Hola hola hola!
This has been a really good week! I'm still kind of sick from back
in February but it finally stopped raining so I've been a lot happier!
All the weeks of bad weather definitely make you appreciate the sun!
On Monday we got to eat with a family from the American branch.
They gave us American milk. I hadn't even noticed a difference between American
milk and Spanish milk until this moment, and I drank American milk and it was
so weird but so normal a la vez. We didn't know what to think! Then we visited
Manuel B. We shared the Easter video with him! He's still doing really well and
writing down every time that he prays and reads the scriptures in his planner.
On Tuesday hermana Malcolm made this Iranian food called cotlet
(?) for our district after district meeting. It was really good! Also, the sun
came out and it got warm and we were just so happy! We went into town to go to
a cita with a couple less-involved members named Rosario and Imanol. Imanol is
a kid who's 12ish and Rosario is his mom. They're so cute and the lesson went
really well! On the way we ran into a semana Santa procession. They're really
serious about these processions the whole week before Easter, there are a
couple a day in this city but in other cities there are sometimes several a
day!
On Wednesday we had a cita with Andres, who is still old and
stubborn but still reading the scriptures and coming to church, so, he's doing
okay. We also met with Manuel the investigator on a bench! The cita started out
a little weird but by the end he was feeling good and promised to pray about
the Book of Mormon to know if it's true! He read 1 Nefi chapter 1 and loved it.
We also visited Francisco, and I think he said he has 10 or 11 kids and they're
all coming in and out during the whole cita, as well as THEIR kids and even
their grandkids! So there were a bunch of people who were kind of in the cita
too. Afterwards a couple of the kids were talking to us, which was fun.
By Thursday all three of us were dying to get transfer calls but
we had to keep waiting on Sunday. We did weekly planning which took up most of
the day, but in the morning we ran over to Petri and had a quick visit with
her. Then in the evening we had English class and noche de hogar! English class
was actually pretty calm, and noche de hogar was fun. There were a lot of
people there! One bad thing was that by the end of the night I had lost my
voice because of all the talking with everyone!
On Friday I woke up and could not talk at all, which made for an
interesting (and slightly frustrating!) day. In the morning we went to help
Faly paint her house! I don't think I had ever painted anything before the
mission but this is the second time I've helped someone paint their house! It
was a fun chance to do service and we left feeling good! Then we ate mediodía
with a member and her mom who isn't a member of the church, and we were able to
give her mom and Book of Mormon which was awesome! In the afternoon we met with
Juan Manuel, which was funny because when my companions said that I couldn't
talk he somehow misunderstood it and thought I had gone mute and deaf and so he
was acting everything out for me as he spoke since he thought I couldn't hear
him either. And then were walking with Andrés and saw one of the semana Santa
processions again!
On Saturday I could finally talk again, and so it was a really
good day haha. We were supposed to have a cita with a member named Juan Pablo
in the morning, but then when we had walked five minutes he texted us asking if
we could do it in the afternoon instead. So we headed back to our piso to do
studies, a little annoyed to have to change our plans, and ran into Maribel and
her mom who were just coming out of the grocery store! Maribel had hurt her knee
and her mom, Belli, is old, so they were really grateful to have us carry their
bags to their car so they didn't have to bring the car around to the door of
the grocery store. Then we did some studies and headed over to Belli's house
because she had invited us over to eat a few days earlier. She had invited us
to come at 1:30, which had seemed a little weird since normally 2:00 is the
standard Mediodia time, but we showed up at 1:30 like she had said--just in
time to meet her and Maribel at the car and carry the bags upstairs to the piso
for them! Apparently Belli had forgotten that she told us 1:30 instead of 2,
but they had just been saying that they wished the hermanas would show up early
to help them carry the bags and we got there just then! So it turned out good.
After eating with Belli we got to have our cita with Juan Pablo. He had made us
arepas! I LOVE AREPAS! And then we went to the Fry's house to watch general
conference with them and Abi! After conference we left feeling all inspired and
went to an AWESOME cita with Rolando and Hortencia! They had both read in the
Book of Mormon since our last cita. Rolando remembered so many details from
what he had read and said it was hard to stop reading once he got started.
Hortencia didn't remember much from what she had read but she did remember
feeling so much peace and we know that was the Holy Ghost! It was a really good
cita and we taught them about the Plan of Salvation.
Sunday we got transfer calls! I'm heading to Murcia to be
companions with Hermana Phillips, who's from Hermana Moncayo's group so she's
just finishing her training. Hermana Malcolm is going to Murcia too, so we will
probably get to see each other. I am really really sad to leave Hermana Moncayo
and to leave el Puerto de Santa Maria but I'm excited to see everything that
awaits in Murcia! And Hermana Moncayo is going to do amazing things in Puerto.
Murcia is way on the other side of the mission and there aren't trains that go
over there so we'll be going in bus which I am not excited about. From what
I've heard it's at least a 10 hour trip altogether so we'll see how Wednesday
goes.
I LOVED GENERAL CONFERENCE. Every 6 months we get the opportunity
to listen to the leaders of our church, which includes the prophet, the quorum
of 12 apostles, and other leaders.
As I listened to them speak I felt so
inspired! I especially loved one talk that talked about what success and
failure.
Success: Growing from failure to failure without a loss of
enthusiasm.
In the mission we have to go from one uninterested person to
another without losing enthusiasm until we find the people who are really
prepared! It has been so amazing to go from having a few people we were
teaching when I arrived here to having a TON of people to visit and serve here.
I know that we really can learn something from every failure and difficulty we
have and would invite you to look at your challenges and see what you can learn
from them! I am also so grateful to have been able to listen to so many
inspired men and women during general conference, and if you haven't watched it
I would recommend it!!!
Love, Hermana Walker
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