tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51258357549983228342024-03-13T12:25:10.254-07:00A Mormon Fox in SpainAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-78723167086186885172015-12-09T16:55:00.000-08:002015-12-09T16:55:38.873-08:00<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KzkNNFbl19w/VmjLnom48eI/AAAAAAAACFs/Mjt0OYikeIY/s1600/033aada9-50e7-46ca-b22b-a4ff8b694ec5.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KzkNNFbl19w/VmjLnom48eI/AAAAAAAACFs/Mjt0OYikeIY/s400/033aada9-50e7-46ca-b22b-a4ff8b694ec5.jpg" width="225" /></a><br />
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I'm home!<br />
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Coming home has been a peaceful experience for me. There was a lot of stress involved in thoughts of coming home, but as it always seems to happen, the worry about an experience always overshadows the experience itself. Ever since I stepped on the train to leave my sweet Gijon, I have had a peace in my heart- one could say that this peace surpasseth all understanding. I know it's the Lord's way of telling me that this is where I now need to be.<br />
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I am happy. I am grateful for my mission. I am pleased with the experiences that the Lord allowed me to have and the growth that He enabled me to experience. It is a time I will never cease to treasure and one that I will never forget.<br />
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I know that the Lord lives. I testify of Him. I love Him and I am grateful to have His Gospel in my life, it has given me happiness that I cannot explain. Ahora, compartamoslo. Let's share it. Let's get on our knees, and ask for our opportunities and then get on our feet and find them. There are people waiting for the happiness that we have.<br />
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I love you all. Thank you for everything.<br />
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Here's to part two. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-78079736823865378082015-12-01T12:28:00.005-08:002015-12-01T12:28:48.990-08:00Pictures November 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-36406353866061124022015-12-01T12:13:00.000-08:002015-12-01T12:13:41.322-08:00November 30, 2015 Letter<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Hey!!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">This </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">might be my last time writing out a really long email to you on my</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">mission! Next week I'll be spending the day visiting people in Madrid</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">with my friend Hermana Shurtz. We started together and we'll be</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">companions for our last pday. I'm not sure what the schedule will be</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">like, but I'll write a little bit to let you know that I'm good and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">everything. It really is winding down, isn't it? So crazy. I can't</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">believe how fast the time has gone, there were moments when I never</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">thought my mission would end. It is starting to hit me more and more,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">in little moments. But overall, I feel ok. I'm excited to see what my</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">life holds for me! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Last week for district conference, I asked</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">President Pack for a blessing. It was so special, actually. They know</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">that I've been having issues with going home and they told me that if</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I wanted a blessing, I could ask him for one. So I did and it was a</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">really special, spiritual moment. He told me that Heavenly Father was</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">well pleased with the work I have done and that the Savior is</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">overjoyed with the person that I am becoming. He said that my mission</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">isn't ending, but that it has actually just begun. I felt a lot better</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">after than and since then, it's been going wonderfully. I feel content</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">with my mission, so grateful for it, and I'm happy for what is to</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">come. So yeah, I'm doing pretty good.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I'll tell you </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">about some of the highlights of my week. :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">District conference!!</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Like stake conference. But less people and a HUGE area of people come.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">From one end of the district to the other it's 4 hours. So we all met</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">in the middle (Leon) and had the best district conference EVER. J.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">M. came and loved every single second of it. He met president pack</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and a member of the 70 and was just stunned with everything. J.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">M. now has a baptismal fecha</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">. We taught</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">him about fasting and he committed to doing his very first fast, mind</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">you he's 63, in his entire life this </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">next Sunday</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> with us. He's really</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">working on receiving an answer and were really excited for him. He's a</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">really good person and every single time I'm with him, I feel the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">spirit so strongly. It's super cool.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">We had over 50 people in sacrament meeting yesterday and it was the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">most we've had in such a long time!! It was so cool. A lot of them</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">were investigators and less actives that we've been working with and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">it was such a good feeling to see it. C. came for the first</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">time- in fact, it was her first time in any church in over 25 years-</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and that was a huge miracle. She loved seeing the baptismal font, for</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">some reason. It really hit her hard and that was cool to see. JM</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> took time off from his Catholic Church duties so that he could</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">stay for 2 hours instead of his usual one hour and that was cool. And</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">M., L.'s Cuban boyfriend that were teaching, came for the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">second time and he wore his suit!! And it was so cool. They need to</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">get married or move out, but he will get baptized. I know he will.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Their goal is the temple and it's so cool to be here to take these</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">first steps with them.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">J., the husband of N. that has been inactive for 14 years, is</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">keeping his commitment of reading the Book of Mormon with her every</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">single day and he's committed to coming to church </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">on Sunday</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">. We</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">invited him a few weeks ago and we finally had time to pass by and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">follow up on his commitment. And he's locked in and ready to go! We're</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">sooo excited, it'll be his first time in 14 years coming. It's been</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">such a special experience working with him, were really excited to see</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">progression!</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">P. failed us for our lesson and for church, so we're thinking she's</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">not going to meet her baptismal date. It's disappointing but there</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">isn't any point in baptizing somebody if they are going to go inactive</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">anyways. I didn't ever want to do that on my mission. I love P. and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I'm disappointed that she's not progressing, but I know that Heavenly</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Father loves her and has a plan for her. Whether it's now or in the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">future, I know the gospel has changed her life. Thank you for your</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">prayers for her.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">There were so many other cool experiences this week. I'm grateful for</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">it and grateful for the experiences that it brought. I love the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Atonement of Jesus Christ and I love my Heavenly Father.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">So I just wanted to thank you for your work, all of you, in the work</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">of salvation. I know that Heavenly Father wants His children back and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">we all have a part to play in it. Thank you for all being willing and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">ready to give away a Book of Mormon and share the word of God, which</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">is the word that heals the wounded soul (Jacob 2:8). Thank you for</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">your endless sacrifices and support to me, for crying with me and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">rejoicing with me and just constantly writing me, praying for me and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">allowing me to come here and have this incredible experience. I know</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">that families are central to Gods plan and He sent me to you for a</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">reason- for so many reasons. I want you all to know that I have been</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">prepared in my mission to serve my Heavenly Father for the rest of my</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">life. It is my greatest desire to return and help others return to</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Him, as well, and that doesn't end with my mission. Our Savior lives,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and He makes good things possible in our lives. He has made salvation</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">possible, and He makes it so that exaltation is possible through His</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Gospel. I know that this is a good work, and that God loves us. I am</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">grateful for trials that build our faith, and I am grateful for a</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">knowledge of the plan of salvation. I love my Savior. I know that</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Joseph Smith was a prophet of the Lord, I know that the Priesthood and</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the Gospel were restored through him. I know the Book of Mormon is the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">word of God. I know of His patience, His love and His mercy. It's all</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">true and it's all real and I've felt it and I know it.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I love you all!! See you next week.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Love,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Sam</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-44007535597733947392015-11-16T18:44:00.001-08:002015-11-16T18:44:17.877-08:00November 16, 2015 Letter<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Hi Family!! </div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> It was really cool this week- we found 4 new less actives! It's something that the Packs have wanted us to focus on a lot- less active work- and we were praying really hard for opportunities to do so. We've also been looking for miracles of the day, and it's been cool to see that when you look for miracles, you really can find them. We have this investigator named M. that we found in the house of another investigator. She's been a bit hard to meet with and she never wanted to invite us over to her house- she just kept telling us that we could come see her in the house of her friend where we found her. We basically had no hope of her ever progressing, and worse yet, she told us that she has a daughter that got baptized awhile back that hasn't been coming to church for about three years. We were never going to be able to meet her daughter if we were never able to go over to her house, so we were a bit worried about the whole situation. So </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">on Tuesday</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> (?) (can't ever distinguish the days, they're all the same), we taught English classes to this little Spaniard family that we visit, and as we were leaving, I saw this woman carrying a huge amount of groceries walking towards us. We went up to help her and realized it was M.! She was actually having s really hard time with her groceries because she has problems with her hands and had forgotten her cell phone to call her daughter with to have her come and help. So we took her grocers and she let us into her piso and we ended up being able to teach a lesson to her and...wait for it... Her menos activa 15 year old daughter!! We were so excited, it was like this big timing of the Lord miracle and we loved it. We were able to visit them twice this week and review essential Gospel principles to help them feel the Spirit coming back into their lives. The hurdle will be church attendance. But we are going to see progression with them, I know it. </span></div>
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Speaking of miracles... J. M. He's a straight up miracle. He's this Catholic deacon who Hermana Stephenson and I found in a park in my first transfer here. He's Spanish, awesome, and into theater. I don't remember if I've written about him before but he's awesome. This week we couldn't meet with him because of his horribly busy theater schedule, but he came to church and the best part was is that he asked his <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Catholic Church boss guy for some time off so that he could come to church for longer. And he LOVED it. And then, our ward mission leader actually fulfilled his calling and INVITED HIM TO A BAPTISM. The daughter of the branch president in Oveido got baptized in our capilla and J. M. accepted the invitation and came. This may not seem like a big deal but it was a huge deal, and he absolutely loved it. Even though the little girl was a pill- he loved it a lot. And he said that it "fills him"- everything that he learns here. We still have a lot to teach him but he's incredible. And the whole branch is just so excited about him. It's incredible, the member missionary work that goes on when somebody interesting comes to church... Haha, it's funny. And I appreciate it. </span></div>
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Also, speaking of menos activa work, we have this friend here named N. who is just the best and our best friend and the young women's president. Her husband, who was once a member of the district presidency, has been inactive for about 14 years. He's incredible and were not really sure what happened, but N. invited us over to visit him a few weeks ago and we've been visiting with him ever since. So we show up last night, made pancakes with them and then read from the Book of Mormon together. So my companion the night before suggested that we read from Alma 5. I was like, ehhh.... That's like the most call to repentance chapter in the Book of Mormon and it might be a bit too much, but then I didn't say that and we went through with our plan. Literally 62 verses of repent or go to hell verses. Like, we don't even believe in hell! And I was so uncomfortable that I could not even look at this guy the whole time we're reading and I'm messing up a ton in my Spanish because I just can't believe how fuerte we are being with this 14 year inactive man and my companion is doing the same thing. And then, we talk about repentance a little bit and invite him to come back to church and you guessed it he said YES. Taught me a powerful lesson- We should never, ever apologize for the doctrine. We let the Spirit be the teacher, and the Book of Mormon, and he accepted to come back, at least one time. And it was awesome, al final. We were so excited about. </div>
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So yeah, good week. Not perfect but good and I'm grateful for the answers and the help that God always sends to us. He's been teaching me so much about His Son, Jesus Christ as of late. It's a lesson that literally takes our entire lives to learn, but I'm so grateful for this consecrated experience of learning of the Atonement. I love my Savior and how sweet and patient He truly is. I'm grateful for His church. I know that the Prophet is a man called of God, along with his counsellors, to teach us about Jesus Christ and testify that He lives and loves us. When they make decisions and share their wisdom, it's always for our benefit. We have much to learn from them and their examples and goodness. I am grateful for the compelling and inspiring doctrine of repentance and that the Gospel is a cycle that never ends, simply fills. I love this time of my life and I don't want it to end, but I will go where the Lord wants me to go with faith. :) </div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I love you so much!! </span></div>
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Love,</div>
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Sam</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-12427189909990378882015-11-09T12:47:00.001-08:002015-11-09T12:55:53.881-08:00November 9, 2015 Letter<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Hi Family!!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Ok so I'm staying in Gijon!! I'm so happy that I get to end my mission</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">here. It's been such a good run and I'm excited to keep on working</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">here and giving it all I've got until the very end. I've been thinking</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">about things that I want to get better and improve on this transfer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> I'm excited for the best month of my mission! :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">This week was a great week. We went down to concilio again </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">on Monday</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">It's always a good,spiritual high to be there. We slept over at the</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">mission home, which is my favorite thing to do. We have family prayer</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">with the Packs and then we just sat around for awhile, talking with</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">them, before going to bed. That morning we helped Hermana pack make</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">pancakes- it just feels like being back the United States for a half a</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">second. I like it. Concilio was really good. We talked a lot about</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">member work and ways to better it in our areas. It gave us good Ideas</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and perspective on what we can do better in Gijon.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Then, we took the train back, planned the zone meeting that night on</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the train with the elders, standing up in the cafeteria, the zone</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">meeting that we were going to give the next day. I hate planning</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">meetings. That's the main thing that I've pulled out of this sister</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">training leader thing. Actually, it's ok, I don't mind it, but it's</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">just hard. Hermana Santiago and I talked about talking to everybody</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and different ways we can do that and how accessing the Atonement</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">gives us greater desires to share the Gospel with everyone that</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">crosses our path. It was a good topic and something that really helped</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">me learn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Getting back to Gijon was awesome, as usual. We had some good lessons</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">with a few investigators. Finding new investigators has been hard the</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">entire time I've been here, but I have so much animo to go find some</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">new ones this week. F. has been investigating for so long and he</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">still has it very clear that he's getting baptized, which is a</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">blessing. I'm grateful to be able to work with him. We've been teaching</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the boyfriend of a menos activa, L. His name is M. and he came</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">to church for the first time this week! He's awesome. L. is a huge</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">support to him and that is a huge help. Hopefully we'll get to</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">continue to see him a lot- he works in a town pretty far out of Gijon,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">so we can only see him on weekends. This week he cooked Cuban food for</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">us and it was INCREDIBLE. Not to mention L.'S daughter, la Peque,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">gave us makeovers before we ate. It was hilarious. She smeared blue</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">eyeshadow all over Hermana Santiago and she effectively made her look</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">like she was 13 years old. I was loving it. Until she did the same to</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">me... Haha. A lot of people came to church this week. There were a lot</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">of the elders investigators there, but a lot of menos activos came as</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">well. It was a beautiful sight to see. :) I loved it a lot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> I know </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the Savior is right by my side, helping me through everything. This is</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">His work! Not mine. So I just need to continue to trust in Him.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I love you!! Sorry about the short email. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Love,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Sam</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-74805156512755553232015-11-02T12:30:00.000-08:002015-11-02T12:30:11.904-08:00November 1, 2015 Letter<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Hey!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">We had our last district meeting with the Browns and the two elders</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">that are going home this transfer. It's always sad to see people go</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">home, but I'm excited for all of them to be able to get back on with</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">their lives. It was a good district meeting, and it was Hermana Browns</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">birthday, so we brought balloons and a apple cake. My comp chose the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">cake and it was frozen and there was a dead fruitfly on it. I picked</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">it off before Hermana brown saw it, but oh, that cake was terrible.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Cake in Spain is always below par. So anyways, we'll miss the Browns.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">On Friday</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">, the branch threw a farewell party for them. It was really</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">sweet. Everybody came and the all chipped in to buy them gifts. My</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">favorite gift was probably the framed picture of, you guessed it, the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Browns themselves. Somebody had taken a picture of them, without them</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">knowing, blown it up, printed it out and framed it. They reacted well,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">but it was hilarious. Can you imagine giving somebody a picture of</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">themselves as a present? But the branch was dead serious, they thought</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">it was a great gift. The elders, my comp and I were dying. Like,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">that's just so Spain. There are little culture differences that just</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">catch me off guard sometimes. But I love it.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">We had some incredibly spiritual moments this week, as well. We found</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">this woman from Cuba who has a ton of potential. She failed us in</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">coming to church this week, but we're still really excited about her.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">She is just so prepared. She was telling us how she wants to start</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">over again I her life and how she is looking for the truth. We</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">committed her to baptism in the first lesson and she was so excited</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">when we invited her. She was like, really?? I would LOVE that. We</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">contacted her brother in the street- that's how we found her. He</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">wasn't home, but she opened the door to let us in and we ended up</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">realizing that she was the one that was waiting for us, after all. We</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">think she has a lot of potential but sometimes miracles like that</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">happen and then the people just...disappear. So we're not holding our</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">breath but we're also trying to have faith. She didn't come to church</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">yesterday, but we're going to continue to teach her and help her start</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">to live the Gospel principles in her life. I'm excited to see where it</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">goes with her. Pray for her, if you can.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">We also found this woman named R., she's a Dominican lady that has</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">lived in Hong Kong. I don't know why that's the detail I chose to</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">include about her but I've never met a Domincian that speaks Cantonese</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">before, so I thought I'd spread the news that people like that do</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">actually exist. We found her in the house of another investigator,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Mary, and she invited us over to teach her I her piso. She was</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">AWESOME. She's really faithful, receptive, and intelligent, which are</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">three things that don't always exist in the same person at one time.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">She understood and related to Joseph Smiths story so well, and she</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">wants to receive and answer from God like he did. She accepted the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">invitation to be baptized, although we don't have a date with her yet.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">And she's invited a friend to listen to our lessons, which is super</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">cool. I'll keep you updated on her.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">F. and P. are still doing well, although they've both slowed</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">down significantly based on the time that they've had. F. is</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">really excited for his baptism but he just changed jobs- he's now</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">working as a professor and the nursing school in the University of</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Oviedo. His schedule is wacked but it should be getting better. I</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">really want him to get baptized before I come home, but I know he's</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">not doing it for me or anybody else, he's doing it for God. Also, get</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">this, he was like, yeah, I haven't had a ton of time to read the Book</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">of Mormon this week, I've been so busy, I've only read a little. I'm</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">only in Alma 60. I just looked at him and all I could do was laugh.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">His standards of reading "a little" are so different that when we're</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">used too. Usually when people say that they are referring to the fact</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">that they literally read three words of the introduction, decided that</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">they didn't understand it, and put it down. With Fernando it means</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">that he read 17 chapters, only took a few notes and can't tell us</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">exact names and dates. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I love</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">teaching him. He's a boss.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ok, one last story. Sorry this email is so long. This story is going</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">to be accompanied by a few videos, so prepare yourselves. So when I</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">left to Oviedo on intercambios, I had a ton of laundry that I hadn't</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">had time to do. My comp told me that if I sorted it out, she'd wash it</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">for me and hang it out to dry, which was super nice of her. So I get</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">home, and she did it! She washed the clothes in two different loads,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and she hung them out to dry. To my dismay, however, we had run out of</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">clothes pins to be able to hang up all the laundry safely, and during</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the time we were both out of the piso, this gnarly windstorm hit and a</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">bunch of my... clothing... Was strewn all over the roof of the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">shed outside of our piso. Basically, long story short, at the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">insistence of my loving and responsible companion, I had to jump out</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">of the window and walk around on the roof of this super unstable shed</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">to grab all the clothes. I was so scared and so mad and then we had to</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">figure out how I was gonna get back into the piso and... Yeah. Watch</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">the videos. We were DYING. It was probably one of the top ten funniest</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">experiences of my life, not even joking, and we got it all on camera.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Hopefully they all send without any problems.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Well, family and friends who faithfully haven't forgotten about me (I</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">know that a few of you still exist), I love you all so much! The</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">mission has its highs and lows, but as one of my friends out here told</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">me, we can't get too high on the highs and we can't get to low on the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">lows. We just gotta be content with our need to repent, like Elder</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ballard said, put our faith in Christ and take what comes with grit,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">determination and patience. I have come to the conclusion that the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">mission is like a highly consecrated, faster version of life, and if</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">we can get it down here, we have a good base for struggles and joys</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">that come later on. I'm grateful for the patience that my loving</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Heavenly Father has for me and for all of His children, and for the</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">fact that He sent His Son to atone for us because He knew that our</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">efforts alone would never result in perfection. I know He's involved</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">in the intimate details of our lives. I love you and I love Him. Have</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">a wonderful week!</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Love,</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Hermana Seegmiller</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Intercambios with Hermana Milne</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-70016127875257533152015-10-27T12:20:00.001-07:002015-10-27T12:20:23.519-07:00Pictures from Gijon October 26, 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-77939359231429707912015-10-19T15:56:00.001-07:002015-10-19T15:56:32.709-07:00October 19th, 2015 Letter<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Hi!!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Today we hiked the Cristus statue in Oviedo again, but this week we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">did it a little differently. We took off at 5:45 </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">in the morning so </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">that we could see the sunrise. Expect there was one problem- there was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">no sunrise. It was cloudy and rainy and sooo cold. But we did it! It </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">was a great adventure. The pictures I sent basically describe pretty</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">accurately how freezing cold and cloudy and foggy it was. I only fell </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">down once- and have not ceased to receive crap about it from every </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">single member of my district. I enjoyed it. But I'll probably never do </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">it again- hardest 30 minute hike of my life. Holy cow.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Also, this week, we got permission from President Pack this week to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">visit the Seventh Day Adventist church. We have an investigator who is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">a really active member of their church, T. We ran into him on the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">street and he invited us to come, seeing as he's come to our church </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">once. So we got permission and went. His family invited us over to</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">eat with them afterwards, so it was a really full Saturday</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> with the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Adventists. I don't know why, but I was really nervous walking in! We </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">definitely got some weird looks, but the people were really nice. I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">think I was nervous that they were gonna pull out some weird stuff </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">from the Bible that I had never heard about and make me doubt things</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">in my testimony or something. But it was so the opposite. They are </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">really, really good people with great beliefs and there are a lot of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">active families that come and seem really happy. They practice their </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">faith and have a really great faith in Jesus Christ which I admired a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">lot. But I didn't feel the Spirit there. Not at all. They talked a lot</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">about the Bible. They know a lot about Bible. They talked about why </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">they worship the Sabbath on Saturday </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">and not on Sunday. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> They sang some songs but </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">as I was sitting there, I just got this overwhelming </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">feeling of peace and I had the though, "I know my church is true! </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Nothing they can say could sway me from that. I know what I know and</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">what I've felt and I have no doubt that it's true". And it was a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">really relieving moment for me. I think we hear a lot about the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">importance of keeping our testimonies strong and our faith strongly </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we hear that so much, at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">times, that I think we forget that maybe we really DO have strong </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">testimonies. We should never be content with our testimonies, it's a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">daily nourishment thing. But we can trust in what we do know. I need </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">to give myself more credit, I think! I know the Church is the Church </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">of Jesus Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was and is a Prophet of God. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">I know the Book of Mormon is true and I know that Christ lives and is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">always here for us, in every moment. I know it through experience, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">prayer, fasting and faith. And it makes me grateful to be able to say </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">that. Lunch with his family was really wonderful. They're an amazing </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">family that they were so kind and welcoming to us. They asked us a lot </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">of questions about our beliefs and we did our best to answer them and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">bring the Spirit. I don't know if they will ever change their beliefs. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">I don't know if that was the purpose in all of this. But they accepted </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">us into their house and listened. And that meant a lot. We created a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">great friendship with them and I was grateful for that. It was a good </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">experience. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">This week I was so grateful for my Heavenly Father and His love and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">patience for me. I love Him and my Savior, Jesus Christ. I know they </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">live.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">I love you all, have a wonderful week!</span><br />
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-47156905542225111982015-10-12T11:01:00.001-07:002015-10-19T15:47:31.525-07:00October 12, 2015 Letter<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Hi!! </div>
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I was working on this email and then somehow the draft that I was typing got deleted... Ughh. So frustrating!! So I'm gonna have to be brief with a few asuntos of interest, I'm super sorry! I'll answer the questions as quick as I can and then tell you about my week. </div>
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Ok this week was really good! It started off with Concilio. We had to get on a train last Monday at 8 in the morning and we got to Madrid at around <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1492153283" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:30</span></span>. When we got there, we realized we had a little bit of time to go and have an adventure, so we went downtown (my companion and I) and just enjoyed being back in our home city of Spain. It was really fun. I love being there. We then did splits with the Hermanas in Alcobendas, a pueblo outside of Madrid where President and Hermana Pack live, and I enjoyed that a lot. We found a really prepared lady in the street and I'm hoping that the Hermanas can continue to teach her. Then, <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1492153284" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Tuesday</span></span>, we had our Concilio de liderazgo. It was a 7 hour meeting of just pure Spirit. I loved it SO much. I gained a testimony of, you're not gonna believe this, folding my clothes. We talked about personal grooming and cleanliness and I realized that having wrinkly clothes is not the best. We also learned a lot more about the Sabbath Day and about finding people. It was SO spiritual and I loved it so much. We then planned our zone training meeting that we give with the Zone leaders, hopped on a train at <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1492153285" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">8:30</span></span> that might, and went to Leon, where we stayed with the Hermanas up there. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1492153286" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">On Wednesday</span></span>, we did intercambios with the Hermanas. Hermana Jimenez and I were together and it was awesome. She's only got a week in the mission field but she's just such a natural! Perks of going out with the missionaries before the mission. She's from the South of Spain and we just had a blast. Such a spiritual day. We found a golden family on the street, which was exactly what we had prayed for as we left the apartment. Our companions were together, as well, and they had an equally miraculous day. It was so cool. One of the best intercambios EVER. </div>
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Then, <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1492153287" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Thursday</span></span>, we had our zone meeting! It went really well. All of our zone came up and we trained them what we had learned in Concilio. It was really cool. My companion and I talked about keeping the Sabbath Day holy and how it really is what makes the difference between strong families and falling away from the church, eventually. It was a really good thing for me to study for in depth and gain a greater testimony of. We then ate together, packed up, and headed for the bus station with the Elders from our area, SO ready to get back to Gijon. We were thinking we were gonna get on the <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1492153288" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">5 o'clock</span></span> bus, but jokes on us, it was sold out by the time we got there. So we're freaking out, super stressed, and we realize that there isn't another bus that leaves until 9. So we're stranded in Leon until 9. We were gonna go out and work again with the Hermanas, but we didn't want to interrupt their schedule or anything, and we also had our luggage with us that we would have had to haul around. So we sat down with the Elders and proceeded to play UNO for 4 and a half hours. In a bus station. In Leon. It got pretty competitive... Between everyone else. I only won one time. My uno skills are lacking! It was such a weird day but, hey, they come around every once in awhile. We FINALLY got to Gijon at 11 that night, were asleep by 12, and then proceeded to work the rest of the week. Luckily we were able to meet with a lot of people and see progression in a lot of them. We ran from cita to cita to cita. It was amazing and it felt so good after almost a full week of traveling outside of our area. We met with a Lot of members and investigators.</div>
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One of the coolest experiences was with R. She's an active member and was coming with us to a lesson that we had set up in the capilla with F. He ended up not coming because he got called into work at the last second, so we asked R.if we could sit down and teach her a little lesson, because we have the goal of teaching all the members about keeping the Sabbath Day holy, seeing as the apostles are focusing so much on it as of late. We got to know her so much better and she ended up opening up to us about some insecurities that she has as a mom. She's an AWESOME mom, but she is just so down on herself about little things, like having to work and not being able to make homemade cookies for her sons class and not being able to go to his performances. It was so sad because it's so obvious to us how wonderful she is. So we left the cita that we had with a plan. We went during Medio dia, bought some cookie ingredients, and whipped up some cookies for her. Then, at church the next day, we brought the cookies and had her son secretly write her a note about how much he loved her and how grateful he was for her. Then we gave him the cookies at told him to give them to her when he got home. She was SO happy. She texted us and was just really grateful. It was a really sweet little moment. It taught me, again, that what we do as missionaries can take a lot of different forms. R. isn't MA, she's not an investigators. She's an active member with a great testimony. But she's a daughter of God and she needs help, just like the rest of us do. We all have our issues, and as missionaries, we're here to invite people to come unto Christ so that He can help us through our issues that we have. We do that through serving, following the Spirit, and opening our mouths. Im so grateful for the chance that I have to teach Gospel principles, to study them, and then to serve people and help them see the changes that the Gospel brings into our lives. I see it in my own life and it's so cool to see it in the lives of others. I'm praying to see Paola and Fernando get baptized before I leave here, but I know that if I continually do my part, I can accept the Lords timing. :) </div>
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I love you so much! Thank you for all that you do for me, mom! You're an amazing mom and person and I'm so blessed to have been sent to you. I'm doing the best I can do be the best I can be and I know that the Lord, thankfully, is patient with us. I love you! Have a great week! I'm ponderizing Mosiah <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1492153289" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:22</span></span> this week- exact obedience in everything. </div>
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Love you!! </div>
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Love,</div>
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Sam</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Service with a peace sign</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7F9atDdIZnI/Vhvzn7Yj2RI/AAAAAAAACBE/-pJVi6UgZdM/s1600/DSCN3940.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7F9atDdIZnI/Vhvzn7Yj2RI/AAAAAAAACBE/-pJVi6UgZdM/s400/DSCN3940.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautiful Pueblo</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-29DuyGquf7s/Vhvznxi6f9I/AAAAAAAACBI/7aW8UnRDkPk/s1600/DSCN3961.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-29DuyGquf7s/Vhvznxi6f9I/AAAAAAAACBI/7aW8UnRDkPk/s400/DSCN3961.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leon Cathedral</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XVHp84I33ZE/Vhv0GdxI5FI/AAAAAAAACBk/vdyr1T75Wsc/s1600/DSCN3967.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XVHp84I33ZE/Vhv0GdxI5FI/AAAAAAAACBk/vdyr1T75Wsc/s400/DSCN3967.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">District Pic</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-POKwUF5_BQU/Vhv0Fwu-kVI/AAAAAAAACBc/85yUwxJD4jY/s1600/DSCN3970.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-POKwUF5_BQU/Vhv0Fwu-kVI/AAAAAAAACBc/85yUwxJD4jY/s400/DSCN3970.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zone Meeting-the food was awesome!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IeutNOJbCe4/Vhv0Q9TxikI/AAAAAAAACB0/QGTbV5aWOVI/s1600/IMG_1068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IeutNOJbCe4/Vhv0Q9TxikI/AAAAAAAACB0/QGTbV5aWOVI/s400/IMG_1068.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leon Zone Hermanas</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FMjU8gq9u2Q/Vhv0VbSE1aI/AAAAAAAACB8/NyAweMpzJSM/s1600/IMG_1072.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FMjU8gq9u2Q/Vhv0VbSE1aI/AAAAAAAACB8/NyAweMpzJSM/s400/IMG_1072.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good times at the Mission Home</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-39818040844512941212015-10-05T17:11:00.005-07:002015-10-05T17:11:44.948-07:00October 5, 2015 Letter<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Hey!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">We </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">got to spend </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Saturday</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Sunday</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> <wbr></wbr>watching Conference in the capilla that we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">have in Gijon. We also got to watch it in English which was AWESOME. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It's sooo much better listening to their actual voices. There were a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">few members and our investigator F. that came and watched it </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">with us in English and they all loved it. It was like a spiritual </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">feast. We didn't get to watch </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Sunday</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> afternoon session but we're </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">hoping we'll have the chance to download it and watch it sometimes </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">this week. It's always a bummer to miss Bednar. But hey, the new </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">apostles seem great! I loved their testimonies. Something that really </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">stuck out to me was how humble they all are. They're Apostles of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Lord and they still are overcome, almost, by their feelings of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">inadequacy and "painful self-examination". But I loved what Elder </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Stevenson said about focus on what you can do. And those men can </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">testify with the Spirit. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Something that I've really seen out here is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">it doesn't matter who we are, where we've been, what our strengths or </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">weaknesses are, our interests, where we are from, what language we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">speak- it's not important. What sets us apart is our testimonies of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Jesus Christ.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Anyway, my favorite talks (of those that I listened too so far): I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">loved Elder Hales. Such good advice for me. I felt like he was talking </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">right too me. I love Elder Hollands, as well, because that man is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">BRILLIANT. His control of the English language makes me want to drool. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">He also just about scared me out of my desire to be a mom- I WILL </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">NEVER BE READY FOR THAT. It just made me grateful for you, momma. :) I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">loved Elder Nielsons talk about womanhood. It inculcated a desire in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">me to be a better, more virtuous, more valiant woman because I know </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">that I was born into this time of the Church for a reason. And loved </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">President Monson, but the fact that he just about fainted on the stand </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">was not cool. I was so scared for him! Ok honestly I loved all of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">them. Such a spiritually bomb conference. I felt close to Heaven and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">that confirmed to me that these men truly are in direct and frequent</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">communication with our Father in Heaven- He's closer than we think. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We had investigators there and menos actives and they all loved it. One is a Catholic friar and we didn't think he had come until the next day, when one of the members told us he had been sitting next to him and that he drove him home. Our investigator LOVED it. He told us that he wished he would have brought paper and a pen to write down all the inspiration that he had received. Like... Wow. He was inspired and that was a testimony to me. Ahh. Conference is the super bowl of missionary work. I loved it.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The rest of the week was great. We did trio intercambios with the Hemanas of Leon while waiting for the new missionary to come. It's a little bit weird contacting in a trio but we found some bomb people. One guy was from Zurich, Switzerland and he spoke English and was just so chill. I hope they're able to get somewhere with him. He was chill. We also had a cool experience with this old man we found in a bench in a park that we were contacting in. We approached him and he said- no, no, no, I'm not interested. I don't want anything, thanks anyways. But then we persisted and persisted and we were finally able to share something with him, get to his core beliefs and write down his information. The reason it was cool for me was because this guy looked homeless, smelled really bad, and just didn't seem that interested at all. But as we started to talk to him, I said a prayer, asking to help us have charity and see him through Gods eyes. And it worked. I got a brief glimpse of how much the Lord loves him. He loves all of His children so much. I don't know- just confirming something that I already knew.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-20044631085577730642015-09-28T11:43:00.003-07:002015-09-28T11:43:44.921-07:00September 28, 2015 Letter<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Hello Family-</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> Here is a typical lay out of our day-</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">1) We wake up at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">7:30</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">. We get out of bed. I pray, bathroom,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">and exercise. I like to do jump rope, p90x or go running.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">2) Then, at 8, we shower, eat breakfast, get ready and listen to a</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">conference talk.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">3) at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">9 o'clock</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">, an alarm goes off, I get down on my knees, pray, and</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">then I study the Gospel. Right now I'm working on finishing the Book</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">of Mormon again in Spanish, I ready PMG everyday, and I do activities.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Then, our other alarm rings, and it's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">10 o'clock</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> which means that it's</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">time to do language study,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">4) so I pray again, then read conference talks in Spanish out loud</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">because I'm working on my accent right now.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">5) then, we leave because another alarm goes off and we're out the</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">door. We pray, recite our purpose, grab Books of Mormon and leave.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">6) then, were either teaching, contacting, doing pass bys, making</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">calls, and just doing the work. Trying to be diligent, trying to be</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">obedient, trying to rely on the Lord and follow Spirit and not get</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">distracted and not get hurt when people reject you and be persistent</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">and use every single second of time perfectly.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">7) then we come back, eat and rest for an hour, try to use that</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">diligently by studying and listening to talks and still talking and</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">being normal. And just. Trying to be good.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">8) then we study as companions for an hour. That usually goes well. We</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">sing hymns. We read together. We practice. We set goals.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">9) then we leave again. And we work. Just like we worked in the</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">morning. We walk the same streets, we try to talk to people, and</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">honestly...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">10) we come home at 10. We plan for the next day. And then we go to bed.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Lots of prayers, lots of diligence, lots of work and lots of really</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">good things. And I'm trying to do this unwearingly, with good desires</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">and lots of faith. Usually it goes pretty well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> I'm sooo happy that I'm staying </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">in Gijon. I</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> love the members here, I love the area. I just hope I can </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">keep working with all my heart until the very end. </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I have faith in </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">this next transfer. It's gonna be amazing, I know it is. F. </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">should be getting baptized, and hopefully P. as well. </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">We also had a </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Catholic friar come to church </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">on Sunday</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> and he LOVED it. He's a really </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">great guy, his name is J.M. We were teaching him a few months </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">ago and he went on vacations for a long time, but then he CALLED US </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and came to church for a lesson. He LOVED hearing about the plan of </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">salvation and he really loved Church. And that makes me so happy. I </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">want to leave this area feeling like I've done everything I can, and </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">now I have more time to do that</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">. Today has been a good day, were in </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Oviedo with Hermana Ross waiting for her new companion. We went </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">shopping and it's been really nice to just do something different. I'm </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">just starting fresh this transfer, gonna do the best I can and just </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">get things rolling!! I know we have good things to come. I know the </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Lord is helping us and guiding us.</span></div>
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<br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I'm so happy to hear that Parker made it!! It makes me so happy. I'm </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">so stoked to hear from him. </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I love you all sooo much!! </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">It's gonna be a great week!! I love you all so much. </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I know Jesus Christ lives and loves us so much and helps us in every </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">situation I love this Gospel and I love sharing it. And I'm so very </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">grateful to be here! Just gotta live it, apply it and go everyday. I </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">love you so much.</span><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Pictures:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">The shoes that I literally wore out and threw away. My companion and I both sporting blazers and my district.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-9306463551112076592015-09-21T12:44:00.003-07:002015-09-21T12:44:39.979-07:00September 21, 2015 Letter<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Hey!! </div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: 12.8px;">This week was really good. We were out of our area for four days. We went to Concilio and we did intercambios but ... We a) travelled to Madrid (5 hours on a train...)b) our comments were valued in Concilio. President listened to what we had to say and c) we got to help plan the zone training and then we gave it with the zone leaders. It was an exhausting, weird week and I'm so grateful to be back in Gijon doing work. But I loved experience. We talked a lot about repentance and sacrament and I understood it so much better. It was amazing. This week was a really spiritual experience during sacrament meeting for me and I was so grateful for it. It's just SO COOL that we get to do that every single week. Jesus Christ is amazing to me. The rest of the week went really well. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: 12.8px;">We have a baptism coming up with F. He's awesome. He's getting a new job at the university and he's gonna be able to come to Church every week. Everyone in the branch is really excited about him, us included. He's going to be the 6th of our 5 active priesthood holders right now. It's going to be a huge blessing to a lot of people to have him around. He's a joy to teach. He understands everything, asks great questions and takes it very seriously. He's amazing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: 12.8px;">Paola is also doing really well. We're focusing on repentance and understanding it better with her, so that she can feel more sure about baptism. We've had some great experiences this week and I feel like I just learning so much. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With P.-the best investigator a missionary could ask for</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: 12.8px;">It's been a little hard finding new investigators but it's a huge goal that we have going into this week. My companion and I are doing great. She's an awesome missionary and just so great to be with. I love her a lot. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Oh, also, just a heads up, I got proposed too. There was this member in B8 that fell in love with me and when I got to Madrid for Concilio, he was there at the train station, waiting for me. He gave me a shirt that he made with a picture of us on it and gave it to me, drenched in his cologne. And he was wearing the same one. And then he gave me this letter and told me I had to wait until I got off the mission to read it. Naturally, I read it later that day. He told me he wanted to marry me and that he was waiting for me to finish the mission. It kind of freaked me out, honestly. So I got permission from President Pack to email him and tell him no. It was sort of a fuerte email. But it had to be done. Anyways. 35 year old Ecuadorian men on the prowl over here in #españa. It was an incredibly uncomfortable situation. But it's ok now, I think. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"> I know that Heavenly Father lives and LOVES us. I feel like He has really answered that prayer for me this week. I know that Jesus Christ was and is His Son and that we need Him always, everyday. I know that the love of God should be the reason for everything that we do and say and think. It's a high goal, but He can help us reach it. I know that this is the work of the Lord. I know it. I'm so grateful to be here, and so humbled by it. But I know it's true and I will keep on going. I love you all so much!! I love my mission and I love all of you!! </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-744040228959049312015-09-08T20:55:00.004-07:002015-09-08T20:55:47.605-07:00September 7, 2015 Letter<br />
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This week has been long and slow and grey. We did intercambios with the Hermanas in Oviedo <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_201871397" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Tuesday</span></span>. That honestly really threw me off. I was with an Hermana that was struggling with her companion, who is a really good friend of mine. I was trying to help this Hermana and be her friend while still being an example but I left the intercambio feeling like I had sort of let my standards of obedience down a little bit in the effort to try to help her and make her feel loved and everything. I should have been a better example, and the situation caught me off guard. I prayed about it and then called Hermana Pack, the mission presidents wife. She helped me and I decided that I needed to call the Hermana that I did the intercambio with and just talk to her a little more. So I called her and talked to her about some things that had stood out to me from the intercambio and some things that I felt like could help her with her obedience and everything. It wasn't an awful intercambio. It was really good, and she said she felt lifted at the end of it. I just felt bad that I lowered my standards to help somebody feel more comfortable. I did it with good intentions but I didn't feel super great afterwards. I was grateful to be able to call her and talk about it. It taught me a really good lesson- never lower your standards, not ever!! Always stand up for what you know is right. It's something I want to do better at. My accountability is to God, not to anybody else. I'm grateful for the lesson learned, though. It reminded me of a line in my patriarchal blessing- it said that before this life, I was a friend to all and determined to follow the way of the Lord. I thought of that after the intercambio and realized that it's possible to do both. Be a friend to all but ALWAYS follow the way of the Lord. I promised myself that I would do better and make a greater effort to be exactly obedient, especially in the small things. It's a goal that I have for the rest of the mission. </div>
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We weren't able to meet with a lot of our investigators this week. It was a little bit hard, but we have been making an effort to work more with the members and it's been awesome. Slowly but surely. There was a day this week when I literally felt like the adversary was attacking me so obviously. I was struggling during studies with tiredness and ended up reading an article in the Liahona about Joseph Smith with some information that I didn't know about him before. It was a little bit troubling for me, not a lot, just kind of weird. Then, we went to contact and we met a man that had been a member of the church in Ecuador and he got baptized in the Evangelical church here. He was bashing on the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and it was sort of hard to hear. Super sad. I felt sad for him. Then, next person we stopped SCREAMED at us about how Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet of God and how we're all confused. So weird! Everyone else said no. Like always. But it was just the weirdest chain of events. I felt really down and it was hard for me to hear all that on the same day. And then we found out that the mom of some of the youth in our branch got baptized in the evangelical church and that was really hard- they got sealed in the temple three years ago and she just got really confused. I went to bed that night and just cried- mainly because I just felt so overwhelmed by the whole situation with this mom. It was just such an obvious attack on my testimony and it was weird. But. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I know it. My testimony of him is just as strong as ever. Anyways. Just a weird moment. </div>
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We also got to go to a futbol game with the Browns!! It was awesome, I loved it. I'll write more about it next week and send photos, I ran out of time today. </div>
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I'm so sorry I ran out of time!! But I love you so much!! I'm doing great and loving the mission. I miss you all so much. But things here are going great. Send me pics throughout the week. I love getting them!! Love you!! Read alma 31- two types of prayers. </div>
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Love,</div>
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Hermana seeg </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-65952199550994731942015-08-31T12:17:00.000-07:002015-08-31T12:17:01.439-07:00The Tears of God-August 31, 2015<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Ok so the title line is a joke. It's not me being dramatic and overly </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">spiritual. So I'll explain in a sec.]</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So this week has been full of experiences, big and small. I'm loving </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">being with Hermana Santiago. She's wonderful and has taught me so much </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">about life and missionary work and the Gospel. We have been working SO </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">hard. It's been so awesome and with the schedule change, we have even </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">more time to work and it's shown in the week that we've had and the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">results that have come. We had a few days that were literally chalk</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">full of miracles. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">We were able to set a fecha with Yami, our 15 year </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">old Ecuadorian girl that we've been meeting with forever and seen next </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to no progress with. We had an awesome lesson with her about the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Atonement and the need for Jesus Christ and we put her on date. And </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">then she came to church! It was her first time ever coming and she</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">loved it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> Speaking of church, we had FOUR investigators there. That's </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the most I've had in such a long time. It was amazing. P. came </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">because she's amazing, and she brought her mom, which was her first </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">time ever coming. P. sang in a musical number with they young women </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and M. (mom) was so proud. It was a really sweet moment. And then </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">we had this woman named R. that was an old investigator of the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">elders from about 2 years ago. The branch president gave us her number </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and we called her and she let us come over. She then committed to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">coming to church with her two cute, sweet little boys. They are six </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and three and seriously so cute. And they all came and stayed and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">LOVED it. It was a huge miracle and we're so excited about her. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">We are </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">progressing with less actives that were working with, we had a bunch </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">of lessons on the street, and F. is still progressing super </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">well. We had a noche de hogar with him in the house of the president </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">of the branch and it went super well. We talked about the priesthood </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and he's excited to receive it after his baptism. Our lessons were </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">just all really spiritual and uplifiting and I learned so much from </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">teaching them- it was really cool. Just a great week. I feel really </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">happy to be here and seeing so much progression in the area and in the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">people we are teaching is a wonderful feeling.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So in reference to the title line- backstory. F. was telling us </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">about Maradona and the "hand of God", when he scored a goal against </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">England by using his hand to swat in the ball. The ref didn't see it, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">it counted, and after the game, Maradona is quoted as saying that it </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">was the "hand of God". Best moment ever. So we talked about that, and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">then</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_58795232" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Sunday</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, we had a branch counsel meeting before church, just </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">like every</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_58795233" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Sunday</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">. We were there and the branch president, Florin, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">started talking to us about how we need to improve in our member-</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">missionary relationships. It's been a bit hard in this branch, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">honestly, to work with the members. We had the goal going into next </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">week of visiting more active members, bugging them more about coming </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to lessons with us, etc. Florin started talking about it and the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">members just sort of starting getting on us for not inviting them to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">lessons, etc. It was super hard because we have been trying and it's </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">just hard to work with members because they are all so busy. We do </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">invite them, although it is something that we really do need to work </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">on. So I'm sitting there, listening to this go on, and even though it </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">was a little bit hard to get called out like that even when I felt </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">like we had a great week and we really have been working with members </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">as much as we can and we had the goal of getting better, I wasn't that </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">upset by it. But all the sudden, I started crying. Just crying, right </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">in front of the whole branch. And it was SO WEIRD. Like, why am I </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">crying? I wasn't even super mad or upset or anything. Frustrated, yes. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But not to the point of tears. But then I cried and I was so </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">embarrassed and everyone was just staring at me and you could tell </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">they felt so bad. But I couldn't stop. Needless to say, after the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">meeting, EVERYONE came up to us and started to invite us to their </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">houses and tell us they were available for lessons and that they</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">supported us. It was embarrassing and unexpected, but let me tell you, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the tears worked. We have like 5 members set up in lessons with us </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">already and it was amazing. So.. My companion and I decided after the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">meeting was all over that it was similar to Maradona's goal- those </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">tears were the tears of God! The fact that I was crying totally </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">softened their hearts, softened the situation, and I think we're gonna </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">see miracles from it. Haha. Sort of weird, but it was just a funny </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">story. I think the connection between the two stories is sort of</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">hilarious, although my comp doesn't quite get it. She's more of a </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">volleyball person- the name Maradona means nothing to her.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It really has been a great week. We've been so blessed and I don't </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">quite understand why, but I know that good things come when we work </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">hard and leave the rest to God. There's a scripture in Alma about </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">constantly remembering our unworthiness before God. I think that's the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">key in good times- always remembering that when the good times come, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">we still have to rely on the Lord. Always. He'll make more out of us </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">than we could ever make out of ourselves. And I have a testimony of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">that.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I love you all!! Sorry I don't have a ton of time to write today, this </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">might be the only email that I can get out. We ran out of time, we </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">went to Covadonga with the Browns and it took up our whole pday. I </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">promise I'll write more next week- but I bought gifts!! Haha. Love you </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">all, have a great week, and remember to rely on the Lord! I'm doing </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">great and LOVING the mission, it just keeps getting better. Love you </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">all!!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Love,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Sam</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">One of my goals-</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-70429523211475997202015-08-25T12:57:00.000-07:002015-08-31T12:06:59.045-07:00August 24, 2015 Letter<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Hey Family!!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> I LOVE it here. Every area </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">has gotten better and better for me. I'm trying not to think about </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">coming home because I am really scared- so we're just gonna focus on </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">this week and try not to think about it. :) it'll be amazing, though.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">I'm </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">just so, so tired today. Like, so tired. Got like 4 hours of sleep to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">start off this week, my new companion got here, Medio dia got changed </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">and we've just been KILLING it.. As in, working so so hard. Then, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">today, we did the most intense 20 minute hike I've ever done in my </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">life. And as a result, I'm so tired. Like, so tired. Never been this</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">tired. Ever in my whole mission. I'm so happy but </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">so tired and wow. Ok. This email will probably be really scattered.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">But just bear with me.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">This week was crazy. Hermana Santiago is a boss. She's a really hard </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">worker and she's really bold, which is all that I need. We've been </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">working so hard and I love it. We had 3 days out of our area and we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">still had a really good number of lessons at the end of the week. We </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">taught F. the law of chastity and he took it really well. He's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">amazing and we're so grateful for him. He also gave me these super </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">cool books about soccer as this random gift and it was amazing. I was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">so excited. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">P. is stil going strong. She came to church and the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">fireside that the mission president gave</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> and she </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">loved it. We've taught her all the lessons now and we're planning on </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">fasting together at the end of this week to help her to get to</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">baptism. Our goal this week is to really work a lot better with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">members and to involve them in everything that we can do. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Our Chinese </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">man is still going really good- he came to the lesson and said that he </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">knows the Book of Mormon is true!! We can't even communicate with him </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">that well at all, but I'm so grateful for the experience I had with</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Valentine at the beginning of my mission because I feel like I was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">prepared to communicate with Lu. I've learned how to take what people </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">say (even if I can't understand it), watch what they're doing, and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">somehow, the Spirit has helped me get through a lot of lessons </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">understanding them. He's a good man and he really wants to keep</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">meeting with us, which is really good.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> Also, we had a really cool </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">experience this week. Hermana Santiago got here and said she had met </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">this man named A. in her last area, the Canary Islands. He was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">from Gijon and knew members of the church there. They got his </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">reference but never passed it- and this was back in May. We called him </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">on her second day here and he was like, yeah! I'd love to meet with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">you! I've been thinking about you girls a lot lately! So we went and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">met with him- he's this older Spanish man that owns an art gallery in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">the center of town. We explained the restoration and found out that he </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">knows our branch president and his wife and a TON of other members </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">here. He's been to church and had a Book of Mormon for awhile. So we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">set up a time to come back, and we went and told the branch president</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">and his wife and they were SHOCKED. They were so excited, they </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">couldn't believe that we had found him and we're teaching him. It was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">the craziest experience- we're excited to see how it goes with him.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Other news: we haven't had hot water all week, we hiked the Cristus </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">statue today and we loved it, we watched meet the Mormons at zone </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">conference and it was super cool. We loved it- I had never seen it </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">before! It made me cry. We started exercising Better in the mornings </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">and it's been awesome. It's a goal of ours. We've just been doing the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">best we can and I'm trying to make the most of the time I have left. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">It's going well.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> I know the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real and I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">know He always sends us answers. This weekend was chalk full of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">answers to my prayers, and I'm grateful for it. I can't even... I love </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">this place so much. I love my companion, I love the work. I love the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">miracles that God is willing to work through us. I'm so far from </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">perfect, but I have trust in Christ. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Oh, ps mom, that talk about </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Joseph Smith was AMAZING. I loved that so much. Thank you for always </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">being in tune with the Spirit. It was just what I needed. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Ok, sorry again for the crappy email. I can't explain the tired levels</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">coursing through my body right now. Love you!!</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Love,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Sam</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-35429088082409663832015-08-18T21:40:00.000-07:002015-08-18T21:40:42.091-07:00August 17, 2015 Letter<div class="gE iv gt" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; cursor: auto; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; padding: 12px 0px 3px;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey Familia!!</span></div>
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So just to update you on the changes that transfers brought:</div>
</span><span style="color: #222222;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
1) I am staying in Gijon.</div>
</span><span style="color: #222222;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
2) I am getting a new companion named Hermana Santiago. She's a good friend of mine, from Texas, has 2 transfers less in the mission than I do, and she's awesome.</div>
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3) We are sister training leaders together for the Leon Zone. Our new mission president, president Pack, instituted this new thing where there are 2 STLs in all the zones in the mission, and that they are companions. It's the first time there have been STLs in the North or the Islands and it's pretty exciting. It means that we do intercambios and that we also go down to Madrid for Concilio once a month with the zone leaders, and we do zone trainings together. It's pretty cool. It's cool that I get a second try at this thing, because I feel like it was trial by error the first time, and I'm excited to apply the things that I learned. I am feeling a little overwhelmed, but in a good way. I'm so so so sad that Hermana Stephenson left. She's one of the best friends I've ever had and seriously such a great companion and missionary. She's going down to Villalba, a pueblo outside of Madrid. I sent her down this morning and right now I'm chilling with my friend Hermana Freestone in Oviedo until our new companions get here. It's been a good day, although sad. Im EXHAUSTED, though. So tired. We have gotten little to no sleep in the last few days, thanks to transfers and packing and cleaning the piso and just trying to get caught up on everything. It was a bit of an emotional week, but it turned out great. It'll be so good to start a new transfer and see what we can get going in good ole Gijon. I'm so glad I have more time! It's my third transfer here and I'm loving it.</div>
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Ok. Experiences this week: We made it in the news! See photo below:</div>
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So last pday the Oviedo Hermanas came up to Gijon and we went to the fair with our branch mission leader, Santi. He took us out to eat "comida basura, estilo americana" (garbage food, American style- his words, not mine) and then bought us all a gift. Like, seriously, nicest guy ever. This is what he made us eat while with him (he was paying, we couldn't say no. Literally, we tried, and he just refused it) : a literal platter of meat. Bread. A huge slice of cake. A ginormous ice cream cone. Coke. And then, 20 minutes later, he bought us another ice cream cone. And then he offered to take us out to snack and we were like, Santi! We have seriously eaten so much today! And he was like- what do you mean? You've eaten so little! He just didn't understand why we were so full. Did not understand at all. Anyways, that was just a little side story. As we were walking around in the fair, this guy stopped us and asked to take our picture for the paper. He was doing a piece about the fair, and he was trying to show that the fair was international. We literally stand out so much- haha. He took our picture, and the rest is history. We had to laugh because it probably just furthers problems with people thinking that Mormons are polygamists- its like Santi with his 4 young wives. </div>
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But the Hermanas in Oviedo has a cool experience with it- this guy stopped them and told them that he saw them in the paper and that he wants to know more about the church! It was really cool. Hopefully they'll see progress from him. We had breakthrough lessons with P. and F. this week. P. told us that she knows the church is true. She just feels it, she said. The situation is hard with her family right now but she's so sweet and just so strong. We love her so much. She was sad to say goodbye to Hermana Stephenson yesterday. She still doesn't feel prepared to get baptized, so we're working on it with her. Little by little. I told my companion that I'm really sick of little by little- i feel like it's been the motto of my whole mission and it's getting old- but she was just like "you're not going to progress any faster now than you did at the beginning. Life just comes one day at a time. Just because you have more time on the mission now doesn't mean that progression will suddenly come faster." I liked that. Patience is so essential in all facets of life, and it's something that I've had to learn so much about out here. Anyways. I liked that. She taught me a lot. </div>
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Also, F. is just progressing so well. He's receiving answers right and left, he's so sad he can't come to church more because of his work, and he's just the sweetest guy. He's read the whole Book of Mormon. And now he's reading it again. He's just... Prepared. It's the best way I can think of to describe him. Just ready. He told us that he wants to wait to get baptized until the work situation evens out a little bit because he doesn't want to make a covenant with God and then just not be active. He took tithing really well and he's just so amazing. I can't even begin to describe how lucky we are to have the chance to work with him.</div>
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We had a zone training meeting this week in Leon and they announced a new rule that we have as a mission. They're changing Medio dia. So what we're doing is that we usually have 2 and a half hours of study in the mornings and then we go out and work, Medio dia starts at <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_433491313" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:00</span></span>, we eat and rest a little, and then we're out the rest of the night.</div>
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Every mission has 2 hours to eat, we just have ours together in the middle of the day. Now what's happening is they have changed it all up so that we have one more hour of proselyting and one less hour of food/rest time. Well now just have 1.5 hours of study in the morning, leave the piso and hour earlier, and then during Medio dia, we have one hour to eat and rest and another hour to do companionship study. It's still two hours, but one of them is for study. It's s pretty big change, and I'm thrilled about it. When I got my release date, I was really sad because I felt like it was just too soon. So I was praying and I asked God to give me more time. I told Him I would take any opportunity I had to have more time on the mission. As I said that prayer, I felt a lot of peace. I felt like He was gonna give me more time. I was sort of waiting to see if there was an option for an extension of the mission or something, when this announcement came along. He gave me more time, in the form of one more hour of work a day. It adds up to roughly 115 hours total, or, in other words, 2 weeks worth of more prostleying time. Exactly the amount of time that was taken off of my mission. It was an emotional moment to realize</div>
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that God answered my prayer. It may seem like a little thing, but it didn't feel little to me. I'm grateful for it and excited to have more time to work! I'll probably drop dead at the end of it- I can't imagine getting more tired than I am right now, and yet I get tireder</div>
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everyday. It's insane.</div>
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I've been learning a lot lately and realizing just how imperfect really am. I have so much to work on- so much. I know I'm inadequate and always will be- but I'm learning how to better trust in Christ and Heavenly Father. They are my everything, and it's only through them that I am able to do anything. I'm so grateful to have them and to have the chance to serve them. I'm not perfect- soooooo far from it. But luckily, this isn't about me! My motto as of late is "forget yourself, and go to work", with emphasis on forget yourself. I'm trying to forget my will, forget my desires and forget my struggles and just do my best to help the Lord. It's a work in progress and it always will be, but it's in the journey that we find what we need.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-89144179979968201152015-08-11T10:54:00.001-07:002015-08-11T10:54:16.320-07:00August 10, 2105 Letter *My release date is December 8th*<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Hey Fam!!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">How are you?? That's nice of what Sister Knapp said. She's a really </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">nice lady. She told me that my Spanish was good, as well, which I was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">so happy about- she's a Spanish professor!! She knows what she's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">talking about! Haha. I think she was just being nice, honestly, but I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">do really like her. It was fun to have her family here for a few </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">weeks, they literally almost doubled the size of active members in the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">branch, which is always fun.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I got the email about my release date, as well. I was shocked! I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">couldn't believe it. I'm not ready to come home- there's so much left </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">to do! I'll probably feel like that up to the date of my release, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">though. I am working on being more accepting of the fact that I do </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">have to go home eventually. I'm mentally trying to make myself </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">excited, and I've set a lot of goals so that I'm busy and working. I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">am excited to see all of you again, that's for sure. It feels like a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">really long time since I've seen all of you. One of the reasons that </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I've been grateful to be here is because I think it's helped me a gain </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">a greater appreciation of what a great family I have and how much I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">love you! I never realized quite how blessed I was. It's seriously </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">strengthen my testimonies of families so so much. So anyways. I've got </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">4 more wonderful months left here, and then a lifetime of wonderful </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">months there! Just gotta make the most of it :) I really like what </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">you've said about making it the best 6 then 5 then 4 months of my </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">mission. I've been really trying to do that and I feel so good. It's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">been such a good process for me to realize that i can and should </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">continue to improve, and that God doesn't wait for perfection to be </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">pleased. I could possibly finish in Gijon, but I don't think I will, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">it would be a long time in one area. And Hermana Stephenson and I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">definitely won't be together the whole time, transfers are this week </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">and we're thinking that she'll probably be leaving. But we'll see. :)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The plans for the Europe trip sound great! I'm excited for that. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Europe is amazing, especially Spain. Honestly, I just want to visit </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">all my areas and see everybody. I love them so much! </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Ok so I'll tell you about my week now. It's been a really good mix of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">everything missionary. We contacted a lot, knocked a lot of doors.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> We got a member reference which </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">is a big deal up here, but he's actually an apostate member, so we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">can't really count it. Kind of a weird situation, but his mother in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">law that we started teaching is really really sweet. We found this </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Spanish guy on the street and even though he didn't want anything, we </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">ended up getting all of his information, went back and taught him with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">a member, and he said he would read and wants us to come back. That </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">was cool,honestly. I really felt the Spirit testifying so strongly to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">him, and I know that Heavenly Father loves him so much. We taught P.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> a lot this week and she's doing really good. She still has this </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">weird fear of baptism but I think she's slowly but surely getting over </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">it. She has a hard home life right now but we talked a lot yesterday </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">about setting goals so that she can make a better future for herself. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I think she's starting to see the link between the Gospel and the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Church and living a better life. She's young but wonderful- we just </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">need a little bit more time with her. We've seen a lot of great</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">miracles with her. The Dhinese man is great, as well. He was so </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">excited to get the Book of Mormon in Chinese! I'm trying to give you a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">good run down of the week but I'm realizing its impossible, especially </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">with the limited time that I have. It was just so good. So spiritual,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">so hard at times, but hard in a good way. We had time with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">investigators and times the street and everything in between. Oh, and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">F. is doing great. Turns out he's basically always lived the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">word of wisdom and he's plays soccer on the beach from time to time. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It's like, come on! I'm teaching a Spanish soccer playing man. How </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">much more blessed could I get? I'm really loving it here and loving </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">what we're doing. Everything is just so good. Not perfect, but good. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And that's all we need.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I love you all so much, I hope your week is wonderful. I pray for you </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">everyday. I'm sorry this email is short and lame, but it's all I've </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">got time for today- we'll see if we find more time later on. I really </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">am happy and we just keep on keeping on! I'll let you know about </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">transfers next week. Love you all so much!!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Love</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Sam</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teaching with my companion, Hermana Stephenson</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-25522281029354688682015-08-04T13:37:00.002-07:002015-08-04T13:37:31.942-07:00August 2, 2015 Letter<br />
Anyways. I just decided that I don't care about how little time I have left, I'm just gonna work to improve and get better every single day, just like I have up until this point on my mission. Just keep trying and relying on God and learning through Him. That will bring the greatest happiness.<br />
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This week has been really good, actually. Not anything super special, just a good, solid, hard working week. On Tuesday all of our plans failed and we literally walked around for 5 and a half hours. Straight- and NOBODY listened. And we weren't just walking around aimlessly, we were actively trying to talk to everyone and knock buildings and literally nobody listened. But weirdly, we didn't get too upset about it. I felt really peaceful the whole day. I think Heavenly Father was helping us so much. The next day, we went and visited a menos activa lady without calling, and she ended up making dinner for us, which we didn't want her to do but we didn't know how to stop her without offending her. Even though we weren't out on the street walking around and getting rejected, I felt a whole lot worse about being with the menos activa for almost two hours then I did walking around for 5 and a half. It just was a lesson that I had to learn again- the hard things bring the greatest blessings. So the rest of<br />
the week I made an extra effort to talk to as many people as I could and to just work as hard as I could and use time as wisely as I could, of course with the constant companionship of my lovely companion, and it went really well. We contacted this Chinese man and he came to church and wants to meet again. That was pretty cool. F. is doing great. We made him a baptismal calendar and he loved it, and I've never had anyone understand covenants so well. It was amazing!! P. came back from camp and she's still doing great, as well. She found the blog and has been reading it- so cute. She's amazing and we're so grateful for her!! She came to church and loved it. Oh, and CHURCH!! I forgot about this. First of all, we had 3 investigators there, which is a big deal. And then all the youth came back from EFY that they had down near Madrid. Our youth are a little bit verging on inactive, almost all of them. There aren't any Diegos here. But they all got up and bore their testimonies and it was INCREDIBLE. EFY seriously changed their lives. Everyone was crying, especially the<br />
young women's president, Natalia. She just kept saying- it's such an answer to so many Prayers!! It was such a cool moment for everyone. So yeah, this week was good. We're just gonna keep on keeping on and believing that miracles can and will come.<br />
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I've felt the spirit a lot this week and felt very close to my Savior. I'm trying to learn how to immediately apply His atoning sacrifice and how to connect that to other people better. It's been really good. I'm excited for this week and to continue to make the next 5 months the best of my mission. I love you all so much!!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gijon</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hermana Seegmiller and Hermana Stephenson</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love it when members feed us!!</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-49417728648135090622015-08-04T13:32:00.005-07:002015-08-04T13:32:50.255-07:00July 27, 2015 Letter<br />
This week has been a really good one. I might just sum it up in bullet points to keep my thoughts more organized:<br />
-we had a zone conference in Leon that went really well. We set our alarm early to be able to catch the bus at 8, but then it didn't go off, and we woke up at 7:25. We woke up and we're out the door in 9 minutes, and we made it. It was amazing, such a miracle!! Haha. I did my makeup on the bus, as a result. I felt the spirit a lot at the conference and it went really well. I like the missionaries in my zone a lot, I get the feeling that they are all hard working, serious missionaries. It makes me happy. But they're still good, fun people. I know the Lord has a lot of trust in us- it makes me grateful to be here.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N3LlYPX1icU/VcEgdyHbDSI/AAAAAAAAB7M/9WcnOwiYrec/s1600/image2-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N3LlYPX1icU/VcEgdyHbDSI/AAAAAAAAB7M/9WcnOwiYrec/s400/image2-2.JPG" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Outside of our apartment</td></tr>
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-F. is AWESOME. We've been communicating (with permission) though email, and I sent dad some of the stuff he's written (he speaks English). He's just amazing and I think he's really truly seeing changes in his life, through Jesus Christ. He came to church this week and loved it, and also sent his own baptismal date in the lesson that<br />
we had. He's such a miracle and we're grateful for him. P. is still doing great, but she was out of town all this week, so that's why I'm not really mentioning her as much. We've also been trying hard to find new investigators this week, and while it's hard and slow, it's been going well. We just talk to as many people as we can and we've found a few great people.<br />
-I smashed whipped cream all over my companions face during noche de hogar. It was he funniest thing I think I've ever done. It turned bad, however, when A. decided to do it to me, she's this sassy little Dominican girl. It was a great night, I sent you pictures.<br />
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-we got failed a lot this week, but we were able to maintain really positive, happy attitudes, and that helped a lot. Even though we were on the street contacting a ton, it wasn't too bad. We were also able to work a lot with some great members and get to know them better, which is something we're going to be trying to focus on more and more. We both feel like we need to strengthen the branch, and we're trying to find ways to do so.<br />
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Anyways. I love the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I don't always understand all of it, but I love it so much. I'm grateful for the scriptures in my life and for prayer. I'm grateful for the Spirit that testifies at the most random, most needed points of my life. And I'm just grateful for what I've been blessed to be able to do. I love you all so much, I hope you have a great week.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-62865453674818084212015-07-23T19:13:00.001-07:002015-07-23T19:13:16.542-07:00July 20, 2015 Letter<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-size: x-small;">This week was awesome. I definitely felt like that whole fresh start thing that I describe in my last email got put into practice. It wasn't a perfect week, but I feel like, overall, it was really good. We working a lot with the 15 year old Dominican girl that I told you about. She now has a baptismal date for September and loves everything </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">we teach her. So we had her pick her own date and that's what she chose! She's awesome. I'll keep you updated on her. She loves the a Book of Mormon so much and yesterday, thanks to the help of our awesome Young Women's president, Natalia, she started working on her </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">personal progress. And she LOVES it. She's also reading for the strength of youth and was so excited about the section of dressing appropriately. She was just going on and on about how finally somebody understands that you shouldn't flaunt what you've got and such... It was cute. Oh, and she also told us, after our law of chastity lesson, that she definitely wants to marry a Mormon boy. We told her about BYU </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and how there are thousands of Mormon boys there, and you should have seen her eyes light up... It was so cute. We love her a lot and we're excited about her. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We also had this great find this week- F. He's Spanish, about 35 years old, and works as a nurse. He worked with this woman awhile back who was living in the old folks home where he works. The missionaries would go and visit her and bring her the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">sacrament until she died a little while later (she was a member of the church). The missionaries never talked to him, but he was, at that time, starting to get disilliusioned with the Catholic Church and he was really impressed with the way that the missionaries treated this poor little old woman. With their quiet example, he decided to look up on the Church online and read through the whole website. He then got the address of the church and stopped by one morning when we happened to be there for a lesson. He rang on the doorbell and asked if he could meet with us another day. We wrote down his number and gave him our card, and he called us 2 hours later! It was so cool. So we've now met with him twice. Our first lesson was just answering his questions, and in our second, we were trying to help him understand more our purpose as missionaries and we asked him what his end goal in meeting us was. This is before we've brought up baptism at all, seeing as we were going to invite him after asking that question. His response was- "so I'll keep meeting with you, get all my questions answered, go to church, read the book, feel it in my heart, and then if I like </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">everything, I'll get baptized." It was amazing. We're excited about him as well. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We spent some good time on the street and we found a really cool guy yesterday. We ended up talking to him for about an hour- half of my face is sunburnt, as a result. He is a young Spaniard and has all the right questions. So I'm excited for him!! The Lord is </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">blessing us tremendously and I feel so happy to be here. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Also, we planned and threw a wildly successful branch activity on Saturday night. It was a culture activity. Everyone brought a dish from their country and we had some people do dances and a few members did a presentation on family history. It was so much fun and SO many people came. We were blown away. My compa and I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and brownies, and the elders made corndogs. People thought the sandwiches were weird, but you would not believe their reaction to the corndogs and the brownies. They were in Heaven. A few members invited friends and we were able to get to know them better. It was really good. It was only through Heavnely fathers help that it went so well- it reminds me of a quote I found the other day by the Prophet. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">He said- "I never cease to be amazed by how the Lord can motivate and direct the length and breadth of His kingdom and yet have time to provide inspiration concerning one individual--or one cultural celebration or one Jumbotron. The fact that He can, that He does, is a testimony to me." It was super super cool.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Culture NIght-We dressed as Americans</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-44938272645956479292015-07-18T10:41:00.002-07:002015-07-18T10:41:19.611-07:00July 13, 2015 Letter<br />
Wow. I can't even begin to describe this week. I have no words. English and Spanish are both so insufficient. I have so much joy in my heart right now and I can't express it. This week, I truly discovered the Atonement. For the first time ever in my entire life, I have sung the song of redeeming love. And I honestly can feel so now.<br />
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So I will start from the beginning, I suppose. The last two transfers have probably been the most discouraging transfers of my entire mission. I lost a lot of desire and a lot of excitement and just a lot of love of the work. I got tired. I remember one morning, back in Barrio 8, we had one hour left before we went home for lunch, and we were contacting on our good ole Calle Albufera. I looked down the street, filled with people ready to receive the Gospel, and something inside me cracked and all the sudden, I just couldn't do it anymore. I looked at my companion, looked back at the street, muttered something about not wanting to do it anymore, and sat down on a bench. I didn't attempt to make calls, I didn't attempt to write cards, I didn't even attempt to smile at anybody walking by. I just sat there. It was a moment of real distress. And although I fought it off, those moments kept coming back and kept coming back. There was the moment at the beginning of a planning session last transfer, my first in Gijon, when I finished the prayer, laid down on the floor and started crying because I felt that although we were trying and fighting and walking literally miles every single day, nobody was progressing or even accepting what we were trying to teach them or even say to them. There were the little moments on the street, getting hit by the unexpected feelings of extreme homesickness, triggered by things as random as people eating together in bars or seeing Rafa Nadal on street signs. Like, who thought seeing a picture of Rafa in Spain would make me miss Utah, eh? Anyways. That's just how it was going, there for awhile. In the meantime, I was praying really, really hard. And even though I felt like God wasn't listening, I kept on praying. They were sort of desperate, sad sort of prayers. Without a lot of hope, but I kept on praying and I kept on working the best I could. We improved our teaching, we worked with the branch, we expressed love for people even when it was hard to feel it. We did our best.<br />
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And then God sent us this week. Because you know what? God is a loving God. That is a true statement. God loves us so, so much. I've never been so convinced.<br />
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It started last Sunday, the beginning of our second transfer together. We sat down together and decided that the work goes a whole lot better when we're happy about it. We looked back at all the times when we felt really down and realized that the work subsequently went really down, as well. So we just made the decision to be happy. It was as simple as that. We decided to do all that would could, trust in God, and let Him do His work through us, and just to let the results be what they were. It was a good decision.<br />
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Then, on Wednesday, we had one of the most solid district meetings that I've ever attended. Our district leader, Elder Maxfield, talked about success and what it truly means to be a successful missionary. He asked my companion and I to both speak about times when we've felt successful. Preparing for that talk was a little bit hard, because I realized, as I looked back upon my mission, I have never quite known what success truly is. I've always, always, always ended up feeling like a failure missionary, or like I'm never going to succeed. But as I was preparing for that talk, I realized that the reason that always happened is because I have no idea what defines success for me. So I told my district that. I expressed gratitude to Elder Maxfield for listening to the Spirit and assigning me that topic, because I realized that I needed to define success for myself and for my mission. It was a clarifying moment for me, and I realized that although I may be a successful missionary, I will never recognize it until I know what success actually is.<br />
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There was a lot of little things that happened this week that I look back and see that it was truly the hand of God, working towards helping me and those around me. God was answering my prayers little by little. And then, we met the new mission president and his wife and family. They were amazing. It was such a defining experience in my mission. We had a zone conference in Oviedo and, seeing as our zone is pretty small, we all got some quality one on one time with the new President and his wife. They both presented messages about obedience, about how much they loved us and about how much they love Jesus Christ. The Spirit was there in a way that I've never felt it before. It was just so powerful. And I had the distinct and clear impression that God loves me. And that Jesus Christ atoned for me. He knows me. And that they were both working together to give me a second chance. I don't consider anything in my mission, up until this point, a failure. I have made mistakes and I have been tired, but all those tired times and mistake ridden days have gotten me to the point where I needed, more than anything else, the Atonement of Jesus Christ to take place in my life. And I felt as if last Friday was a point of starting over again. It was a point of repentance, and that is why I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude and love right now. I had the chance to talk to President Pack and just tell him how anxious I was to do the Lord's will. I told him how little I care about leadership positions, about the cool areas where I could serve or about the numbers that seemingly define success. I told him that I just wanted to do the Lords will. And I think, in that moment, I was given a blank slate. I felt it, I think he felt it. And that is the miracle of the Atonement.<br />
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I went to bed on Friday night with such a sweet spirit surrounding me. And it hasn't left. It's the peace that surpasseth all understanding, and I know it's comes from my Heavenly Father. I feel the joy that comes from the Gospel, and now, I finally can say that I know why I am here. I feel as if I am a changed person. I can't really explain why. It was just like every prayer I've ever prayed, every answer I've ever needed, every time I've pleaded with Heavenly Father to just let me know that He really is there- He saved them all and then gave me all that I was asking for and more, in a few simple, short hours in a zone conference in Oviedo. I can't even.. There aren't words. I love my Heavenly Father, and I know my older brother, Jesus Christ, is there. He is always there. He is right by our sides, always, helping us do what we cannot do on our own. I hope that everyone can have the chance to come to the knowledge that I have come to. And that hope is what will drive me for the rest of my mission, and for the rest of my life, as well. Nothing else compares to the love that God has for us, and the love that He is willing to show for us, if we just listen. Any sacrifice, any change, any good things put away for better- it is worth it to feel what I have felt in the last four days. I want to feel this way forever. I want to continue to change. And I will.<br />
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Ok. I'll try to wrap up the sermon with some more details of the great things that have happened this week. Sorry to get preachy. But hey, it's what I do.<br />
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Number one is P. She's this 15 year old Dominican girl that we found in her house. We contacted her mom on the street, and she invited us over to teach her and her daughter, P. We had a great first lesson, and invited them to come to church. M., the mom, couldn't, but P. could. And she came. She also read the chapter in the Book of Mormon, loved it, and has been telling us how much she loved Nefi, how stupid his brothers are, etc. She had now come to church twice, various church activities, has become best friends with an investigator of the Elders that is also very awesome, and has accepted the invitation to be baptized. We don't have a date because we have yet to be able to talk to her mom, but she's so sweet and just loves the Gospel. She's a miracle and I can't figure out why we were so blessed to find her, but we were. And we love her.<br />
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There is also Y., another 15 year old. She's highly spiritual and loves what we teach her. She hasn't been able to come to church yet, but she has a lot of potential. I feel like she has a special spirit and that God just really, really loves her. Found her on the street, and although we have a lot to go with her, she is really special.<br />
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We are teaching a plethora of other people right now, and that in itself is a miracle. Finding is hard here, but the people that we have found are such blessings. The branch is amazing, as well. My companion is an angel. Such a blessing in my life. I'm so grateful to be where I am. I wouldn't have it any other way.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gospel Doctrine Selfie</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Church in Gijon</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I love my compa!</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-48445637154939181332015-07-08T17:17:00.002-07:002015-07-08T17:18:10.815-07:00July 6th, 2015 Letter<br />
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I love giving away Books of Mormon, especially on the street. It makes me feel like people have that much more of a chance to accept the Gospel. The Book of Mormon is the most powerful tool that we have, along with the Spirit. It's really amazing to see the effects that it has in the lives of people that we teach, along with our own lives. It has been hard for me to get over my own natural shyness. I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully overcome it, but it's little by little. I've found that I'm good at making people feel comfortable, even in awkward situations. So that's been something that has helped. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how cool it actually is, what we do every day. It just becomes.. Routine, I guess you could say. But yesterday we went and visited a member named Elena. She's been a member for 32 years, the person with the most time in the church in Gijon. She was talking about how much fire she has in sharing the Gospel, and how much she loves to do it. It was really cool and it helped us remember, again, how special the work we do really is.<br />
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This week was good! Hard, as usual. Gijon is just hard. But good. We had transfers and there aren't any changes with us!! We're staying together. I'm so happy about it. My companion is so awesome, I love being with her. She's a really happy, low key person and we get along great. We had some really good moments this week. In district meeting, we talked about how we needed to have more progressing investigators as a district and the best ways to do that. We reviewed some principles in Preach my Gospel and it really helped us learn how to become better teachers. Then, we were able to apply them! We found a mom and a daughter from the Dominican Republic the other day on the street, and we went to their house to teach them. They were so awesome. We had a great lesson, and the daughter came with us to church on Sunday.<br />
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We also found a Brazilian guy named S. We taught him a few days later and even though it wasn't the best lesson we've ever taught, he wants us to come back and teach him and his nieces. He's worried that they're losing their spirituality. It's been really good. The work has, again, been hard this week. But we made some goals last night and decided that things go better when we are happy. We know we are here in this somewhat dead branch for a reason, and we decided that the best way to help is to work hard and just be happy and do the best that we can. Comparison is really really hard in the mission, because it's easy to see the strengths and outward results of other people without being able to see your own. But when we're able to forget about that and just trust in the Lord and that we are here for a reason, everything else goes a lot better. I'm excited to see how this next week goes. I'm hoping and praying that it goes well. Still figuring a lot of things out, as a person and as a missionary, but I feel like Heavenly Father is never very far away. This is His work, not mine. And He can help us do it!<br />
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Life is going good. I learn more every day and I'm so grateful for this experience and for my Heavnely Father and Savior, Jesus Christ. They mean everything to me. Continue to send pictures, if you can, throughout the week!! I love getting them!! Also, scripture challenge: this week I finally figured out Mosiah, historically speaking. I charted it all out. It was so confusing but I finally understand it!! Sooo... See if you can figure it out. It blew my mind. Love ya!!<br />
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Be good!!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-26038227469351544022015-07-04T12:49:00.001-07:002015-07-04T12:49:30.796-07:00June 29th, 2015 Letter<br />
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I'm so glad that you got to go to Navuoo. I really am, that's such a cool and special experience. It sounds like it has been a really good time. It's always fun to meet missionaries. I love it, and I am one! There's a special spirit that comes from being a representative of Jesus Christ. I bet they do love their mission, as does everyone. My companion and I were talking about it this week- really, the mission we are called to is perfect for who we are. Like, could you imagine a better mission than Madrid?! I'm in Europe, but speaking Spanish. We wake up late and go to bed late, and have a 2 hour break right in the middle of the day. There's people from everywhere, all around the world, and there is basically three different missions in one, all in Madrid, with the North, the Islands, and Madrid. We have big, mostly clean and really safe cities. We have a temple. It's such a perfect place to serve. I love it here so much. And Parker will feel the same about Lithuania. And everyone feels that same about wherever they serve. It's really cool.<br />
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We also heard about the Supreme Court decision when one of the elders in my area received an email about it from his mom this week. It was interesting to hear about. Kind of made me sad, but we all knew that's how it would end up. It will have sad effects in the future of our country, but we just have to always remember that when the last dispensation started, it was prophesied that the greatest good and the worst evils that the world has ever experiences would begin to take place. So no matter how dark it gets, there is always light to counterbalance it. We have gay marriage, but think about how many more people today have the chance to experience temple marriage, thanks to the hundreds of temples that we have and will continue to have, as well as the missionary work that is taking place in places that have never been touched by the Gospel, up until now. It's always like that. Just remember in 2 nephi when lei talks about opposition in all things. We just have to keep looking for, finding, cultivating, and being grateful for the good things in the world. There's a lot.<br />
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I went on intercambios on Tuesday with Hermana Freestone. She's being trained in the area right next to Gijon, Oviedo. She's 23 and just really awesome. I liked it a lot. We taught this guy named J. M., who is a Catholic Friar who has a lot of questions. He stopped us at a park and we met up on Tuesday. He has really good desires, and we're seeing him tomorrow, so it'll be cool to see how it goes. He's Spanish and 63 years old. I'm so interested to see if he progresses. I can see it being that he accepts everything, knows it's true, but that it's hard for him to change. But I have faith! He's really really cool.<br />
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On the way to change for intercambios, I saw this young, Spanish looking guy on the bus and I had a really strong feeling that I needed to talk to him. It was a little bit scary for me, because I've never been good at talking to young, attractive people, much less as a weirdo missionary, but I prayed to God to give me the chance to talk to him, and as we were getting off, he looked up at me and said, in English, "hi!". His name is T. and he's actually from Portugal. We got his information and we met on Saturday in the park. He's a really active member of a different church, but we explained our message and he looked like he had a ton of questions. So he asked if we could meet the next day, and we did, and he came with a list of stuff that he found on the internet about Joseph smith. So he started firing questions at us, and we answered, but finally, we just said, look, T. We can sit here and talk about my religion versus your religion all day long. But how bout we just get to know each other better? He then told us his story about he found God, and the lesson changed. We were able to get him to commit to reading the Book of Mormon and to continue to meet with us . It was really cool. We'll see how it goes. We've been having a hard time setting up second lessons with people. They're all really busy. The Peruvian family being one of them. But we'll see them this week. It's just little by little, but we're going. We feel good about what we've done and were continuing to rely on the Lord and try to do and be better every day.<br />
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Gijon is wonderful. I'll send you some pictures!! We're doing well. There's not much more to write, honestly. Just at the grind! Our new president comes this week. I'll let you know how it goes, I love you all so much. Proud of you and grateful for all that you do. The Gospel is true! I know it! Love you.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My nice new mumu!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meditating by the ocean</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-17053406863997693982015-07-04T12:41:00.002-07:002015-07-04T12:41:35.480-07:00One Year Down!! June 22, 2015 Letter<br />
I am hitting a year this week!! It's so crazy how fast the time goes, I really can't believe it. My life has changed so much in this past year, I never thought I'd be at this point, doing what I'm doing, learning what I have learned. I speak a whole different language now, I've met people from all around the world, lived in Europe, and just been a missionary for a year! It's amazing and I'm so happy to be doing it. It's hard! But it's worth it, especially for the lessons learned, people met and testimony gained. I just wanna kill it for the next 6 months and do the best I can. I know the time will just go<br />
faster and faster, but I'm happy to be here.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One Year Selfie</td></tr>
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To answer a few questions that I forgot to answer last week: I am not sister training leader anymore. There's not enough sisters in the north to really have the need for sister training leaders here. So yeah, I was released from that assignment Also, I still haven't received any letters to my piso, but I'm sure they're coming. I don't know if maybe the mail to get up to Gijon is slower or something, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Thank you for writing me,though! I love getting letters, even though I've been really bad at writing them,<br />
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This week has been really good. We decided as a companionship that we were gonna stop worrying about the number game and just focus on the work and the people. I've seen missionaries out here get absolutely consumed by the numerical results of their work, and it makes me sad because it really takes away from the spirit of everything and the reason we are doing what we are doing, which is the love of God and of His children. It's hard not to get sucked into the trap of focusing soooo much on numbers because sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that high numbers always mean that we are good missionaries. High numbers definitely aren't bad, but using them as a way to gauge success can be harmful. It's been a struggle for me on my mission not to compare myself to others and their outward results, but being here in Gijon has really given me the chance to focus on the people and just doing the best I can, because number wise, it's just a lot harder here. And this week has felt really good, as a result. We actually were able to teach a lot of new investigators, which did feel really good.<br />
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We had a first lesson with this family from Peru that we found, as well with that guy that I told you about that we stopped with our umbrellas. He is really cool and we're meeting with him again tomorrow. The family was a bit of a miracle. We walked around Gijon all day yesterday. There is no public transportation here, except for buses that take a really long time, so we just walk. All day, everyday. We had a lot of lessons fail us yesterday and we had this lesson set up with this guy that we had quickly contacted on the street. I had like, zero expectations with him because I sort of thought he was kind of weird and thought for sure he was going to fail us. But we got there and he let us in. We started talking, and then his wife walked in and we got to know her. Turns out, although he has been in Spain for 8 years, she just got here 3 months ago, and she was meeting with the elders in Peru right before she moved here. They were so awesome, and we didn't have much time to be with them, but we<br />
shared the Gracias a El video with them and invited the to read The Book of Mormon. He told us that he felt like it was destiny for us to be there. It was just such a cool experience. We're excited to see how they progress.<br />
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The branch here is still small and still pretty dramatic. A lot of people don't come to church anymore because they've been offended in the past by one thing or another, but we're working on that. I've been working a lot to have charity and love for a few of the members that have been hard for me to connect with. I was thinking about in the Bible when Jesus talks about how even evil men love people that love them, but it takes a truly Christlike man to love somebody that shows no affection towards them, or that is hard to even like.<br />
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I gave a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday about missionary work, and I talked about certain missionary experiences that I had before the mission and times that I was able to share my testimony with those around me. I talked about how we should always share what we know, and how the Lord will bless us for it, whether or not they accept what we are sharing with them. I challenged the branch to search for more missionary opportunities in their own lives. I was thinking that maybe that's something that you guys could work on, too! Soon there will be two missionaries from our house out in the field, but we can always be missionaries. So I want to extend a Seegmiller family challenge:<br />
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I want each of you to give out a Book of Mormon to somebody before I get home. This includes mom and dad, as well. I know you can all do it!! I know that if you start praying to have missionary opportunities,they will come. I know that it really strengthens our testimonies to share what we know. So... Will you do it? I think it would be a really cool thing to try and do. It might require you all to stretch a little bit out of your comfort zone, but that's what we have to do sometimes (all the time) as missionaries. I know you can do it!! Let me know what you think.<br />
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That's really cool that you're going to Navuoo and that Parker is going through the temple there. It will be a really cool experience. I love that temple a lot. And his farewell is in three weeks?? Holy cow. Time flies. I'm so excited for him!<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5125835754998322834.post-37085633548438225562015-06-15T17:46:00.002-07:002015-06-15T17:46:31.799-07:00June 15th, 2015 Letter<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This is my very first time writing a full email on my iPad! We got them this week at a zone conference and we were all pretty excited. It's pretty hard to type, actually, so forgive me if there are words spelled wrong or whatever. I'll try my best. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The zone conference was good! We had to be on a bus for 2 hours in order to get there on time. It was in Leon, which is a long ways away but still in our zone. So different from being in Madrid!! We were on the Metro for 30 minutes max in Madrid to get to any meeting that we had, and it's so different here. So anyways. I love the north. It's like, a different mission. So many different things!! It's harder, but so much more beautiful. The people are, generally, a lot stronger in their testimonies, even though there are a lot less of them. I've just come to appreciate the little things a lot more and I'm grateful to be doing this work, especially in the place that I'm doing it. I've also grown a lot in my love for the Spanish people and the Spanish culture. May sound weird, but the truth is is that up until this point, the work we've done has mainly been with South American people. There really aren't that many here, so it's really helped me grow to love and appreciate the Spanish culture.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gijon</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gijon</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Right now I am with the senior couple that serves here in Gijon , the Browns. We ate breakfast at their house and now they're driving us around in their car in the really pretty, hilly parts of Gijon. We're basically just on a little drive. It's cute. It's like having grandparents here and it's really cool. They're awesome. It's been a very LONG week. I'm so tired. Actually, I feel better today, but yesterday we were both just dragging. We had 2 trips to Leon this week, which is 4 hours total each time on a bus. One was for the zone meeting thing (1 year on the mission and I still get confused about the difference between zone conferences and zone meetings) and the other was for district conference (like stake conference but for branches) yesterday. It was really good. Our sweet mission president, President Jackson, spoke. He actually came around and gave us our final interviews this week, as well. They're leaving in about 2 weeks, so Sunday was my last time seeing them for a long time (not until I get home). He spoke about what to do to prepare for a mission, and it almost made me cry. I just had a little moment when I realized that for my whole life, I was basically preparing for and talking about and living for the fact that someday, I could be a missionary!! And now I'm actually doing it and loving it and just taking it all in. It goes by so fast, but I'm so grateful for this experience. It means the world to me, no matter how hard it can be sometimes.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leon</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This week was hard, work wise, but we're ok. It's just super, super hard to find here. You can be on the street for hours and literally not get any references. But we have been blessed to find a few really cool people. We haven't seen the Muslim lady yet, but we have an appointment with her the next Sunday. The umbrella guy we are meeting with on Tuesday. Tomorrow. And we found this new guy named G. through a menos active named M. He's from Cuba and he just moved into a room in the piso where she lives. We also had a little bit of a miracle this week with this girl named D. We had no idea that she even existed, but she just showed up with a member that we were helping with visits and told us that she had been baptized when she was 13 in Alicante. She is 19 and just super cool, and it's a miracle because we've been really really praying to have JAS here because we have literally NOBODY. She is the only JAS we have as of right now and she's just reactivating herself. She is really so cool and just wants to change her life, because she fell away for a long time. But she is awesome and willing to help us with visits, which is another miracle because we've kind of had a hard time with that (members in lessons). And I just feel like she's really become our friend. I really do like her a lot and were just grateful for her.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well, I've written a lot! Haha sorry. It's been a good week and we're both doing really great. We're just gonna keep working and praying for little miracles. Pray for the work here!! We need as much help as we can get. I love you all so much. This week I just want to remind you all of your covenants that you've made with the Lord. Covenants are the building blocks that keep our lives centered on Christ, and when we do all that we can to keep them and make them a part of our daily lives and actions, we can feel God so much more in our presence. He will always keep his end of the covenant, we just need to always remember to do all that we can to keep our end. I love you!! Have a stellar week, love ya all.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Compys!</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18382788179007161636noreply@blogger.com0