

Also, we started teaching this week Julio´s wife Ana.  She´s a SPANIARD.  Which is a HUGE deal because Spainards never want to listen to us. But she is one of the sweetest, most wonderful people I have ever met.  This week she was off work and she came with Julio to EVERYTHING, all the activities in the church, a FHE that we have with a recent convert and her family, the baptism, and we visited them in their house Saturday night.  She´s already been reading the Book of Mormon and she´s a good chunk of the way through 1 Nephi.  She loves coming to church because she says she just feels really good and really comfortable there, and the people are really nice. Just to listen to her talk about how she feels when she reads and comes to church, I could tell that she already has a testimony, she just doesn´t know it yet!  But she´s moving to Chile in September.  So that just means we have to baptize her and Julio before she leaves!  I´m actually pretty positive that we will. I have the best feeling around her.

And even better, two sisters in the ward with whom we have FHE on Monday nights found out that it was Julio´s birthday on Saturday and WITH ANA planned a surprise birthday party for him, which we had last night. It was one of the funnest things I´ve ever done, and Hermana Floyd and I were laughing about how all our friends here in Las Palmas are 45 year-old South Americans who we can´t always understand when they talk.  Julio was so surprised when it ended up being a party for him, because his wife had been working really hard to keep it a secret.  He thought it was going to be a scripture study class. We made a peanut butter sheet cake with the peanut butter Mom sent me and it was SO good, but then there were a TON of desserts that everyone else made and Jaime, who was there, kept making us eat more and more.  We´ve realized that American desserts are SIGNIFICANTLY sweeter and richer than Spanish or South American ones, and we´ve gotten accustomed to eating less sugar.  So we felt like we were going to die yesterday after eating so many sweet things.  And there ended up being a ton of cake left over and we didn´t know what we were going to do with it, because no one wanted to take it home and WE definitely didn´t want it, and so we started walking back to our piso with all this cake, trying to figure out who we could give it to.  Then we saw the elders walking down the street and so we called to them and made them wait while we ran up to our piso and put it in a tupperware container and grabbed them plastic forks so they could eat it on the road.  As it turned out, they ate the entire huge thing of cake in like 2 minutes while they were standing there talking to us.  It was crazy, but also perfect because we didn´t have to eat it all ourselves.

I would like to solicit your prayers this week especially for Harrison, Julio and Ana, Claudia, and Danna.  

I am honestly having the time of my life here in Las Palmas.  It´s really hard sometimes to be a good missionary, but just the little moments of seeing miracles are more than enough to make me want to do what I´m doing for at least another year. 

Venga, mis niños, (a typical Canarian farewell)

Hermana Lara Schaumann

P.S. this week we had lunch with a Brazilian family and it was probably the best food I have ever eaten in my life.  We ate a stroganoff with chicken and olives, and potato salad, and some fried shredded chicken balls.  and for dessert they made pave (I probably spelled that wrong) which is like chocolate pudding and some creamy icing thing with cookies inside it.   It was so good and again we ate WAY tooa much.  So if you ever have the chance to eat Brazilian food, take it. 

FROM LARA Aug 26:

So there´s this strange phenomenon in Spain, and especially in the Canary Islands that happens called "vacaciones."  This is when every single person goes on a 4-6 week vacation to another island or to the south or to the Peninsula.  

And that was our challenge this week!  We´ve been searching for new investigators and we´ve contacted some people but they´re ALL on vacation and don´t answer their phones.  It´s a little rough. But we worked really hard and we ended up seeing some really cool stuff. I´m just going to talk about the miracles we saw this week.

#1: We were walking around in an area called Puerto, which is close to all the shipping docks, and a lady came running after us and called after us in English.  She told us that years ago, a member of her extended family, like a distant cousin or something, was a missionary in the Canaries.  She asked if we could find out anything about her relative, and was really excited to give us her information so we could talk with her another day and help her look for this girl.  We´re DEFINITELY going to teach her and also help her find this relative of hers. 

#2: We desperately needed new investigators, so last night we just randomly went by this one lady´s house who we had found knocking doors. She invited us in and was really interested in our message and then she came with us to the baptism that happened an hour later. So she got to meet a bunch of members and feel the Spirit and we set up an appointment to see her again on Wednesday.

#3: Also last night, we had 15 minutes left before we had to go back to our piso, and we really wanted to find and teach a new investigator.  Hna. Floyd had this idea to go to a fountain nearby that looks over the ocean, and we found a man sitting there by himself, talked to him, taught him about prayer, and set up a time to see him again.  All in 15 minutes.

#4: This isn´t our miracle, but it´s still a miracle.  The elders in Las Palmas right now have a mini missionary from Tenerife. They were teaching a 15 year-old girl who lives with her aunt, who´s a member.  Her mother is also a member, but she´s less active and she had been denying her daughter permission to get baptized.  Finally one day 2 weeks ago the mother said that the girl, Desiree, could get baptized, but she had to think about it hard and be sure it was what she wanted to do.  She originally planned to get baptized Saturday the 24th but then she got scared by the pressure from her mom and backed out.  The elders taught her on Thursday and their mini missionary, who is 16, was able to connect with her really well and told her that she knew she had to do it and she couldn´t let fear get in the way of anything.  So she decided to get baptized yesterday, Sunday the 25th.  Her baptism was SO amazing.  She basically threw herself into the water, she was so excited.  Afterwards, I gave her a little note I had written for her and she read it and just started crying and hugged me at least 50 times and told me she never wants Hermana Floyd or me to leave.  She is INCREDIBLE.  I just love her to pieces. 

Hopefully we´ll have a better week this week, and it´s the last week of the transfer.  We found out today that there are only 12 hermanas coming in, and so chances are we won´t be training down here.  We were all hanging out as a district today playing soccer and we all said that we don´t want anything to change in our district.  So hopefully President will leave the islands in peace!

Also, we´re becoming a stake on September 22!  Everyone here is SO excited!

Have a great week!  LOVE YA!

Doble Bautismo!

(quick disclaimer: when I say double baptism I don´t want you to think that we´re going to baptize 2 people.  It´s a double baptism because we have a baptism, and the elders in our branch also have a baptism.)

So our baptism is for Harrison, who is so prepared and so awesome.  When we were starting to think he couldn´t come on time for ANYTHING, he came 20 minutes late to FHE, 10 minutes late to an activity on Saturday morning, and 5 minutes EARLY to church.  He also had and passed his baptismal interview!  We were talking to him on the phone this morning and he was super excited.  He kept saying "Ever since I decided to get baptized, I´ve just been so happy." He´s kind of shy, but he gets along well with the other members at church and he says he always feels so welcome there.  Thank you, members, for that sort of caring!  I love that he can feel that.  He got the first lesson on July 14th, so it will have been just barely over a month that he´s been meeting with the missionaries.  He still has a lot to learn about the gospel, but he´s going to learn it and love it!

So Harrison is our miracle.  And if we really want to talk about another miracle, that´s what the elders got.  Their baptism is a 24 year-old named Jonotan. He´s been investigating the church for somewhere around 4 years.  And he´s just never gotten baptized.  He always had one excuse or another.  But the missionaries didn´t give up on him, and kept visiting him and helped him stay active in the church activites, especially with YSA.  So he kept coming, and one day a couple weeks ago he called the elders and said that he needed to meet with them because he had something important to talk with them about. They were understandably a little nervous but went to meet with him.  And he told them "I keep having this dream.  It´s always the same dream, and I have it every night after I´ve prayed and read my scriptures.  If I don´t read and pray, I don´t have it.  But in this dream, I´m out preaching the gospel as a missionary."

And the elders said, "Well, I´m pretty sure God´s telling you he wants you to serve a mission. Can we set a baptismal date with you so you would be able to serve?"  And so they set the date for the 24th.  But they were planning, and they knew he could get baptized right away. So they called him and asked if he wanted to change his date to the 17th. He said, "Um, I´ll have to get back to you on that."  And when the elders asked why, he said "Well, I have to pray about it and get an answer first!"  And so now he´s getting baptized on the 16th (we had to change it to Friday, but whatever) with Harrison!  It´s going to be awesome!

We had a really good first lesson with Mayeriy, who is from Colombia.  She had a TON of questions and it took us forever to finish the lesson, but her questions were really good and we couldn´t just not answer them!  I´m excited to see where she progresses.  By the end of the lesson, she seemed to really like what we were teaching. :)

Funny story of the week: Mayeriy lives pretty close to us, but we didn´t leave her piso until 9:53, and we have to be back in our piso at 10:00.  So we RAN the entire way back, and we had to go through a little shadier part of town to get back on time, and some of the girls there watched us run and kind of laughed and one of them asked, ¨What happened to you?" and Hermana Floyd just looked back over her shoulder without slowing down and said "We´re in a hurry!" in an out-of-breath, kind of squeaky voice.  They probably thought we were running away from a bad situation.  But no, we were just being obedient. :)

Have a great week!

Hermana Lara Schaumann

Baptism!!

So, Jaime got baptized on Wednesday and confirmed yesterday!!!!!!  He has the biggest testimony I have ever met. He lost his job about 2 or 3 months ago just because he told his boss he was investigating the church.  But he had the faith to continue listening and learning and he found a new job and got baptized into the true church!  After the baptism, he got up and bore his testimony. No one would have guessed from listening to it that he´s a recent convert. He was quoting Elder Holland and President Monson and talking about all sorts of things in the Book of Mormon.  We sang The Lord Is My Light for the musical number because it´s his favorite song.  He LOVES to sing. Even though he has one of the worst voices I have ever heard in my life, I love to listen to him because he´s singing his testimony and he´s singing it shamelessly.  It doesn´t matter that he´s tone-deaf.  He loves singing hymns because he loves his Heavenly Father.  He is just wonderful.  We had a lesson with him yesterday after his confirmation and all he kept saying the whole time was that he was so happy to be baptized and to have the gift of the Holy Ghost and to be a member of this church. He just kept grinning and repeating "I´m really happy.  I´m so happy."  It was amazing.  I always feel the sweetest Spirit when I´m around him. 

Julio for the moment doesn´t feel prepared to get baptized because he doesn´t think he has a testimony.  He went to Jaime´s baptism (we had 7 investigators there!) and we think he´s comparing himself to Jaime, who is already perfect in every way, and he doesn´t feel THAT prepared.  He told us, "I don´t have a testimony like Jaime´s.  If I had to get up there and talk, I wouldn´t have anything to say."  And so we asked him if he knew that the church was true.  And he said "I know this church is true.  I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  I know Joseph Smith was a prophet.  I just don´t have a testimony."  And so we tried to explain to him that that IS a testimony and that is all he needs to get baptized, but he still wasn´t sure.  So this week we´re going to go over the baptismal questions with him and tell him that if he can answer these questions, the prophet and the Lord think that he is ready to get baptized.

Harrison is also going to get baptized on the 17th, and he´s really cool.  He´s from Ghana, but he speaks both English and Spanish, so we teach him in Spanish.  He is really eager to learn and always accepting of everything we tell him.  And it´s not just an "okay whatever you say" but he knows that everything is true.  We taught the law of chastity and he knew it was true because he hadn´t always followed it and he had suffered the consequences.  And he already lives the Word of Wisdom in every point because he´s a personal trainer and a boxer.  Cool, no?  Our only challenge with him is that he comes late to everything.  Like REALLY late. 20 minutes or so to church, 35 minutes late to the baptism, sometimes an hour and a half late to our teaching appointments.  We always teach him after any activity or church meeting that he comes to because that means he´s already there and we don´t have to wait for him.

We also got a few new investigators this week.  Cool story:  This week we went to go teach Marta, who works with her husband in the fruteria down the street. We just go in there when business is a little quieter and teach her there in the store. So we were teaching her, and in came her friend Isabel, who joined in our conversation about God, because Marta wants to believe that God exists but has never really felt His reality or existence.  So we´re talking about this when another man, another friend of Marta, walks in and joins in as well.  Marta asks "What religion are you?" and he says "I´m Mormon."  We just stared at him, not sure if he was joking or being smart-alecky or what. And then he said "I´ve ever been baptized but I have their little blue Bible and I like the Mormon church." And so we got his number and we´re going to meet with him this week. Crazy, no?

I love being a missionary and even when it´s hard, there´s always something or someone to remind me why I´m really here and who I´m really serving.

Have a great week, and remember, I like mail. :)

con mucha felicidad y amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann