Week 36: January and February

Hola hola hola!! 

On Monday night we were able to eat dinner with a family from the American branch. They gave us corn on the cob and it was awesome. I have apparently developed a love for corn on the cob since being here in Spain. Then we got to visit a less-active member, and then another less-active father and son. So it was a good night! 

On Tuesday we had district meeting, then we tried to visit some people but no one was home or had time, so we ended up toquing a street and then visited Manuel B. He is so sweet and we talked about prayer with him. He also made us food! 

On Wednesday we met with Jazmín! She has read the Book of Mormon for a second time. She has a lot of interesting beliefs so we go slowly through the lessons to explain clearly everything that she needs to learn. But she is awesome, and she was actually the one who texted us asking if we could meet on Wednesday! After Jazmín we visited Andrés. He is reading the Book of Mormon again, but going slower this time so he can really understand it. We were teaching him about the Plan of Salvación and the Atonement and HE was pulling out scriptures to help explain the points we were teaching him! Máquina! Then we helped set up a few things for a ward party later in the week, and then visited a less-active member and a brother and sister who are recent converts to the church. So it was a full, busy day! It's always awesome to have a completely full day, and they don't happen that often so we really appreciate them when they do.

There's this future investigator in our area, Encarni, who's the sister of a member, and hermana Matsu and I tried passing by her like 20 times I'm pretty sure, and then hermana Moncayo and I have tried 20 more. Every time she's either not there, or her husband tells us she's busy, or she tells us she's just heading out to do something or just started dinner, lo que sea. Why didn't you just leave the poor woman in peace? you may ask. Well she never technically told us she wasn't interested, and she was always really friendly, so we figured that if we were persistent enough she would finally give in! And she did! We had a really good first lesson with her, it turns out she really IS just a really busy person, but she said she will read a little in the Book of Mormon and pray about it, and hopefully will be able to find time this week so we can visit her again. 

On Thursday night we had English class. I don't know what I was expecting when I thought about missionaries teaching English classes, but it definitely wasn't the English class in el Puerto. Our class has a few people who have pretty advanced English. One week we talked about watching over the environment and they learned words like recycling and pesticides (!!). And then, there are the Manuels. They're these 2 old men who are both named Manuel and do not speak ANY english. This week we taught them the months of the year (I told them the months are hard, they didn't want to listen). They looked at the words January and February and pronounced them very badly, so then I pronounced them, then said them about 4 more times, and then they kind of started to get the pronunciation, but they decided the only way to pronounce these months is to talk like a drunk person. So just picture two old Spanish men pretending to be drunk and repeating over and over January and February with a very thick Spanish accent, and that's a pretty good summary of our English class.

On Friday we knocked some doors and then went to eat Mediodia with this family named the Rodríguez family. They were so funny and gave us this really good meal that's something from Honduras but was basically just tortillas and chicken and guacamole and beans. It was soooo good! On Friday night was the ward Valentines day party. It was fun, lots of people wore red and pink and we ate a lot of tortilla de patata.

On Sunday morning we got transfer calls, not much happening there--we knew we were both going to stay because Hermana Moncayo is in the middle of her training, so we're going to be together at least until the beginning of April. This is really good, because Hermana Moncayo is the best! Hermana Bockova in our district is leaving, which we're sad about. Jazmín was going to come to church, but in the end couldn't make it. We are hoping she will be able to come next Sunday!

This week in the Book of Mormon I have been reading in Alma. Alma is one of the prophets in the Book of Mormon, and at the beginning of his story he was kind of messing around, making bad choices as a teenager or young adult. But then he ended up turning his life around and becoming an AWESOME missionary and teacher. One thing that he teaches us is that we should "humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear." I like this verse because really when we pray to God and ask him for help, we can be sure that we won't be tempted more than we can bear, that we won't be given any trial that's too big for us to handle. Sometimes life's trials really ARE too big for us alone, but when we ask God for help, He will always give us the support and relief that we need.

Today we bought so much fruit at Mercadona. We love fruit.

Love, hermana Walker