Monday, November 2, 2015

November 1, 2015 Letter

Hey!

 We had our last district meeting with the Browns and the two elders
that are going home this transfer. It's always sad to see people go
home, but I'm excited for all of them to be able to get back on with
their lives. It was a good district meeting, and it was Hermana Browns
birthday, so we brought balloons and a apple cake. My comp chose the
cake and it was frozen and there was a dead fruitfly on it. I picked
it off before Hermana brown saw it, but oh, that cake was terrible.
Cake in Spain is always below par. So anyways, we'll miss the Browns.
On Friday, the branch threw a farewell party for them. It was really
sweet. Everybody came and the all chipped in to buy them gifts. My
favorite gift was probably the framed picture of, you guessed it, the
Browns themselves. Somebody had taken a picture of them, without them
knowing, blown it up, printed it out and framed it. They reacted well,
but it was hilarious. Can you imagine giving somebody a picture of
themselves as a present? But the branch was dead serious, they thought
it was a great gift. The elders, my comp and I were dying. Like,
that's just so Spain. There are little culture differences that just
catch me off guard sometimes. But I love it.

We had some incredibly spiritual moments this week, as well. We found
this woman from Cuba who has a ton of potential. She failed us in
coming to church this week, but we're still really excited about her.
She is just so prepared. She was telling us how she wants to start
over again I her life and how she is looking for the truth. We
committed her to baptism in the first lesson and she was so excited
when we invited her. She was like, really?? I would LOVE that. We
contacted her brother in the street- that's how we found her. He
wasn't home, but she opened the door to let us in and we ended up
realizing that she was the one that was waiting for us, after all. We
think she has a lot of potential but sometimes miracles like that
happen and then the people just...disappear. So we're not holding our
breath but we're also trying to have faith. She didn't come to church
yesterday, but we're going to continue to teach her and help her start
to live the Gospel principles in her life. I'm excited to see where it
goes with her. Pray for her, if you can.

We also found this woman named R., she's a Dominican lady that has
lived in Hong Kong. I don't know why that's the detail I chose to
include about her but I've never met a Domincian that speaks Cantonese
before, so I thought I'd spread the news that people like that do
actually exist. We found her in the house of another investigator,
Mary, and she invited us over to teach her I her piso. She was
AWESOME. She's really faithful, receptive, and intelligent, which are
three things that don't always exist in the same person at one time.
She understood and related to Joseph Smiths story so well, and she
wants to receive and answer from God like he did. She accepted the
invitation to be baptized, although we don't have a date with her yet.
And she's invited a friend to listen to our lessons, which is super
cool. I'll keep you updated on her.

F. and P. are still doing well, although they've both slowed
down significantly based on the time that they've had. F. is
really excited for his baptism but he just changed jobs- he's now
working as a professor and the nursing school in the University of
Oviedo. His schedule is wacked but it should be getting better. I
really want him to get baptized before I come home, but I know he's
not doing it for me or anybody else, he's doing it for God. Also, get
this, he was like, yeah, I haven't had a ton of time to read the Book
of Mormon this week, I've been so busy, I've only read a little. I'm
only in Alma 60. I just looked at him and all I could do was laugh.
His standards of reading "a little" are so different that when we're
used too. Usually when people say that they are referring to the fact
that they literally read three words of the introduction, decided that
they didn't understand it, and put it down. With Fernando it means
that he read 17 chapters, only took a few notes and can't tell us
exact names and dates. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I love
teaching him. He's a boss.

Ok, one last story. Sorry this email is so long. This story is going
to be accompanied by a few videos, so prepare yourselves. So when I
left to Oviedo on intercambios, I had a ton of laundry that I hadn't
had time to do. My comp told me that if I sorted it out, she'd wash it
for me and hang it out to dry, which was super nice of her. So I get
home, and she did it! She washed the clothes in two different loads,
and she hung them out to dry. To my dismay, however, we had run out of
clothes pins to be able to hang up all the laundry safely, and during
the time we were both out of the piso, this gnarly windstorm hit and a
bunch of my... clothing... Was strewn all over the roof of the
shed outside of our piso. Basically, long story short, at the
insistence of my loving and responsible companion, I had to jump out
of the window and walk around on the roof of this super unstable shed
to grab all the clothes. I was so scared and so mad and then we had to
figure out how I was gonna get back into the piso and... Yeah. Watch
the videos. We were DYING. It was probably one of the top ten funniest
experiences of my life, not even joking, and we got it all on camera.
Hopefully they all send without any problems.

Well, family and friends who faithfully haven't forgotten about me (I
know that a few of you still exist), I love you all so much! The
mission has its highs and lows, but as one of my friends out here told
me, we can't get too high on the highs and we can't get to low on the
lows. We just gotta be content with our need to repent, like Elder
Ballard said, put our faith in Christ and take what comes with grit,
determination and patience. I have come to the conclusion that the
mission is like a highly consecrated, faster version of life, and if
we can get it down here, we have a good base for struggles and joys
that come later on. I'm grateful for the patience that my loving
Heavenly Father has for me and for all of His children, and for the
fact that He sent His Son to atone for us because He knew that our
efforts alone would never result in perfection. I know He's involved
in the intimate details of our lives. I love you and I love Him. Have
a wonderful week!

Love,
Hermana Seegmiller

Intercambios with Hermana Milne

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