June 16, 2014

Hello all! 

This weeks email is going to be short because im writing at the end of preperation day and dont have all my email time. But today we had a BBQ with all our zone in a park called Trinidat Vella. its a huge park with lots of open space (not common here in barc) and we just played various sports and ate and took some pictures.. it was nice. and last preperation day we went to park Guell... its Gaudis other famous creation here in barc, it was 8 Euros to enter and not very big... I wouldnt do it again, i think its too pricy for the size but its very interesting and beautiful around that area. there we met an armenian girl who contacted us because she say Hna Nalbandyans name tag and asked if she was armenian. - most armenian names end in "yan"  she ended up tagging along with us and it was great to have a new friend! she wants to learn more about the church but was going on vacation for a couple weeks but when she comes back we will be in contact with her. 

Melisa and Genesis are still doing really good., We bought melisa a new triple and wrapped it for her and gave it to her and she was SO excited. she opened it and was like wooowww... what is it? hahaha we explained to her the different books and then we told her to just flip open and she did and landed on DyC 66:11 which in spanish says, Obedece estas palabras, porque son verdaderas y fieles... obey these words because they are true and loyel...    It was wonderful to see how the book itself was testifying of what we had just explained about it. there is no doubt that the book of mormon , DyC and the PofGP are the word of God. I love little miracles that I get to witness every day! I love it . 

Hna rackham had a mini missionary.. but she got sent to cornella so... we are in a trio again! :)

I love you all and hope you are all healthy and well.

xoxo 

Hna Hair

Gaudi´s famous salamander and I 

a movie billboard but the title just fits us... there is not two without three... (since we are in a trio now haha)

June 9, 2014

Hola hola:)

this week was MUCH bettter than last week. We have been in a trio, because since, hna nadal went home, hna rackham is companionless so she has been with us. We have been working both her area and our area .it is harder because the area we have to work is now so big but we are doing. We actually have been able to work pretty evenly both areas and we have just been literally running from cita to cita. super busy but so happy! the three of us each have something different to add to the companionship so its been great being in this trio. I have admired my compañera very much this week. If I had to choose one thing I loved about hna nalbandyan is that she really knows how to listen to the holy ghost and then follow those promptings one of the biggest miracles this week was because she was following those promptings. she listens and then just acts, i love that about her. hna rackham is amazing too! she really shows true genuine love to all those around her and she makes them laugh and feel comfortable at the first encounter. what wonderful companions I have! Im grateful for everyone I have the opportunity to meet and work with. 

This week we met Jose Luis y Sussi. Sussi is a less active from bolivia who has been here in spain for about 12 years. Jose luis is a spaniard from valencia. They met about 6 months ago in this art course they are both taking. long story short they fell in love, are now living together and she shared her beliefs and religion and now he wants to get baptized, she wants to be active again  and they both want to get married and later sealed in the temple!! HIM a SPANIARD??!! the lord is preparing spaniards and he is doing it through the members and less actives. We did nothing at all, he just has that desire to be baptized... que increíble! they are just waiting for papers to be able to get married and well this is all thanks to sussi who says even though she hasnt been to church for 10 years she has never lost her testimony , she has never stopped knowing who she is and sharing it with those around her. sadly they wont be able to get married till the beginning of august, if everything goes well but immedietly after they get married he is for sure getting baptized... I wonder if I will still be here in this area to see this gran milagro? I sure hope so!

this work of salvation is the lords work and he is hiring everyone in the church to help him! we are all employed in this labor and its a full time job. and just like any business, we are seeing success when everyone does their part and does it with a smile. The members,the less active and the recent converts are bringing friends and sharing this gospel. i know that this is how the lord wants his work to go forward. and we all have a part in this! we are so blessed to all have this opportunity to help the lord and to all be working together . 

i hope you have a great week! summer is just around the corner, its getting warmer. Happy almost summer :)

love you all!!

Love, Hermana Hair

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June 2, 2014

Slow week, 

Everyone and their companion has been getting sick here in this mission okay maybe not the whole mission but for sure here in the barcelona zone. Theres been lots of sick days/mornings in piso this week, with my companion- she is getting better though. Its felt really wierd. because it doesnt feel like missionary work. but we are determined to come back with fire this week :) the sad news is that the other hermanas in our piso are more sick than we are. compared to them we are very very healthy.I would say im the healthiest right now out of all four of us, im basically all normal. but  hermana rackham (an mtc friend) has bronchitus and her companion , hermana Nadal is going home this afternoon because she has been sick for 6 weeks now and the doctors dont know whats wrong with her. so as you can tell there has been lots of emotions and coughing going on in our apartment... hermana nadal has only been out for 3 months, she is from the south of spain and a real trooper. she has put up with not feeling well for a very long time and has worked when her body has allowed her but everyone thinks that going home and getting better and then coming back to the mission is the best for her, that way she doesnt loose her mission time in bed. we are very very sad to see her go, ive only known her for about 3 weeks but i love her and know that we are going to always be good friends. 

So also this week when h. nalbandyan was feeling better we had an intercambio and I went to l'hospitalet! i was with hna benson who was just barely , the transfer before, with hermana williams!!! she said she had heard a lot about me from hna williams, so much that she feels like she already knows me.. i hope its all good stuff! :) but it was a fun intercambio. 

we also had a flamanco performance in church from a dance company that wanted to have their final performance of the season at our church because it has a big stage. it was interesting and fun to watch and we got to talk to a lot of people that came for it who are not members... most werent interested but hey, now they know where the church is haha. 

well thats about it for this week. here is my 13 month picture... 

love you all! 

Hermana Hair 

May 26, 2014

Querida Familia y Amigos,

Umm monday again?? time flies too fast :(

The best thing this week was that MELISA GOT BAPTIZED!!

So on Tuesday we had specialized training with the barcelona and badalona zones. President Pace and Hna Pace give us a specialized training every 3 months . they ask us to come prepared with prayfully picked questions that we want answered at the conference. So obviously hna nalbandyan and I both have our question that concern Melisa and Elizabeth... crazy thing is that the conference was all about feeling the holy ghost and praying.. exactly what melisa and elizabeth need. they are waiting on their answers and wow , it was as if this conference was made just for us to be able to teach them. 

So something we started doing was teaching elizabeth and melisa seperatly because they both have different needs and they seem to like the special attention more. so its all good. So later on tuesday we had a cita with melisa and we focused on how she was praying , what she was asking and how the holy ghost works and how to recognize it. So we sent her off with the invitation to pray specifically and to listen. Then all we could do was trust that god was going to answer her in his due time. our next cita we had with Melisa this week we had to sadly cancel (supposed to be on thursday), because hna nalbandyan was sick and we had to cancel our intercambio where I was going to go to hospitalet and another hna was going to come to barc for a day. we were bummed about the situation and stayed in piso that day. the next day hna nalbandyan was feeling much better so we set up our visits and met with melisa. During this visit, we wanted to go back to lesson one and talk about joseph smith, his prayer and answer after watching the restoration dvd. at the end of the lesson we asked her if she believed in god, if she believed in christ and if she believed the book of mormon was true. Yes, she replied after each question. okay... so we read mosiah 18:8-10 . she started to laugh because of the direct question that she knew was directed to her... we said, melisa.. do you want to be baptized?.. YES, she said. MILAGRO!???!!!! we kept our level of excitedness to a normal amount.. She explained that she had received her answer, that before she was praying but that she wasnt asking for anything specific, she did not like the job she had so she decided to ask god for a new job (umm very specific). and on wed she got offered a job!! she said that at first she thought it was a coincidence but that in her head came the thought, "this is the answer i was looking for, this is what i asked god"... we told her that that thought that came into her head was the holy ghost... she smiled.  I know that God at that moment was smiling too.

Melisa is so very special, she is a daughter of God AND now she knows it! because when we started teaching her a month ago she was atheist... what a huge change. only God can make this change in people, not me, not hna nalbandyan.. only God. I love this work. it bring me such joy and peace to see how it helps everyone and how people can change.  

I have a very very strong testimony that everything happens for a reason, that we need not fear when things dont go as planned because if we trust in god and let the holy ghost guide us then everything is happening how God wants it to happen

I know god wanted them to prepare for the 17th so that they would have doubts so that afterwards when they come out of the doubts they can be baptized saying I KNOW this is true. I know that God wanted me to be there for this cita and that is why hna nalbandyan got sick and I couldnt go to hospitalet (a city near barcelona )because i would not have been present at this cita when she told us she wanted to be baptized. how sad would that be?.. either way i would have been extatic about her decision :) but im glad I was there for the visit. and I know that the specialized training was inspired and that we were blessed because we went out and acted on our leader's guidance. I know that God answered her prayer because she was diligent, had faith and was going to act on his answer... thats exactly what she did, she recieved and then acted. she told us on friday she wanted to be baptized, and the next day at 7 pm was... She is so happy , you can see it on her face. I love her! 

and I love you all! Have a great week!

love,

Hna Hair 

May 19, 2014

Short Email this week. 

So this week for the first time in my whole mission I was sick.. It was like the same thing that I had in the MTC exactly one year ago. Started out with alergies that turned into a sore throat with a headache and feeling super weak which is now winding out with a cough and stuffy nose.But I am okay. I'm getting better and there were a couple mornings where we stayed in and rested and then went out and worked the afternoon. Funny thing though is that my companion and I are so united that once I got sick... She did too.. haha.

Quick updates.

1.Melisa and Elizabeth did not get baptized this week, They want to but they say they havent received their answer from God yet. But they are still doing their part, reading the book of mormon, praying and coming to church. they have even brought friends to church who they want us to teach too! incredible! Dont worry though, I know God has a plan for them and that all of this is part of his plan . I was rereading the book of mormon and when i was reading about sariah murmering because her sons hadnt come back from getting the brass plates but that after they returned and she had suffered (I assume as any mother would) she could testify with a SURETY that her husband was a prophet and that the lord had protected them. and THAT is what i think God wants for melisa and elizabeth he wants them to go through a bit of hard times in their conversion so that afterwards they can say that they know with SURETY that this church is true... at least thats one thing i think God is doing. :)

2. This past sunday - so yesterday- in our ward we could have easily made up a whole branch of just americans! idk why but everyone decided to visit barcelona this weekend and come to church! ha. most of who.. were from utah. there were 6 byu graduates who were backpacking through europe. and of course the mormon world is so tiny that I knew one of them and he informed me of all my friends that are now married.. its crazy to see everyone getting married. but im happy for all of them:)

3. I cant believe that of all the months I have forgotten to take my one year picture but I will send it next month. 

I hope you are all having a healthy and fun week! 

Love, Hermana Hair

Actually these two pictures can be my one year picture. Both of these were on May 1st when H. Nalbandyan and I decided to celebrate it and get McFlurries from Mcdonalds and eat it infront of the sagrada familia and then the other picture is of the three of us, hna rackham, elder alder and I who all had our one year mark on may first! Crazy

May 13, 2014

Mi querida Familia y Amigos!

Oh how the lord just blesses his missionaries with SO many miracles. This is a mission of miracles, its a mission that teaches repentance and baptizes worthy converts. 

So remember Melisa and her aunt, Elizabeth? Well they are progressing incredibly! I have to tell you the biggest miracle that happened this past week. So we had our third visit with melisa y elizabeth and for some reason in the first two lessons we didnt invite for baptism. H. Nalbandyan and I always talked about it after the citas and both felt that it just didnt feel right. (which I know is completely against everything we are taught- were supposed to invite in the first lesson) at the time though melisa was not creyente (atheist) and elizabeth had not had good past experiences with other churches so we never felt the spirit prompting us to invite for baptism. . . Well during this third visit, we were teaching lesson 2- plan of salvacion. Elizabeth asks about baptism and we explain it , they listen and seem to agree and then we continue . at the end of the lesson I asked them that if they pray and recieve an answer that yes this is the true church if they will follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. They both thought about the question and answered yes. Then I turned to H. Nalbandyan so that she could invite them for the specific date. She started to testify very powerfully about everything and how they were being prepared specifically by God for this message. The spirit was so strong... but she wasnt inviting them for the fecha... hmmm I thought. Well I will say the date then. . (so this past week we have been inviting people for the 24th) I was thinking in my head that i was going to invite for the 24th but for some reason I was not at peace with that thought... well maybe they need more time I thought, So i decided on inviting them for the 31st but once again it did not feel right... What date should I give them ? I asked myself (and God) the date 17th came to my head. the 17th???? at that moment when i thought of that date I felt the strongest burning sensation growing from the middle of my heart outwards. - the 17th was in 10 days, so this saturday- ummm... really? its funny how imperfect we are because i found myself doubting the revelation I had just recieved from God. I really have never felt the spirit so strongly testifying as to when I should invite someone to be baptized. Yet I second guessed myself. When it was my turn to talk, H. Nalbandyan looked at me, I had still not decided what date I was going to say. I gave a short testimony testifying about the truthfullness of what my compaion had just said and then I invited them to be baptized for the 17th of May....... I was still surprised when I heard that number come out of my mouth. My attention was directly on them looking for how they were going to react, expecting to see shocked eyes or some sort of surprised or negative body language coming from them. To my surprise they just sat there with the same expression they had on thier faces as they were listening to H. Nalbandyans powerful testimony. Melisa started to shake her head up and down and said yes. I looked at Elizabeth she thought about it and said, "I have a lot more to still learn, but i suppose that by the 17th I will have already learned alot" after making sure her answer was yes, haha we testified with all our heart about their decision.

 It is incredible , absolutely incredible how when we invite the spirit in the lessons, listen and then act on his promptings, how everything turns out exactly how the Lord wants it to be. The Lord uses us as his mouth and arms, if we let him. Talking with H. Nalbandyan afterwards, we realized how perfectly God planned everything. She was absolutely shocked when i invited them for the 17th because she said that she was going to invite for the 31st but for some reason started to testify and completely forgot about inviting them. . she said she knew god made her forget to ask because she wasnt going to invite them for the 17th and instead used me so that I could give them the date He wanted for them. She listened to the spirit by testifying when she was prompted to. I know that when both companions are worthy and willing to listen to the spirit that that is when we are able to teach with with power and authority of God, that is when we see miracles. I love my companion so much. I love Melisa and Elizabeth so much. I especially love the Holy Ghost and the guidance we recieve from him.

 Melisa and Elizabeth are still preparing to be baptized this coming saturday. They have came to church since the first day we contacted them and they are repenting and feeling the peace that comes from following Gods true path. I know this because they have told us plainly that they have more peace in their lives and that they see how different life is when we learn and follow Christs Gospel. 

 H. Nalbandyan and I have started to really realize after lessons how in tune with the spirit we are when we just work off eachother and teach and testify as if we were one person. one in purpose and one with God. 

My invitation to you all is to always be worthy of the spirit, of his promptings and to trust in God and act on His answers. I know that this is how we are blessed and how we are able to bless others. 

Oh one more thing! i am writing on tuesday because this week was transferes! I am staying in Barcelona!!! with my same compañera :) so all is good. 

Oh and a couple things I think I have forgoten to mention. 

1. I live by Gaudis famous cathedral, The sagrada Familia.. - can't remember if ive mentioned this or not. 

2. remember my mini missionary who i had in lleida for a week and a half? the one with the longer dark hair. Well Im in her ward now! so i see her all the time and it takes me back to lleida haha. 

3. and i know i talked about it the whole time but melisa and elizabeth are getting baptized this saturday! we hope :) 

4. and i love you all!

love, Hermana Hair

May 5, 2014

Bon Dia, (Im in catalunya again, yay for catalan)

I have never felt so grateful as I have been feeling recently.  I cant help but in my prayers really reflect on everything I have and how blessed I am to be here in this mission, to know the wonderful people I know and to be doing this wonderful work. I think now that I have hit my one year mark I really am starting to see the end, and its not a pretty sight. I wish I could look back and still have a year left. . ha. lucky elders and their two year missions haha ;) but really,l i think i have not thanked the lord enough for this opportunity I am having! its incredible, its the best dream ive been in and i dont ever want to wake up. I love the lord so much and ive never felt so close to him in my whole life. Its amazing how in the world we are, the stories we hear, the people we help... yet how out of the world we really are spiritually, its amazing.

 

We see miracles literally everyday. Melisa was a street contact who has come to church twice now! comes to all the activities and is getting along so well with the JAS, she gave her first prayer ever at the end of our visit, it was a kneeling prayer and she said it with such a sincere heart that the spirit was felt so strongly. She started to cry after her prayer. I about cried to. it was a beautiful simple prayer but with so much truth and humility. She specifically asked that we could help many other people come to know the truth of this gospel and that they would accept the message. She is wonderful! i love seeing her progression. 

Well that was one little miracle of a whole week full of miracles! I hope you are all doing better and well and happy. Thank the lord for all we have because we sometimes take things for granted, i know. We have so much to be thankful for. so so so much. 

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL MOMS OUT THERE!!! I hope everyone makes that day super special for you all. Love you mucho!!

love, Hermana Hair