To be clean...

Good week good week.

"M"... she is super prepared... we share the gospel with a lot of people, and there are some that are just so prepared to hear it it is ridiculous. You can really feel their desire to learn in the lesson and that ´real intent´ brings the spirit so much. Well "M" is one of those chosen few. We go to teach her and we could just sense that there is something different about her. She loves to hear the word of God and recognizes that there is something currently missing in her life. So we teach her about the Restoration of the Gospel... how through Joseph Smith the priesthood authority was restored to the earth. Very few people realize the importance of this concept- but she did. I could see it in her eyes- that she truly understood and had even more interest to learn more. As we were explaining the Book of Mormon and how we can receive an answer through prayer she made such a profound comment: "I think the answer we receive depends on our faith too, if we have real desire to receive an answer then God will give us that answer more readily"... haha I couldn´t believe that came from an investigator's mouth and not from the mouth of a missionary.   ´Exactly... actually there is a scripture just about that... Moroni 10:3-5´. She is incredible and I´m sooo excited for her! We set a baptismal date and I truly believe that it will go through... she is just that awesome!!!! :) Woohoo!!!

We also have this awesome investigator named "A"!! We met him on the streets a few weeks ago and haven´t been able to teach him again for a while.. but this week we taught him and had an awesome lesson! :) He kind of came into the lesson with his mind set that he wasn´t really a church-going type of guy. So we started to read with him from the Book of Mormon and he had kind of surface level questions-like he just really wanted to learn but not really apply anything. So then we had a detour in the lesson and we both bore really powerful testimonies about why we know the church is true and what the church has done for us in our lives. After that he was like a completely different person- he was more open not only to learn, but to apply as well. and something stuck with him because he came to church yesterday and loved it! :) The members were so awesome with him and he made some pretty great friends. I´m excited for him too! 

"D"... so this is investigator "D" number 3.... I´m fairly positive the Lord wants us to baptize a "D"... because "Ds" just keep popping up. :) So this "D" has had a hard life... and it shows... but the gospel is for everyone and so we were sharing... actually we started with the Word of Wisdom... it just seemed right in the moment.  Well the next lesson we taught him he looked like he had shaped up at least a little.... we taught about the Restoration and were very specific about what the requirements are for baptism... haha I started out by telling him that he had to be completely clean and that required him to give up some of the things he is doing at the moment. .. haha and my companion is hilarious, she took the clean comment to the next level and told him he had to be clean physically too and shower everyday. hahaahahahahah  I guess that´s what happens when you are sitting closer to a smelly man.:)  I was trying so hard not to laugh :)

We carved pumpkins last Monday!! in honor of Halloween!!! (which they totally celebrate here in Madrid... I guess it was just an island thing that they didn´t celebrate it). but haha it is super humid here I guess because within 4 days the pumpkins were all molded over... very Halloweeny :)

Well we're going to walk to church now...

Ok want to hear a crazy, cool story. Ok dokey then...

So yesterday there was a baptism at 7... and our lesson failed right before so we were doing a little bit of contacting and ran into an old investigator, "D" (another "D" :).  We were talking to him for a while and invited him to come to the baptism. To which he told us he wasn´t really interested in learning anymore so he didn´t really want to come. So it got to be time for us to start walking to the chapel and we asked him if he wanted to walk and talk with us. To which he agreed. :)  We are sneaky.  So by the time we were close to the church I asked him again if he was sure he didn´t want to go to the baptism... ´well I´m already basically here´ :) Turns out he´s always passed by the church and always wondered what it was like inside... so we gave him a tour of the church.  He loved all the paintings and was specifically interested in the paintings of Joseph Smith- like the first vision and when he got the priesthood... and as it turns out, all the paintings in a chapel make it really easy to teach and testify of the Restoration of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. :) So he was loving it, ended up staying for the baptism- and loved that too! At the end he told us that he felt really good- that whenever he would pass by the church he would always feel something special and he felt that feeling again as he watched the baptism. He´s done quite a bit of research on the church and was convinced that it wasn´t for him, but just being in the church and feeling the spirit of the baptism opened his heart and now we have a lesson set up on Tuesday! :) Woohoo gotta love it!

Last Monday we were on a baking kick and made a very delicious fall cake. In fact it was so delicious that we ate a little too much and decided we should probably give it away before we ate anymore. So we packaged it all up and on Tuesday we stopped by the houses of investigators, menos activos, members- anyone that normally wouldn´t ´have time´ to see us... but funny how time becomes irrelevant when you come bringing cake! :)  It was such a productive day and we were able to teach some awesome lessons! :)

We also met with some really cool new people this week!! :) We were contacting one day and stopped this man with his daughter. Come to find out this man is a member- got baptized when he was 10 in Columbia and then when he moved to Spain his family just never found the church and he really doesn´t remember anything- so he had a ton of questions... the one thing he remembers is that there are these awesome parties called Noche do Hogares (FHE).. where there is really yummy food. haha.  So we set up an fhe and we´re going to meet his wife.  This is going to be an incredible family... his 10 year old daughter is hilarious and super spunky and sassy... love it!

We had an incredible district meeting this week... we focused on Elder Anderson´s talk about Joseph Smith... and how to strengthen your own testimony of Joseph Smith you can 1. share your favorite scriptures from the Book of Mormon 2. Bear testimony of the Restoration 3. Record yourself telling the story of Joseph Smith and bearing testimony. So we did all of that as a district- including recording each of us bear testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith. It was really cool... it is something that we do everyday, but the spirit was so strong and just put more emphasis on bearing testimony and bringing the spirit of the Restoration of the gospel every time we share this message!! :)

Random story. so there is this man that sells corn, as we were passing he flagged us down and asked for a pass a long card of Jesus... so we give him a card.  He didn´t want to listen to us... just to get the card.  We walked by later that night, the card was hanging up in his little stand for all the world to see!! haha

Well have a great week!! :)

Hna Fowers

I live in a Medieval world

Fun fact: The largest Medieval festival in Europe happens in Alcalá... this last week. :) AND IT WAS SOOO LEGIT!!!!  So just imagine this... you are walking down the already very European streets and plazas... and then you add little stores lining the streets selling all sorts of Medieval-Spanish trinkets and (most importantly) lots of really yummy food!!! :) and to add on to that- all the shopkeepers are dressed in medieval clothing talking like they would in the medieval days. I was loving every second of it!  So the festival was only going from Tuesday to Sunday.... meaning we couldn´t go for p-day... but we conveniently have a 2 hour medio dia from 2-4 that we have to eat-when we aren´t eating with members. haha  It just so happens that this week we were eating with members every day. I went through withdrawals about not being able to go to this festival... but luckily our appointment on Thursday fell through and we were able to go!!! YAY!!! 

Haha there was a thunderstorm on Thursday...we decided that we just didn´t care and we wanted to see the festival. So we make our way down to Plaza Cervantes in the pouring rain. All the little craft and trinket shops are all tarped closed... but the food shops were open! :)  We ate ´the original´ kebabs under a tarp on miniature tables and chairs and watched as the rain poured down around us. :) Super cute, right?  Happy ending- the rain cleared up a bit and we were able to walk around, get some yummy desserts and see some of the cool stores. I was very content! :)

Well turns out having a famous Medieval festival in the middle of your area kind of puts a damper on the missionary work... but we still had a good week!:)

We were contacting in a park and started talking to this lady... we introduce ourselves and share a little bit about our message and she tells us that she has some friends that are Mormon... and her son has gone to the church a few times. We ask a few questions and come to find out her son is our investigator that we have been trying to get a hold of for some time!! Woohoo.. so we set up a time to go see them. It was a really good lesson, they have a lot of faith and a lot of really good questions. 

We were teaching a recent convert about tithing again and we watched a talk by Elder Bednar. The whole talk she was nodding her head and agreeing with everything he said... at the end of the talk she just goes off on how she has a testimony of tithing and how everything Elder Bednar said was so true.  That made the lesson really easy. I really like it when people have testimonies.

Last week we met with "J" on the streets... he told us that he had met with missionaries before and it was all the same as the other churches... we taught him a little bit of the Restoration on the streets and talked about the Book of Mormon- and he agreed to meet with us and learn more. So we went and taught him lesson one and how through reading the Book of Mormon he can know that we have the truth... that there is only one church that has all the truth. He really liked that... and now is reading the Book of Mormon! :)

Yeah well that is basically my life now!  I loved the festival... haha but I´m glad it is done :) I bought one thing. a Harry Potter time turner :) haha so I guess if I really wanted I could turn back time and visit it again... I´ll let you know how that goes for me :)  Peace out!

The dungeons

We started out this week by cleaning the dungeons... and that is not a far fetched explanation... haha

A recent convert asks for our help cleaning.  Sweet!   So I put on jeans and a t-shirt (which is the first time in over a year, and I think I might be crazy but I like skirts better haha) and head over to her house. So she leads us to the very basement of the building... like the very basement where there are no lights and dirt floors. Sketchy.  Well then she leads us to her storage room which literally looks like either a tomb or a dungeon... (and definitely the mixture of the two)  She creaks open the big metal door and we go to work- first moving everything out, then scraping the first layer of dirt off the floor, then sweeping, then scraping the second layer of dirt, then sweeping (repeated about 10 times:)  Grand old fun! :)  but the best part was when we started taking all the junk out to the garbage cans... so here is some background about Spain-everyone dumpster dives, like it is a normal thing here... so as we are making our way to the dumpsters we had people stop us and ask if they could have some things- my favorite was probably a 7 year old boy who asked for the bird cage.   haha   Totally made his day :)

Ok we met with "D" for the first time and he is absolutely incredible!!! So he is the friend of a member and we met with him at his friend's house and it was an absolutely fabulous lesson- some people are just ready and he is one of those people. So we had just finished explaining the Restoration and the First Vision - ´Do you believe that this is possible, that God restored His church to the earth again?´... ´I don´t know... but I truly hope that this is true´... dang the spirit was so strong! :)  He is great, and to add on to it... he cooked lamb for us and it was SOOOO GOOD!!!! I have such high hopes for him!

"L" came to conference with us and it was awesome!  She brought her little boy and everything! I just love conference so much!!!!!!
 

Also one more thing- we go to eat at a members house and they have Harry Potter wands. I think I freaked out a little... but I loved it so much... don´t worry pictures will be included :)

So storks are a real thing...

So Alcalá is famous for its storks... you know like the big birds that bring babies to people...

Well they have storks here, so occasionally we will look up to the sky and just see these ginormous birds flying over head. I really feel like I´m in Hogwarts at these moments, because I think that is what it would be like to have buckbeak flying overhead. Every time I just really hope they don´t poop on us... that would be a disaster. 

So umm... this week... I don´t really even feel like I was in my area because one day I was at the mission home for a meeting and I was on intercambios for another.  Oh my gosh can I just say that I love President and Hermana Jackson. Everytime I am with them I just am so glad to be a missionary and just want to be so much better. They are incredible... plus Hermana Jackson cooks so well. 

We met with some really solid people this week:

-"R" -  We met with her for the 2nd time this week, she came to our lesson with her Book of Mormon in hand, having read the chapters we left for her. Beautiful. Then we taught her the Plan of Salvation. She loved it. ´This is different than everything I´ve ever been taught, but it makes sense´... and that is because it is true. So she´s awesome and I´m super excited for her.

-"L"- We met her on the street, come to find out she had been meeting with the missionaries in her country before she moved here 4 months ago.  We started teaching the Restoration and really talked a lot about families...come to find out she had lost one of her children and she just started crying as we talked about the gift of having eternal families. During that lesson I was so grateful that I truly know that my family can be together forever... I don´t know what I would do without that knowledge and I don´t want anyone else here to have to live without that knowledge either.

-Yesterday we went to a concert put on by one of the senior couples here (the Sullivans-who were in the Motab)... We drove in a big car full of members and recent converts and it was so fun! The concert was in Pavones (by the temple) so I got to see everyone from Barrio 6... LOVED THAT SO MUCH!!!

-But funny thing happened - (Ok background story- so we found this guy on the street and invited him to English class, and he came so then we taught him a lesson... and he really understood the significance of the Restoration.  We invited him to be baptized on the 27 of September...but then we found out he was out of our area so we passed him off)  Well he came up to me yesterday and told me he got baptized yesterday... haha  Say what?  I think that is the first time in my mission where someone got baptized on the first fecha we offered them.  Pretty cool right!? :)

Love you lots!

Cathedrals, Castles, Columbus...all in a days work

So I really love Alcalá!!! It is an incredible area, I have an incredible companion and we're seeing so many miracles!! Alcalá is one of the more historic cities in Spain... so we´ll be walking down the street and see a famous cathedral and then keep walking and see the oldest University in Europe. Then we´ll go to a plaza to teach a lesson and it is a plaza dedicated to a famous Spaniard author, Miguel Cervantes, because he just happened to be born in Alcalá. Then we´ll be contacting in one area of town and run across a palace which happens to be the palace of Queen Isabel I (where Christopher Columbus went to ask to travel)... you know it´s a pretty historic place :) It´s been fun to feel like a part of Spain and get to know more about the Spanish history. This ward is actually also one of the oldest in Spain, so a lot of the members are the pioneers of Spain. nifty, huh?! Needless to say, I´m loving it here!

So we´ve been seeing lots of miracles!

-On Wednesday we are making our way to our district meeting... and we run into one of my investigators from Barrio 6. "A"... so she had dropped off the face of the earth about 3 months ago-- we literally didn´t know what happened because she was progressing a ton. Well we saw her in the streets, turns out she moved to Alcalá (thus the dropping off the face of the earth)... but we had a lesson with her and she is even more ready to receive the gospel. I told her that seeing her and me being here isn´t a coincidence.. that this is God telling her that she really needs this message in her life... :) She agreed with me. :)

-We contacted this man, "J", taught him about the Restoration and when we got to the Book of Mormon he told us it looked familiar. So the next lesson we had with him, he brought his Book of Mormon that he found in his house, crazy, right?! Now the next step.. actually reading the book.

-We contacted this girl... she is on study abroad here but is originally from Vegas. She actually has a bunch of Mormon friends and went to seminary with them. So she is a seminary graduate...and not a member. Let me tell you how often we run into seminary graduates in the street -  that never happens. She was super excited to give us her number and meet and all! :)

Just lots of great things are happening! This has been a good change, we just go out and work, and I absolutely love that!

It rains quite a bit here too... haha so we´re trying to perfect the art of contacting with umbrellas...but at least we´ve got the element of surprise--most people aren´t accustomed to being stopped in the pouring rain :) at least for a few moments they receive cover from the rain :)

On Sunday I was asked to give my testimony as part of the welcoming to the ward ritual... but I was given specific instructions to be personal and get the ward to see me as a person as well as a missionary. So (oh I was so proud of myself) I got the whole ward to laugh! :) Woohoo  I was so happy...

There was a day when we were fed a TON... and on our way home my comp was trying to get me to eat chocolate... usually I just eat the dang chocolate but I was so full.. and haha she told me either I eat it or I give it to someone on the street. haha  So the next people we passed were a bunch of punk teenagers, it was a contact of chocolate and then the gospel...they rejected them both... but their faces were priceless.  My comp ended up eating the chocolate as a reward for my good performance :) haha 

Well have a great week!!! Love you lots!

Hna Fowers

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!