Yes, God loves you!

So Tuesday this week was a day full of miracles!! We basically taught more that day than we did the whole week last week... it was a good day... (or last week was a bad week, haha, however you want to take it :)

So we were able to meet with "E" (who has been working 24/7 for the last month basically). So this was the first time in a month, and it was so great- super spiritual and she´s back on the right track!

We also met with "E" and he accepted the Word of Wisdom!! He committed to live it (woohoo)!! He has been holding out on setting a baptismal date because he wants to know all the commandments before he commits to anything, so we are teaching and he is loving everything!! One of the coolest 16 year olds I know. 

We also met with "M" and had a really interesting lesson. Every time we said anything about how God is a loving God she would look kind of confused or make a comment about how she is so small and has a lot of trials... So we straight up asked her if she believes that God loves her... she told us that she thinks she is too small to be of notice to God. It literally broke my heart to hear this and we bore testimony of how God is our loving Father in Heaven. We are literally his children and we can´t even begin to comprehend how much God loves us. He has a plan for each and everyone of us and is completely aware of our every need, but also aware of what is best for us. I felt the spirit stronger in this lesson than probably at any other time in my mission. God wants us to know that He loves us. We have the restored gospel because He loves us, I am here sharing the gospel because He loves His children here. This is a work of love, because we truly have a loving Father in Heaven. 

So we are working with "L" and it was her birthday this week... haha so I called her and as soon as she picked up I started singing ´cumpleaños feliz... cumpleaños feliz.. etc´... I guess I should have asked who I was talking to, but that didn´t really cross my mind. So I just sang and when I finished singing there is just silence on the line.  I'm just thinking ´shoot, I probably should´ve asked for "L"... after a good long silence she just says ´this is the missionaries, isn´t it... ´ hahaa yes, yes it is!  She loved it and she knows it! :)

I had intercambios this week here with Hna Fuller... we were in the streets a lot, and we found some great people. One was named "S". So we were telling him about the Book of Mormon and he was really interested. So after we had read with him a little and bore testimony and all that jazz he handed us the book back and told us he didn´t want it. What?  He told us ´well this is probably a really sacred book, and I don´t know if I can take good enough care of it.´ We made a deal with him, if he took it, read it and prayed about it and still didn´t want it when we met again we would take it back. We´re meeting with him today.. so I´m excited!

Yesterday was Elder Cloward´s bday and we ran into them in the streets after they had just gotten some cake... he offered us a piece, but seeing as we were on the streets we didn´t have anything to cut it with. haha so we cut the cake with a pass along card!  Yes... and that is how you know we are missionaries. haha

That was basically our week: teaching, awesome members, cake... gotta love it!

Love you lots!!! 

Shout out to my champion brother and the Bountiful baseball team!!! :) Wooohooo WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS!!!

Homeless

May or may not have left our keys in our piso this week... locked out... awesome!

So this story all starts out Friday afternoon when we go to the church for a lesson... we go to open the door and realize we don´t have the keys. That is kind of a problem, but we just kept ourselves busy thinking about lessons instead of the fact that we didn´t have a way to get into our piso.  We call this denial... so about 8 we start wondering what we are going to do... 

We call the other hermanas that used to live there, they left their keys inside the piso... awesome!

We call the office elders to see if there are spare keys, they are in a lesson.... perfect!

Then we called the other hermanas in our area and told them we were crashing for the night. :) SLEEPOVER!

There are some major perks to this, namely: Hna Braithwaite had a ´spare´ pair of pajamas that I absolutely loved... totally a Dr. Suess onesie thing. Definitely took advantage of that! There was a whole bottle of nutella for us to snack on:) ...plus sleepovers are just fun... but then the office elders called back letting us know that unless we were looking for priesthood keys they couldn´t help us... aka there were no spare keys. funny elder... not helping!
They also let us know that a locksmith in Spain costs 300 euros... let me repeat 300 euros!! So I went to bed on the floor, without a blanket, mentally preparing myself to climb into our apartment in the morning. 

So the morning rolls around and I call the landlady and explain the situation, ask her if she happens to have any spare keys. Nada... so we start talking about calling a locksmith (just a sidenote... I was not trained to talk about keys and locksmiths and insurance agents .. haha), but we tell her to wait on it (mainly because I really wanted to try climbing into the piso:) haha So we get dressed in our same sweaty clothes from the day before and go to teach English class. :) haha but just rest assured that we looked smoking hot- 2 minute shower, no make up, we rocked it.

But all worked out in the end... we discovered a member who is a locksmith and bless his soul he came and broke into our piso for us. I´m pretty sure I heard the Halleluia choir singing when the door finally opened. :) So that was our big adventure for the week! :) haha  Just gotta laugh!  And in comparison to that.. nothing much happened. I learned a new word: magía patagía... the equivalent of abrakadabra!  It is my new favorite word!

We found some really cool people contacting this week! One man, "V" received the lessons recently and has a lot questions about the 3 kingdoms of glory... so we stopped him and started talking to him and he just started asking us about the Plan of Salvation- it kind of took us aback because no one really knows anything about what we believe!! We were able to sit down and explain it to him! Super cool!

We met a lady yesterday named "A". She was in a car accident about 8 months ago and her mom and 2 of her siblings were killed. We were able to testify about the Plan of Salvation and how we really can live with our families forever! It is incredible the knowledge we have, it brings so much hope and it is what everyone wants-needs to hear! I was just in that lesson so grateful that we can trust in God and have the knowledge that we can live with our families forever.

Well that was basically the week. :) Companionship goal: don´t get locked out again  ;)

Love you lots!

A Medieval Market

Lots of highlights from this week... :)

So an Area 70 came and talked to all the missionaries in the Madrid area!! It was incredible- He is also the Church Historian (Elder Snow). Talked about how they know a lot about the early church days in Spain because of missionary journals. Super inspirational. He told us that one of the reasons we keep journals is because our spiritual experiences will fade, but if we have them recorded we can always go back and remember how good God is-was to us. :)

So as we´re leaving this reunion we hear music from the gym... like olden day music... so we go to check out what was going on.  Ummmm it was the best thing I´ve ever seen in my entire life!!! A MEDIEVAL MARKET!!!! so the young women were fundraising to go to girl´s camp... and they had set up this legit market.  There were costumes, decorations, music, food... you name it.  I was in heaven!!!!

So we found a new investigator this week and it was very much a miracle... so we received an address of someone who was potentially interested in the church... so we are looking for this address... can´t find it anywhere, we literally circled around the same complex like 5 times. So we´re contacting as we´re searching and run into this guy that looked a little rough around the edges. So we stop and talk to him and he´s awesome. We end up moving to a nearby bench to teach the Restoration. :)  Woohoo he loved it. we explained the Book of Mormon.... ´so can I buy that book in any bookstore´   No... but here this one is for you.  Yes, yes it is free. :)  Never did find that address... but found something better!!!  Funny how God works.
 

We had a lot of good member lesson-FHEs this week... We have a lot of members that are doing a lot of missionary work and it is incredible to witness and be a part of! :)

"M" is doing well!!! She told us this week that she believes the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and she can really see the difference in her life when she is reading!

"E".. we taught the 10 commandments this week and you know he is a 16 year old boy so we weren´t expecting any great enthusiasm... haha ´so we´re going to talk about the 10 commandments´... ´YES... this is what I like to hear ´.... ´ummmm... ok...´ hahaha one of those situations you weren´t expecting so you don´t know how to respond....haha

I LOVED SKYPING YOU YESTERDAY!!! :)  Our appointment right before the Skype asked us if we were going to visit another family... Yeah our own!!!! Wooohoo!!! 

LOVE YOU LOTS!! ESPECIALLY MY ANGEL MOTHER!! :)

Hna Fowers!

Feliz Día de la Madre

Fun Fact, Mother´s Day in Spain was yesterday!! So we got to enjoy the cute Sacrament Meeting, the primary children singing and all the cute comments about mothers. I LOVE MY MOMMY!! :)

Well last Monday right after we emailed we were eating lunch in this cute little sandwich café. . . so as we´re eating this man comes up to us and points to our name badges and asks us if we could explain our religion. haha  Why yes, yes we can. We swallowed our mouths full of sandwiches, he pulled up a chair and we had a nice long discussion! :) Awesome. Then at the end he told us that he would really like to meet with us again and asked if Tuesday at 4 would be alright. haha  So he basically approached us, started the conversation, and set up the return appointment... Miracles do happen. It was awesome! So we had another lesson with him and everything, He's a little hesitant to believe and very scientific, but he definitely has a lot of potential. He sure does have the desire. :)

This week I went to the temple for the first time since October.  Let me repeat... since OCTOBER!!!! That is sooo long!!!! I was sooooo excited because I still hadn´t even seen the new video!! Literally felt like I was waiting for a midnight premiere!! and I LOVED IT SOOO MUCH!!!! Learned so much, felt the spirit so strongly, and just all around felt edified... gotta love it! Then right after we had our zone meeting, so it was just an all around amazing morning!

So there are stakes that come from all over to go to the temple, and this week it was a stake from the south of Spain. They had a big Youth Conference here and as one of the activities we gave them temple tours. So we gave tours to like 50 youth at a time. :) Oh it was so fun! Not only did we get to bear testimony and teach, but it was a bunch of youth so we got to make it really fun too. We gave the tours the day after we had gone to the temple so my love, appreciation, and testimony of the temple was just on cloud 9... loved it!!!

So our Miracle find last week is named "M"... and we met with her again this week! :) She is wonderful!!! She had the lessons before and she really realizes that God has placed the gospel back into her life for a reason! She told us that she is going through the hardest time of her life right now.. .her mom died about 4 years ago and she is still recovering from that, and her older sister has cancer and she is dying. She´s having a rough time, and she told us that she knows God led us to her because she can´t go through this alone. She needs additional help from him. We had given her a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read, and she thanks us for that, told us that the spirit she felt when she read was exactly what she needed. It is even more special to her because she remembers the spirit that her mom brought into her life. :) I absolutely love meeting with her!

"E" is progressing, he loves learning about the church and it is soo cool to see...this week he brought one of his friends to the lesson! Awesome!! :)

Seeing as this day was Mother´s Day... we bought some flowers to give to some of our favorite mothers here in Spain.. haha and we got quite a few different reactions. haha

-"M", who is our investigator that is going to get baptized soon... haha well she was changing a poopy diaper. (people here don´t really have an issue with privacy, they breast feed in public... everything in public)... so when she saw the flowers she got all excited and came to give us besos... but had the baby in her arms with the poopy bum facing us... hmmm yeah that was probably the most distant beso I´ve ever given :)

-"J"... is like our mom in the ward! She was just cute and gracious... I actually took video of that one! :)

We had an awesome FHE yesterday... as part of the game we were playing charades of scripture characters. So I had to act out Esther.  The only problem was that no one on my team even knew who Esther was.... haha kind of creates a problem. :)

Well yeah, other than that everything is just same old, same old! Loving life!!

Love you lots!!
Hna Fowers