Week 11: When it rains it pours

Hola hola hola! 
We're forgetting how to speak English. Either that, or we're just focusing so much on learning Spanish grammar that we're finally realizing how terrible our English grammar is. 
On Wednesday, we taught Victor again. He's really interested in learning about what we believe, but he STILL hasn't come to church so it's hard to tell how serious he is about it. We're teaching him again this Wednesday and are really going to commit him to come this Sunday. 

Wednesday night I had my first PAELLA!! Paella is a Spanish dish of rice, saffron, chicken, and seafood cooked and served in a large shallow pan. Yes, I've been here for two and a half months. Yes, this is my first real paella (okay, technically I think we might have had paella in the CCM but it was like cafeteria paella and I think I maybe ate two bites). It had mussels on top and it was GOOD! Sometimes Lorenzo and Inma have kind of funky food, but this was a really delicious chicken paella. Definitely met my expectations!

On Thursday we went back to visit Angie again, the woman we met a few weeks ago and talked to on her doorstep. She told us last time that her husband has his "creencias" translation-beliefs but that she would call us. Almost three weeks later she still hadn't called us, so we stopped by again. She told us she talked to her husband and read a few things about Mormons that "caused some doubts." But then we gave her a book of Mormon and answered a few of her questions like who Mormon was and really just what the book of Mormon was about.

We'd already told her a little about it, but we still kind of started from the beginning again. The book of Mormon is a book we study alongside the Bible. We believe that after Christ died and was resurrected in Jerusalem, he also appeared to the people in the Americas. The Book of Mormon is a record of those people, who began with a family led by a prophet named Lehi, who left Jerusalem 600 years before Christ's birth. It's basically a record of their histories, records, and prophecies all the way up to Christ's visit to the Americas. We assured Angie that we don't worship Mormon-- the book is only named after him because he was the person who compiled all the records. We believe that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the word of God, and they support each other and confirm the veracity of each other. 

When we told her about the Book of Mormon and handed it to her, she immediately started flipping through it. We pointed out the introduction and she said she was going to read it. She also finally gave us her number! And now she has the right source to find out what we REALLY believe. She seemed really excited to get the book and start reading it and so we're really excited too!

On Friday we had our tri-zone conference. There are 9 zones in the mission (I'm pretty sure...hermana Johnson said there are three tri-zones which would mean there are 9 zones). Tri-zone was AWESOME! I had to lead everyone in saying the missionary purpose which was pretty awkward, but other than that it was really great haha. We got to hear from President and Sister Andersen, their son and daughter-in-law who are visiting, the AP's (2 elders who help Pres. Andersen), the Sister Training Leader Trainers (they're like AP's but girls), the Sister Training Leaders (there are 2 for our three zones), and the Zone Leaders (6 elders for our three zones). I saw Herman Lighten my companion from the MTC and her trainer.

They talked about things like having the faith to find people to teach and ways to build up your faith (read the scriptures, pray, count your blessings, have a vision of where the work in your area can go!). President Andersen's son and daughter-in-law talked about how the learning and growing you do on your mission affects the rest of your life which was cool to think about. And we also talked about the importance of really knowing and studying Preach my Gospel (the missionary teaching manual) and the scriptures. Overall, it was really just an AWESOME day. It was also fun to be around so many missionaries! It felt like there were a lot of us, but we're actually a little less than a third of the mission. President Andersen said we're going to take a whole-mission picture when Elder Holland comes!

On Saturday we got to go to the baptism of a woman named Stella. She was taught by the missionaries in the other ward that meets at our building. It was so neat and we could feel the Spirit so strong! And she bore her testimony afterward and told us how she wished her kids could have been there (I'm not really sure of what her background is), and how she hopes they'll join the church someday too.

On Sunday we had a little bit of a tender mercy because after sacrament meeting (which is the last hour of church for our ward), a couple who we didn't know (they live in the Elders' area) came up to us and invited us over to eat! We rode with them in their car (I hadn't been in a car since driving to the Seattle Airport in June) to their house, which was actually a townhouse--not an apartment. It felt like we were back in the states! And we ate really good food and got to look through their son's mission photos (he's in the Uruguay Montevideo West mission right now) and they told us their conversion story from 35 years ago. It was a really much-needed assurance that there ARE people who are prepared to hear the restored gospel, we just need to find them! We do have investigators, and we're still teaching them, but it just feels like no one is really progressing which has been a little frustrating lately. We'd been a little bajo in ánimo translation-slow in energy and so it was so nice to be unexpectedly invited to eat with members who are still so strong in the faith after so many years, who were introduced to the church in Spain, and who were so nice and friendly to us too! Plus it was fun to ride in a car, to be honest. The Lord was looking out for us and helped us through this couple, Nuria and Manuel. And now we're so ready and excited for this next week!

Oh, one more thing that we did with Nuria and Manuel, they were telling us about some Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert (I think it was for pioneer day) that they watched and how the choir sang the song "where you are" from Moana at this concert. Now Nuria and Manuel apparently listen to it every night because they just think it's so awesome. They then proceeded to find the recording of this concert and show us the Tabernacle Choir singing the song from Moana. It was actually really funny... I recommend that you all look it up. Just watching all the choir people singing the song in the conference center was really great. But it also sounded really good! The best part was probably Manuel though, because he's just this 50-something Spanish guy who doesn't really speak English and he was singing along with so much enthusiasm, which was really funny. They really like Moana (Vaina) at that house.
Sunday night we taught Lorenzo again. He's very old (not super old I guess, like 70) and very catholic but he's also very interested in religion. All religion! And he's so smart, so it's a little overwhelming teaching him because he just has so many questions! If he didn't speak so clearly we would be completely lost when we're teaching him. He was asking really specific, not-super-important questions like whether he'll still be able to "tomar una cerveza" in heaven. Translation-Can we have beer in heaven?  We just kind of brushed that off and told him we don't know exactly what heaven will be like haha. We're hoping we can teach him again this week and get him to come to church!

 Today it's RAINING! I haven't seen rain since that day in the CCM! I kind of missed it!! It was only sprinkling a little when we walked to Mercadona-market but when we came out, it was POURING. Fun fact about Spain, or Torremolinos at least: it really doesn't rain here, so gutters on the side of the road aren't really a thing... at all. Basically, every road we crossed on the way back to our piso, pulling our little carts behind us, was a river. A few inches of water just rushing down all the roads. There was also an excessive amount of thunder and lightning so it was an exciting walk, for sure. Hermana Johnson thought we were going to die. Everyone who was standing under covers or walking with umbrellas just saw us and shook their heads. We both have very wet shoes now. But it was still fun!!!

Since it's a rainy day we're just going to keep things low-key today and maybe go to a few stores or make more banana bread (it's kind of a problem how much banana bread we make). We ran into a couple from the UK on the street today who are members and talked to us for a few minutes! They were bummed that they came here to escape the rain... On the one day that it rained!  Tonight we're supposed to teach a lesson to an investigator I don't know very well (we've just seen her on the street a few times since I've been here). She's named Liliana and her boyfriend finally left to go back to the United States last week! Apparently she reads the Book of Mormon and the Gospel Principles Sunday School manual every day, but she works two jobs, so she can never meet with us or come to church. I'm excited to really get to meet her!
Hermana Johnson and I are just really excited for this week, to teach our investigators and to find new ones, to keep studying the scriptures and learning Spanish, to walk around in the rain some more! It's going to be a good week!

Hermana Walker

Here are some pictures of my apartment.

Also this week I made a scripture box for my Spanish scriptures. 

Week 10: Castle on a hill

Hola hola hola! 

This week went by SO fast! 

We made two batches of banana bread on Monday and took one batch to district meeting and another we cut up and took to different members. We gave some to Lorenzo and Inma and to Ramón and Norma, and we also stopped by a few more members in our area to drop it off. When we took banana bread to Arlessa, who's a recent convert, she actually let us in and we were able to have a really good conversation with her and she said to call her this week and come visit again! Neither of us knew her very well so this was super cool. We're making more banana bread today because apparently that's the way to people's hearts here in Spain. It's a good excuse to go visit the people we need to see. 

We got some new dresses so we posed together.

 Wednesday, we taught Victor again. It was another good lesson-we taught him OLA, which is orar, leer, y asistir (read, pray, attend church). He said he would try to attend, but then he didn't... So we're going to work on that. 

On Friday we went to the sister training leaders' (she's) area for INTERCAMBIOS! I went with Hermana Pickett and hermana Johnson went with Hermana McKeown for the evening, we stayed overnight in their piso, then I went with Hermana McKeown for the next morning and hermana Johnson went with Hermana Pickett. It was super fun just meeting more missionaries and getting to learn from them. We taught one lesson the first night and then went and painted an older member's living room the next morning for some service. I don't know if they don't have paint rollers in Spain or what, but we were definitely painting with paintbrushes. The member seemed to think the walls looked great but we actually thought they looked pretty bad haha. But it's her living room, so I guess if she thinks it's good then it's good! 

There were a few really good things I got out of intercambios. First: everyone kind of has the same worries and struggles, more or less. Everyone gets tired, and no one really likes talking to people on the street, at least at first. But you have to keep going when you're tired and keep talking to the people on the street and things will really work out. I feel a lot better about contacting now though! Poco a poco! 

Speaking of contacting, hermana Johnson forgot that she knows English when we were contacting yesterday. We started talking to this couple and they responded, in English, 'sorry, don't understand.' and both of us kind of just backed off, like, 'oh, they don't speak this language.'  Then a few seconds later we looked at each other and were like, 'WE SPEAK ENGLISH TOO.' but they were already gone and we were left just laughing at ourselves. So, that's fun. We also tried praying in English to start companion study and it was WEIRD. I think we're going to stick with Spanish. 

On Sunday after church the elders and Hermana Johnson and I ate lunch at the church with Obispo! He hasn't been super close with the missionaries in the past so this was a big deal. We had a really great conversation and feel like we have a lot better relationship with him now. Here is a picture of the outside of our church.

Today for p-day our district met up and went to a castle! It cost 60 cents to get in and was definitely worth it haha, it was super cool! Our district is really awesome. It was a hike to get up to the castle but the views were AWESOME. 

Then we went to Domino's together and did their pizza buffet (I don't know if it exists in the states or not), and we went through a lot of pizzas...  because we had four elders with us. Domino's in Spain is really different than Domino's in the states, but it's REALLY good.

This week was a big feria in Málaga. I've seen so many people walking around with giant flowers in their hair and wearing beautiful flamenco dresses! It's made it difficult to teach, since everyone is at the feria, but it's sure been fun to see everyone all decked out! 

This week I finished Mosiah in the book of Mormon, and when I was in Mosiah chapter 26 I read a part that was kind of funny, but also really reassuring. There was a group of unbelieving people who were causing a lot of trouble, and they were brought before Alma (who was the head of the church):

 10 Now there had not any such thing happened before in the church; therefore Alma was troubled in his spirit, and he caused that they should be brought before the king.

11 And he said unto the king: Behold, here are many whom we have brought before thee, who are accused of their brethren; yea, and they have been taken in divers iniquities. And they do not repent of their iniquities; therefore we have brought them before thee, that thou mayest judge them according to their crimes.

12 But king Mosiah said unto Alma: Behold, I judge them not; therefore I deliver them into thy hands to be judged.

13 And now the spirit of Alma was again troubled; and he went and inquired of the Lord what he should do concerning this matter, for he feared that he should do wrong in the sight of God.

14 And it came to pass that after he had poured out his whole soul to God, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying:

15 Blessed art thou, Alma, and blessed are they who were baptized in the waters of Mormon. Thou art blessed because of thy exceeding faith in the words alone of my servant Abinadi... 

19 And because thou hast inquired of me concerning the transgressor, thou art blessed.

 So basically, Alma had no idea what to do with this group of people. So he tried to get the king to take care of it, but the king didn't know what to do either. So the king sent them back to Alma, and in the end really neither of them knew what to do. And they were the leader of the church and the leader of the government! So it's okay if we don't know how to do something. If someone asks me a question, as a missionary, and I don't know the answer, it's okay. Because these amazing people didn't even know what to do or say in every situation! The important part is that rather than just giving up, we turn to a Heavenly Father and ask him for help. He'll never be annoyed that we're asking him!

This week is our tri zone conference, and on September 16th ELDER HOLLAND is coming to talk to our mission! And I lucked out because he's also talking to the stake in Málaga which means I get to hear him twice! We're really excited!!! 

Talk to you in a week! 

Love, hermana Walker 

Week 9: A bird pooped on me

Hola hola hola! 

Yesterday I hit 2 months in the mission, which is pretty weird. I've already been here in Torremolinos for almost three weeks!  I made French toast in the shape of twos to celebrate.

This week has kind of been a blur, it feels like every week I'm here goes faster and faster. On Tuesday we had district meeting and then we went to pizza hut afterwards. Pizza in Spain is WEIRD. the pizza I got was just a normal pepperoni pizza, but I had to specify that no, I didn't want those meats I had never heard of, I was fine without obscure vegetables... "sí, solamente pepperoni!" 
Hermana Johnson tells me that the "queso de cabra" pizza they have is pretty good, so I might have to try that next time. I really love district meeting though, we sing the mission song and have people assigned to share a miracle from the week, give tallers (like five minute talks--this week I'm giving one on how we can listen to the spirit), and we ask for advice with different investigators. Plus our district is just super fun. 
Tuesday night, I felt something hit my shoulder and then drip onto my arm. This isn't actually that out of the ordinary, since everyone's A/C is always dripping cold water onto the sidewalk from their balcony, but the thing that hit me was definitely warm (I'm sure you wanted to know that), so I looked up and lo and behold, a pigeon just chilling right on top of me. So I've officially been pooped on by a bird now, which is fun. I went and washed my arm, don't worry. 
On Wednesday night we ate with Lorenzo and Inma again, and as promised, we had rabbit. It was actually pretty good, just a lot of bones. Tasted like chicken. 
On Wednesday we also met with Amparo again. She said that she didn't smoke for two days last week. She's been smoking since she was twelve so she said that this was a huge miracle for her! She really wants to quit. She wanted to come to church, but this Sunday we went to pick her up and she didn't answer the door so we're not sure what happened. 
We also taught Victor again this week. I like teaching him because he's from Bolivia so he's a lot easier to understand than the Spaniards! He couldn't come to church either but we're meeting with him again on Wednesday. 
Giovanna, the menos activa, also wasn't able to come to church this week, since she had work. But when we called her to invite her to church on Saturday and she said she wouldn't be able to come, she did invite us to come visit this Tuesday so we're excited for that.
On Thursday we did a lot of cooking. I made breadsticks and hermana Johnson made this chicken bake thing for lunch, and then that night we made this banana/chocolate chip cake thing that was super good. One thing about Spain is that they don't actually have chocolate chips. So we bought chocolate bars and cut them up.  It worked great!  We also had watermelon and cut some to look like dresses (an idea from my little sister Megan and Melissa).  Here we are in our watermelon dresses.

 On Saturday we were knocking doors and someone opened their door who spoke English (like from England). Her words when she saw us were, "oh no, forget it! Go away!" This wasn't really that funny I guess, but we were dying laughing when she closed the door just because normally we don't understand people and she was just this old British lady telling us to forget it. Sorry, we're not forgetting it, English lady. 
Church yesterday was good. There was no one to play piano in sacrament meeting so I got to play... Which was a STRUGGLE. Definitely a lot of one - handed playing. It was a party. 
Sunday night we taught an investigator I hadn't met before, Lorenzo (different from Lorenzo and inma Lorenzo). He had a LOT of questions but he speaks so nice and clearly, easier to understand than anyone else I've met, and so I felt like I got 99% of what he was saying! The gift of tongues is so real. And the lesson went really well! He's really looking for the truth. 
In other news, apparently, it's weird to put things on the floor in Spain. We're sitting in McDonald's right now, emailing (obviously...) and my bag was sitting next to my feet on the floor, and a worker just took the chair out from beside me, moved it to the other side of the table where my bag was sitting on the floor, then picked up my bag from the floor and put it on the chair. So that was super random. Hermana Johnson just told me that that's a thing. Good to know. I will not be putting my bag on the floor in the future. 
There is a cool sandcastle in Torremolinos.  Hermana Johnson says it is always at the beach. It is made of sand. Apparently, It gets protected from the rain and lit up by candles at night.  There were some plastic super heros and princesses posing on the sand castle too.

The grocery store is about a ten minute walk. There are carts you use inside the store, and then you have your own pull along cart that you bring to the store and load your groceries into afterwards to pull home. There's a place to put your personal carts at the front of the store.
Normally we get milk, eggs, cereal, bread, chicken nuggets, pasta to cook with pesto, a couple chicken breasts, fruit, you know, just normal things. We also buy water because the water from our tap tastes weird. Here I am posing with my pull along cart.

Hermana Johnson also made me call someone this week. I do NOT like calling people on the phone in ENGLISH, so calling Victor in Spanish was fun. But I felt like he understood me and I understood him. That being said, I really hope I don't have to call anyone else for a LONG time.
When I've been preparing for my taller this week, I've been studying the talk by Elder Rasband from April about listening to the holy ghost. I really like how he talks about the way to get more promptings, more opportunities to serve, is by acting on the promptings you do get. And if you're not sure if it's a prompting, it might just be your own thoughts telling you to call a friend, just do it anyway. He also says how important it is to pray for opportunities to serve every day. I'm trying to do this more often and would encourage you all to try to do that too!

Here I am posing with the ocean behind. It is so beautiful here!

Talk to you in a week!

Love, hermana Walker

Week 8:Little Miracles

Hola hola hola!  
This has been a super long, super exhausting week. We're walking miles and miles in the sun every day and spending a lot of our time just knocking doors. We've also been constantly speaking only Spanish on the streets which adds a nice mental-exhaustion frosting to the cake of tiredness. 
BUT even though around 6pm on Saturday we were sure we were going to melt to death on an obscure Spanish street, WE SURVIVED!!!

Beds are awesome and so is a piso with air conditioning. Study time is so great and gives me a boost every morning and today is P Day! So I'm ready to go out at 7pm tonight (which is when P day ends) and start all over again. 

And all the hard things being said, although this week was very exhausting, it was also amazing and we had a lot of success and saw a lot of miracles. 

The first miracle has been our new investigator, Victor. He's from Colombia and is a physical therapist. We got to teach him twice this week (lessons one and two) and both lessons went really well. The first lesson, my water (bottle) broke all over his floor. But the next one passed without any problems haha. Just having someone to teach who consistently answers their phone and is willing to plan the next lesson ahead of time is a miracle in and of itself. And he's really looking to find the truth so that's super cool. We're excited to teach him again on Wednesday.

The next miracle was a woman named Angie who we found knocking doors in a part of our area where not much work had been done. She was so nice and asked a lot of questions that we were able to answer, like what makes our church different than other Christian churches and what the book of Mormon is about. We basically taught a super condensed version of the first lesson on her doorstep. When we were talking about Joseph Smith looking for the truth, she said 'like me!' She told us she had to talk to her husband because he has his beliefs, but we gave her our number and are hoping she will call us. If not, we'll go stop by her house again another day. 

The third miracle of this week has been a menos activa named Giovanna. We stopped by and gave a quick spiritual thought about a week and a half ago, and invited her to church. We tried to see her again a few times this week but she was never there, but Sunday night we went by again and were able to teach both her and her husband. The whole family is members but all inactive. The first time we met with her she said she hadn't been to church in years, but she told us she attended the other ward with her sister this past Sunday! And she was sharing all these good memories of family scripture study and family home evening she'd had as a girl and said how she wanted to be a good example for her kids. She and her husband were super nice again and committed to read and pray and her husband gave the closing prayer! So that was super awesome. 

Now I have a really random question. Can lemons and limes grow on the same tree? We saw a tree that really looked like it had lemons and limes... Not just green lemons and yellow lemons but lemons and limes. So is that possible?? (email Holly at holly.walker@myldsmail.net with your answers)

A day in the life of a missionary :

7:30 wake up, exercise
8:00  breakfast, shower, etc
9:30 daily planning
10 personal study
11 companionship study
12 teaching investigators, tracting, visiting less actives, etc 
2 medio día- lunch
3- 12 weeks (the program for missionaries in training, has activities to do and things) 
3:30 back out! 
9:15 language study
10:15 prepare for bed, shower, write in journal, etc
11:30 lights out
Of course, the schedule isn't exactly like that every day, like on Tuesdays we have district meeting in the morning, and Thursdays we have weekly planning for three hours. Mondays, we have p day from 9am to 7pm and Sundays we have church from 10-1. We spend a lot of our time walking from place to place so we have had a lot of time to get to know each other. Hermana Johnson eats whole apples. Like the whole thing even the seeds! You learn a lot about a person. 

This week I ate mushrooms and an olive at Lorenzo and Inma's. Never had either of those before and didn't like them much I have to say, but now I've had them. Next week we're having rabbit...that will be an experience. Kind of scared. 

When we were going to the further - away part of the area this week, we walked through this crazy park full of roosters and chickens and ducks and swans and turtles and it was kind of wild.

Also remember last week when I said a bat was lost in Hermana Johnsons room? We finally found it a few days ago... Dead on her floor. So, we're still not sure where it was hiding, we thought we looked pretty thoroughly, but it's now been thrown out the window with the other bats. And WE FINALLY GOT A NEW VENT and it's clean and white and perfect and so the bat problem is finally all taken care of. 

Today for p day we went to fed ex because Hermana Johnson wanted to mail a package. Except... Turns out the bus gets you about an hour’s walk away from the fed ex place. So, it's about 3pm and we're at 17,861 steps (7.68 miles). So, we're pretty tired. But the package got mailed, and now we don't have to feel bad about eating ice cream tonight! That being said, I don't think I'll be sending any packages during the mission.

This week I was reading in the new testament a bit and I found a verse that I really liked. It's John 16:33, which is Jesus talking, and says "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." I really liked this verse because I had never noticed before the part that says "in the world ye shall have tribulation." it acknowledges that YES, in this life we're all going to have troubles. In the mission, I'll have good days and not so good days. But we can have peace and be of good cheer if we turn to Christ and stay close to him. 

Love you all, have an awesome week, 
Hermana Walker