Off to Alcala

So change of pace... here I am in Alcalá! :) I have got the cutest companion and I´m super excited to finish up her training and I´m super excited to be here. Oh man I´m so happy!

I love Barrio 6 and it was super hard to leave. It really is amazing to me how fast and how much I can come to love the people here. Yesterday we visited some of my favorite people... and literally ate 5 different times yesterday.  I was about ready to throw up. haha  There goes my diet for the whole transfer :)

Well here is some great news!!!!! "M". . Ok we have been working with her since I arrived in B6 just about 6 months ago.. She wants to get baptized so badly, like she has the most desire out of anyone I´ve ever seen- but couldn´t because of some situations. Anyway we´ve been working on that for 6 months- we had to teach her a lot about the Lord´s timing and truly accepting his will in our lives. We were there when she broke down in tears because she couldn´t get baptized. My heart is completely and totally with her and I have grown and learned so much as I´ve watched her learn and grow. She is such an example to me and I love her so much.  Well anyway on Friday she calls ecstatic and tells me that she is ready to get baptized... that the situation is resolved and she can now get baptized. Oh my gosh, 6 months of teaching and waiting and comforting and relying on the Lord... and she is getting baptized the week I leave. I guess I needed to apply all those lessons we taught about accepting the Lord´s timing! :) I´m sooo happy for her.  I know that this is truly the desire of her heart, to be baptized, and I know that she will be blessed for the rest of her life for this decision! :)  So sad that I won´t be there.... haha

Also... so there is a recent convert named "E" and when I first got to B6 he was super solid, wanted to go on a mission, was sharing his testimony with everyone.  He then kind of fell off the end of the earth and wouldn´t meet with us or anything. It was super sad to see the change in his life. Well about 2 weeks ago we stopped by and were able to get in... and we had a super straightforward lesson... I basically just told him the potential I had seen in him and how it was so sad to see him blowing that away. It was a super straightforward lesson but it actually got to him. So this week we had a lesson with him and his friend, and I got to see a glimpse of the old "E" again. He was more humble and was bearing a simple testimony. Yesterday they both came to church. :) He is turning around and it is a miracle to see it.

Ok well 3 funny moments for the week:

-we were contacting an elderly lady.... she was a little deaf and thought we were asking where the church was- so she started giving us directions to the temple... hahaha thanks...

-we were eating with a member and her little girl turns to us and told us ´man, your life is such a pity´... hahaha because we only have one free day a week... we spent a good chunk of time persuading her that it is the best

-and I definitely ate a liver sandwich this week and wanted to throw up. haha 

Well love you lots!  Have a great week!

"E"

My favorite little "E" got baptized on Saturday. It was super cute, and now you all get to hear about it: drumroll please. :)

- Background... so June was the month of invitation for Europe. So the members were supposed to invite their friends to church, whether it be nonmembers or less actives... and "L" (a blessed member) invited her friend "I" to church. 

This particular Sunday Hna Manner and I were in the Primary helping with the music. I just happened to sit by "E" and got to know her a little. Then in Sacrament meeting I saw "E" sitting by "L" and I didn´t recognize her mom. So I headed over there to talk to them :) Come to find out "I" had been inactive for a while but was wanting to come back..only problem was that they didn´t live in our area.  So we kept in contact with them for a while until we got news that they were moving into our area. Sweet. So we had an FHE in the house of "L" with their whole family  "A" (her dad), "I" (her mom), and "E". In this FHE we brought the children's Book of Mormon and taught about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. You have to understand that "E" didn´t know anything about the church, she didn´t know who Joseph Smith was or what the Book of Mormon was. We watched her as she learned about the church and truly came to gain a super strong testimony. Incredible. So at the end of the lesson we gave her the Book of Mormon and her face absolutely and completely lit up. :)

Once they lived in our area we could go over and start visiting them. I called once to set something up and "E" (talking a million words a minute) said ´Hna Fowers, Hna Fowers, now you can come over and teach me and then I can get baptized´ :) Literally I loved her from the first time I talked with her, she is just so pure and adorable!  Teaching her was sooo much fun... I love kids and I love teaching kids... :) we were able to teach the lessons in ways that were really fun and creative and it really was a highlight of my week. She always informed us on her reading in her book and told us every single little detail she could remember.  So cute.

Anyway long story short, she is as close to heaven as you can get and she was so prepared to be baptized. So Saturday was the big day. She arrived in her white dress and looked like an angel! :) The spirit was sooo strong and she bore her testimony after her baptism and said that she felt ´phenomenal´ and that ´after feeling the way she does she knows for sure that God exists´. Soooooooo cute. It has been amazing to see how her family has grown closer to Christ. Her parents have become super active members with testimonies super strong and "E" is an angel. I love them all so much!!! She now has a family strong in the gospel and I know that she will grow up to do so many great things because she is an incredible girl!

Well that was long. :) but it has been the biggest blessing for me to see the process of all this and watch as her father brought her into the waters of baptism. One of the most powerful moments of my mission. :) The Lord knows us well...  This has been a super hard transfer but it has also been a time when I have seen miracles come to pass :)

Also... this week was the week for Las Palmas to come to the temple. so I got to see all the people I love!!!  Blessings coming from everywhere! :)

Well peace out.  Have a great week!

What to do when trapped in an elevator

Well we have a baptism this Saturday! :) of one of my favorite people in the whole world! "E"!!!! woohoo!  So she´s the little girl we´ve been teaching. We went over there this week and asked her if she´s thought about her baptismal date. Her parents told us they wanted the 6th of September :) Woohoo. I turned to "E" and asked her how she felt about her baptism and getting baptized on that date. ¨It´s like I´m walking on a cloud, I´m just so happy¨  If that isn´t the cutest thing you´ve ever heard I don´t know what is! :) It was just one of those moments you can´t help but to smile :) haha  She also was wearing a name badge that had her name in big letters.  Her mom told us that because we always came with name badges on she wanted to be like us and made her own :) Adorable. She´s adorable. I gave her one of my chappas for the lesson and she was a missionary too :)  So yesterday in church they announced her baptism in Sacrament Meeting and when they did she just burst into the biggest smile you´ve ever seen. :) I reached over and gave her a big hug because I just love her so much. I know that she is a huge reason I am here in Barrio 6-  I can see so much potential in her and in her whole family and I´m so grateful to be able to see the hand of the Lord working in their lives! :)


I ran into Uncle Mike´s mission companion ... the one I was supposed to be looking for...  :) So he´s now in the mission presidency and for zone conference he bore his testimony.  When they said his name I thought it sounded familiar, but then he told us about some of his mission experiences from his mission in California and then I remembered that he is Mike´s mission companion! :) We talked for a while after.  He said Mike was one of his closest companions! :)

Small world, no?

-"M" She´s hilarious. We met with her again, this time with her husband-So we taught the first lesson again. She helped us out with the teaching of the lesson because she really understood everything so well! So at the end of the lesson when we were all bearing our testimonies she just jumped right in there and bore her testimony about how she knows Joseph Smith is a prophet and how the Book of Mormon is true. :) Super cute.  So haha funny story- at the beginning of the lesson she pulls out her Bible- and it´s a Jehovah Witness Bible... so we explain that this Bible has been changed and we´ll bring her a new Bible. She is so excited about getting a new Bible and tells us we can take the other bible and bring her a new one.  Perfect. So fast forward to the end of the lesson- we had already left and were down on the street when she pops her head out her window (on the fourth floor) and shouts that we forgot the Bible. The words ´oh we´ll come get it´ don´t even start to come out of our mouths before she chucks the Bible out her window. haha   Fourth floor straight into the bushes...I mean yeah it´s been changed but it is still a Bible. haha  I really wish I could relive that moment and record it because it was hilarious. We then proceeded to climb through the bushes to retrieve it.  Great fun.

This week was just chalk full of adventures- So Saturday night we were leaving a cita with a menos activa. So we get in the elevator, like normal, and start heading down to the bottom floor, like normal. Well we get to the bottom floor and the elevator stops... but the doors don´t open or anything.  That´s weird... but we just waited for a minute for them to open. Yeah they didn´t open. haha So after a few minutes we realized that they probably weren´t going to open and we began to push all the buttons that we could find- nothing (except for the alarm button which definitely did work but didn´t do us much good other than give us all a headache). So at this point one of my companions starts to hyperventilate and my other companion and I are just laughing at how ridiculous the situation is. So I call up "M" and let her know that we are stuck in the elevator. A bunch of people head to the bottom floor and we manage to pry open the elevator door :) Turns out the elevator had stopped between the 1st and bottom floor- haha so there was a little gap that we could climb out and then jump down to the ground. It was great fun. That sure doesn´t happen everyday! :) I was happy I didn´t have to explain to the District Leader that we would be spending the night that dang elevator.

Well other than that it´s been a pretty mellow week. For the first time in my 14 months in Spain my chocolate chip cookies actually turned out looking like chocolate chip cookies... so I was pretty proud of that!

Well have a great week! :)  Love ya lots! :)

...and then there were three

Alrighty... well people know how to party in Spain. 

There was a going away party for a family in our ward... we walked in to see the entire church gym full of tables... haha then the Relief Society quickly put us to work and we carried out platters and platters full of food... Woohooo party!! :)

Well here is the news of the week: we got a new companion, we are now a trio- Hermanas Fowers, Galvez, y Rojas. Now I am outnumbered and we do everything the Latin way and in Spanish. haha  Which also means that I am officially now a blonde... because my hair definitely is not brown?!? haha I´ve given up trying to argue that one :)

So this week:

-"M"!!! She is the one we met last week on Sunday and thought the Book of Mormon was a treasure (because it is) and that we are angels (because we are ;). Anyway we met with her this week and had an incredible lesson!!! She´s already read up until Alma, we taught her the Restoration and she loved everything and accepted to be baptized! :) Woohoo..  So we met with her on Saturday and invited her to church on Sunday. So Sunday rolls around, she doesn´t show up at ten, so we call her after the first hour, she said her and her husband were on the way. (We have Sacrament Meeting last) so Sacrament Meeting starts and we just assume they aren´t going to come.. then they walk in- but as we are singing the closing song. haha  (So close and yet so far) .. but have no fear- we grabbed a member and gave them a temple tour. They loved it, she had told her husband all about lesson 1 and about her baptism date... so we asked him if he wanted to be baptized on that day too.. and the answer was yes! :) Meanwhile we are giving this tour - -  we arrange for all of us to eat with some members, so while we are waiting for the food to get ready we quickly watch the short Joseph Smith Restoration film :) and then had a very enjoyable meal with a bunch of members. So ideal... I´m so excited for them!

-"M"! So over the last few weeks she has sort of lost interest a little bit, stopped coming to church and reading, so we were a bit sad about that but this week everything turned around. We went over there and had a super powerful lesson about the Book of Mormon. She was explaining the Book of Mormon to her brother-in-law. ´It´s like the Hermanas always tell me, you have to read and then pray about if it is true. Then God will send an answer that it is true´. Oh man that was like music to my ears.  So we continue with that.

-"I" is such a sweet little girl :) We had a super cute lesson with her this week and as we were leaving her piso she was blowing bubbles out the window to bid us farewell! haha  Love her!

-So we had a miracle lesson with "R"... our second miracle with him! So we were walking down the street talking to some people, and we run into him (a recent convert who is preparing to go through the temple). He seemed a little down so we sat down and started talking to him, well one thing led to another and we shared some scriptures, gave some encouragement. We literally watched his countenance change throughout the course of the lesson. At the end he told us that he had been a little offended and started to wonder if what he was doing was the right thing (going through the temple and all)... well it was a miracle that we ran into him- for him and for us... 

Okey dokey... all in a weeks work!

Popsicle bookmarks

-We´re just walking down the street one morning talking to the people of Spain. We stop this young man and start to talk to him about the gospel, something amazing happened...he actually was excited about talking to us. :) Woohoo!!!! We taught him about the Restoration right then and there in the street and gave him a Book of Mormon. It was an incredible lesson, one of the best I´ve experienced on my mission- He has so much knowledge and so much desire to know, which makes it sooo fun to teach! :) He mentioned that his family are Jehovah´s witnesses... we asked him if he was also... He told us that he never really felt filled by any of the religions and was looking for something that ´´fills´´ him. That is when we gave him the Book of Mormon... anyone wanting to be filled just needs to read and pray... the Spirit with do the rest! :)

-So I love "B" so much! We met with her last Monday... She loved church! She really has so much faith and it is incredible to be in lessons with her and have her add her testimony onto ours. :) So we brought up baptism last week and she told us she wanted to be 100 percent sure she wanted to get baptized before she would commit to anything. So then on Monday she was bearing her testimony about prayer and how she knows that if she asks with faith she will get the answers she needs and when she receives those answers she needs to act on them. So we just tied that right back into baptism.:) We told her that if she prayed with that same faith about if she needed to get baptized, God would give her the answers she needs, the reassurance she needs. Then she would have the strength to follow through with that commitment. The Spirit was incredible. It really clicked with her, because we were able to tie it back to something she already had a testimony on. :) We also taught her the Plan of Salvation.. which she loved! Man I love her, she´s so ready. 

-"E"... :) that is one of my favorite lessons of the whole entire week! :) Oh man she is adorable, I love her so much and the best part is that she loves me too! :) She made me promise this week that we would be best friends forever. She has the cutest popsicle stick bookmark in her Book of Mormon, she´s making me one too! :) Score!

-We talked to this woman named "M" on the street yesterday... she was kind of in bad shape when we started talking to her and kept telling us ´I just want peace , I just want peace´... so we sat down and shared some scriptures and talked about how the gospel and how the Book of Mormon can bring this peace. She just listened and said ´but I don´t have this book´... we then handed over a copy. and she looked at it, hugged it to her chest, started crying and thanked us for being her angels. Super cute. 

Well life is great here!

Shout out to my brother who is getting married on Saturday... Sorry bro but I just don´t think I´ll be able to fit it in my schedule ;) haha 

Lots of love coming your way- 

Hermana Fowers

Kids are so smart :)

-Well I definitely taught the Hoki Poki to my English class this week . . haha I got some serious teasing from the missionaries.. but my class loved it. .  so whatever :)

- Let me tell you about "E"! Her parents have been inactive for a while and have recently started coming back to church. So we are working with the parents and getting "E" ready for baptism! :) She is the cutest little girl and I absolutely love working with kids!! :) We had given her the children's Book of Mormon picture book and asked her if she read it... she then proceeded to explain to us (in great detail) the story of the Book of Mormon. She´s adorable.  Loved it! :)  We asked her what she knew about the Restoration or about Joseph Smith. ´well basically Joseph wanted to know which church was true.. so he prayed to God, and God came to him and told him to go to the Mormon church´ hahaha  I love kids so much!

-"B" is incredible! :)  We went there one day when she was a little sick and not really herself... we had planned to watch the Restoration movie and I was hoping she would be able to pay attention to it... so at the end of the movie she told us that it really impacted her.. she thanked us for giving her the opportunity to forget about herself and her problems for a while and just be able to focus on God and feel His spirit... and she came to church!!  She also brought her son... let me tell you what that means for her- so her son is in a wheelchair.. and she has to carry him and the wheelchair down 4 flights of stairs. That is dedication!  I love her lots!

- We were teaching "M" and "S"... we teach them about the life of Christ and watch a short clip about some of his miracles and teachings... at the end of the clip we asked the 6 year old "S" what was her favorite miracle that she saw.... ´well when Jesus paid for all our sins so we can return back to God´  Children are so smart. :)

-We got locked out of our piso again... haha but this time we had a better ending to our story. I was on intercambios and the key that we had wasn´t working to her piso... we literally tried for 20 minutes to open this stinking door... I was really determined because I know what it is like to be locked out for the night...haha but we called over some elders and they tried to open it... first try and it opened right up. Really embarrassing! :)

- Today we went to the coolest park... Parque Europa!  It had little monuments from lots of different countries all over Europe! :)  Super fun! Loved it so much!

"The Light"

So this week we found some awesome new investigators! :) I´m super excited for them because I can see so much potential in both of them! :) The way found them, and our first lessons were miracles:

-"B"- So it was like Wednesday of last week and we got a reference from the mission office. Sweet! So we go about our day, and we talk to some people on the streets and get some numbers. So the next day we start calling our references and we put it together that we have two "B"s with the same number in our planners. God had literally put her in our pathway twice in one day. So we call her up and set something up that same day. Dang, she is so prepared. She has a son who was in a pretty bad car crash in May and she wants to set an example of faith for him. So we had an awesome lesson about Jesus and how he can heal us... and then we taught the Restoration and how through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ we can find peace in this life. The spirit was so strong. we asked her if she believed this, if the truth has been restored, she was quiet and then nodded and said ´Yes, yes I believe.´ and then looked at her son and basically testified that this was the truth, the faith they needed in their lives to be happy. It was incredible.

- "J"- So we got her number like 2 weeks ago and finally got in contact with her this week. So like 2 weeks ago we were giving a mutual lesson in the church.. and it ended and we had a little bit of time before our next lesson, but we both felt really strongly like we needed to leave the church. Very few times have I felt literally, physically guided... but this was one of those times I felt like God just picked us up and tossed us out on the street and into her path. She is also super prepared. Her sister is sick with cancer and she promised the Lord that she would start going to church if she found the right path to follow. Super awesome!!!

Okey dokey well we also had a cool experience with "M"... :)  We really just had an all around good week! :)

So we were talking about how we get our answers... the different ways the Spirit can talk to us... and she was like ´you know I had a weird experience the other day...´  So then she proceeds to explain that she was praying and as she opened her eyes it was as if she saw a light that was trying to reach her but couldn´t... and then she turned to us and asked us what that meant.  Uhhhhh... I don´t know. So we start to ask her some more question. ´What were you doing right before´ ´Well I was reading from the Book of Mormon´ :) ´and how did you feel while you saw this light´ ´ I felt really good... and I felt like I wanted to see more light, like with this light I could see everything more clearly´... Then she wanted to show us what she was reading right before this experience... she opened to the page with the picture of Jesus Christ descending to visit the people in the Americas. Oh man that moment was incredible, just a calm silence as we realized God is answering our prayers. "M" do you believe this is true´ ´Yes´.  I testify that the Book of Mormon is true... that Jesus is our Savior and God wants to answer our prayers. He knows each and every one of us and hears the humble, faithful prayers of our hearts. I know that this Gospel is the ´light´ that each of us are searching for in this life. That just as "M" is discovering... with this light and knowledge of the gospel we can see everything else more clearly in our lives.

-Well I taught the Relief Society how to make banana bread this week...they thought it was this complex exquisite dessert. Fooled them :) and definitely applied the ´I am the bread of Life´ scripture.. haha :)

-And at the end of English class this week I was wiping off the chalk from my hands... and my class thought I was clapping my hands (like as if I was asking for applause) haha so they all started applauding at the end of the class... It was super awkward.

Well I hope your week is full of awkward, spiritual, uplifting experiences too! :)
Much love,

Hna Fowers