Hola hola hola!
This week has possibly been the longest week of my
mission--not in a bad way, just in a wow-last-Monday-feels-like-ten-years-ago
kind of way.
On Tuesday we had a great lesson with Amparo. As we were
teaching her, she was telling us that she could feel the Spirit testifying to
her. She's still trying to stop smoking, which has been really hard. But she's
doing great, and the next step is to figure out a way to get her to church!
On Wednesday we woke up to a massive thunderstorm! Hermana
Johnson and I agreed that it felt like a hurricane (then again, neither of us
has ever actually been in a hurricane, so I don't think we're qualified to say
that). The windows were shaking like crazy and later that day, we heard that
there had been more than 110 lightnings! (Pretty sure that's not how to say
that...110 bolts of lighting?) We woke up at 7:30 like usual and Hermana
Johnson started trying to finish packing, and then about 20 minutes in... the
lights went out. It doesn't get light until 8:30 or 9, so basically our piso
was pitch-dark. Hermana Johnson was convinced that this was her punishment for
putting off packing for the last minute haha. Luckily my lovely mom made me
bring a little lantern on the mission, so she finished her packing via lantern,
and the occasional super bright lightning flash that would light up the entire
piso. Hermana Johnson took a video of the storm that shows one really big lightning
strike, I'll try to attach it. You could say that mother nature wanted Hermana
Johnson to go out with a bang! Right as the sun finally started to light up the
piso...the power came back on. Anyway, Hermana Johnson finally finished
packing, and then we pulled her suitcases to the bus stop near our piso. Three
buses were completely full and passed us by... so we decided to go to the train
stop and take the train, about a half hour away. We probably looked pretty
weird, two Mormon missionaries lugging three suitcases through Torremolinos
centro. But we made it to the train stop, got her suitcases down the stairs,
got them down ANOTHER set of stairs that goes under the train tracks, UP a set
of stairs to get to the platform on the other side, and onto the train. It was
probably a 2-hour process to get from our piso to the big train station in
Málaga, but we finally got there! President and Hermana Andersen had picked up
Hermana Encarnación from the airport and had all her suitcases in their car, so
I hugged Hermana Johnson goodbye and then President and Hermana Andersen drove
Hermana Encarnación and I to our piso in Torremolinos. Needless to say, the
trip from Málaga to Torremolinos was a lot faster than Torremolinos to
Málaga!
Hermana Encarnación is great. She speaks probably as much
English as I do Spanish, so between the two of us we normally can figure out
what each other is trying to say haha. She's from the Dominican Republic but
has lived in Barcelona for three years. And she's going to be a chef, so basically,
we're going to eat pretty well this transfer. We haven't even been together an
entire week yet, but I've already learned a few things from her:
1. I do not know how to cook.
2. I am not as tidy as I thought I was... I used to think I
was a pretty clean person, but she came in and reorganized all the kitchen
cupboards, mopped all the floors, and started taking apart things that I didn't
know could be taken apart (like the vent/hood thing over the stove), cleaning
them, and putting them back together! She's like the fairy godmother of
cleaning... she makes cleaning supplies that I didn't even know we had appear
out of thin air, then uses them to make the piso sparkling clean! I try to
help, but I'm not quite at her level yet (I cleaned the bathroom this morning,
but then she came in and re-cleaned it, and now things I didn't even know were
dirty are clean!)
3. My Spanish has a loooong way to go haha
4. The word for sticker in Spanish is pegatina!
It's definitely been weird being with someone other than
Hermana Johnson, but Hermana Encarnación is really great and I'm sure we'll get
closer as the weeks go on!
On Thursday we ate mediodia (the noon meal) with Norma and
Ramón, then visited Giovanna again! Except funny story... her name isn't
Giovanna. It's Yovanna. If you say Giovanna and Yovanna out loud, they kind of
sound the same... but we've definitely been writing Giovanna and calling her
Giovanna and everything for the past three months, and just realized like a
week ago that her name is Yovanna. So THAT'S awkward. She probably realized we
were calling her the wrong name, but didn't say anything because she's so
sweet. No worries, we're now calling YOVANNA by her actual name!
On Friday we visited an old investigator named Angeles.
We've knocked on her door a few times but she never opened up--but this time, she
did! We talked with her for a long time. She has a lot of problems, and she
really needs this gospel--and she invited us back to visit her again! Yay! Then
we went over to Hermana Blanca and read 1 Nephi 17 with her, and THEN visited a
woman named Maria. We were about halfway through the video (which is only like
2 minutes long) when this huge mouse ran across the floor and behind a
bookshelf! Hermana Encarnación and I kind of looked at each other, but Maria
didn't seem to notice it. Then it ran across the room again a few minutes
later! This time Maria noticed it, but didn't seem fazed, so we're not sure if
it was her pet or what. Kind of weird haha. Friday night we visited Fátima
again!
Saturday was pretty much a day of trying to find people and
finding no one. So it was a REALLY long day. Sometimes hours fly by, and
sometimes five minutes take ten years to pass. Saturday was more like the
second. But on Sunday after church, we got a phone call from our investigator
Lorenzo who we've been trying to call for weeks but never answers his phone! He
told us he wanted to meet later that day, which was super awesome and almost
never happens! We met with him and had a really good lesson.
I've been reading in the book of Ether in the Book of
Mormon, and Ether 6:4-12 talks about the Jaredites' journey across the ocean.
They submitted themselves to the will of the Lord and trusted Him to guide
them, but that didn't mean they had a really quick, easy journey. They were
"buried in the depths of the sea" a few times, which probably wasn't
fun at all, and the journey took 344 DAYS! But the Lord protected them and
always brought them back up to the surface, and when they finally did get to
the Americas, the first thing they did was express gratitude for the Lord's
help.
"And they did land upon the shore of the promised land.
And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they
bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves
before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the
multitude of his tender mercies over them."
I picture the Jaredites, setting their feet on the beach for
the first time in almost a year, and immediately bowing themselves down to
express gratitude. They didn't complain that it had taken so long, or that it
had been so bumpy. They just gave thanks. I've been working on remembering to
be patient on days like Saturday when pretty much everyone fails us and no one
wants to talk to us, and trying to be more grateful when miracles do come, like
Lorenzo's phone call. Because if the Jaredites can spend 344 days in a boat and
still be grateful, I can definitely be grateful when something good happens
after a long day or week. Just be patient and be grateful and trust in Heavenly
Father, and everything will work out!
Love, Hermana Walker
Here are some pictures of Hermana Johnson's farewell dinner with Ramon and Norma.
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