Week 13: No one died except maybe the lizard

Hola hola hola!

We started off this week by meeting with Vlad again on Monday night. We haven't moved on to lesson 2 with him yet, because he really doesn't have interest--yet! But we met with him again and his little six-year-old daughter who only speaks Russian and is the cutest girl EVER was there. She was missing a few teeth and had these long, blonde braids, and she speaks a tiny bit of Spanish but can say things like "yo hablo ruso" and that's about it. But afterwards she gave us a big hug, which was probably one of the highlights of the week. We miss little kids!

One thing we were talking about with Vlad was the value that we place on things, and how we really need to value the little things more. Like, eating dinner with my family after the mission will probably seem like the coolest thing ever that first night. But I ate dinner with my family every night for the first 18.5 years of my life and never felt like it was anything special! We should try to enjoy everything we do as if we hadn't done it for the past year and half, and we'll be a lot more grateful.

On Tuesday we had district meeting minus Elder Ramirez, who was in trainer's training. So of course, we took pictures with him. Creepy? A little. Fun? Very.

On Wednesday, we met with Victor again! We also met with him on Friday. He's always more than happy to meet with us and listen to us, but he STILL hasn't come to church! I was reading in Ether 12 and it talks a lot about faith in that chapter. I really liked verses 6 and then 12-18 because they talk about how we don't receive a witness and we don't see miracles come until AFTER our faith.

6. Faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

12. For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.
13. Behold, it was the faith of Alma and Amulek that caused the prison to tumble to the earth.
14. Behold, it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi that wrought the change upon the Lamanites, that they were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost.
15. Behold, it was the faith of Ammon and his brethren which wrought so great a miracle among the Lamanites.
16. Yea, and even all they who wrought miracles wrought them by faith, even those who were before Christ, and also those who were after.
17. And it was by faith that the three disciples obtained a promise that they should not taste of death, and they obtained not the promise until after their faith.
18. And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God.

I love these verses because the point they make is so true--we have to have faith before we can see miracles and before we can receive our own personal witness of things. This is what we're trying to get Victor to understand. To know that the Word of Wisdom is given by God, you need to live it. To know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, you need to listen to what he says. To gain a testimony of the importance of going to church, you need to go to church! To gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, you need to read it! 

Also on Wednesday, we were knocking doors in an apartment building and one English lady opened the door. We got two words out, and then she said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I don't believe in Jesus. Sorry!" and closed the door. She was super nice and English, but it was kind of a surprise to remember that there are still people who don't believe in Jesus Christ--we're kind of in the land of the Catholics, so everyone at least has that foundation. It was a little funny just because of how cute she was when she said it, but also sad to think about.
This week we've been going through the list of future investigators that we have in the area book app--the list of people who've given us their name and number or address and expressed that they might have interest. This has been a PROJECT, because I'd say there are more than 100 people in there. But we've been making our way slowly down the list, calling them and deleting people who don't have information (a few just have a name and that's it, so not very helpful). One of the people who we've been trying to get in contact with is a woman named Andrea! On Thursday morning we finally met with her, and she is AWESOME. She has these two little kids and is from Hungary, but she speaks perfect Spanish. We taught her lesson 1, the restoration, and gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read it and pray about it. She was asking questions during the lesson but they were good questions that were relevant and that she really wanted to know the answers to and she is just so perfect! The only issue is that she's going to be in Hungary with her family for a wedding until the 25th. But we are going to call her on the 26th and visit her again!

On Friday, we called someone on our list named Paco. And by we called him, I mean that I called him, because I think Hermana Johnson hates me and wants me to die death by phone calls (just kidding...kind of). ANYWAY, I called him and he was really chatty, apparently he's this old man who sells cars. We ended up talking for, like, 12 minutes, which is REALLY long when you don't really know Spanish, and then I invited him to come to church and he said something along the lines of "Well, I'm single, so would I be able to find a wife there?" I really didn't know what to say, so I said something about how I was still pretty new in the area and didn't know, but that it was worth a shot and that he should come to church anyway. I ended the call pretty soon after that... Turns out he lives in the Elders' area, so we passed his number on to them. He wasn't at church on Sunday (I think... I don't really know what he looks like), but who knows, maybe Paco will show up in a few weeks looking for a wife!
On Friday night, we taught Giovanna and her husband! She came to church last Sunday and she came to church this Sunday too. Her husband has work a lot of Sundays, but he's going to try to come when he's not working. We watched the video "Elder Holland testimony of the book of Mormon" (or something like that... it's super good and you should all go watch it) and then challenged Giovanna and her husband (whose name I CANNOT remember) to read the Book of Mormon every night together as a family (they have 2 teenage kids). When Giovanna came to church yesterday she was so excited to tell us that they had read together as a family on Saturday night! Giovanna's sister is a really active member in the other Málaga ward so Giovanna always meets up with her after church. Yesterday we got to meet her too, and she is AWESOME.
On Saturday morning, we found a little lizard in our piso. Actually, it was on my bed, wearing my pajamas (aka it was in the sleeve of my pajamas). We tried to catch it, but it ran away and then we just kind of gave up. Funny how things that would really bother you not on the mission, like having a lizard loose in your apartment, just don't really seem that important! But no worries, because this morning when I was cleaning the bathroom I found him and caught him. Part of his tail fell off, which was pretty gross because it was still squirming around when it wasn't attached to him. I'd heard that that happens, but I hadn't really believed it... now I do. We threw him out the window, and hopefully he landed in a bush or something, because we're on the fifth floor.

On Saturday we had a cita with another person who we found when we were going through the area book, a woman named Fátima. We had her address, but her street wasn't on the map so we got the general area of where she lived and then were just wandering around trying to find her street when we ran into AMPARO! Here's the story with her: she mysteriously moved to Córdoba a few weeks ago, she kind of explained to us why she was going but not really, and we never heard from her again. We thought she was lost forever! And then, we were in the perfect place at the perfect time to run into her on the sidewalk! We FINALLY got her phone number, and we're going to visit her this week! It was a miracle!

The cita with Fátima went really well, too. She was being taught by missionaries about a year ago, but they stopped teaching her because they couldn't get in contact with her. But we taught her and she was SUPER friendly and receptive and said she's already reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and we're going to try to meet with her again this week too! 

Another miracle of Saturday... there's this old lady named Hermana Blanca who Hermana Johnson used to visit a lot before I got here, but we'd only seen her once since I've been here, almost a month and a half ago. She can't walk very far but she was never in her piso and we could never find her at her normal restaurant and she has about 8 cell phones and none of them work (apparently) so we couldn't call her. We were really, actually, truly convinced that she was dead. But good news: she's alive! We just happened to run into her sitting at a table outside a restaurant across the street from her building! And we got her new phone number, so we're going to try to visit her this week too.

However, we're not sure how many people we'll be able to visit this week, since this week is going to be CRAZY. Tuesday and Wednesday will be pretty normal, but Thursday and Friday we're going on intercambios in Málaga, and then on Saturday morning we get to attend the all-mission conference with ELDER HOLLAND!! We're SO excited! And then because we're in the Granada Stake, we get to hear him AGAIN on Saturday night when he speaks to the members of our stake. 5 days... not that we're counting or anything.

There's some big festival that's going to happen in a week or two here in Torremolinos, and they've already started decking out all the streets with lights and things. Something about San Miguel? We're excited to see what that's like.

I can't think of anything else to say, except that I read the talk "Notwithstanding my Weakness" by elder Neal A. Maxwell this week and it's really awesome so you should all go read it.

Our district taking photos with elder Ramírez.... He doesn't know we took this haha

City : we were trying to get in contact with a few people in a building and we got out of the elevator and view was really pretty. 

Talk to you next week!

Love, Hermana Walker