Hola vosotros! I´m sure I probably already used that one before...but vosotros is the y´all version in Spain! :) MAAAAAN What a cool week! Before I get to the good stuff this week let me just say this....this time last year I was getting ready to go back to Rexburg for the last seven weeks of summer. I was going to concerts with Sarah and hanging out with all my friends not thinking my world was about to be turned upside down. Thinking back to this time last year...if someone would´ve said, ¨Maddie....this time next year in July 2013 you´ll be in Murcia, Spain serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints speaking to people from all over the world in a different language.¨ I wouldn´t have believed it. I would´ve laughed and thought that it´s way too good to be true. In my mind this time last year I was thinking I´d be getting my papers ready since my birfday´s coming up. cough cough. But this week we finished up a bomb lesson in a park with two Muslim men from Mali (a state or province in Africa) and I sat at a bus stop afterwards and thought how absolutely amazing it is to be serving a mission right now. My heart swelled up inside of me and I felt like I was about to burst. I absolutely LOVE being a missionary right now. I LOVE serving my Heavenly Father and my Savior. I love struggling because it´s an opportunity for me to handle a problem like my Savior would, and it´s an opportunity for me to grow as a person and closer to my Father in Heaven. I love having people agree to be baptized (which we had another one this week! I´ll tell more about that later) I love seeing investigators walk in to church. I love seeing people we´ve had Family Home Evening´s with in the past who have wanted nothing to do with the church....have their heart softened and walk into the church. (which happened yesterday.) I just love everything about a mission. There is no other mission on earth as satisfying as saving human souls. Parenthood is the same thing! Parents raise and teach their children the gospel and missions are right up there with parenthood. I just had an overwhelming love for my mission this week that I can´t even exactly put into words. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ with all of my heart and soul. I strive everyday to do better because I don´t want to regret one day of my mission after it´s over. Again, I love my mission, and as everyone in their emails have said this week...yall can all tell I´m happy. And I´ve never been this happy in my life! It´s hard. Everyday is a different problem or a different struggle. But at the end of the day....I´m more like my Savior Jesus Christ. And that´s all I want out of life. If I have nothing else...I want to be like my Savior. Alright....miracles in Spain! We said goodbye to Hermana Castrillo this week and I admit it....I cried at the bus station in front of all the Elders like a baby. And as soon as she left I realized how little I know about my area, I felt like I only knew the members but not the non-members and Hermana Jarvis didn´t either. So we´re like ohhhhh snap; what do we do? So we´ve had to organize ourselves and in the last week that´s what we´ve done in our spare time. We´ve had to go through our ward list (23 pages) and mark who´s in our area, we´ve had to mark what quadrant on the map they live in, we´ve had to mark whether their menos activos or activos. I´ve never opened an area obviously....but I´m getting good practice on what it´s like. So we´ve started from scratch getting organized and getting things in order. The Lords work is a work of order. It´s getting easier and easier everyday to plan! So we´re doing better now. I forgot my planner at the piso and I didn´t make a list of things to write home so I¨m trying to remember what all happened this week... We had a zone conference here in Murcia with my zone, (Cartagena zone) and the Alicante Zone and if you check the blog you´ll see how many we had and you´ll see ME :D thespainmalagamission.blogspot.es/ I even sent a picture in to get put on the blog so I´ll wait and let yall see it on there :) But after I went on exchanges and stayed here in Murcia while my comp, Hermana Jarvis, went to Cartagena with the SHE´s. The SHE´s are what our mission calls them...but they´re the training sisters that we have in the mission. Kind of like Zone leaders for Elders. So I was with Hermana Nelson here in Murcia for 24 hours and I LOVE Hermana Nelson. We went on exchanges last transfer together too and she´s just my hero. It´s her last transfer and she goes home at the end in 2 weeks :( But we had a blast! She´s a contacter and talks to EVERYONE almost chases them down sometimes! She´s a go-getter and at the end of my mission I want to be at least the type of missionary she is. She´s such a hard worker and such a dedicated missionary! She´s just wonderful! Anyways we saw a lot of miracles! The night before when I planned our evening I thought we had a fool proof plan! We had set citas and I was positive we were going to make them all! None of them worked out. We missed our bus which put us in the pueblo we were going to a little later, but that turned out to be Heavenly Father working for us! We went to visit a reference from the Elders and some kids answered the door. Three kids, Jose Daniel, Wilson and Paula 8, 5 and 3 years old. Adorable kids! We talked to them a little bit and asked where their parents were cause that´s who the reference was. They said they were at work so somehow the subject got on to singing hymns! So we sang Soy un Hijo de Dios in the puerta! It was so sweet seeing those kids sing that song! They´d obviously never heard it before so their timing was off and so was their pitch, but it´s like looking into a baby´s eyes...you can just see how pure they are and how much potential they could have one day. It was really special. As we left and were waiting across the street for the bus. They came out on their balcony and yelled, ¨Hermana Nelson! Hermana Moose! ADIOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hasta mañana!!!!¨ It was so precious! Yes...people call me Hermana Moose now. haha! Even some members do cause it´s too hard to say Muse. Their mouths just don´t move that way. Kinda like our tongues just don´t roll when there´s a double R in a word. But it was precious! We even took a picture. So the picture of the kids looking down from a balcony in their underwear...that´s those kids. :) hehehe umm...another miracle we saw that evening was once we got to the pueblo, La Raya, we went to our ¨set cita¨. Nobody was home! So Hermana Nelson went to talk to a lady sitting outside of her building in a chair just enjoying the cooler evening temperatures. She didn´t want anything to do with us but she said, ¨podeís toque mis vecinos, pero el uníco persons aqui son el tercer piso.¨ (You can toque my neighbors but the only ones here are on the third floor.) darn vacation! Everyone and their dogs go to the beach for a few weeks during the summer. So we went up to the third floor and the first door...nothin. But the second one...a guy about 5´6 opens the door wearing nothing but green underwear. Not boxers...but underwear. You can tell he´s kind of a gym junkie but I was like, ¨holy fetch. eye contact eye contact eye contact!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¨ Trust me. That kind of thing isn´t hard to ¨resist¨ it was just super awkward talking to a man in his undies about Jesus Christ as SISTER MISSIONARIES. oh geez. Anywho, we gave him lesson 0 introduced the BoM and a little bit of the Restoration. Sometimes it was difficult for me to explain what I wanted to so he said, ¨just speak English...it´s okay.¨ haha so I had to speak slow English for what I had difficulties explaining. Anyway long story short we set up another cita with him! His name is Roman. We set it up for last night then we realized we couldn´t go to his piso cause I´m pretty sure he lived alone or with another man. So we set it up to come to the church. Well...he didn´t show up. WHAT A BUM! I was so excited to meet him again! He took the BoM and said he´d only read a little bit then talk with us again. Oh well....planting seeds I suppose. The next day we were in La Raya again meeting with a reference investigator, Isabel. We taught her a few times last week and things were really great! She´s from Bolivia and when we met with her this time we asked if she´d been reading and praying. She said that she HAD and that she could feel and see the difference in her life already! After talking more about it she said she knew that the Book of Mormon was true and was the word of God! The situation wasn´t super heavy or anything, so jokingly I kinda put my hands in the air and sang ¨ahhhh!¨ haha it sounds kind of inappropriate but it wasn´t. Trust me. But yeah, it was incredible! We had an awesome lesson with her teaching her about the Restoration then invited her to be baptized! She said YES OF COURSE! So her fecha is for the 27 of July! It´s after the transfer and i don´t know if I´ll be here, but it´s still exciting!! :D Yay for miracles!!!!! :D Doris and her family I feel like are in a little bit of a rut. Something just felt off last time we were there and they didn´t come to church. We´re visiting with them tonight so we´ll see what comes out of it...but the work is going a lot better this week, and I´m SO grateful! :) I´mma end it here...But I just wanted to let yall know that I love my mission...again. :) I know this is the true gospel and the ONLY church in the earth that has the keys to unlock the powers of Heaven. Missions are such a sacred and wonderful opportunity. To all those boys in Longview 2 getting ready to go....Just wait! Oh man. Jordan and Andy...Yall are going to love it! Jordan sincé you´re coming to Spain you´ll have different struggles than Andy or Steven but all of yall remember that it´s worth it. Just get through your first transfer :) I love you all so much! have a fabulous week! :) Hermana MOOSE :)
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 11:03:39 +0000
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