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:

********

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

**********************

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. ;)   

*****************

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

"Blow-upaba" (aka adjusting to Madrid MTC)

So I´m obviously really smart since I told you our p-day is on Wednesday and it´s actually on Thursday.  Oops.

We just got back from the temple.  It´s BEAUTIFUL.  And I did the session in Spanish, which was really cool.  This afternoon we´re going to the PRADO, so I´ll have to tell you how that goes.

This week has been a little more challenging for me.  Not only did I get 8 hours of my life sucked away on an airplane on Thursday, but I came to a really different place.  The Madrid MTC is pretty tiny.  I know almost everyone here and it hasn´t even been a week.  The way they keep the rules is different, the way we teach "investigators" is different, and the way our class time is structured is totally different too.  I had gotten really used to the Provo MTC and the way we did things, and I had come to really love my district, so it was so hard for me to leave and even harder to come to somewhere like this.  I´ve been a little frustrated because they´re more lax on the rules here.  I have such a testimony that strict obedience brings miracles, and I don´t ever want to block myself off from Heavenly Father´s help by being disobedient.  It was really hard the first few days to just get to bed on time because no one else was and I would just lay there with all the lights on and everyone talking trying my hardest to go to sleep.  But then I prayed about it and told Heavenly Father that I really wanted to be able to keep the rules and help others keep the rules without being rude or annoying.  And then last night the sister training leaders for our zone made a new rule that we have to be in our rooms by 10:00 and we need to be quiet and studying/writing in our journals by 10:15!  I was so happy about it!

Hna. King is super nice and gorgeous and she has a really pretty voice.  Both of us love to sing and harmonize, and so we serenade our roommates with a medley of hymns sometimes.  Our district actually has 4 REALLY talented singers, and if one of us starts to hum a hymn during study time, it immediately breaks into 4-part harmony.  It´s so much fun.  We´re doing a musical number in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday and apparently I´m also singing a solo in the devotional Sunday night.  I should probably decide what I´m going to sing...

On Sunday we had a fireside with some of the first missionaries to serve in Spain and the sister sings, so she sang "O Divine Redeemer," just as a solo.  I knew it from when we sang it with Bro. Tolk in choir before, and so I was sort of mouthing along the second soprano part that layers in one of the verses.  Pres. Sitterud (the MTC president) knew I could sing and saw me mouthing it, so he asked her if she would mind just singing that one part of it again with me after the fireside.  It was really fun, even though my voice is nowhere near as pretty as hers.  She´s going to get me a version of it in Spanish to sing, so I´m excited for that.

The coolest thing about this MTC is that on Saturdays we get to go to the park (I don´t know what park it is, sorry.  The really big one smack dab in the middle of Madrid) and teach people!  I went with Hermana Noakes, who is awesome.  We gave out one Book of Mormon and some pass-along cards and had some great experiences.  We talked to one young man (in English) who didn´t believe in God and he asked us a lot of questions about what we believed and why we were serving missions and at the end he said "It´s been really good for me to talk with you.  Most religious people are angry and trying to force their religion on me, but you have been so nice and happy."  Of course, we had to bear testimony that the gospel makes us happy and that it would bless his life.  He was the one we left a Book of Mormon with, and I really hope he reads it!  It made me so excited to share the gospel with others, because after maybe 10 or 15 minutes, this man could see how immensely happy we were.

 

Funny Spanish incident: 

We were practicing the imperfect tense by telling what we used to do when we were kids.  (The imperfect tense adds the ending "-aba" to any verbs that end in -ar.)  Elder Kinghorn (who is HILARIOUS) was talking about how he liked to play with fire and explosives and instead of saying "it blew up" which would be "explodía" (I think) he said "blow-upaba."  That word is now on our vocabulary list on the whiteboard. 

 

Things that are different in Spain (or at least in the MTC) : the lightswitches.  Those are wacky.  They´re probably a 2x2 inch switch that you have to press up or down.  They´re really easy to hit with your back when you´re leaning against the wall.  Not that I know that from experience. ;)

The doorknobs.  There aren´t knobs, actually.  All the doors have handles that you have to twist and pull down and then pull outward.  They´re a little hard to get used to.

Bathroom doors and toilets. The toilets are shaped a little differently (who knew, right?) and the bathroom doors have a lock that you twist to lock into place. Also the stalls are almost floor-to-ceiling.

My shower (we have a shower in our room).  It´s SUPER narrow and the shower curtain hugs you and clings to you the entire time you´re in there.  It´s kind of obnoxious.

Have a wonderful week and I will email you again next THURSDAY.  (which will be my LAST P-DAY IN THE MTC!!!!)

Con amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

 

P.S. I tried to play soccer yesterday and realized that the only sport I know how to play is basketball. 

P.P.S.  You should read "The 20 Mark Note" by Elder Packer.  (I think it´s "mark", it´s whatever the currency is in Germany.)  We heard the story from it in class and it´s AMAZING.  It answered a question that had been preying on me for a really long time, and it was such a blessing to have that lifted!!!

Look Out Madrilenos.....Here We Come!

YES!  MY VISA CAME THROUGH AND I'M HEADED TO SPAIN ON THURSDAY!

Hna. P and Hna. H are also going, and Hna. J and Hna. T, and Elder V from my district.  I'm beyond excited!  :)  We're all really excited to be going to Spain, although we LOVE our district.  We are all really close, and so it's really sad that half of us will be transferred to the Spain MTC.  But SPAIN!  You can't beat that!

We go on Wednesday to the consulate to get our visas, and then to the airport on Thursday to fly over there.  We just barely found out.  It's crazy!

I get to call home for 5 minutes today to share my itinerary and everything with you!  So be waiting for that.  It'll probably be around 5-6 your time.

Before I get too distracted, I need to thank Janece for her package and dearelder.  I didn't get the package until Tuesday, but it arrived safe and sound!  And thanks to Laurie and Grandma for the dearelders as well!  It's so good to hear from you!  Too bad those won't be free once I get to Spain. :(

I sent a letter to Jared on Saturday and one to Miriam and to Emma today.  So those should be arriving pretty soon.

I loved Conference so much!  So many questions I had, especially for other people, were answered.  My Hnas. and I had planned a lesson to teach one of our investigators about peace and had looked up a bunch of scriptures that we wanted to share, then we didn't have time to teach it to him.  We told both of our investigators to watch conference, and then Elder Cook spoke, and his entire talk was almost exactly the lesson we had prepared.  Every scripture he quoted was one of the ones we had planned to share.  That was pretty funny.  We've been trying to figure out how he spied on our companionship study. :)  One of our teachers was in the BYU choir as well.  He didn't even tell us.  We were all watching and suddenly one of the elders said, "Hey, isn't that Brother B?" and it was! 

I felt a lot of peace and personal guidance from all the talks.  They were fantastic.  I love that we have prophets on the earth today and that they listen to the Lord and guide us.  It's awesome!  I felt, as always, the love of the Lord for me and His knowledge of what I'm going through.  My very favorites were probably Elder Cardon, Pres. Eyring, Pres. Uchtdorf, Elder Anderson, and Elder Holland. (When they announced that Elder Holland would be the next speaker, everyone in the room hissed "YESSSSSS!!!!" in unison.)

Man, so much has happened lately that I can't remember what's been going on since last Monday.   What even happened before conference? 

I don't remember if I told you or not, but last Saturday we moved into a new classroom on the 5th floor.  It has a gorgeous view of the mountains, but we also have to walk up 4 flights of stairs almost 10 times a day.  There is an elevator, but it's only for missionaries who are sick or injured.  Let's just say I won't miss those silly stairs.

On Wednesday we got 2 new sisters in our room, Sister K (going to Honolulu Hawaii) and Sister B (going to Auckland, New Zealand).  They're super nice, although it's a little harder to have 5 girls in our room than it is to have 3.

Thursday was one of the best days of my whole life.  We were practicing teaching in English and I sort of off-handedly expressed my frustration that I wasn't nearly as good a teacher in Spanish as in English because the way I like to teach is by asking questions and in Spanish, I can't always understand what the person is saying as an answer to my question.  Hno. B heard what I was saying and offered to get some of the extra teachers who don't have districts right now to come and help me personally.  So Hna. M and Hno. V (who are two of my favorite teachers we've had) came in and talked to me, just one-on-one, doing a role-play teaching scenario in Spanish.  I learned so many things I didn't even know I needed to learn, not about Spanish, but about teaching the gospel.  And I also gained the confidence I needed to be able to be able to teach in Spanish.  I could understand everything they said (and Hna. M talks SUPER fast) and I could respond to them by sharing personal experiences and testifying of how the gospel had blessed my life.  I gained the testimony I had been seeking that I have the knowledge and the mental capability to speak Spanish, and to speak it by the Spirit.  I gained the confidence I had lacked to be bold and direct, to show to everyone I teach that I am a true messenger sent from my Father in Heaven to share His gospel, and to bless their lives abundantly with it. 

Later that night, Hna. M and Hno. R did a workshop on how the Atonement changes us and how we need to make sure out investigators have not only a testimony but a changed heart.  If they don't want to work and to dedicate themselves to the gospel, it's not going to do anything for them.  It reminded me of something C. S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity: 

          "You are embarking on something that will take the whole of you."  

Unless you put something into the gospel, you aren't going to get anything out of it! 

I've been loving my study of grace in the Book of Mormon.  It's seriously amazing.  How great a force the Atonement is.  I loved to hear all the speakers in General Conference bear testimony of Christ and the power of His Atonement.  They know so certainly.  I want to know it that strongly.  And I'm definitely getting there.  My testimony grows by leaps and bounds every day.

Vocal Point came to do our devotional last night.  They sounded amazing and I felt the Spirit SO strongly.  It was their first time ever coming to the MTC.  I'm so glad I got to be there!

Last night we got to watch an old devotional from Elder Holland.  It was HILARIOUS at some parts.  I have never seen him be so funny. My Hnas. and I were cracking up at some points. But he spoke with such power and certainty. He said so many good things about how we should serve as missionaries.  He used examples from the scriptures where numerous missionaries (Alma, Nephi and Lehi, Ammon) taught with power and authority to astonish people.  He said that as missionaries we should work to astonish people every day.  He shared a poem that I absolutely loved.  Translated from French, it says roughly:

"Go to the edge," He said.

"No! We'll fall!"

"Go to the edge," He said.

"No! We'll fall!:

"GO TO THE EDGE," He said.

So we went to the edge, and He pushed us--and we flew.

That is how missionary work is.  We have to put ourselves out there, where it's dangerous and scary and uncomfortable and we're going to be rejected and hated, but if we put ourselves out there, that's when the miracles come.

I'm so excited to start working miracles in Spain!  I don't know if my P-day will be the same over there, so don't freak out if I don't email you for a while. :)

Best word in Spanish we learned this week:

aguafiesta: killjoy

It literally translates to "water party."  We figured it's probably some version of "rain on your parade."  Pretty funny.

Que les vayan bien, todos! 

Con amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann

The Universal Atonement, Confessing our fish (?) and Shower Sloths

Our Easter was fantastic.  Man there is so much I want to tell you and I don't even know where to start.

The language hasn't been too much of a challenge so far.  We had a new teacher (we have SO many teachers, it's insane.  Usually while you're in the MTC you have only 2 teachers, but we counted yesterday and we've had 11. but anyway,) usually our teachers teach the spiritual parts of the lessons in English just so we can understand and communicate better, but our new teacher did the whole thing in Spanish and we could all communicate with him just fine and we understood everything he was saying. In fact, the lesson was so good that I started crying, not just a little bit, but enough that the teacher noticed and put the box of tissues on my desk.  That was a little embarrassing.

We all get along really well and we have a ton of fun with each other.  Basically we're laughing most of the day.  That's with our district too.  Since we're such a small group we're all really comfortable around each other which makes it easy to laugh and also really easy to feel the Spirit. It makes me sad that none of them are going to my same mission so I won't be able to see them after I leave the MTC.  I'm sure we'll have a reunion though.

My companions and I were laughing the other night about how every time we go to write in our journal, we end up saying the exact same thing.  "I understand the gospel so much better.  No really. So much better than I did yesterday."  And we were talking about how before you understand what missionary work is, it's really scary and you don't want to do it.  But once you realize that what you're doing is teaching people how to use the Atonement and inviting them to do so, it's not scary at all.  I used to doubt how one gospel could be right for EVERY person on the earth.  But it is, and it is because of the Atonement.  The gospel is personally made for your life because all it is is how to understand and apply the Atonement, which is the most personal thing in the whole world. Bishop Causse talked yesterday about how the Atonement is love.  It fills our lives and hearts and minds with love for our Savior and for our fellow men.  He quoted Les Miserables: "Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise."  How beautiful is that?  We have been talking about how sharing the gospel is just sharing your love and the Savior's love with those who need it.  And everyone needs it.

Sheri Dew also came last night for a devotional and she talked about how Satan's biggest strategy is confusing us about who the Savior is.  And so many people don't understand what the Atonement is for.  It's already happened, and we just have to claim its power and use it every time our own strength and abilities are not enough.

I got a Book of Mormon for Elder Bednar's challenge and I'm doing a study on grace.  I'm only to 1 Nephi 10, I think, but the ways that Nephi and Lehi and Sam and Sariah have understood the Atonement and laid claim on the Savior's grace are overwhelming.  It has been an incredibly rewarding study for me.  I love learning about how I can become more like my Savior and how I can use His grace to overcome my weaknesses.  We watched a devotional from Elder Uchtdorf yesterday and he said that as you put all your heart and soul into serving as an ambassador of Christ, He will give you a new heart and you will become a new person.  I absolutely know that is true.  I've already seen my heart changing incredibly in the 12 days I've been here.

I'll finish up with a couple funny things.  There are lots, so I narrowed it down to these two.

First, we were doing an exercise in our grammar book.  The sentence said "Jesucristo nunca tuvo ningun pecado."  (Jesus didn't have any sin.)  Hermana Thompson read it and said "Jesus didn't have any fish." (pecado=sin, pescado=fish.)  Hermana Johnson and I laughed almost until we cried.  Then we were practicing for a lesson and we were giving each other sentences to translate.  "Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be freed from our sins."  was translated as "A traves de la Expiacion de Jesucristo, podemos ser liberados de nuestros pescados."  (Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be freed from our fish.)  Now we make jokes in our district all the time about it.  "We cannot enter the kingdom of God if we have any fish.  We first must repent of those fish.  We have to confess our fish before God and forsake them."  At least we didn't say it in an actual lesson!

The second funny thing is the shower sloth.  An elder started it before we got here, but our ZL kept the tradition going for the elders. The way the showers are set up here is that there's one big shower pipe in the middle and three separate shower heads in separate stalls.  So the way the shower sloth works is that while you're in the shower, you reach over the partition and take three fingers (like a three-toed sloth) and just sort of inch forward on the other person's head with them.  The elders told us, so my companions and I always try to get showers next to each other and do it.  We don't do it to strangers, but...we're getting 2 new sisters in our room on Wednesday, and we figured that might be a pretty good initiation.  :)

Again, I would really love some DearElders, so send them! 

Buena suerte, todos!  Espero que su semana vaya muy bien!  Dios los ama y el Evangelio es la verdad!  Jesucristo vive y es la respuesta a todas nuestras preguntas!

Con amor,

Hermana Lara Schaumann