I love to see the temple

It was a missionary week for the seminary students of our ward! So what that means is that each young man/woman got their own mission call... they had to live by mission rules... and they had to help the missionaries with lessons. :)  Do you know what that means??  We got lots of help in lessons... woohoo!!!  There was one day we were invited to the early morning seminary to give a presentation on missionary work... super cool, but can I just tell you how grateful I am that I didn't have early morning seminary. :)

So I went to the Madrid temple for the last time this week... haha. That was pretty rough... after serving in the area of the temple for 6 months and always having the temple there when I needed a little boost- I have really grown to love this temple. As I was sitting in the Celestial room I was looking up at the ceiling- there is this design that starts out really small and then grows bigger and bigger as it approaches the wall. I thought back to the MTC when I looked up at that design and had a scripture come to my mind... ' by small and simple means are great things brought to pass'  I sat there at the beginning of my mission wondering how in the world I would be able to do anything 'great' in this language, but trusting that with the Lord's help I could start with the small things. As I looked up at the ceiling one last time I reflected on the last year and a half, everything the Lord has helped me do, all the little things that with time and patience have become great. It was more humbling than anything, just seeing how much the Lord has changed me and how much he has changed the lives of the people I've been able to teach.  The worth of souls truly is great in the sight of God.  Then President comes over to me, puts his arm around me and tells me 'I hope you are taking this all in' ... hahaha thank you President. At this point I completely lost it.  Then we went to my last district meeting and I had to give my 'last testimony' haha and I lost it again. Wooahhh... I promise I am not a crier... but man oh man I am losing my marbles.

Anyway. different topic.
"J" has turned out to be super awesome. He is the one we contacted on his birthday and gave him the Book of Mormon as his 'birthday present' without knowing it was his birthday. .. so that has become our inside joke... that he better read the Book of Mormon because after all, it was his birthday present :) But he is super great, we've met with him a few times, walked with him to the church and he even came to a baptism. :) Saweet... I'm pretty sure he's making us tacos this week... so I'm excited for that.

Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving!! :) We went over the the senior missionaries house and had a typical Thanksgiving dinner. It was so beautiful and today we came to Pavones and ate another big Thanksgiving dinner with the temple workers... I'm not really sure what we did to get an invite to that because we were the only younger missionaries in a midst of probably 30 senior couples. haha   For my birthday I wanted to go to a restaurant... so during mediodia we headed over to a restaurant and my comp had planned it so all the missionaries in Alcala were there to surprise me for my bday!! Super cute. Super fun.  We definitely decorated for Christmas. I kept up with my paper snowflake/birthday tradition.

Funny story... we were waiting for a lesson with a man named "E"... so this man approaches and looks like he was waiting (to be completely honest we couldn't quite remember what he looked like... but we thought it was him) so we approach him 'E'?... then the man kind of jumps looks at us really funny and says ' how do you know my name' haha... so definitely wasn't him, but it was his name. haha   We ended up with his number so it was meant to be :)

We also had a super interesting lesson. so the Elder's have an investigator named "S" and she is hosting a foreign exchange student from Japan.  We met a member a while ago from Japan and so this week we planned an FHE with the two to start teaching "A" (the foreign exchange student)... haha it was a good intention. are you ready for this: So "M" (the member) speaks English and Japanese. "A" speaks Spanish and Japanese. We speak English and Spanish. haha  So there was not a common language. haha  It was a fun adventure.  Nick, I was definitely thinking of you - wondering how in the world you understand this.

Well that is about it! :)
Love you much