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.