1/6/2014 So surprise surprise! I got transferred out of Las Palmas. ;( I had to get up at 3:30 this morning to catch the plane...and I haven´t eaten anything...
But anyway, I´m pretty sad to be leaving. I absolutely love Las Palmas--the members, the investigators, the weather, the ocean, everything. I´m pretty sure I got all my tears out this morning in the airport... but we´ll see.
So where am I? I´m in Móstoles! Where is that? Well, I´m not really sure. I think it´s to the southwest of Madrid. My new companion is Hermana F, from Midway, Utah. She was trained by Hermana K, my MTC companion, and she´s been up in the north in Gijón. So they just sent her down and me up to come here in Móstoles. I´m pretty sure we´re whitewashing... (for those of you who don´t know what that is, it´s where they take out both of the missionaries serving in an area and put in 2 brand new ones.) And I´m pretty sure the ones who were here were elders... If you can´t tell I don´t really know what we´re doing right now... Two of the elders came to pick us up and take us to our piso, and we went straight from there to go email. So I hope we can find our way back to the piso and to the store, because our piso is brand new and there´s NO food in it.
1/13/2014 So we had a little craziness this week and my companion and I were emergency transferred on Tuesday morning to Alcorcón, in a trio. It was super crazy because we only spent one night in Móstoles and the next morning we were studying and we got a phone call from the APs that there had been some problems and we were going to be changed. It was really weird...but we´re adjusted now.
We had a sort of dead week just because there was all the craziness and on top of everything our new companion was sick...so we spent Tuesday in our piso because they had to come deliver us an extra bed and so we could unpack (we packed and unpacked our suitcases twice in 3 days...), we spent Thursday traveling to and from the doctor, which is like an hour away in bus and metro, and we spent Saturday in the piso because she was still feeling icky. She´s a lot better now, and we know each other a lot better from all the time we´ve spent together in the piso just resting. We´re still trying to get our rhythm together as a trio, but all in good time.
Anyway, we´re probably going to have a baptism this week because we have a really awesome investigator who´s from Nigeria and we gave him a baptismal date, then on Friday he invited us over to eat and he made this spicy Nigerian turkey with spinach and some weird African pepper...it was really good though... but then after we finished eating we asked him if he had prayed about baptism and he said yes, and that he wants to get baptized! His date was February 1st, but he said he wants to get baptized sooner than that. So we think this Saturday would be good! :) He´s had all the lessons and is totally prepared. He´s great.
Also, we have a really cool investigator who´s 20 and from Columbia and is trying to decide whether or not he believes in God. The hermanas made a 2-month plan for him to do, to read the scriptures and pray daily, to come to church every week, to keep the commandments, to see if God really exists, because if God does exist all those things will make a difference in his life. He´s awesome, and we´ve been teaching him the basic doctrines about the nature of God.
Our other frontrunner right now is a Peruvian, who was literally guided to find the missionaries (he contacted them in the street) and he has a fecha also for February 1st. He just hasn´t come to church yet...but he´s really awesome and sincere and he called us just to say hi the other day and to ask about an activity that we had.
So yeah, that´s Alcorcón for you! It´s a branch here, with about 70 active members, almost all of whom are South Americans.
I´ll attach a picture of my new companions (that we just took like 5 minutes ago in the locutorio) and yeah! Have a great week!
1/22/2014 Pues, I have a return date! (YIKES) It is Tuesday, August 26. That means I have a little over 7 months left. It has gone FLYING by for me and I can´t believe I´m a good deal more than halfway done.
Alcorcón is going pretty well. We´re still trying to get into our groove teaching as a trio, but it´s definitely gotten better. We all get along really well and we´re always talking and laughing about things, so that definitely helps our unity.
Some cool things that happened this week:
Some time ago, Hna. V and her companion contacted this Nigerian guy named C on the train and got his number and found out that he works in a locutorio (which is a business where you can make international phone calls or use internet) but then they couldn´t really get anything set up with him. And last week, Hna. V RAN after this lady who was running to get on the bus and wrote down her number. So we were walking down the street, and we saw C´s locutorio and we saw that he was there so we stopped in to talk to him and taught him bits and pieces of the restoration, according to his questions. We set up to come back and talk with him another day. So we came back for the next appointment and in walked this lady who smiled at us like she recognized us. We talked to her a little bit and realized that it was the lady from the bus. I was sitting there thinking what a coincidence it was that she had just happened to pass by when both of them started talking to us and we realized that they´re dating! How crazy is that? So we contacted both of them in separate places, in different ways, and they´re together! Talk about two people who both need the gospel! We´re going by tonight to give them a Book of Mormon and talk more about that. We´re super excited! The only thing is that C gets kind of defensive or overexcited about things. It was really funny because Hermana F after our first lesson was giving us all sorts of pointers of how to gain his trust and get him to listen to us. So Hermana V nicknamed her the African Whisperer. It´s kind of stuck...
P agreed to be baptized! He wants it on Thursday morning, which is a bit unconventional, but we´ll do whatever he wants. We´re really excited and so is he. He´s really awesome and the gospel has already begun to change his life so much!
Also R finally came to church!!! We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was SO good. We used an object lesson with a tea bag that is really amazing. You use the tea bag to represent us, and first you talk about faith and how that alone can´t get you to heaven. We had him "have faith" and try and throw the tea bag up to heaven, but it just falls back down. Then you talk about repentance and baptism, and how that´s like removing the "sins" (the actual tea) from the tea bag. To represent baptism, we dumped it into a glass of water. So after that the tea bag is lighter, but it still doesn´t reach heaven if you try and throw it up there. So then comes the baptism by fire, or the gift of the Holy Ghost. What you do is stand the tea bag up, completely unfolded, like a long tube, on the person´s hand, and then you light the top of it on fire. You tell them they have to have faith that they won´t be burned, and they have to hold their hand very still. It keeps burning down, and right before the fire is about to reach their hand, the tea bag flies up "to heaven" and stays up. It was INCREDIBLE how strong the Spirit was when we did that with R. It hit him so hard, and that was the first time he´s ever come to church. It was really immensely powerful. I love things like that that you can see, hear, and feel all at the same time.
We also had one of the most amazing less-active lessons ever. D has been coming to church, reading, and praying, but you can tell he´s still lacking something. The thing is that we couldn´t figure out what. But this week we read Helaman 5 and talked about having the influence of the Holy Ghost with us always. He said he wasn´t sure he could be worthy to do that and so we started talking about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We asked him if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and his personal Savior. He said "The Son of God, yes, but the my Savior, I´m still not sure." It was so powerful because we were teaching him in the church and the way he was sitting facing us there was a picture of Christ behind him, but he couldn´t see it. Christ is his PERSONAL Savior. The Atonement is something INFINITELY and PERFECTLY personal, but he doesn´t know that yet. So we invited him to learn more about Christ, to come to know Him, and to pray and ask if Christ is HIS Savior. Next week we´re planning to watch some of the new bible videos with him. Those are so powerful and you can feel the love of Christ as you watch them. The thing is that the Atonement changes us, completely and entirely, and it makes EVERYTHING better. I am so very different from when I left on my mission, and every one of those changes has come through earnest prayer and an unfailing trust in the Atonement of the perfect Son of God. D is somewhat happy, sometimes, when things go okay, but with the Atonement, that happiness doesn´t fade. It doesn´t leave us or forsake us, not EVER, because Christ NEVER left us alone.
Have a wonderful week everyone and remember that Jesus Christ is our living Savior and Redeemer. He loves us!
1/27/2014 So I´ll just skip the drama and get to the good stuff.
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