Hermana Walker: Week 21: I got pooped on by another bird

Hola hola hola!

First off: no worries, the majority of our investigators who dropped off the face of the earth have now been found. We met with Fátima, Kevin, Victoria, Lorenzo, Andrea, and MORE this week!

On Monday night, Hermana Encarnación and I decided to toque (knock doors in) a building. This is a massive building. Twelve floors, about 50 pisos per floor. Where do we start? We felt the twelfth floor sounded good. So we started toquing. First door, no one opened. Second, no one. Tenth... No one. And then, after probably 15 doors, someone opened up. "I have your book!" said this man, super excited. He ran back into his piso, grabbed the Book of Mormon and all the pamphlets, and came back to the doorway. He pulled out a note that two sister missionaries wrote him thirty-five years ago, and that he'd kept all this time. "Me and my family read the Book of Mormon together!" he told us. This man's name is Jonathan. He's from Romania, so his pamphlets and book are in Romanian, but he speaks Spanish and English well too. He gave us his number. "Visit another day when my wife and son are home!" Um... Okay!

We went back a few days later to visit Jonathan again. This time his wife, Lelica, and his son, Matee, were there. His wife speaks very little Spanish but is so so cute and so patient as he translates. Matee is eight and speaks Spanish and Romanian perfectly and is super sweet! We found out that they've met with elders (missionaries) as recently as a couple years ago. "They were my friends," Matee told us. The entire family has such a strong testimony of Jesus Christ. Lelica was a little confused about the difference between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, so Jonathan opened up his book, flipped to the picture of Moroni burying the plates, and explained it to her. He remembers EVERYTHING! The thing is, we can't find any teaching record for Jonathan or his family. We had never heard of them before. But the Lord knows that this family needs the gospel, and He helped us find them again.

We asked if we could come back and visit again. "Yes!" Lelica said. "What day?" we asked. "Every day!" Jonathan told us. Um... OKAY!

I'm not saying this family is going to join the church in two weeks. Jonathan smokes and drinks a LOT of coffee. His wife has health problems, and she might need surgery. But it was such a miracle that we found this family and we are so excited to keep teaching them and to see them progress!

In other news, this week was Halloween. No trick or treating, but a lot of kids dressed up in kind of scary-looking costumes. No princesses here, that's for sure.

We visited Andrea again this week too! She is awesome. Her apartment is still being renovated, so life is pretty crazy for her right now. We taught her part of the Plan of Salvation and she liked it. She asked questions when she didn't understand but wasn't contradicting everything we said. Then we went back the next day to help her clean some parts of her piso. She's not really in a position to learn a ton about the church for the next few weeks, just because of the craziness of the renovations, but we're going to help her clean again this week and when she finds her book of Mormon (it's packed away in one of her MANY boxes), we're going to keep moving forward in the lessons.

I needed a winter coat and found one in our piso which works great, except the first (and only) day I wore it, I got pooped on by another bird. No worries, the coat is now clean and ready to be worn again.

The tri zone conference was awesome! I wish I could remember more about it off the top of my head (my notes are in our piso right now, and we're in McDonald's). But trust me when I say it was really REALLY great. It's always fun to get to be with so many missionaries, too!

On Saturday we had correlación (in English, correlation meeting? Not sure) with the elders in our ward and Ramon. We don't have a ward mission leader (Ramón is in the bishopric) but we decided to have this meeting anyway. Basically, we just talk about what's going on in our areas and how the ward can help. It was really good and now I can say that after 15 weeks in the field, I finally know what correlación is! Our ward is so excited to get new members on the 19th. Málaga 2 is definitely winning in the ward-boundary game, because we aren't losing anyone, only gaining more people. Here's to hoping the boundary change brings a ward mission leader, and someone to lead the music in sacrament meeting.

On Sunday we had stake conference in Granada! The church had a bus to pick up members from Fuengirola, Torremolinos, and Málaga. I think it was about 2 hours to Granada. The bus ride was beautiful, and the chapel in Granada reminded me so much of a chapel in the States! The talks were really good and we got to hear from the Madrid temple president and his wife, President and Hermana Andersen, and several members from the stake.

Sunday night we went with Susana (daughter of Ramón and Norma) to eat with Lorenzo, our investigator! We had a good conversation about prayer and recognizing the Spirit. This is so important, because it's the only way that anyone will ever join this church. As missionaries, we don't quote scriptures at you until you get baptized. We teach what we believe in this church and then invite you to pray to know for yourself. The Espíritu Santo (holy ghost) can show you the truth of all things, but you need to do your part and read the scriptures and pray with real intent. If you have doubts about anything, I would encourage you to "study it out in your mind" and then ask God for an answer. He will always respond!

Fun fact of the week: Dora the Explorer exists in Spanish-speaking countries, but instead of teaching you Spanish, she teaches you English! Hermana Encarnación and I discovered that Dora the Explorer exists in each other's countries and it's kind of super cool.

Have a great week!

Love, Hermana Walker