March 10--
So this week I had 2 of the biggest miracles that have ever happened in my mission. Seriously, it´s AMAZING to see how the Lord has his hands in the details of our lives.
First, while we were emailing last week we got a call from a recent convert who asked if we could go to the chapel right then. He told us that some sister was looking for us. I told him we were busy, but then we asked him to pass the phone to the lady, María Mercedes. She told us that she really wanted to meet with us and study the scriptures, that she was looking for a church to go to. She used to be Jehovah´s Witness, then Catholic, but she´s looking for something that "fills" her. We were super excited, promised her that we could help her find everything she was looking for and know the truth for herself, and set up a cita with her for the next day at 11:00. She came and we taught the Restoration, with a recent convert who´s Español, and she understood it better than anyone I´ve ever taught it to! She´s Española (which is a MIRACLE in and of itself--the Spaniards walk over to the other side of the street to avoid us and only speak to us if we´re asking directions) and she is AMAZING. The only thing is that she smokes, but she already knows it´s bad and wants to quit. In the first lesson we gave her a baptismal date for March 29th, and she said yes! So we´re SO excited. She´s been trying so hard to study the Book of Mormon with the Bible references, but she had some weird Bible (like the NIV in English) and so we got her a Reina-Valera (King James) Bible and she was SO grateful. It was so cute, she went all over Alcorcón to all the bookstores and thrift stores looking for a Reina-Valera Bible and she was so sad when she couldn´t find one. But now she´s studying and doing SO well. The only thing is that she didn´t come to church yesterday because she was sick- when we stopped by last night to give her her Bible she was coughing and super hoarse. But she is seriously AMAZING and is so prepared for the gospel. She LOVES the Book of Mormon and even made a little cover for it because she didn´t want it to get damaged. :) We absolutely love her and we haven´t even known her for a week.
Second, THE BIGGEST MIRACLE EVER OF ALL TIME.
But seriously, things like this DON´T HAPPEN unless the Lord plans them out exactly. This begins last P-day. When we were on our way to Madrid, we sat by this cute African girl on the train. She´s from Equatorial Guinea, and was here on vacation for a week. We talked to her and ended up teaching her the Restoration because she, like Joseph Smith, is always church-hopping, looking for the truth. We got her number and set up an appointment with her for Friday (she was leaving on Saturday to go back to her country). So on Friday, Hna. F went to Leganés and Hna. C came here with me to Alcorcón on exchanges. We met with M and her niece, who was also there on vacation with her. We taught them both the Restoration again, in more detail (and not on the train) and it was AWESOME. The Spirit was so strong, and they both accepted to be baptized when they´ve received a testimony of the Church. We got her number to send to the missionaries in her country and we said goodbye and have a good trip to them. Hna. C and I were talking about how good the lesson was and getting all our stuff together when I pulled out the phone and looked at it. (They had not left more than 5 minutes before this.) I see that we have 2 missed calls from a number I didn´t know, so I call it back, and the lady says, "Hi, I´m M´s sister,V, and I live here in Alcorcón. M just told me about her meeting with you, and I want you to come over and teach me." I was standing there with my mouth open, but somehow I had the presence of mind to set up an appointment for THAT EVENING at 7:30. So Hna. C and I were super excited. We went over to her house at 7:30 and find V, two of her sons, M and her niece, their friend V. As we start to talk to her, we find out that she (V) has 5 children, ages 22, 20, 18, and 9 year-old twins, and that her husband died 6 months ago. We taught them the Restoration and before she even told us about her husband dying we were focusing so much on eternal families. The lesson went really well, they were excited to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and they also accepted to be baptized on March 29th!! They are a beautiful family and SO PREPARED for the gospel! Their friend is going to be a little more difficult but we´re going to teach him too and I´m sure he´ll get baptized eventually. :)
Anyway Hna. C and I were SO EXCITED about this beautiful Guinean family and I can´t wait to see how they progress.
In other news, J should be good to get baptized next week, if all goes well in his interview, and R is still super sick, so we´ll see when he gets better to be able to be baptized. He´s going into the hospital again for a blood analysis because he´s been really sick for 2 weeks straight.
Speaking of being sick, my poor sweet little companion was a little sick this week, but she´s doing a lot better now. Honestly 60% of Alcorcón has an awful cough/cold/sinus infection.
The weather this week was absolutely LOVELY, I shed my tights for the first time since coming back to Madrid. (which meant I had to shave...darn it...) It´s 70s right now, sunny, all the trees are budding...it´s like heaven! Sorry to make you jealous, those of you who are frozen solid right now. :)
An interesting thing that we learned this week is that just like we have an unpardonable sin (denying the Holy Ghost) the Muslims have one. And it is believing that anyone is equal to or related to God. So basically, by believing that Christ is the literal Son of God and that we are literally his spirit children, we are doomed to the lowest level of Muslim hell. Our sweet little Muslim investigator was explaining about their beliefs of hell and what their unpardonable sin is, and Hna. F and I were just staring at each other across the table in shock/amusement. She finally asked him that according to his beliefs, since we believe that we are God´s children, and the Christ is his literal offspring, where would we go? He is so nice that he was just like "I can´t judge that! I´m not God!" but we read in the Koran (I probably didn´t spell that right) that people who believe that Christ is the Son of God will be doomed to a blazing fire. So basically, we´re going to Muslim hell. Fun stuff.
Yeah, so I think that´s about it for today. We had another crazy week, like always, and today a sister in the ward is going to give us facials!!! We´re SUPER excited.
March 17--
If you haven´t already figured this out by now, missionary life basically makes you a little bit bipolar. We´re currently having a bit of a rough time with everyone and everything...but we still have a lot going for us, which is good!
M is still doing awesome, only her mom got super sick this week and is now checked into the hospital, on oxygen, doing pretty bad, so she´s basically been living in the hospital the past few days and we haven´t been able to have a lesson with her. We have been in contact every day and she still loves us and wants to keep learning, so that´s good.
We decided we´re probably going to give R to the elders because he just keeps not reading or coming to church or doing anything and he always has some excuse... so hopefully the elders will be better for him.
J still needs some more time, but he has the desire to be baptized, so we´ll keep working with him until he understands everything better and is really prepared to take that step.
V and her family were moving this week, so they didn´t have time to meet with us, but hopefully we´ll get that ball rolling again.
Yeah...basically everyone is having a bunch of weird problems/circumstances and we´ve had to do a lot of sorting and prioritizing with our investigators...so we´re going to focus on the ones who are actually going somewhere and keep them going somewhere, because we just don´t have time to be in 500 places at once...
Something unusual that happened this week is that Hna. E, the member who gave us facials last week, just happened to drop by our piso on Tuesday morning to bring us something, which morning I was randomly sick (with I don´t even know what, I was just crying for no reason and completely exhausted) and came in, saw how dead I was, and went crazy deep-cleaning our piso. She organized everything, bought us new cleaning supplies...everything. It wasn´t really that bad, but it was super awesome to have it THOROUGHLY cleaned. She also made us a soup for lunch (with pumpkin, zucchini, potato, pepper, and onion) which was absolutely DELICIOUS. I have some pictures of us with her that I´ll send later.
And then the next day after district meeting we invited the other hermanas from our district over and we made empanadas. Since 2 of them are Latinas we were sure they would know how to make empanadas and would be able to help us. But as it turns out, neither of them had any idea so Hna. F and I just ended up making them, and they turned out REALLY good. They kind of tasted like pizza! We were really proud of that, since we didn´t have a recipe or anything.
Yeah I don´t even really know what else happened this week, it was a kind of exhausting week, but I was really grateful for the members and the elders who helped us a TON. Heavenly Father never leaves us alone.
One cool miracle that happened was that one night EVERYTHING fell through and even our service opportunity backup plans fell through and so we had NOTHING to do so we went to go see P and his brother-in-law I, who were closing up the place where they work. We asked I if he and his family were busy that night, and he said no, so we ended up going to their house and teaching the whole family, I, his wife S, and their two daughters. It was so cool and we really had no idea what we were going to talk about ahead of time but the lesson ended up being AMAZING. We were somehow perfectly coordinated even though we hadn´t decided even a general topic to teach about.
So please keep praying for us and everyone here, especially the families that we keep finding that will need a lot of work and a lot of patience but they will really be a huge blessing in our branch and the gospel will bless them immensely.
Have a great week!
Hermana Lara Schaumann!
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