Agosto 18, 2014

Happy Monday everyone! 

This week has been really good. We have 3 fechas (baptismal dates) for this weekend. Two of them are thanks to a recent convert and the other one is through a member! member missionary work , works! :) 

All three of these are jovenes (youth) Fernando, 13 . alejandro 11, and maria luisa is 14. I think i have testified of this before but its because i see it so much on my mission. The jovenes are the ones being the anchor in their family and bringing the gospel to them. They are the faro (lighthouse) of their home and it makes me so happy and so proud to see these jovenes so strong in the gospel and not progressing alone but bringing everyone they can with them. 

We also had a very big miracle on sunday. Some antiguos (old investigators) who have been seing missionaries since 2009 came to church for the first time! We decided to pass by them on friday and invited them to church . I dont know what was different or what finaly got to them or why they decided that after so many invitations to finally come, but they came! and they brought a menos activo friend with them! The greatest part is that this family was a member reference from barc back in 2009. perserverance and mucho faith are the magical keys and sincere love :)

Things are going really well here in Valencia. we are pretty sure that at least one of the three fechas will be baptized this saturday and the other two if not this saturday will be baptized shortly after:) Maria luisa is deaf so it will take a little more time to be able to communicate to her the lessons and help her understand the basic. She can understand , we just have to take more time with her. but she is excited to be baptized , we just really want her to know what she is doing and why. .she is so special and so smart! We know she can do it. 

Well im running into a lot more colombians here. there are a handfull in the ward and many in streets. its been fun. I hope everyone is healthy and enjoying their summer. 

lots of hugs and kisses from spain, 

Hermana Hair

Agosto 11, 2014

Valencia, Valencia.... its really hot and humid here... like really really hot and humid :) 

Here is my compañera and I !

So I was so sad to leave all the people I love in Barcelona but once again the lord has shown me the great gift that as missionaries we just have the biggest capacity and space in our hearts to love people the way he loves them. I came into Valencia ready to love this ward and its amazing at how I can meet someone and instantly love them with all my heart. I already love Valencia and all the people who live here. I also love my new compañera, Hna scoville! she is an angel and I know that I am going to learn a lot from her as I have from all my companions and areas. She is from Utah and goes to BYU-H. She has six months left on the mission and this is her third transfer here in V-town which means she will probably leave after this transfer.

This transfer is going to GREAT!. I can feel it and its already started out to a great start. We have already seen SO many miracles. Biggest miracle for  me was...... JOSE LUIS AND SUSI!! do you remember them ?  I was teaching them in barc but a couple days before transfer calls they moved back to valencia. Well... we were walking home one night this week and I see sussi in front of a piso talking to two ladies. When i saw her i felt so much joy in my heart! we had a very big hugging celebration as we were both so happy and surprised to see eachother. the best part is that they live in our area! and the worst part is that they leave for bolivia in 9 days... :/ But I want to help them the best way I know how to and keep teaching them and guiding them to make those decisions they have to make so that Jose luis can be baptized.. I know that if they dont get married here they will in bolivia and he will for sure, no doubt, be baptized. He is so prepared and ready. They came to church on sunday! 

Talking about sunday.. I had to give a talk and so did the other two elders that are new this transfer. apparently once every month sacrament is dedicated to missionary work and the missionaries take turns talking. I think its a great idea! So this ward is a new ward that was created last october, so less than a year ago. which means that our area is pretty new, especially our area, it has the least amount of members that live in it and its been the area that has least been worked on over the years. So... you guessed it. back to lleida and las arenas times. haha . there has only been 4 other hermanas that have worked here before... im the 5th. so its a very new area still

Our fecha here is alejandro he is a recent converts nephew he is 11 but turns 12 in october. He wants to be baptized and has a fecha for the 23rd. Yesterday he was playing with other boys his age after church and we wanted to have a quick visit with him and the recent convert, Santiago. Since he was playing with two other member boys, we invited them in for the visit too . We told them we were going to have a visit and they had to be reverent  if they wanted to be there with us. they agreed and sat down.  the greatest thing happened in this visit. While we started to teach about the importance of reading the scriptures , praying and going to church.. these two jovenes started to testify of how it has blessed their life to do those three things. They were the ones teaching Alejandro through their experiences and testimonies. I could just see both of these jovenes in 6 years with chapas and a tie. It was perfect to have alejandro goofing around with these boys 5 minutes before and then hearing them share their testimonies... It was a beutiful cita, I was so proud of those two young boys. I know the Lord is preparing the youth of this church to be great leaders and parents in this church. They are going to carry  on the work for the lord and the best part of the lords work is just beginning and the peak and greatest part of this work is going to happen with these youth when they go out and teach and preach. 

I am so proud of my siblings, jessica joe and ashley who all have a strong desire to serve, Im proud of their example to me and to many other people, Im proud of every friend and family who are young and so strong in the church. The youth are so important and I admire their faithfullness and testimonies.

Sorry this email got kind of long. :)

love you all! 

Hermana Hair

The view from our apartment... Im back to a two person apartment with just us two.

5 Agosto 2014

Querida Familia Y Amigos, 

Today is my last day in Barcelona. Im all packed and ready to catch a train at 4 this afternoon that is going to take me to Valencia, the most south part of our mission. Transfer calls came in Saturday night and when Hna. Benson and I heard the news that I was leaving, It was hard not to look at eachother and not shed some tears... Its hard leaving companions who become your best friend since day 1. 

I honestly didn't think that I was going to leave becuase Hna. Benson leaves for home in two weeks... but they are sending two other hermanas and they will be in a trio for those two weeks and then after that they are basically white washing (when two missionaries are in an area that neither of them know) I just pray that they will still work with everyone we have been working with and that they wont forget the members or less actives who are so important me. 

A small group of women in the Relief Society... not all of them :/

Sunday was hectic as so many members came up to me trying to say goodbye and as I tried to talk to everyone and give them all my love.  Im glad it was fast sunday because I was able to get up and bare my testimony along with two other elders who are also leaving the ward. It still amazes me to see the member's love that they express to you with words, hugs and tears when you are leaving their ward. I read a scripture yesterday in alma 27 Where it says , "for they were treated as though they were angels sent from God" and that is how I felt these past couple days but i dont know why... the thing is I know its not me. that what makes people treat us like that is the power and presence of God that is with us. Its because we live the gospel every single minute of our lives and that allows the spirit to be with us constantly and even when I dont think i deserve it... the people see something that even us as missionaries dont see or feel.... I can honestly say that i dont think i deserve to be treated like an angel because I am far from being one. but I know its something special that God allows us to have and I am so grateful for that love that I feel from the members. and the love that i am able to give back to them. becuase I do love them with my entire heart. Every area is so difficult to leave, they become your family and I love them. 

Im a little bummed that right as we started getting that calendar visit going I have to leave... haha. but i think it was ment to be like that becauase now the new sister missionaries coming in have visits already set and i hope they can love these members here even more than i have.  

Ive loved my mission, every experience and moment... except the bed bugs ... and okay packing and traveling with luggage is always going to be on my list of least favorite things to do- :) but besides that its all the best , especially having friends and family like you who support me and send me lots of love. Thank you!

**Sending a huge hug for everyone with a ton of love**

Hermana Hair

Here is Jose Luis and Sussi.. Remember them?? She is from bolivia and he is from VALENCIA and they just left last week back to Valencia but they are leaving for Bolivia on the 20th. I am going to see if They are in my new area but either way i will be in contact with them and will try to help them get married so he can get baptized! 

What a miracle that Im going to valencia right? I thought i wasnt ever going to see them again. ooohhh im so excited to see them again and keep helping them progress:) 

 

Aleida is a member from Honduras and she has been bringing her nephew , Daniel, for this last 3 months to church. HE LOVES IT. Him and I instantly became best friends. I was always so excited to see him at church. He turns nine on the 15th and his parents finally gave him the OK to be baptized!!! (his parents arent members) the sad thing is that it will be this next saturday and i wont be here. he almost changed it to yesterday so that i could be there but his parents had to work and they need to be there too. we were both sad i wasnt going to be there but man, i just love this kid. Hes number one! and im so happy for his decision he is making. it will bless his life forever. 

July 28, 2014

Hola todos!

This week started out rough but ended with a bang! Hermana Benson and I went on splits and we were able to find 3 menos activos that want us to visit. we were doing the member pass by lists and really i can not believe how many people are on here that havent had missionaries visit them  in forever! Even very strong members have commented on how missionaries havent visited them in like 10 years. i think that even the strongest members need to feel the missionaries love and spirit in their home every once in a while. 

Pretty much with every menos (less active) that we found , we have found an investigator to teach in their home. It is great!  We hope to see many more miracles from these menos activos. 

Another great thing is that in relief society , we passed around a "visits calendar". not a food calander. we were very clear in announcing and letting the sisters know that we want to get to know THEM and that this isnt a food calendar , that we will take even just 15 minute visits if that is all they have time for. I told them they have no excuse to not sign up and that if they want a baked good from us to put a star next to their name ;) haha . they laughed and to our surprise, when we got the calendar back at the end of church we had almost all of relief society signed up ! we have a member visit almost every day for the next few weeks. We also had members (SPANIARDS) come up to us and tell us that they want to invite a friend to the visit. WOW! who knew all these ladies needed was to see that we were interested in THEM and not just their food. I have seen in past wards that the people who feed the missionaries are ususally the same 5 people. and other people might not have time or money to feed us so they never invite us over because they think we want food. Well when we showed these hermanas that what we want is to meet with them they all jumped at the opportunity. Members need love. love. love. love. They are just as important as any person we visit with, they need to see us in action as we teach and bring the spirit into their home and i know we will see many new investigators from this because they will trust us with their friends. Love is everything. Love is what motivates me. I know that God love us all and I know that Love is probably one of the biggest things we were sent here on earth to learn. And we all have a long way to go but i know i have never loved as purely and as much as i have on my mission. I am amazed at how much God and Jesus love us. and I want each one of you to know that I love you and I am so grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life who have taught me about love through their  words and actions. 

LOVE YOU ALL!! 

LES QUIERO MUCHO!!

Hermana Hair :)

July 21, 2014

Hey! 

As usual we are running around from place to place and don't have much time left to email but I wanted to let you all know that I am great! This week has been a bit slow but we have big plans for next week. 

We are really going to work on finding new people to teach this next week. We have been working on trying to find them through the members and less actives but its been pretty slow that way, i know though that when we do the Lords work HIS way that he will bless us. We have been told to really try and find news through members... so that is what we are doing :) 

But life is great! I love being a missionary and wouldnt change it right now for anything. I appreciate all your love and support and all your prayers. I know that they reach my heart in the moments when I most need them. 

One day this week my comp and I were singing "mas santidad dame" which is "more holiness give me" (we sing every morning in companionship study) and I think i sang this song at the beginning of my mission maybe once or maybe i havent at all but this time when we sang it, it really touched my heart. All the words, but especially the ones in the third verse, are all exactly what a mission does/gives a missionary. Its what every missionary stives to obtain every day. I dont know if the words are the same in English but I used to not really like this song much because it said "more" lots of times but now I really like it :) 

Love you all ! 

Hna. Hair

July 14, 2014

Buenas Tardes todos!

So I think I hit a new level of tiredness on my mission this week. I have always been a morning person and getting up in the mornings has never been hard for me, not even on the mission... untill this past week. The alarm would go off and it was like as if my body was too heavy to move. I can honestly say, I have never felt this tired my whole entire life. I just feel like im really old. Yet im loving every minute of it. i dont know if people can tell how tired i am but I know that our heavenly father gives us missionaries the stregnth to keep going. We just get used to being tired and so its like were normal.. if that makes sense. I know that this week i will probably be just as tired but it wont affect me as much because I get used to it. Oh the adventures of a mission :) 

So this past week we have really been focusing on going through our ward list and visiting every single member that is in our area. we have been finding a lot of menos activos and people who dont even live there any more. It is helping clean up the ward list a lot. 

Okay so do you remember last weeks miracle, Sandra. Well... this week we have visited her twice and she is very nice, a bit reserved but still accepting our visits. she is from Peru and has two daughters, who we havent meet yet. She couldnt come to church this sunday but she lives super close to the church so it shouldnt be hard for her. if she is really prepared and interested she will be at church soon. Talking about church so you know how we always have americans in our sacrament meeting who are visiting well.. this week the elders from the other ward offered if they wanted translator headphones, they said yes... then the elders told me I had to translate all of sacrament into this microphone so that the americans could understand. I had never done something like that before. But i was up for the adventure. ha. so I tried my best. It was a bit difficult at first but then i got a hang of it until the last speaker went up and he was speaking really fast because he didnt have much time and repeating himself a lot and i couldnt remember simple words in spanish like "sacrament" for santa cena. Oh boy. but the americans said it was good! i think they were just being nice haha. but it was fun doing that for them. 

so friday ... i lost my wallet. it had my DNI (spain ID), my mission debit card, metro pass and cash. We looked everywhere for it but i think that it must have fallen on the bus or something because i am very aware of my purse and i dont think anyone stole it from me. but so now i have to go throught the whole process of getting new stuff . its a bit of a pain but the good thing is that my home debit card and drivers license was not in there. So due to that incident my companion and i are now getting to know the streets of barcelona bit more than just the underground metro so thats good. 

oh one more thing about sandra, so at the end of our first lesson with her I felt prompted to ask her if she had been recently asking God something very specific. She said yes... I then explained to her how we were guided to her house and how I know that God wants her to hear this message. That moment was just a huge spiritual experience for me as i felt that what i was telling her was true that god loves her and that he wants this for her. She listened very carefuly and looked into my eyes the entire time that i was testifying. The spirit was there and it was touching both our hearts. 

Barcelona has over 2,000 people. and the lord has called 6 companionships thats only 12 missionaries to work his barcelona vineyard. He trusts us so much, its incredible. I dont want to let him down and i know he will never leave us working alone. He is here, I can feel him with me every single moment of every day. 

I am so blessed to be his missionary. 

love you all,

Hermana Hair

We went to the Sagrada Familia today. Here are a couple pictures. 

July 7, 2014

This past week has seriously been absolutely incredible. Full of MIRACLES! Four of those miracles are Madelayn, Loveday, Juan Carlos and Sandra. 

Madelayn: She is a single lady from Venezuela who came up to us on the metro after church. We went all the way to the sagrada familia metro stop (where we were both getting out) we continued to talk, basically she just told us her entire life story and how she came to spain 2 months ago, is trying to study but doesnt have a job and just broke up with her boyfriend who she thought she was going to marry. . . she needs the gospel. she knows it and that is why she talked to us. Long story short she wants to learn more because she said life must have a *purpose* . it sure does! and she asked if there was something that she could study to learn about the church.... YES! the book of mormon! She is super excited and super grateful to have met us and we too are so very grateful that the holy ghost touches peoples hearts and leads them to us too. 

Loveday and Juan Carlos are both menos activos (inactives)! Juan carlos came up to us earlier this week and said hey, where is the church around here... hes been a member since he was 19 and has been inactive for 13 years. the best part is HE CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY . Loveday is a Nigerian we contacted on the metro , before we even explained who we were he said the whole name of the church and said yes, i am a member. he lost contact with the church when he came to spain he said he moved to spain when he was 19 and three months later in nigeria he recieved his mission call but since he was in spain he couldnt go... but he is great and asked for a book of mormon and speaks english! but cant come to church because he works on sundays but I know if he has faith he can find a job that will allow him to come to church if thats his desire. 

Sandra was a little miracle from sunday night. we were doing pass bys with a member when we walked past this apartment portal that was a bit more  hidden than the others. as we walked past it and i just had the strongest feeling that we needed to go there...  we kept walking and the feeling got stronger. why dont i ever learn to just act on the first prompting?? the holy ghost has so much patience with me :) I tell hna benson and the member that we have to go to that door. the member asked if i knew someone that lived there... no , i said. so we go to the door and i just ring the third floor no one answers. should i walk away? was this a silly decision?.. i think for a bit and decide its the first floor where i want to go. I ring it and the door buzzes open. a thin women pops her head out of her door and asks who it is. We introduce ourselves, she says she is busy at the moment but we can come back next thursday at four thirty... okay! milagro. She seemed a bit confused at first but after we explained who were for a bit and left her with a prayer there was something different in her eyes.. she was happier. I love seeing how the spirit brings happiness almost immediately into peoples lives. 

I know the Lord guides his work with the holy ghost.. but not just through us but through the people themselves, I know that when people come up to talk to us its because they have felt that little push inside of them to do it. the light of christ is for everyone and touches everyone we just have to listen and obey it. I love this work! I love all the miracles i get to wittness everyday! Its the best feeling ever to help people come unto Christ. 

So I found out my comp is actually leaving mid transfer next transfer on a mini transfer so that she can start fall semester.. which means i might be staying here in barc longer than i thought. because someone new will have to come into the area and i will still have to show them arouond. This might just be my last area... hmm... who knows. we will see what happens. 

I am great and happier than ever! I love you all and wish you all the best week. 

hugs and kisses, 

Hna Hair

At Diana's house, a less active.  She is ecuadorian and made us what she call Humitos but what looks like tamales :) and her husband is colombian and he sells these colombian hats so we put them on for the picture... sometimes i feel like im serving in all of south america. their are SO many people from south america here. ha its funny. 

oh and this is hna benson my compi! she goes home mid august. but she is only one transfer ahead of me.