Week 18: transfer calls!

Hola hola hola!  

I know these emails are always super long, so in case you just want to know where I'm going  I wrote TRANSFER CALLS!!!  in all caps right before I say where I'm going haha. 

Tuesday was district meeting. It was elder Stratford's birthday! Hermana Johnson and I made a cake that her mom sent her from AMERICA and 63 of those peanut butter cookies from last week... We didn't realize 2 batches would make that many! Elder Stratford's comp, Elder Neubert, brought... nothing. The Nerja elders, Elder Lentz and Elder Gentry, brought a pineapple and matches. It was a party. 

One of our goals this week was to give out a Book of Mormon every day. It's normally pretty hard to give these out, because you want to make sure that the person you're giving it to has at least a LITTLE interest, and most people don't want to take a book and have to carry it around with them. We had to run into our piso for 2 minutes on Tuesday night, and then we had 20 minutes left before we had to come back for the night. And we still hadn't given out a Book of Mormon!  So we said a prayer and booked it out of our piso. We crossed one street, stopped the first girl we saw on the corner, and ended up talking to her for 20 minutes! She's evangélica and said her biggest problem with our religion is the idea that we need more than the Bible (this is a common concern, but the reality is that the Book of Mormon isn't devaluing the Bible in any way, it's just God wanting to give us more guidance and more of His word! So who wouldn't want that?). BUT she said she would read the Book of Mormon to find out for herself, and when we called her a few days later she said she'd been reading! She's only 17 so she's busy with work and school, but we're going to try to find a time to meet with her soon. MILAGROS! 

I have nothing to say from Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday... But I'm sure they were good, or at least not BAD, because if they were super awful I would probably remember them. 

Saturday night we got the chance to go to a baptism of the elders in the other ward! 
It was a couple from Argentina who are friends with two members in that ward. They were the cutest couple and so prepared for the gospel! Finding people to teach through members is the absolute best way to find people to teach, 100%. If you have a friend who's interested, invite them to meet with the missionaries to find out a little bit more about what we believe!

All week we'd been counting down the days to Sunday morning, when transfer calls come. It finally came, and thank goodness, the zone leaders called us at like 7:35am (we wake up at 7:30) because if they had waited five more minutes I might have died. 

TRANSFER CALLS!!! 
Hermana Johnson is heading to Almería, which is a few hours away but still in our stake so I'll see her a couple times next transfer. 

My companion is going to be Hermana Encarnación! Our zone leaders didn't know anything about her and Hermana Johnson had never heard of her, so I was a little nervous for a while there. But we talked to a few missionaries at church and on Sunday night and now I know a few things about her!

1. She's a native Spanish speaker, and from the Dominican Republic
2. She does speak some English (someone said she speaks as much English as I do Spanish) 
3. She has an afro
4. She came into the mission 2 transfers (12 weeks) before Hermana Johnson 
5. She's been home for a while (not sure how long) for medical reasons BUT she's back now! This will be her first transfer back. 
6. She's super funny and sassy

That's literally all I know haha. I'll find out more when she gets here! It will be weird being with someone other than Hermana Johnson, because she's all I've ever known. I'm also still confused about where we are about 25% of the time, so we'll be using maps a lot for a while. But Hermana Encarnación seems great, and I'm excited to meet her on Wednesday! 

On Sunday night we got to watch a broadcast from Germany! Elder Ballard from the quorum of the 12 apostles gave a special talk to all the members in Europe. It was super good. He talked about how there are miracles that God can make happen, but we have to have faith or they won't happen! Faith has been a theme I've noticed in the Book of Mormon this time reading it. If we don't have faith, we won't see blessings, we can't be strengthened, we can't experience miracles. But if we DO, we can see God's hand in our life in amazing ways! So keep up the faith! 

Love,

Hermana Walker 

There was a big combined youth activity with all 4 Málaga wards and the fuengirola ward a few weeks ago. It was with all the missionaries from those five wards and was about getting them excited to go on missions. We just got two pictures from it, so I just shared those with you. Don't be confused by how many people have name tags, because we gave everyone fake paper name tags... 

Victoria, Fátima's daughter. She is the sassiest six year old you will ever meet. 

Chicken with mashed potatoes and Ikea gravy. Happy day. 

This big fountain in torremolinos centro was filled with bubbles- someone poured soap in it. Hermana Johnson had never heard of doing this so she thought it was hilarious.

A book stand on the street in Málaga where all the books are blue... If you look very closely, you can find the truest blue book there is!