Week 28: Feliz Navidad

Hola hola hola!!! 

Okay first of all, disclaimer, if you emailed me this week, there's a good chance I won't respond since it's CHRISTMAS and we've got things to do and places to be! But I read your email and I loved it and responded via positive emotions sent to wherever you are.

On that note...

Feliz Navidad!!! This has been a super fun, crazy, busy pre-Christmas week! On Monday night, we went to the Fry family's house for a Christmas caroling Family Home Evening activity! There were several families there from the ward and we went around and caroled to some of the Fry's neighbors. Then afterwards, we all went back to the Fry's house to eat and sing songs and things. It was fun getting to know their Spanish neighbors and show them that missionaries aren't scary! 

On Tuesday we taught Andrés in the morning, did our studies, then went to eat at the house of a family from the American branch. It was so fun! We ate such American food (chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad, with ice cream for dessert) and we understood perfectly the conversation at dinner. It's the little things, haha. We also had brought a spiritual thought, but it was super awkward, because we're used to teaching in Spanish so we just didn't really know what to say. We'll have to work on that. After dinner, Sister Fuhrner drove us to the train station and we got on a train to SEVILLA! We got to the Sevilla train station with a few other hermanas and then all were in one of the hermanas' pisos in Sevilla for a while while we waited for some other hermanas to get out of a meeting. We played mafia and then went with Hermana Encarnación and her companion, hermana Tanner, to the piso of the sister training leaders in Sevilla to sleep. It was fun to see Hermana Encarnación again!

On Wednesday we woke up, got ready, and went to the bus stop to take the bus to the church in Sevilla. It was funny though, there were like 8 or 10 elders already at the bus stop waiting so when the bus came, we kind of took over the bus. The Sevilla church is BEAUTIFUL. It was so fun to see missionaries from my old district in Málaga who came to the conference--half the mission was there. We started with a talent show, which had skits and musical numbers and things. The best act was probably one where they sat the missionaries from other countries (like Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Germany) in a line on the stage. The American missionary at one end said a word in english, then the microphone got passed down the line and each missionary said the word in their native language--it ended in German, which was always really funny. Hermana Bockova told us afterwards that a lot of the words they were saying don't actually exist in Czech, so she was just saying random Czech words when it was her turn since no one else spoke Czech haha.

After the talent show we went to carol at Carrefour, then came back to eat and have zone meeting. Then President and Hermana Andersen spoke to us---they focused on developing charity and making Jesus Christ the center of every message we share. We all got a present from President and Hermana Andersen--a cool book of all the folletos bound together, a temple reccomend holder with the name of the mission on it, and a FACE SHEET with all the missionaries' pictures and names on it. I've been waiting for this face sheet since I first saw Hermana Johnson's back at the end of August, so I was a little excited to finally get one, to say the least. And then we had to BOOK IT, because it was already 5:20 and there were 12 of us who had a train that was going to leave at 5:45! We fit a few too many people into the mission van and made it to the station right as our train was pulling up.

We went to bed on Wednesday night completely exhausted, woke up on Thursday to do weekly planning, then got on ANOTHER train to Jerez for intercambios! I was super excited for these intercambios because one of the sister training leaders in Jerez is the one and only HERMANA JOHNSON! On Thursday night I was with Hermana Villegas. It was actually weirdly normal speaking Spanish with her all night, and we spent a long time following up on future investigators and things. On Friday morning we ate pancakes with buttermilk syrup which were glorious, then me and Hermana Johnson went and knocked doors on a (long) street. We found a few people who said they would like missionaries to come back in the future, so that was good. Plus of course it was just awesome to be with Hermana Johnson again for a few hours!

On Friday night we went and did... something, I don't remember. Same with Saturday. But I'm sure it was good! We did get to talk with Isabel, our investigator who's husband now has a new kidney. He's still recovering, but they're doing okay and she is hoping to be able to come to church next week.

On Sunday the American branch and the Spanish ward both only had sacrament meeting (the first hour of church). The American branch program was complete with two harps, so it was pretty fancy. The Spanish ward was good too. We had taught the primary kids the song "La Nochebuena" and they actually sounded pretty good! Also, the president of the branch and his wife gave us a big thing of American food (cereal, peanut butter...) which was amazing. We don't need fresh-baked cookies, we just want peanut butter! After church we did our studies and then the Fry's picked us up to take us to their house for Christmas eve! They invited us four Hermanas from the ward and were so nice and invited the elders in our district too, since they don't have a lot of members in their branch and didn't have anywhere to go for Christmas eve. We were there with Brother and Sister Fry, their son (who was visiting from school), and the six of us. We sang Christmas songs and read the Christmas story in the Bible, then ate some AMAZING cinnamon rolls. The Frys were also cute and got us American food--pop tarts, flavor blasted goldfish, more cereal... basically, the best Christmas presents ever. Then we played Jenga with this giant set of Jenga that the Frys got at Costco. And of course, enjoyed their soft carpet!

This morning we woke up, opened things from family and friends, and now we're at the church with our district to Skype and email (claro) and play monopoly. Tonight we're all going to the house of another family from the American branch, so I'm sure it will be a good night! Then back to the "normal" missionary life tomorrow--it will be a normal week, but nice to be back in our area. The transfer is going so fast. I love Puerto, I love Hermana Matsu, and most of all I love and am so grateful for the gift of our Savior Jesus Christ!

Merry Christmas!!

Love, Hermana Walker

Week 27: 1 week until Christmas

Hola hola hola! 

On Monday night we got to meet with Manuel B, the recent convert, again! He is pretty old and still giving us weird old people foods. Sometimes it's good, most times it's not. We also met with a family that's less active in the church on Monday night. We had a really good lesson with them about the true meaning of Christmas and what gifts they could give to Jesus this year, like improving on one thing in their life - - being a little more patient, or reading the scriptures, or (hint hint) coming to church. 

On Friday or Saturday of last week (like the 9th), our butano  ran out - - so we didn't have hot water. But good news, the butano guy came on Tuesday and we now have hot water. Woohoo! 

We also had district meeting on Tuesday, which is always super great. We ate candy canes (courtesy of the Americans) and cola cao (the spanish version of hot chocolate) afterwards. Hermana Bockova had never had a candy cane before. She didn't understand why they're red since minty  things are normally green. She has a point. But the candy cane still got her approval.

On Wednesday, I hit six months in the mission, which is super bizarre. I was hitting two months, like, two minutes ago. But it's fine. 

On Wednesday we also met with Andrés again! But it was a really quick cita, because we had to catch the bus to go to Rota again. We met a really nice man named Gabriel in Rota. He had gotten our card previously and tried to find the street it says our church is on--but he didn't realize that the church was in Puerto, not Rota! And then he was kind of bummed, since it's far. But we're hoping he'll be able to come! We'll try to visit him again next week. 

We also went to visit this woman in Rota who had met with missionaries before, but a long time ago. She was super friendly and gave us besos and then as soon as we sat down on her couch she started coughing up a storm. "oh yeah, I have bronchitis." What?!?! That was the fastest lesson ever, and when we left we doused our hands in hand sanitizer (shoutout to Hermana Matsu, always prepared). But today I woke up with a cold, so here's to hoping it's not bronchitis. 

Wednesday night we came back to Puerto and met with a family in our ward. They have a 19-year old daughter and 11-year-old son who both got baptized in January. Neither of us had ever visited them, and it went really well. They're from Bolivia and gave us some drink that kind of felt like I was drinking hot jam, but then turns out it's actually made from some crazy purple corn (??). It was good. I just don't know how I feel about purple corn existing. 

On Thursday we went to help set up for the Spanish ward Christmas dinner. Tables, tablecloths, all that fun stuff. Then the 3 JAS (jóvenes adultos solteros, young single adults) in the ward were in charge of setting up a cute wall to take photos in front of. I love Spain and I love Spaniards, but sometimes it seems like the people here just do not know how to decorate, at all. The wall was literally the ugliest thing we had ever seen. But at the dinner people didn't seem to have a problem taking pictures in front of it, so maybe me and hermana Matsu are just picky haha. 

Marisa, the woman we had the lesson with last week, has dropped off the face of the earth. We wanted to invite her to the dinner, but we couldn't find her!

On Friday we were walking on the street, like we do, when de repente it started to POUR. We started booking it to get to our next plan, but then after like 2 minutes the rain de repente stopped. So we really should have just gone under cover to wait it out. Hermana Matsu got soaked. I didn't though, because I was wearing my coat! I love my coat. 

On Friday was also the dinner. It went really well! We had three investigators there and so did the other hermanas! The mayor came and spoke. Not sure exactly what he spoke about, but he was coincidentally wearing the same outfit as bishop so that was funny. After we ate, people started dancing. Somehow every Spanish church activity ends up in dancing. 

On Saturday we had to go to San Fernando for a final choir practice. It went well and everything, but it didn't leave us much time to work that morning which is always a little frustrating. On Saturday night was the American branch Christmas party. They had marshmallows! Those don't exist here. Very exciting. 

Sunday was normal--the American branch, then the Spanish ward. The teacher for 2nd hour wasn't there but the other hermanas had two investigators at church, so hermana Matsu and I kind of made up a lesson about Christmas. But it actually turned out pretty cool. We talked about the Christmas story in Luke 2, and then what happened in the America's (in the book of Mormon) when Christ was born. They didn't see the birth, BUT they did see some super cool signs that let them know that Christ had been born on the other side of the world! It's another example of how the Book of Mormon and the Bible work together, both with different parts of the story which work together to share the same message.

Sunday night was the long-awaited Christmas concert! The program was so funny because Hermana Matsu's name was there for like 2/3 of the acts. Basically, she was carrying the show. But she did awesome! I also did very well at turning pages. There is also one chord at the end of joy to the world that she couldn't reach, so it was my job to play the D at the end of that song. I really put a lot of emotion into that note--you know, a half-cup of joy (claro), a dash of heartbreak (every song needs a little), and a whole lot of Christmas spirit. It was pretty much awesome. 

At the end of the concert everyone sang Feliz Navidad. I hadn't realized that was a real song that Spanish speakers actually sang haha. 

I think that's it for this week... 

Entonces, 

Hasta luego! 

Love, Hermana Walker

Week 26: A lot of American Food

Hola hola hola!

I know I'm a missionary, so the highlight of my week is supposed to be something super deep and spiritual, BUT one of the highlights of the week was definitely district meeting on Tuesday. In our district there are 2 elders and 4 hermanas. One of the elders just started his training this transfer, and hermana Pinkney just started her training this transfer too, so we have some pretty young missionaries in our district. There is also a senior missionary couple (people can go on a mission with their husband/wife once their kids are grown up) who serve on the military base. It sounds like they don't normally come to district meeting, but we invited them since 4 of the 6 missionaries in the district are new this transfer, and the invitation was the best decision ever because they brought us FOOD! But not just any food, AMERICAN FOOD! Like, some salad thing, and scones, and chili, and brownies. Happiest day ever. 

One of our investigators is named Isabel. She's older and has come to church several times, but her husband had kidney problems and needed a kidney replacement. We're PRETTY sure that if he gets better, she wants to join the church--at least, that's the word that's been passed down the missionary line, so you can never be sure how accurate it is. ANYWAY, we decided to pray that her husband would have a healthy kidney. Then we were visiting them a few days later, and the phone rang WHILE WE WERE THERE saying that they had a kidney ready for her husband and he needed to go to the hospital ASAP. He was only waiting on the kidney list (is that what it's called?) for a few weeks! Last we've heard, he's at home recovering from his surgery. So we're excited to see how things go for Isabel.

At the beginning of this week, we knocked on the door of someone who just had a pin in our map, named Marisa--it didn't have any date, or anything about her, just her name (probably the missionaries knocked on her door and she told them to come back another day and gave them her name). When we knocked on her door, it was pretty late--like 8:30 or 9--but not TOO late, especially for Spain. She opened the door and told us it was too late and to come back another day. A lot of the time people say things like that, and it kind of means they're not interested. Well the next day we were walking down the street and said hi to her (without recognizing her), and then she stopped us and was like, "you were at my house yesterday!" She really WAS interested in having us come over, and we set a cita for the next day. She's really nice and the cita went well. We gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she'll read it! So hopefully we can meet with her again this week too.

This week we have been contacting EVERYONE. There aren't many people on the streets here. So we're stopping almost everyone we pass. And it is awesome!

On Friday, there was a baptism of an 8-year-old boy in the American branch. The family lives pretty far from the church so they asked if we could come early and fill up the baptismal font. We had to clean out the font because it was super gross, and then we did our studies at the church while we waited for it to fill up. The baptism was really sweet, and afterwards there was--of course--MORE AMERICAN FOOD! Honestly, the food is probably the best part of being in an American branch haha.

Part of our area is a little beach town called Rota, and we went there to work on Saturday. We talked to some people on the street and tried to visit some members, but no one was around. That night, we played fútbol with the street children again--it was less cold than last week, which was good. 

Sunday was a super super busy day. We had the American branch in the morning, and Hermana Bockova, Hermana Pinkney, and I all spoke (it was super weird speaking in English. Hermana Bockova definitely won the Favorite Talk award, because the entire ward loved her cute Czech accent). Then in the Spanish ward, they had their primary program. Hermana Matsu led the music and I played piano. And in Relief Society (the 3rd-hour Sunday School class), Hermana Matsu and I taught the lesson! Needless to say, after church, we decided that as missionaries we are definitely needed here. 

On Sunday night we had to go to San Fernando for another choir practice. The concert is next Sunday, so after that we should start having actual proselytizing time on Sunday! Also, on Sunday someone gave us a box of 12 candy canes (we're going to share them with our district) and someone else gave us a box of Apple Jacks cereal. I didn't even like Apple Jacks before, but just because it's American we're really excited about it haha. On the downside, apparently American cereal boxes are taller than Spanish cereal boxes--makes sense, Americans are taller than Spaniards--so the box doesn't fit in our cupboard.

I was reading this week in the Book of Mormon (like always), and I kept noticing a pattern: miracles follow faith. There was a quote from Joseph Smith that I read that put this very simply: "Miracles are the fruits of faith." As we increase our faith, we will increase the miracles and blessings in our life. I would like to add that as we simply look for miracles and the Lord's hand in our life, we will be able to see it more. I would encourage all of you to increase your faith that God really DOES answer prayers, and then to look for those answers to prayers and blessings in your life-- you will see so many!

Love, Hermana Walker

Here are some pictures of our piso

Our colorful kitchen

 Study room/living room

 This is our Jesus wall

Week 25: Baby it's cold outside!

Hola hola hola!

Well, we're freezing. Word on the street is that there's some winds from the north or something and they're supposed to leave on Thursday... but needless to say, on December 1st, winter came to Puerto.

This week feels like it's been six years. One week, two areas, three companions. Lots has happened!

On Tuesday, Hermana Encarnación and I went to Fuengirola so she could pick up her trainee. Normal transfers don't happen until Wednesday, so I was companions with Hermana George (her companion is training someone too) for the rest of the day on Tuesday. She actually headed home that Thursday, so that was weird--being with a missionary on the last normal day of their mission. She's super cute though and we had a good day. One thing that was a little weird was that neither of us had a phone, so we were just kind of isolated from the rest of the world. We had to ask random people on the street if we could use their phone to call the office elders at one point haha.

Tuesday night I stayed with Hermana George in her piso in Fuengirola and then on Wednesday morning we went to the mission office really quick on the way to the Cercanías. Except when we left the mission office after like 5 minutes, it was POURING. The Cercanías stop is only like a 2 minute walk from the office, but when we made it to the stop we looked like we had just stepped out of the shower. It was awesome. I was on my own on the Cercanías which was super weird... I didn't like it. I've gotten used to being with someone 24/7! Then I made it to Vialia and got on another train to Sevilla with a few missionaries. And then ANOTHER train to Puerto de Santa María! Hermana Matsu was waiting at the train stop. She's super nice! It's her last transfer (6 weeks) of the mission, which is weird. I start talking about something and she's like, "wait, what's that?" and then I realize that it's a book or movie or whatever that came out when she was already on the mission. She's from Provo, Utah and studied at BYU for a year. She also knows how to cook! I think we're going to have a really good transfer together!

In our chapel there is a Spanish ward and an English branch (because of the military base that's close by). There are actually about as many people that come to the Spanish ward as there are that come to the English branch. Relief Society bulletin board in English on left and Spanish on right.

There are two sets of Hermanas in Puerto de Santa Maria and we both serve in both the ward and the branch. The other hermanas in Puerto are actually both new to the area--Hermana Bockova is from my group, and she's training a new missionary, Hermana Pinkney. They're both super cute. It's weird just being with all hermanas, but it's fun too!

On Thursday us four hermanas had a meeting with the bishop of the Spanish ward. He is AWESOME! Actually, all the members here are great. There aren't a ton of them, but they're all really friendly. We also had English class on Thursday night. About 5 people came, all with varying degrees of English knowledge. It was fun.

Friday we had a few citas. We met with a member and her husband who were SUPER funny. When I first got to Torremolinos and was going around to meet everyone, I remember barely being able to understand anything they were saying. It's definitely easier to get to know people when you speak (kind of) their language! We also met with a recent convert to the church on Friday, named Manuel. There are like 200 Manuel's in our ward (that's an exaggeration) so we call him Manuel B. He's old and tiny and cute and likes giving us a lot of food--like, bags of chips and strange hard bread and chocolate money. Some of it's good, some not so much.

On Saturday we met with an investigator named Andrés. He's also an old man and apparently I'm the 15th hermana to teach him... so we'll see how that goes. He comes to sacrament meeting every week, he just doesn't want to tell his daughter that he's meeting with the missionaries! We don't have a ton of investigators here, so we've spent a lot of time finding--contacting on the street, visiting people who said they had interest a while ago... and we're just going to keep searching and finding! Teaching is really fun, but you need to find people to teach first. On Saturday night, we played fútbol with a group of 12ish-year-old boys who I guess come every Saturday night. IT WAS FREEZING. We'll see how much longer we keep doing fútbol, we might have to cancel it for a few months until it gets warmer.

Every Sunday we go to sacrament meeting with the English branch at 9am. It was the weirdest thing ever, singing hymns in English and listening to testimonies in English by Americans... it was good, but just super weird. After sacrament meeting we hung around in the chapel until the Spanish ward sacrament meeting at 11am. There were a few people missing, so there weren't a whole lot of people in sacrament meeting. But still, it felt way more normal than the English branch! We stayed for the second and third hours of the Spanish ward. Third hour, Hermana Matsu and I went to help with music in primary. The program is this coming Sunday, and I'm playing piano and she's leading the music. After church we ate really quick, did some studies, then got on the Cercanías to the stake center in San Fernando. There's a big stake Christmas concert in two weeks and somehow Hermana Matsu got stuck accompanying 4 songs for soloists and 4 for the choir. She's really good at piano, but we're still not sure why they decided to ask the full-time missionary to accompany. There were a few missionaries from San Fernando in the choir, so it was fun to get to meet them. It's weird being with a whole group of different missionaries here! But they're all really great of course, since they're missionaries.

Our piso here in Puerto has a little four-octave digital piano, which is way awesome! The kitchen has bright pink cupboards. The Christmas tree here is actually pretty ugly, and we only had rainbow lights. But it's just not as fun to decorate for the second time, so I think we'll just leave it how it is. At least it has lights.  These treats were left for me in the pisa by Hermana Matsu's old companion which is so sweet.

 The church is only about a ten-minute walk from our piso, and it's a normal-looking church--it doesn't look like a cave inside! So we're in pretty good shape.  We passed this cathedral on the way to the market on P-day.

In our piso in Torremolinos, we had a chandelier-type thing hanging above our study table. It has five light bulbs. When I got to Torremolinos, all five lightbulbs were working great. But one by one, the lightbulbs went out. We didn't even really notice when another would go out, and we were always busy with things to do so we never got around to going to a store, buying lightbulbs, and changing the lightbulb. But last week, Hermana Encarnación and I realized that we were down to only one lightbulb, and that it was close to going out. So on Monday, we finally went to a store and bought new lightbulbs. When we put them in, the room was SO bright! And the rest of the day, we couldn't stop talking about how bright the light was and how easy it was to see in that room. A testimony is kind of like our chandelier--it's working great, it's bright and strong. But over time, if you don't take care of it and you're not aware of it, your testimony starts to dim--and you don't even notice. The things you have to do to maintain a testimony are just like the things you have to do to keep a chandelier working--they're super simple! It's just that instead of spending 70 cents on a lightbulb, you're taking 7 minutes to read the scriptures and say your prayers every day. I know that being a missionary has helped my testimony a lot, and a part of that is just because I'm studying the scriptures for an hour every day and saying prayers ALL THE TIME. If you're not doing that, I would encourage you to do it--the little things are the most important!

Love, Hermana Walker

Week 24:One door closes, another one opens

Hola hola hola!

Well this week's title has 2 meanings:

1. A little more symbolic (metaphorical? I don't know)... The era in Torremolinos is ending, and I'm heading to PUERTO DE SANTA MARÍA this week! It's over by Cádiz and is apparently a great area. I'm going to be companions with Hermana Matsu, who's going to be in the last transfer of her mission. I'll let you know more about all that next week! I'm sad to leave Torremolinos and Hermana Encarnación, but SUPER excited to get to meet new people, see a new city, and teach and serve the people in my new area!

2. A little more literal... The study room in our piso has two doors: one that goes into the hallway with the bedrooms, and one that goes into the kitchen. We have the heater in this study room, so we like to close the doors to keep the warm air in there. But every time, without fail, when we close one of the doors, the other one opens! So either there's some really weird air pressure, or the piso has ghosts.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we had citas and talked to people on the street and things. Good times, but not much to talk about. 

On Thursday, we had district meeting! We got to move it to Thursday so that afterwards, we could have a Thanksgiving mediodía. Hermana Encarnación and I made cookies, brownies, and arepas. We also brought like 20 oranges because Lorenzo gave us about 60 oranges when we ate with them on Wednesday from his campo. We combined with the other district in our chapel to eat on Thursday, so there were 14 of us. Some of the elders brought chickens (not alive, don't worry) to eat, and some other people brought stuffing (made from scratch! Apparently box stuffing doesn't exist in this country, which is sad), mashed potatoes and gravy, and ice cream. It was a good Thanksgiving.

Thursday evening, we taught a pretty chaotic lesson to a tiny piso full of Romanians. It was definitely interesting. Luckily we figured out how to get the gospel library app to read the scriptures out loud in Romanian. 

Then we left the Romanians and taught Giovanna and her family! (Yes, her name actually IS Giovanna--not Yovanna. We were right, then we were wrong, and now we've got it actually confirmed by the bishop that it's Giovanna.) The lesson on tithing went great. They're such a cute family and they want to do the right thing.

On Friday we had a few more citas. We visited Andrea, taught Liliana (an old investigator who hasn't had time to meet for the past 3.5 months!), and taught Lelica and Matei too. They were good lessons too, but honestly I can't remember much from them because so many things happened this weekend!

Saturday morning we took a bus and then the metro to get to the piso of Joshua, our new ward mission leader! He is so awesome. We had correlación in his tiny little kitchen on an interesting variety of chairs. He is really going to help the ward and the missionary work in Málaga 2! 

While we were waiting at the bus stop in Málaga to get back to our piso after correlación, we got a phone call from President Andersen! He called to let Hermana Encarnación know she's going to train this next transfer. She's going to be such a good trainer. But the best part of the phone call was that once he finished talking with Hermana Encarnación, the phone got passed to me and he told me where I'm going this transfer! Normally we have to wait until Sunday morning to know, so I was pretty excited.

Saturday night, we had a street contacting activity with the Málaga 1 and 2 wards. We attached glowsticks to the #iluminaelmundo (#Lighttheworld) pass-along cards, then went out into Málaga with the members to give them out and spread the news about the initative. It was so fun to see the little kids running around giving out glowsticks and cards. People are a lot more receptive to a cute kid than they are to us, and the kids were so excited to be able to share the gospel!

Sunday morning I put a quesadilla in a pan because I was hungry and we were out of Muesli. Then we got a call from the zone leaders about transfers! We already knew where we were going, but we still wanted to know what was happening with the rest of the people in our zone. I went into Hermana Encarnación's room so we could both listen. Cool things happening, people leaving, people coming, cosas así. Then I went to do something and Hermana Encarnación went into the kitchen...

"Um, hermana?"

"Sí?"

"Su quesadilla..."

*Hermana Walker runs into the kitchen*

"Oh no."

There wasn't a fire or anything, but there was a good amount of smoke. And picture the blackest thing you've ever seen, then multiply it by 2, and that's the color of my quesadilla. 14 minutes on the stove will do that. And then we left for church, so I didn't get to eat breakfast.

On Sunday got to the church at 9:30am and left at 9:30pm. This Sunday was the primary program, which was super cute. There were 17 kids in the program and it was really well done. It's always weird to hear the familiar songs sung in a different language. I've gotten used to hearing the hymns in Spanish, but hearing the primary songs in Spanish was super weird--really cool though. For the last song all the parents of the kids came to the front and they sang together. It was so cute. This really is a church for families. We invited Andrea to come and were pretty sure she was going to come with her family... but then she didn't. That was pretty hard, because Hermana Encarnación and I were both sitting there the entire primary program, thinking about how much Andrea would have loved it if she had been there!

A good thing from sacrament meeting was that I convinced Hermana Encarnación to lead the music, since it was my last Sunday. :) I don't think I'll tell the people in my new ward that I know how to lead music.

We ate lunch in the church and did our studies there too. Then we started setting up for the Christmas concert! I still have no idea how we became the companionship in charge of it. We moved chairs and put up decorations and called people and basically stressed a lot. BUT there was a really good turn out--the chapel was full to the back wall! And the members came on time like we asked, which is a miracle in and of itself for Spain. The performances all turned out really well and at the end when two elders presented the video of the initiative and talked about it, I think all the members felt excited to participate! The best part of all was that we told our bishop that the concert would last about an hour-- and when we checked the time after the closing prayer, it had taken 59 minutes! Lots of people brought food to donate to a food bank. Pretty much no one brought food to eat afterwards like we asked, but we had brought a lot of cookies and one companionship of elders and one of hermanas brought food to eat, so I think there was enough in the end. Then after the concert we stayed to clean up for a while. When we got back to our piso we were both exhausted. In the end everything went really well, but I am never planning another concert again.

Today we've been deep-cleaning the piso and I've been packing! I have to leave tomorrow since the new group of missionaries comes in tomorrow. I'll stay with a couple hermanas in Málaga on Tuesday night and then go to my new area on Wednesday. So today is a little chaotic. But I'm so excited to see how the next transfer goes!

28 days until Christmas.

Love, Hermana Walker