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
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