El mito del sacrificio...

So in my last Zone Conference President Jackson read an anonymous letter that a missionary who served in Spain sent to the First Presidency.  It states everything I've ever felt or thought about the mission perfectly.

So here.

“I was reflecting yesterday if I would call the mission a sacrifice. And for everything it seems I might have sacrificed, I feel like I have been given tenfold. If I say I have sacrificed time with my family, then I must realize that I have been rewarded with a family more united and loving than ever. If the mission has been a sacrifice of time, I have been rewarded with knowledge that no university in the world could have taught me. If it has been a sacrifice of my talents, I have been rewarded with more than I ever had before. I can speak Spanish, I care more genuinely about people, [and] I am less quick to judge and more anxious to serve. If it has been a sacrifice of human relationships, I have been rewarded with practice in speaking to men and women from all walks of life and in diverse situations. If I have sacrificed my earthly possessions, I have been given new ones that I value infinitely more. For anything I have sacrificed I have been given more.”

Amen.

No soy quien era.

So hi there.
I'm actually back. Physical, actual me is physically typing these actual words on my wonderful old laptop.
And I have no idea how to put into words what I'm feeling right now.

This is the hardest and most painful thing I have ever done. It hurts all day, every day. I ache for Spain and its people constantly. I think about them all the time. I loved them so much, with everything I have and am, every minute of every day for 18 months.

And then the Lord asked me to leave them.

And because I love Him, I obeyed.

It took everything in me to get on that plane and come home, not knowing when I would ever see them again. But I had to trust Him, and trust that He has something even better planned for me.

Right now I'm not sure exactly what that something is. I'm back in school, I'm trying to learn how not to be a social idiot, I'm working, and it's good. I've learned things about myself and God's plan for me since I came back that are so powerful and so profound.

But I miss it so much.  I miss the hills, the absurd amount of seafood, the drunk guys that shout at you in the street, the trash strikes, the 10000000 people who swore they were going to come to church and then didn't come, the vigorous but off-tune singing of those amazing Spanish Saints. I miss the miracles of every single day, the moment when someone's eyes light up because they finally understand it, I miss the laughter, the love, the smiles.  I miss feeling the Spirit so strongly that it seems the room will set itself on fire.  I miss seeing so many different people change because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I miss being able to give my everything to Him, completely and without reserve.

The thing that I've always known and yet had to learn to understand is that He didn't mean for me to go on living like that forever. That was never the plan.  He meant for me to learn and change and then to go back and apply such learning to the "real world."

So that is where I stand.
I am a changed being.
I know how to work, how to laugh, how to cry, and how to love.
I know how to sacrifice, how to give literally everything I am and have to my Savior and Redeemer.
I know what the Atonement of Jesus Christ is.
I understand that it fulfills my every need, soothes my every sorrow, smoothes away my every weakness, rectifies every injustice, and erases every stain.
I know that I am loved, known, and treasured by my Heavenly Father.
I know He has a perfect plan for my life, and that He will guide me every step of the way until I am once again by His side.

And the Lord needs me this way right here, right now,

So here we go.

NO time.....but doing good.

Sorry we have NO time but we´re doing good. 

We saw our investigator again and now she has a fecha! We were able to teach really well by the Spirit and having the member that referred her to us was a huge help! We also saw a huge miracle when she came to church and all the members (many of them already knew her) welcomed her with open arms, showed her around to all the classes, and really took care of her. Not once did we have to worry about where she was, who she was with, or how she was liking it. That is exactly how missionary work should be! We are here to teach the lessons and do the formal preparations, and the members do everything else! She should be getting baptized on August 2nd. 

We were also able to get to know a lot of the members and work a lot with them. I feel like the Lord has really blessed us to be able to have a great relationship build quickly with the members in this whitewash. They already know us and trust us and many are anxious to have us teach their friends and family!

So yeah, have a great week, love ya. I´ll send some pics from our super cool P.day.

Getting to know Vigo--with LOTS of pictures!

So first before I get extremely distracted we´ve had a good week. We definitely had more success than last week as we´ve been figuring out where everything is and getting to know our investigators (also getting a bunch of new investigators!) We met some really cool new people. 

We still haven´t been able to see M again, but we have a cita with her tomorrow so if all goes according to plan we should have her with a baptismal date. 

We met an awesome new lady named M who came to English class and then stayed after with her daughter for FHE and loved it!  She´s from Peru and she´s super nice. She speaks almost perfect English because she lived in England for a few years. So we should be starting to teach her soon, and her almost 8 year-old daughter. 

We had a really cool lesson on the street with an atheist named T.  We talked to him about prayer and invited him to pray to know for sure that God exists. He agreed to do it, so we called him the next day to check up, and he said that he had prayed and that he had asked for something to happen and it did actually happen. But then he said that he wasn´t convinced it came from God...but he´s been thinking more about it. :) It was just a cool opportunity to be able to share our testimonies and invite someone to act and know for himself.

We´re starting to work with some less-active families and getting to know the branch better. There are a lot of really strong members here.  It´s awesome! :)

Okay now the fun stuff...Today we went to a few cool places in our area and then we went to Portugal!! I have a TON of pictures so I´ll be sending them!

view of Spain from Portugal

Cathedral 

Celtic ruins on the way up the mountain

Elders with our Portuguese waitress

lunch in Portugal

A church in Portugal

Portugal across the river

another view of Portugal across the river

Portugal fortress

In a church in Portugal

Portugal in the background

atop the fortress

a street in Portugal

Add caption

watchtower fortress

watchtower peeking

Spain on the right, Portugal on the left, from a mountaintop in A Guarda

a replica of Christopher Colombus' Pinta

Lower fortress

at Playa Samil

Playa America

Looking across the bay from a fortress in Baiona

June 30

Well this week was abnormal. Good but really abnormal. 

Hna. N and I are way too good of friends...we talk ALL the time, WAY too much. We've both served in the islands and in Torrejón, so we know almost all the same members and missionaries, and we talk about them ALL THE TIME. 

This week was a lot of trying to get organized, trying to figure out who the members are, trying to find the busses, trying to find where the chapel is, going through our FOUR area books, etc. Miraculously, we didn't really get lost! We always end up finding Domino's pizza when we don't know where we are. 

On Tuesday we had a really cool experience/miracle where we were trying to get on a bus to go to some pueblo outside of Vigo and while we were waiting, we get a text from a member telling us that she needed us to meet with her friend that afternoon and teach her the plan of salvation. So we came back from the pueblo, found her house, went in, met her friend, and started to teach. Her name is M, and she's a single mother of 3 whose husband died a few years ago. As we taught her, she asked really good questions and really understood it well. We started to explain about the spirit world and she started to ask about her husband. The member who has given us the reference is the family history consultant, and she immediately started to tell her about temple and family history work. M started to cry and said she knew she had to be baptized so that she could give her husband the chance to also be baptized. We were about to give her a baptismal date, but she had to catch the boat to get back to where she lives. (In Vigo sometimes we travel by BOAT to get to parts of our area.) It was amazing and the Spirit was there so strongly!! She should be getting baptized soon. 

Funny story is that one day we were coming into our building at night and since our piso is on the 2nd floor, we usually take the stairs. We started to walk up the stairs and there was some guy laying down on the landing talking a nap! We were talking but then when we saw him we were so surprised that we just went silent, turned around, and took the elevator up. Later we realized it was a construction worker that was talking a nap in his break. Funny stuff.

Also, the branch president's wife calls me "Brave" because I have red curly hair like Merida. And another sister walked into the chapel when we were waiting for a lesson. When I stood up to say hi to her, she looked at me in shock and said "¡Que grandote! ¡Que horror!" which basically means "You're so tall! What a nightmare!" That made me laugh quite a bit.

Port in Vigo

District in Vigo

view of Vigo

We are really excited and we have a lot of good ideas and goals to put into practice here. I will continue sharing experiences and stories as we go meeting more people. The hermanas that we're whitewashing out didn't have a whole lot of investigators, so hopefully our combined new energy can change that!

June 23

So remember how I always try to predict transfers and I never get anywhere close to what's actually going to happen?

Well, it happened again. 

And you will never, ever, ever, ever guess where I am right now.

In this mission, hermanas either go to the Islands or to the North. There are some who never leave Madrid their whole missions. And those who go to both...well, they're few and far between.

So yeah. I'm in VIGO.

With Hna. N, who I've known forever, who was in the Islands the same time as me. She was MTC comps with Hna. F.

I'm in Vigo.

(for those of you who don't know where Vigo is, itś in the north of Spain, right above Portugal. It's built around an ocean inlet and it's ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. Prettier than Canarias, by far. And it smells like the ocean again, and it's not hot. I'm in love.) 

I'm still in shock...and I've known for a few days now.

We're whitewashing, so we have no idea where anything is, again. It's fine though, because we have a senior couple here that can help us figure that out. :)

I'm also SUPER tired because we had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to finish packing and get to Chamartin to catch our 7-hour train to Vigo. It was super fun, we rode up with Elder H, who also served in the Islands, and Hna. S, who'll be serving here close by in Pontevedra. We talked literally the whole 7 hours and also sat their open-mouthed gaping out the window because it's so beautiful here.

So yeah, Hna. Orrego is now comps with Hna. F. It was SO hard to leave Alcorcón, I was crying pretty much all day yesterday and so was everybody else. Everyone's doing great there, I'm excited to see how it keeps progressing.

It was really sad though because I didn't get to say goodbye to M, she's in Murcia for the week, but I talked to her on the phone. :) Probably better that way because I would have BAWLED.  N is still doing awesome, always comes to church, and he's understanding Spanish so much better now. And we found a cool new Cuban family, the mom came to church and it seems like she really enjoyed it. 

So yeah I don't really know if we have investigators or anything, I'm sure we'll figure it out quickly. MY comp is awesome and we've been laughing pretty much all day long. We've also been playing spot-the Africans-and-Latinos-from-our-window. It's a pretty cool game. 

Love you all! Have a great week!

June 16

This week I had another intercambio with Hna. O.  It was a lot better than the other intercambio we had back in March.  And again, we stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG talking about the mission. It was a blast.

This week we had a huge miracle which was that M CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!! We have been fighting and working to get her to come and she never does because something always comes up or she´s sick or she has to take care of her mom or she has to go count votes for the government and if she doesn´t go she´ll be sent to prison for 3 months to a year... (true story, she showed us the letter and everything) but this week we prayed really hard and had a good solid lesson on the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy and especially we talked about the sacrament. It was so cool to see that as we just read the scriptures (3 Nephi 18) she really could feel the influence of the Spirit.  The thing she´s always saying is that she understands everything (which she does, I´m pretty sure she understands the doctrine better than I do...) but she doesn´t feel it.  And as we were reading, she just started to smile and said "Oh!  I have to be at church, especially for the sacrament, to be able to have the Spirit with me!" and we also talked about planning ahead of time, like doing necessary cleaning/work on Saturday, going to bed early, setting out and preparing clothes to wear, etc. And it worked!  She came! FINALLY!!

With Hna. O we had another lesson with her where we started out talking about the priesthood but then we ended up talking about how to feel the Spirit, because she was still saying that she didn´t feel the truth in her heart. I told her that I know she has felt the Spirit because in the 3+ months I´ve been teaching her, I´ve seen her change a lot, and I´ve seen her bear her burdens with more ánimo and grace. I reminded her of all the times we´ve come to see her and she´s been really happy and full of energy even though her life if difficult and she has a lot of challenges. I told her that THAT is the Spirit, that gives us energy and life and strength even when we are surrounded by problems. And it was amazing again! When we got there, she was a little tired and discouraged, but when we left, she had an extra skip in her step and she was beaming. I love teaching her because I can see the calming and fortifying influence of the Spirit so clearly as I serve her and help her understand the gospel.

I love being a missionary and I love the Spirit, who really is the teacher.

Fun fact for all you prospective missionaries: 

Before you go on a mission, you see the missionaries and you think they know everything. You think they just glide through the streets finding people who are going to get baptized 2 days later. You think they must not ever get tired or nervous.  You think they know exactly what they´re doing all the time.

hahaha LIES.

The more I´m out here, the more I realize that none of us really have any idea what we´re doing. The majority of the people we find don´t even give us their real number, much less agree to meet with us and MUCH less get baptized. We don´t know anywhere close to everything about the gospel, we don´t speak the language, we get lost, we get tired, we get nervous, and we make a ton of mistakes. Basically we just fake our confidence, and the Spirit makes up for the rest. 

The thing I´ve learned is that being a missionary has nothing to do with ME. I only try to strengthen my testimony, love the people, and live worthy to have the Spirit with me. And it´s amazing that it works. And it works really well. Somehow people still love us and listen to us and get baptized, because they can feel that Spirit.  No one can convince me that the success I´ve had on my mission has ANYTHING to do with me. This is the Lord´s work, and he permits us to do it with Him. And the biggest miracle is that our fake confidence becomes real, because we are worthy to represent the most incredible and perfect being who ever lived, even Jesus Christ. I love Him, I serve Him, and I do as He would do. I am so grateful for this privilege I have to represent Him. 

Hermana Lara Schaumann