Week 14: The Best Day of My Life

Hola hola hola!

Yes, it's true. This week, I had what I'm pretty sure was the best day of my life to date. But FIRST, I'll tell you about everything that happened in the week that led up to it.

Bueno. On Monday night, Hermana Johnson and I made this Texas Sheet cake that her mom makes, and Hermana Johnson was convinced it wasn't as good as her mom makes it, but I thought it was GREAT. 

On Tuesday, we had district meeting. I really liked one thing that we read as a district, which was on prayer in the GEE (guía para el estudio de las escrituras). I'm not sure if it says a similar thing in the Topical Guide or Bible Dictionary, but essentially what one of the paragraphs said was that "the purpose of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to obtain those blessings that He is ready to give us, but which we need to ask for in order to receive." That's so cool to think about! More on prayer later...

Another of the talleres from district meeting was on obedience. As missionaries, we are asking people to abandon their entire life--stop smoking, spend 3 hours and another hour or two on the bus every Sunday to get to church--and so why does it feel so hard to turn off our tablet for 2 minutes while our companion is out of the room? That really hit me--as missionaries, we really have it easy!

On Tuesday night, we met with Vlad again. He still thinks we're just meeting with him to learn English. And really, we are. We want to serve and help him practice his English. But as he's talked with us more, we can tell that his interest in the church and a relationship with God are also both growing. We had a really good talk about the role of the family in the church and kind of sneaky-taught parts of the Plan of Salvation just in response to his questions! So we're going poco a poco with him.

On Wednesday I hit 3 months since the day I entered the CCM, which is weird. It kind of feels like I've been here for 3 years.

There were also cool things that happened on Wednesday! We had citas with Amparo and Fátima in the morning... and they both failed us, so we decided to go to our backup plan and go to the Ayuntamiento de Torremolinos (I think it translates to city hall?) to ask about service opportunities in the community. It talks about having planned service activities every week in Manual Misional (the missionary handbook), and so we were trying to follow that guideline and find planned service opportunities. Well, the people at the Ayuntamiento were zero help, and told us to go to the red cross, which we have no idea how to find. BUT, blessings for trying to be obedient, because we walked into the Ayuntamiento and THERE WAS FÁTIMA! She was super friendly and told us to come visit her in an hour, which we did, and then we were able to teach her and have a really good lesson with her! Fátima is kind of crazy, but she's super awesome.

On Thursday and Friday we went on intercambios again! It was really good, but I got about 11 mosquito bites (actually, I got exactly 11 mosquito bites--I counted) which was really not good. But overall, I learned a lot, and it's always not only fun but also really helpful to get to spend time with other missionaries and learn from them and see how they teach and things!

And then came Saturday, AKA THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE.

I AM NOT KIDDING YOU.

We took a train and a bus to get to the chapel in Málaga where all the missionaries in the entire mission were going to meet to listen to Elder Holland, which was really stressful because for a few minutes there we were pretty sure we were on the wrong bus. But it all turned out okay, we were on the right bus, and then they lined us all up on chairs and behind chairs in the parking lot to get a big mission picture! It was crazy being surrounded by so many missionaries! There were only 50-60 missionaries at the CCM and apparently we have close to 190 missionaries in our mission, so that was SUPER cool. Elder Holland came, along with the Europe area president Elder Johnson and his wife, Sister Johnson (Sister Holland was resting for later). But a couple of zones from far away still hadn't arrived, so Elder Holland decided to have all of us come around and shake his hand while we waited for the other two zones of missionaries to come so we could take the picture. And when Elder Holland shook all of our hands, he asked us our name and where we were from but also, I kid you not, stared into our souls. He told us later that he was conducting "interviews" with all of us.

Apparently way back when, the apostles used to interview every missionary every year. Claro, that doesn't happen anymore, but he said he likes to do that when he visits missions to get an idea of how the mission is doing. And then he assured us that the mission is doing good, which is good, because he has a reputation of being a little fuerte with missionaries who aren't being obedient and diligent haha. In his own words, "I am famous for going crazy." 

ANYWAY, after we shook his hand, we took the picture and then went inside.

Elder Johnson and Sister Johnson both spoke, there was a super good musical number, and then Elder Holland spoke.

                                           The hands that shook Elder Holland's hand

 His talk was FUEGO. He said a lot of things, as in, I'm still writing in my journal everything he said at that first meeting in the morning and it's taking 10 pages and counting. So I'll just talk about a few of the highlights.

In regards to life on the mission: 

"Do not miss this one chance. This experience, the one you're having now, only comes once. Don't have any regrets. Don't have anything left when you go home. Have as close to nothing left as you can." Then later he said that we need to "Give everything you have for this period of time." It's so true. We need to be focused on the mission right now, focused on Christ and helping bring people to him. And when we're doing everything we can, and giving everything we have, we can be sure that Heavenly Father is doing everything He can to help us.

Then he talked about what makes us different from other churches: "Our message is that God speaks to man." We believe that we have a prophet today, and that this church is literally the church that Christ established in his time, restored to the earth in this day and directed by people who are led by Him. That's what's so special about our chuch, and that's why the Book of Mormon is so important--because if it's true, and I know it is, then Joseph Smith really saw what he said he saw. He really saw Jesus Christ and God the Father, and he really was directed by them to restore this church, and this chuch really is led by a prophet of God today. How cool is that to think about?

Overall, the morning was really, really good. After the conference all the missionaries stayed around for a little bit to take another picture, and then the missionaries from far-away areas hopped on their buses to go back to their areas, and us missionaries who are lucky enough to be serving in the Granada Stake right now got on city buses and then the train to go to the special Granada Stake conference. This was SUPER cool, because Elder Holland, Sister Holland, Elder Johnson, and Sister Johnson all spoke at this too! 

My second cousin Hermana Ash is new to my mission and she was there too so I got my picture taken with her.  Our Grandmas who are sisters will be happy to see us together.

One cool thing that's really not on topic but I'm going to tell you about anyway is that at the conference in the morning, everyone spoke in English--claro, they're not fluent Spanish speakers. The native missionaries who don't speak much English had headsets. But at the conference in the evening, there were two microphones set up at the front of this giant building--one for the speaker, and one for their translator. Not only was it a good chance to kind of be practicing Spanish as we listened to every sentence in English and then in Spanish, but it also really made you think about every word that was said. And there were a LOT of good words said.

The main theme of this conference, of Elder Holland's talk at least, was prayer. He said this phrase or something very similar to it at least 3 or 4 times during his talk:

"When God can, he will ALWAYS give us what we want. If he knows he should not, he will give us something better." Whoa. That's so cool to think about. Sometimes, it's true, God doesn't give us what we want. And it's because He has a plan, and His plan is ALWAYS better than our plan. But then later, Elder Holland said something very similar, but finished that God will give us either what we want, "or something better...eventually." We need to have patience. God's timing isn't always in line with our timing. A lot of the time, it isn't. But we need to be patient and trust in Him that, when we don't get the response we want right away, He is going to give us something better eventually.

Another thing Elder Holland said was that most of the time, God will do it--answer prayers--through us. "We become His hands, his arms, an extension of His heart." This is so cool!!

He challenged us all to pray to be the hands of God. 

At the end of his talk, Elder Holland switched into Spanish to bear a simple testimony--that God lives. That with the gospel, we have nothing. No joy, no hope, no light... and with the Gospel, and with the atonement of Christ, we have everything. He said more than that, but I don't have much more written down. But when he switched into Spanish, this big room where 900 people were gathered, full of grownups, children, babies, went SILENT. 

These people had probably never heard the voice of an apostle speaking to them in a language they understood. I'm not sure where Elder Holland learned Spanish, and his Spanish wasn't perfect, but he testified of what he knew in a language that the members of this stake could understand, and it was incredible how strong the spirit was as he spoke. He finished his testimony with these words:

"Les amamos hoy, mañana, siempre. Para siempre." We love you today, tomorrow, always. Forever.

Whoa. Do you see now why this was the best day ever? An apostle of the Lord, one of only 15 "prophets, seers, and revelators" on the earth today, spoke twice, and I got to hear him twice and feel the spirit and the power of his testimony twice in one day. Not to mention being surrounded by missionaries, eating 2 magical homemade cookies from Hermana Andersen, and then a little miracle on the way back from the conference:

We were planning to take the cirucanias, the train, back to our piso after the conference. But then the train stop was really dark, and we realized that it was probably closed. So then we had to walk bastante, like 20-30 minutes, to get to a bus stop on the main road so we could get back to our piso before too late. When the bus finally came, it was so full that we were stuck standing--which is not fun when you're someone like me, who still hasn't mastered the art of not falling every time the bus starts and stops. But at the next stop, a woman from our ward got on and ended up standing right next to us for the 20-30 minute bus ride! It's not like we had a bad relationship with her, but we really didn't know her, and she's one of about 12 active members who live in our area so we've been wanting to get to know her since I got here! And we had a really nice conversation with her on the bus and now I feel like we're kind of friends with her, which was super good!

On Sunday, we got to go to church which is always great. And then after church, the stake president's wife came up to us and said they had invited the Elders in our ward over to eat but that they had a cita, and would we like to come with them to their house to eat? This family lives in our ward, but in the Elders' area, so we hadn't ever been over to their house. Of course we said yes, and when we got there we realized several things: 

1. They have a BEAUTIFUL house. It was like a house in the States, but nicer, and in Spain.

2. All of their kids speak like four languages (Spanish and German they're fluent, since apparently the stake president is from Switzerland--does this mean he has an accent when he speaks in Spanish? I don't know. I don't speak spanish. A couple of the kids are fluent in English too, and all are learning English and French).

3. Sister Hanni is a FANTASTIC cook.

4. Between the conference with the missionaries in the morning and the conference with the stake at night, Elder and Sister Holland came to this house and ate with the stake president and his family, and the delicious chicken and cheese and salad and tortilla de patata and quinoa that we were eating were actually leftovers from the meal they'd eaten with Elder Holland the day before, and the table we were sitting at with the family was the table that they had eaten at with Elder Holland on Saturday. So THAT was kind of awesome.

5. Elder Holland loved the cake that Hermana Hanni made (which we happily finished on Sunday) so much that he said that she would have to come to his funeral and bring that cake and everyone would be crying and sad because he had died, and then she would bring the cake and everyone would be happy. It really was a good cake.

Overall, the week was good. And the weekend was GREAT. I stand by my statement that Saturday was literally the best day of my life to date. My testimony grew so much, Elder Holland blew my mind a few times, and I am more motivated than ever to try my best at everything I do in the mission and afterwards, too.

Hope you all have a great week (although I'm sure it won't be as good as mine was, it might (?) come close), and remember what Elder Holland said. He compared the way swimmers become good swimmers to the way we can be good missionaries (and, I think, good people overall):

"Kick when you don't want to kick, stroke when you don't want to stroke...that's the way you win races."

Love, Hermana Walker

Week 13: No one died except maybe the lizard

Hola hola hola!

We started off this week by meeting with Vlad again on Monday night. We haven't moved on to lesson 2 with him yet, because he really doesn't have interest--yet! But we met with him again and his little six-year-old daughter who only speaks Russian and is the cutest girl EVER was there. She was missing a few teeth and had these long, blonde braids, and she speaks a tiny bit of Spanish but can say things like "yo hablo ruso" and that's about it. But afterwards she gave us a big hug, which was probably one of the highlights of the week. We miss little kids!

One thing we were talking about with Vlad was the value that we place on things, and how we really need to value the little things more. Like, eating dinner with my family after the mission will probably seem like the coolest thing ever that first night. But I ate dinner with my family every night for the first 18.5 years of my life and never felt like it was anything special! We should try to enjoy everything we do as if we hadn't done it for the past year and half, and we'll be a lot more grateful.

On Tuesday we had district meeting minus Elder Ramirez, who was in trainer's training. So of course, we took pictures with him. Creepy? A little. Fun? Very.

On Wednesday, we met with Victor again! We also met with him on Friday. He's always more than happy to meet with us and listen to us, but he STILL hasn't come to church! I was reading in Ether 12 and it talks a lot about faith in that chapter. I really liked verses 6 and then 12-18 because they talk about how we don't receive a witness and we don't see miracles come until AFTER our faith.

6. Faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

12. For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.
13. Behold, it was the faith of Alma and Amulek that caused the prison to tumble to the earth.
14. Behold, it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi that wrought the change upon the Lamanites, that they were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost.
15. Behold, it was the faith of Ammon and his brethren which wrought so great a miracle among the Lamanites.
16. Yea, and even all they who wrought miracles wrought them by faith, even those who were before Christ, and also those who were after.
17. And it was by faith that the three disciples obtained a promise that they should not taste of death, and they obtained not the promise until after their faith.
18. And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God.

I love these verses because the point they make is so true--we have to have faith before we can see miracles and before we can receive our own personal witness of things. This is what we're trying to get Victor to understand. To know that the Word of Wisdom is given by God, you need to live it. To know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, you need to listen to what he says. To gain a testimony of the importance of going to church, you need to go to church! To gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon, you need to read it! 

Also on Wednesday, we were knocking doors in an apartment building and one English lady opened the door. We got two words out, and then she said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but I don't believe in Jesus. Sorry!" and closed the door. She was super nice and English, but it was kind of a surprise to remember that there are still people who don't believe in Jesus Christ--we're kind of in the land of the Catholics, so everyone at least has that foundation. It was a little funny just because of how cute she was when she said it, but also sad to think about.
This week we've been going through the list of future investigators that we have in the area book app--the list of people who've given us their name and number or address and expressed that they might have interest. This has been a PROJECT, because I'd say there are more than 100 people in there. But we've been making our way slowly down the list, calling them and deleting people who don't have information (a few just have a name and that's it, so not very helpful). One of the people who we've been trying to get in contact with is a woman named Andrea! On Thursday morning we finally met with her, and she is AWESOME. She has these two little kids and is from Hungary, but she speaks perfect Spanish. We taught her lesson 1, the restoration, and gave her a Book of Mormon and she said she would read it and pray about it. She was asking questions during the lesson but they were good questions that were relevant and that she really wanted to know the answers to and she is just so perfect! The only issue is that she's going to be in Hungary with her family for a wedding until the 25th. But we are going to call her on the 26th and visit her again!

On Friday, we called someone on our list named Paco. And by we called him, I mean that I called him, because I think Hermana Johnson hates me and wants me to die death by phone calls (just kidding...kind of). ANYWAY, I called him and he was really chatty, apparently he's this old man who sells cars. We ended up talking for, like, 12 minutes, which is REALLY long when you don't really know Spanish, and then I invited him to come to church and he said something along the lines of "Well, I'm single, so would I be able to find a wife there?" I really didn't know what to say, so I said something about how I was still pretty new in the area and didn't know, but that it was worth a shot and that he should come to church anyway. I ended the call pretty soon after that... Turns out he lives in the Elders' area, so we passed his number on to them. He wasn't at church on Sunday (I think... I don't really know what he looks like), but who knows, maybe Paco will show up in a few weeks looking for a wife!
On Friday night, we taught Giovanna and her husband! She came to church last Sunday and she came to church this Sunday too. Her husband has work a lot of Sundays, but he's going to try to come when he's not working. We watched the video "Elder Holland testimony of the book of Mormon" (or something like that... it's super good and you should all go watch it) and then challenged Giovanna and her husband (whose name I CANNOT remember) to read the Book of Mormon every night together as a family (they have 2 teenage kids). When Giovanna came to church yesterday she was so excited to tell us that they had read together as a family on Saturday night! Giovanna's sister is a really active member in the other Málaga ward so Giovanna always meets up with her after church. Yesterday we got to meet her too, and she is AWESOME.
On Saturday morning, we found a little lizard in our piso. Actually, it was on my bed, wearing my pajamas (aka it was in the sleeve of my pajamas). We tried to catch it, but it ran away and then we just kind of gave up. Funny how things that would really bother you not on the mission, like having a lizard loose in your apartment, just don't really seem that important! But no worries, because this morning when I was cleaning the bathroom I found him and caught him. Part of his tail fell off, which was pretty gross because it was still squirming around when it wasn't attached to him. I'd heard that that happens, but I hadn't really believed it... now I do. We threw him out the window, and hopefully he landed in a bush or something, because we're on the fifth floor.

On Saturday we had a cita with another person who we found when we were going through the area book, a woman named Fátima. We had her address, but her street wasn't on the map so we got the general area of where she lived and then were just wandering around trying to find her street when we ran into AMPARO! Here's the story with her: she mysteriously moved to Córdoba a few weeks ago, she kind of explained to us why she was going but not really, and we never heard from her again. We thought she was lost forever! And then, we were in the perfect place at the perfect time to run into her on the sidewalk! We FINALLY got her phone number, and we're going to visit her this week! It was a miracle!

The cita with Fátima went really well, too. She was being taught by missionaries about a year ago, but they stopped teaching her because they couldn't get in contact with her. But we taught her and she was SUPER friendly and receptive and said she's already reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and we're going to try to meet with her again this week too! 

Another miracle of Saturday... there's this old lady named Hermana Blanca who Hermana Johnson used to visit a lot before I got here, but we'd only seen her once since I've been here, almost a month and a half ago. She can't walk very far but she was never in her piso and we could never find her at her normal restaurant and she has about 8 cell phones and none of them work (apparently) so we couldn't call her. We were really, actually, truly convinced that she was dead. But good news: she's alive! We just happened to run into her sitting at a table outside a restaurant across the street from her building! And we got her new phone number, so we're going to try to visit her this week too.

However, we're not sure how many people we'll be able to visit this week, since this week is going to be CRAZY. Tuesday and Wednesday will be pretty normal, but Thursday and Friday we're going on intercambios in Málaga, and then on Saturday morning we get to attend the all-mission conference with ELDER HOLLAND!! We're SO excited! And then because we're in the Granada Stake, we get to hear him AGAIN on Saturday night when he speaks to the members of our stake. 5 days... not that we're counting or anything.

There's some big festival that's going to happen in a week or two here in Torremolinos, and they've already started decking out all the streets with lights and things. Something about San Miguel? We're excited to see what that's like.

I can't think of anything else to say, except that I read the talk "Notwithstanding my Weakness" by elder Neal A. Maxwell this week and it's really awesome so you should all go read it.

Our district taking photos with elder Ramírez.... He doesn't know we took this haha

City : we were trying to get in contact with a few people in a building and we got out of the elevator and view was really pretty. 

Talk to you next week!

Love, Hermana Walker

Week 12: OneTransfer Down

Hola hola hola! 

Another week has come and gone! On Sunday we got transfer calls. Normally after the first transfer (6 weeks) of training, you stay with your trainer for another six weeks to finish your training. This would mean that in a normal situation I would be staying with Hermana Johnson for another six weeks. But alas, on Saturday night we got a very suspicious phone call from one of our zone leaders, so by the time Sunday morning came around we were pretty sure what was going to happen. A lot of companionships were changed around this transfer, and so while I'm staying in torremolinos, hermana Johnson is going.... To stay in torremolinos too!!

Yes, that is how our zone leaders told us we were both staying when they called us on Sunday morning. Kinda freaked us out at first, but no worries. We're both staying!!!

This is really good for two reasons:

1) hermana Johnson is the BEST

2) I still haven't figured out how to open the door to get into the piso

 

Here we are posing by our apartment pool

So this week, we really didn't have a lot of citas (appointments). Actually we really DID, but everyone decided to fail us. But that's okay!!! We had a lot of chances to contact and follow up on some future investigators (people whose name and number we have, but haven't actually met with yet). But by having a lot of time to contact, I really mean we had a LOT of time to contact. One night we decided to contact every person we passed as we did a big loop around centro. Unfortunately, this meant that I accidentally contacted the same person twice, about ten minutes apart. I didn't even notice that she was the same person until hermana Johnson told me afterwards! She politely declined both times haha. I'm going to work on recognizing faces better... 

One cita we DID have was with Victor. We actually met with him twice! We've already taught him the first three lessons and are going through the commandments now, but the problem is that he still hasn't come to church! He tells us he'll try every weekend and loves reading the scriptures with us and (sometimes) on his own, but he never actually comes to church. But we're still working with him and know that there's a special spirit that comes from being in church so we're going to get him to come!!! And he's also really excited for elder Holland to come. 

On Tuesday, we met with this man, vlad, from Romania. He's learning English (his English is really good) and we're meeting with him to help him practice his English. It's a service opportunity and we also take a while to share a spiritual thought or a lesson with him before talking about other things. Two things about these meetings :

1) teaching in English is WEIRD

2) Vlad is CRAZY! He's a pescatarian (I think that's what it's called? Like vegetarian, but eats fish) and he goes scuba diving about every other week, in the ocean, to catch his own sea food. But not just like little fish either. Like funny eel things and stingrays!!! He's also really self - motivated, which is awesome. He gave us a talk about being motivated and setting goals and gaining knowledge. He made one really good point :don't pretend to know things you don't, or just ignore the things you don't understand. You need to ask questions when you don't understand, or you'll never learn anything! This is especially applicable to Hermana Johnson and I with the language, but also applicable to just life in general. Ask questions!!! 

We did meet with one man who's kind of a Europe traveler sort of guy. He had all these piercings and tattoos and was a reference from the elders. But he was one of the nicest, most polite and accepting people we've taught. He's only in torremolinos for a few days and now he's on his way, but we taught him the first lesson and gave him a book of Mormon and a card with the church website on it. He said he would read the book of Mormon and pray about it and hopefully he'll find the missionaries again sometime in the future! Moral of the story : don't judge a book by its cover! 

GOOD NEWS! although we really didn't have a lot of citas this week, we did have two people come to church!! Our investigator, lorenzo, and also Giovanna, the less active member we've been teaching, both came! Giovanna even brought her scriptures in a little bag! This is the first time since I've been here that anyone who we've been teaching has come to our ward, so it was super exciting! And it was fast Sunday (the first Sunday of the month, when members of the congregation get to come to the front if they want to share their testimony) and it was a REALLY GOOD fast Sunday! The stake president and his wife and the bishops wife and hermana Johnson all bore their testimonies. But the best part of the meeting was at the very end. There was some visiting authority, we're still not sure who (we think he was an area seventy?) who bore his testimony. Normally our ward is pretty loud. Just a lot of babies and kids and an echoey room. But I kid you not, when this man got up the room went SILENT. It was incredible and the spirit was so strong! 

Random note: please stop over feeding the missionaries! There's no such thing as too many eating appointments (in my opinion haha, but that's coming from someone who has, at most, two a week), but there is DEFINITELY such a thing as feeling bad and feeling like you have to eat so much at every cita. The missionaries probably aren't starving. Don't make them eat everything :) 

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we have an enemy. He's not OUR  enemy, we're sure he's a nice guy. We see him talking to his friends. But he seems to think we're his enemies. He's the man who cleans ramon and norma's building, which is also the building where a few less active members live. So we're there every so often visiting these people. Around my third day in the area, we ran into him in the lobby and he was getting really close and yelling at us and pulled a pass along card out of his pocket that was ripped in half and threw it on the floor and was yelling at us to get out of his building (why on earth he had a card conveniently in his pocket, I have no idea). Now every time that he's outside the building and we walk by, he's telling all the people around him about the testigos de jehováh (jehováh witnesses) that keep trying to get into his building and warning them to watch out for us. First, we're not testigos. Second, we're just visiting people we know! We're not sure why he hates us - - he doesn't have to listen to our message, but he doesn't have to hate us! - - but it's kind of an exciting adventure every time we're in that area or trying to get into the building to visit people haha. 

Today we met up with elder Ramírez and elder Stratford and also pascal from our ward and took a tour of a bull ring and walked around Málaga centro. It was really fun! Tonight we're going to meet with vlad again. He doesn't think he's ready for /wants God in his life, but we can tell he totally does! Poco a poco :) 

Our shopping carts full at the market

 Green parrots are very common here

 My wall by my study desk

Thanks for all your support and prayers and have an awesome week!! 

Love, Hermana Walker

Week 11: When it rains it pours

Hola hola hola! 
We're forgetting how to speak English. Either that, or we're just focusing so much on learning Spanish grammar that we're finally realizing how terrible our English grammar is. 
On Wednesday, we taught Victor again. He's really interested in learning about what we believe, but he STILL hasn't come to church so it's hard to tell how serious he is about it. We're teaching him again this Wednesday and are really going to commit him to come this Sunday. 

Wednesday night I had my first PAELLA!! Paella is a Spanish dish of rice, saffron, chicken, and seafood cooked and served in a large shallow pan. Yes, I've been here for two and a half months. Yes, this is my first real paella (okay, technically I think we might have had paella in the CCM but it was like cafeteria paella and I think I maybe ate two bites). It had mussels on top and it was GOOD! Sometimes Lorenzo and Inma have kind of funky food, but this was a really delicious chicken paella. Definitely met my expectations!

On Thursday we went back to visit Angie again, the woman we met a few weeks ago and talked to on her doorstep. She told us last time that her husband has his "creencias" translation-beliefs but that she would call us. Almost three weeks later she still hadn't called us, so we stopped by again. She told us she talked to her husband and read a few things about Mormons that "caused some doubts." But then we gave her a book of Mormon and answered a few of her questions like who Mormon was and really just what the book of Mormon was about.

We'd already told her a little about it, but we still kind of started from the beginning again. The book of Mormon is a book we study alongside the Bible. We believe that after Christ died and was resurrected in Jerusalem, he also appeared to the people in the Americas. The Book of Mormon is a record of those people, who began with a family led by a prophet named Lehi, who left Jerusalem 600 years before Christ's birth. It's basically a record of their histories, records, and prophecies all the way up to Christ's visit to the Americas. We assured Angie that we don't worship Mormon-- the book is only named after him because he was the person who compiled all the records. We believe that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the word of God, and they support each other and confirm the veracity of each other. 

When we told her about the Book of Mormon and handed it to her, she immediately started flipping through it. We pointed out the introduction and she said she was going to read it. She also finally gave us her number! And now she has the right source to find out what we REALLY believe. She seemed really excited to get the book and start reading it and so we're really excited too!

On Friday we had our tri-zone conference. There are 9 zones in the mission (I'm pretty sure...hermana Johnson said there are three tri-zones which would mean there are 9 zones). Tri-zone was AWESOME! I had to lead everyone in saying the missionary purpose which was pretty awkward, but other than that it was really great haha. We got to hear from President and Sister Andersen, their son and daughter-in-law who are visiting, the AP's (2 elders who help Pres. Andersen), the Sister Training Leader Trainers (they're like AP's but girls), the Sister Training Leaders (there are 2 for our three zones), and the Zone Leaders (6 elders for our three zones). I saw Herman Lighten my companion from the MTC and her trainer.

They talked about things like having the faith to find people to teach and ways to build up your faith (read the scriptures, pray, count your blessings, have a vision of where the work in your area can go!). President Andersen's son and daughter-in-law talked about how the learning and growing you do on your mission affects the rest of your life which was cool to think about. And we also talked about the importance of really knowing and studying Preach my Gospel (the missionary teaching manual) and the scriptures. Overall, it was really just an AWESOME day. It was also fun to be around so many missionaries! It felt like there were a lot of us, but we're actually a little less than a third of the mission. President Andersen said we're going to take a whole-mission picture when Elder Holland comes!

On Saturday we got to go to the baptism of a woman named Stella. She was taught by the missionaries in the other ward that meets at our building. It was so neat and we could feel the Spirit so strong! And she bore her testimony afterward and told us how she wished her kids could have been there (I'm not really sure of what her background is), and how she hopes they'll join the church someday too.

On Sunday we had a little bit of a tender mercy because after sacrament meeting (which is the last hour of church for our ward), a couple who we didn't know (they live in the Elders' area) came up to us and invited us over to eat! We rode with them in their car (I hadn't been in a car since driving to the Seattle Airport in June) to their house, which was actually a townhouse--not an apartment. It felt like we were back in the states! And we ate really good food and got to look through their son's mission photos (he's in the Uruguay Montevideo West mission right now) and they told us their conversion story from 35 years ago. It was a really much-needed assurance that there ARE people who are prepared to hear the restored gospel, we just need to find them! We do have investigators, and we're still teaching them, but it just feels like no one is really progressing which has been a little frustrating lately. We'd been a little bajo in ánimo translation-slow in energy and so it was so nice to be unexpectedly invited to eat with members who are still so strong in the faith after so many years, who were introduced to the church in Spain, and who were so nice and friendly to us too! Plus it was fun to ride in a car, to be honest. The Lord was looking out for us and helped us through this couple, Nuria and Manuel. And now we're so ready and excited for this next week!

Oh, one more thing that we did with Nuria and Manuel, they were telling us about some Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert (I think it was for pioneer day) that they watched and how the choir sang the song "where you are" from Moana at this concert. Now Nuria and Manuel apparently listen to it every night because they just think it's so awesome. They then proceeded to find the recording of this concert and show us the Tabernacle Choir singing the song from Moana. It was actually really funny... I recommend that you all look it up. Just watching all the choir people singing the song in the conference center was really great. But it also sounded really good! The best part was probably Manuel though, because he's just this 50-something Spanish guy who doesn't really speak English and he was singing along with so much enthusiasm, which was really funny. They really like Moana (Vaina) at that house.
Sunday night we taught Lorenzo again. He's very old (not super old I guess, like 70) and very catholic but he's also very interested in religion. All religion! And he's so smart, so it's a little overwhelming teaching him because he just has so many questions! If he didn't speak so clearly we would be completely lost when we're teaching him. He was asking really specific, not-super-important questions like whether he'll still be able to "tomar una cerveza" in heaven. Translation-Can we have beer in heaven?  We just kind of brushed that off and told him we don't know exactly what heaven will be like haha. We're hoping we can teach him again this week and get him to come to church!

 Today it's RAINING! I haven't seen rain since that day in the CCM! I kind of missed it!! It was only sprinkling a little when we walked to Mercadona-market but when we came out, it was POURING. Fun fact about Spain, or Torremolinos at least: it really doesn't rain here, so gutters on the side of the road aren't really a thing... at all. Basically, every road we crossed on the way back to our piso, pulling our little carts behind us, was a river. A few inches of water just rushing down all the roads. There was also an excessive amount of thunder and lightning so it was an exciting walk, for sure. Hermana Johnson thought we were going to die. Everyone who was standing under covers or walking with umbrellas just saw us and shook their heads. We both have very wet shoes now. But it was still fun!!!

Since it's a rainy day we're just going to keep things low-key today and maybe go to a few stores or make more banana bread (it's kind of a problem how much banana bread we make). We ran into a couple from the UK on the street today who are members and talked to us for a few minutes! They were bummed that they came here to escape the rain... On the one day that it rained!  Tonight we're supposed to teach a lesson to an investigator I don't know very well (we've just seen her on the street a few times since I've been here). She's named Liliana and her boyfriend finally left to go back to the United States last week! Apparently she reads the Book of Mormon and the Gospel Principles Sunday School manual every day, but she works two jobs, so she can never meet with us or come to church. I'm excited to really get to meet her!
Hermana Johnson and I are just really excited for this week, to teach our investigators and to find new ones, to keep studying the scriptures and learning Spanish, to walk around in the rain some more! It's going to be a good week!

Hermana Walker

Here are some pictures of my apartment.

Also this week I made a scripture box for my Spanish scriptures. 

Week 10: Castle on a hill

Hola hola hola! 

This week went by SO fast! 

We made two batches of banana bread on Monday and took one batch to district meeting and another we cut up and took to different members. We gave some to Lorenzo and Inma and to Ramón and Norma, and we also stopped by a few more members in our area to drop it off. When we took banana bread to Arlessa, who's a recent convert, she actually let us in and we were able to have a really good conversation with her and she said to call her this week and come visit again! Neither of us knew her very well so this was super cool. We're making more banana bread today because apparently that's the way to people's hearts here in Spain. It's a good excuse to go visit the people we need to see. 

We got some new dresses so we posed together.

 Wednesday, we taught Victor again. It was another good lesson-we taught him OLA, which is orar, leer, y asistir (read, pray, attend church). He said he would try to attend, but then he didn't... So we're going to work on that. 

On Friday we went to the sister training leaders' (she's) area for INTERCAMBIOS! I went with Hermana Pickett and hermana Johnson went with Hermana McKeown for the evening, we stayed overnight in their piso, then I went with Hermana McKeown for the next morning and hermana Johnson went with Hermana Pickett. It was super fun just meeting more missionaries and getting to learn from them. We taught one lesson the first night and then went and painted an older member's living room the next morning for some service. I don't know if they don't have paint rollers in Spain or what, but we were definitely painting with paintbrushes. The member seemed to think the walls looked great but we actually thought they looked pretty bad haha. But it's her living room, so I guess if she thinks it's good then it's good! 

There were a few really good things I got out of intercambios. First: everyone kind of has the same worries and struggles, more or less. Everyone gets tired, and no one really likes talking to people on the street, at least at first. But you have to keep going when you're tired and keep talking to the people on the street and things will really work out. I feel a lot better about contacting now though! Poco a poco! 

Speaking of contacting, hermana Johnson forgot that she knows English when we were contacting yesterday. We started talking to this couple and they responded, in English, 'sorry, don't understand.' and both of us kind of just backed off, like, 'oh, they don't speak this language.'  Then a few seconds later we looked at each other and were like, 'WE SPEAK ENGLISH TOO.' but they were already gone and we were left just laughing at ourselves. So, that's fun. We also tried praying in English to start companion study and it was WEIRD. I think we're going to stick with Spanish. 

On Sunday after church the elders and Hermana Johnson and I ate lunch at the church with Obispo! He hasn't been super close with the missionaries in the past so this was a big deal. We had a really great conversation and feel like we have a lot better relationship with him now. Here is a picture of the outside of our church.

Today for p-day our district met up and went to a castle! It cost 60 cents to get in and was definitely worth it haha, it was super cool! Our district is really awesome. It was a hike to get up to the castle but the views were AWESOME. 

Then we went to Domino's together and did their pizza buffet (I don't know if it exists in the states or not), and we went through a lot of pizzas...  because we had four elders with us. Domino's in Spain is really different than Domino's in the states, but it's REALLY good.

This week was a big feria in Málaga. I've seen so many people walking around with giant flowers in their hair and wearing beautiful flamenco dresses! It's made it difficult to teach, since everyone is at the feria, but it's sure been fun to see everyone all decked out! 

This week I finished Mosiah in the book of Mormon, and when I was in Mosiah chapter 26 I read a part that was kind of funny, but also really reassuring. There was a group of unbelieving people who were causing a lot of trouble, and they were brought before Alma (who was the head of the church):

 10 Now there had not any such thing happened before in the church; therefore Alma was troubled in his spirit, and he caused that they should be brought before the king.

11 And he said unto the king: Behold, here are many whom we have brought before thee, who are accused of their brethren; yea, and they have been taken in divers iniquities. And they do not repent of their iniquities; therefore we have brought them before thee, that thou mayest judge them according to their crimes.

12 But king Mosiah said unto Alma: Behold, I judge them not; therefore I deliver them into thy hands to be judged.

13 And now the spirit of Alma was again troubled; and he went and inquired of the Lord what he should do concerning this matter, for he feared that he should do wrong in the sight of God.

14 And it came to pass that after he had poured out his whole soul to God, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying:

15 Blessed art thou, Alma, and blessed are they who were baptized in the waters of Mormon. Thou art blessed because of thy exceeding faith in the words alone of my servant Abinadi... 

19 And because thou hast inquired of me concerning the transgressor, thou art blessed.

 So basically, Alma had no idea what to do with this group of people. So he tried to get the king to take care of it, but the king didn't know what to do either. So the king sent them back to Alma, and in the end really neither of them knew what to do. And they were the leader of the church and the leader of the government! So it's okay if we don't know how to do something. If someone asks me a question, as a missionary, and I don't know the answer, it's okay. Because these amazing people didn't even know what to do or say in every situation! The important part is that rather than just giving up, we turn to a Heavenly Father and ask him for help. He'll never be annoyed that we're asking him!

This week is our tri zone conference, and on September 16th ELDER HOLLAND is coming to talk to our mission! And I lucked out because he's also talking to the stake in Málaga which means I get to hear him twice! We're really excited!!! 

Talk to you in a week! 

Love, hermana Walker 

Week 9: A bird pooped on me

Hola hola hola! 

Yesterday I hit 2 months in the mission, which is pretty weird. I've already been here in Torremolinos for almost three weeks!  I made French toast in the shape of twos to celebrate.

This week has kind of been a blur, it feels like every week I'm here goes faster and faster. On Tuesday we had district meeting and then we went to pizza hut afterwards. Pizza in Spain is WEIRD. the pizza I got was just a normal pepperoni pizza, but I had to specify that no, I didn't want those meats I had never heard of, I was fine without obscure vegetables... "sí, solamente pepperoni!" 
Hermana Johnson tells me that the "queso de cabra" pizza they have is pretty good, so I might have to try that next time. I really love district meeting though, we sing the mission song and have people assigned to share a miracle from the week, give tallers (like five minute talks--this week I'm giving one on how we can listen to the spirit), and we ask for advice with different investigators. Plus our district is just super fun. 
Tuesday night, I felt something hit my shoulder and then drip onto my arm. This isn't actually that out of the ordinary, since everyone's A/C is always dripping cold water onto the sidewalk from their balcony, but the thing that hit me was definitely warm (I'm sure you wanted to know that), so I looked up and lo and behold, a pigeon just chilling right on top of me. So I've officially been pooped on by a bird now, which is fun. I went and washed my arm, don't worry. 
On Wednesday night we ate with Lorenzo and Inma again, and as promised, we had rabbit. It was actually pretty good, just a lot of bones. Tasted like chicken. 
On Wednesday we also met with Amparo again. She said that she didn't smoke for two days last week. She's been smoking since she was twelve so she said that this was a huge miracle for her! She really wants to quit. She wanted to come to church, but this Sunday we went to pick her up and she didn't answer the door so we're not sure what happened. 
We also taught Victor again this week. I like teaching him because he's from Bolivia so he's a lot easier to understand than the Spaniards! He couldn't come to church either but we're meeting with him again on Wednesday. 
Giovanna, the menos activa, also wasn't able to come to church this week, since she had work. But when we called her to invite her to church on Saturday and she said she wouldn't be able to come, she did invite us to come visit this Tuesday so we're excited for that.
On Thursday we did a lot of cooking. I made breadsticks and hermana Johnson made this chicken bake thing for lunch, and then that night we made this banana/chocolate chip cake thing that was super good. One thing about Spain is that they don't actually have chocolate chips. So we bought chocolate bars and cut them up.  It worked great!  We also had watermelon and cut some to look like dresses (an idea from my little sister Megan and Melissa).  Here we are in our watermelon dresses.

 On Saturday we were knocking doors and someone opened their door who spoke English (like from England). Her words when she saw us were, "oh no, forget it! Go away!" This wasn't really that funny I guess, but we were dying laughing when she closed the door just because normally we don't understand people and she was just this old British lady telling us to forget it. Sorry, we're not forgetting it, English lady. 
Church yesterday was good. There was no one to play piano in sacrament meeting so I got to play... Which was a STRUGGLE. Definitely a lot of one - handed playing. It was a party. 
Sunday night we taught an investigator I hadn't met before, Lorenzo (different from Lorenzo and inma Lorenzo). He had a LOT of questions but he speaks so nice and clearly, easier to understand than anyone else I've met, and so I felt like I got 99% of what he was saying! The gift of tongues is so real. And the lesson went really well! He's really looking for the truth. 
In other news, apparently, it's weird to put things on the floor in Spain. We're sitting in McDonald's right now, emailing (obviously...) and my bag was sitting next to my feet on the floor, and a worker just took the chair out from beside me, moved it to the other side of the table where my bag was sitting on the floor, then picked up my bag from the floor and put it on the chair. So that was super random. Hermana Johnson just told me that that's a thing. Good to know. I will not be putting my bag on the floor in the future. 
There is a cool sandcastle in Torremolinos.  Hermana Johnson says it is always at the beach. It is made of sand. Apparently, It gets protected from the rain and lit up by candles at night.  There were some plastic super heros and princesses posing on the sand castle too.

The grocery store is about a ten minute walk. There are carts you use inside the store, and then you have your own pull along cart that you bring to the store and load your groceries into afterwards to pull home. There's a place to put your personal carts at the front of the store.
Normally we get milk, eggs, cereal, bread, chicken nuggets, pasta to cook with pesto, a couple chicken breasts, fruit, you know, just normal things. We also buy water because the water from our tap tastes weird. Here I am posing with my pull along cart.

Hermana Johnson also made me call someone this week. I do NOT like calling people on the phone in ENGLISH, so calling Victor in Spanish was fun. But I felt like he understood me and I understood him. That being said, I really hope I don't have to call anyone else for a LONG time.
When I've been preparing for my taller this week, I've been studying the talk by Elder Rasband from April about listening to the holy ghost. I really like how he talks about the way to get more promptings, more opportunities to serve, is by acting on the promptings you do get. And if you're not sure if it's a prompting, it might just be your own thoughts telling you to call a friend, just do it anyway. He also says how important it is to pray for opportunities to serve every day. I'm trying to do this more often and would encourage you all to try to do that too!

Here I am posing with the ocean behind. It is so beautiful here!

Talk to you in a week!

Love, hermana Walker

Week 8:Little Miracles

Hola hola hola!  
This has been a super long, super exhausting week. We're walking miles and miles in the sun every day and spending a lot of our time just knocking doors. We've also been constantly speaking only Spanish on the streets which adds a nice mental-exhaustion frosting to the cake of tiredness. 
BUT even though around 6pm on Saturday we were sure we were going to melt to death on an obscure Spanish street, WE SURVIVED!!!

Beds are awesome and so is a piso with air conditioning. Study time is so great and gives me a boost every morning and today is P Day! So I'm ready to go out at 7pm tonight (which is when P day ends) and start all over again. 

And all the hard things being said, although this week was very exhausting, it was also amazing and we had a lot of success and saw a lot of miracles. 

The first miracle has been our new investigator, Victor. He's from Colombia and is a physical therapist. We got to teach him twice this week (lessons one and two) and both lessons went really well. The first lesson, my water (bottle) broke all over his floor. But the next one passed without any problems haha. Just having someone to teach who consistently answers their phone and is willing to plan the next lesson ahead of time is a miracle in and of itself. And he's really looking to find the truth so that's super cool. We're excited to teach him again on Wednesday.

The next miracle was a woman named Angie who we found knocking doors in a part of our area where not much work had been done. She was so nice and asked a lot of questions that we were able to answer, like what makes our church different than other Christian churches and what the book of Mormon is about. We basically taught a super condensed version of the first lesson on her doorstep. When we were talking about Joseph Smith looking for the truth, she said 'like me!' She told us she had to talk to her husband because he has his beliefs, but we gave her our number and are hoping she will call us. If not, we'll go stop by her house again another day. 

The third miracle of this week has been a menos activa named Giovanna. We stopped by and gave a quick spiritual thought about a week and a half ago, and invited her to church. We tried to see her again a few times this week but she was never there, but Sunday night we went by again and were able to teach both her and her husband. The whole family is members but all inactive. The first time we met with her she said she hadn't been to church in years, but she told us she attended the other ward with her sister this past Sunday! And she was sharing all these good memories of family scripture study and family home evening she'd had as a girl and said how she wanted to be a good example for her kids. She and her husband were super nice again and committed to read and pray and her husband gave the closing prayer! So that was super awesome. 

Now I have a really random question. Can lemons and limes grow on the same tree? We saw a tree that really looked like it had lemons and limes... Not just green lemons and yellow lemons but lemons and limes. So is that possible?? (email Holly at holly.walker@myldsmail.net with your answers)

A day in the life of a missionary :

7:30 wake up, exercise
8:00  breakfast, shower, etc
9:30 daily planning
10 personal study
11 companionship study
12 teaching investigators, tracting, visiting less actives, etc 
2 medio día- lunch
3- 12 weeks (the program for missionaries in training, has activities to do and things) 
3:30 back out! 
9:15 language study
10:15 prepare for bed, shower, write in journal, etc
11:30 lights out
Of course, the schedule isn't exactly like that every day, like on Tuesdays we have district meeting in the morning, and Thursdays we have weekly planning for three hours. Mondays, we have p day from 9am to 7pm and Sundays we have church from 10-1. We spend a lot of our time walking from place to place so we have had a lot of time to get to know each other. Hermana Johnson eats whole apples. Like the whole thing even the seeds! You learn a lot about a person. 

This week I ate mushrooms and an olive at Lorenzo and Inma's. Never had either of those before and didn't like them much I have to say, but now I've had them. Next week we're having rabbit...that will be an experience. Kind of scared. 

When we were going to the further - away part of the area this week, we walked through this crazy park full of roosters and chickens and ducks and swans and turtles and it was kind of wild.

Also remember last week when I said a bat was lost in Hermana Johnsons room? We finally found it a few days ago... Dead on her floor. So, we're still not sure where it was hiding, we thought we looked pretty thoroughly, but it's now been thrown out the window with the other bats. And WE FINALLY GOT A NEW VENT and it's clean and white and perfect and so the bat problem is finally all taken care of. 

Today for p day we went to fed ex because Hermana Johnson wanted to mail a package. Except... Turns out the bus gets you about an hour’s walk away from the fed ex place. So, it's about 3pm and we're at 17,861 steps (7.68 miles). So, we're pretty tired. But the package got mailed, and now we don't have to feel bad about eating ice cream tonight! That being said, I don't think I'll be sending any packages during the mission.

This week I was reading in the new testament a bit and I found a verse that I really liked. It's John 16:33, which is Jesus talking, and says "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." I really liked this verse because I had never noticed before the part that says "in the world ye shall have tribulation." it acknowledges that YES, in this life we're all going to have troubles. In the mission, I'll have good days and not so good days. But we can have peace and be of good cheer if we turn to Christ and stay close to him. 

Love you all, have an awesome week, 
Hermana Walker