Barcelona Mission: (Hospitalet) Week-11 2013

This week was a great one with two amazing baptisms! We were so blessed to have met these two wonderful women and to have the chance to help them enter the waters of baptism in our 4th week in a new area not knowing anyone! What a blessing and what a miracle! It ended up being a beautiful baptismal service, maybe the most spiritual one that I have had on my mission!

So here is Fausta´s story:
Her daughter and some other of her children were baptized when they were teenagers while they all lived in Peru. I don´t remember how they met the missionaries, but Fausta always told them I don´t have time to learn from the missionaries and I don´t have time to be baptized. She always let her children go to church and encouraged it. It sounds like her daughter, Cristina (the one that we know), would go by herself as the other children became less active. Cristina went off to study at a university in Peru and still attended a ward and even received her endowments, but then fell inactive as well over time. Cristina then moved to Spain six years ago and her mother would travel and visit her every once in a while. Cristina decided that she needed to change her life and find the church here in Hospitalet. She found it on her own and Hermana Farrell had set up a visit with her. Amongst all the changes, Hermana Farrell never had the chance to visit with her but was able to remember to pass on Cristina´s name to me.

My new companion, Hermana Rivera, and I went to visit her and in the first visit we met Cristina, her atheist teenage daughter and boyfriend, Cristina´s son (who is 7 years old), and Cristina´s mom, Fausta. We did a lesson 0 to get to know Cristina and hear her story. She thought we were there to visit her and help reactivate her but as soon as we found out Fausta wasn´t baptized I knew we had to invite her in that first visit. I nudged my companion and told her that she had to do the invitation like we practiced during our studies. She asked Fausta to be baptized and Fausta said no. She said maybe with time.  We gave her a Book of Mormon, unsure if she knew how to read or not and she accepted it. The second visit I felt again that we needed to invite her to be baptized. I nudged my companion and reluctantly she invited Fausta to be baptized. This time she said yes! But she didn´t want to put a date yet. I talked to Cristina and told her of our purpose and that we wanted to help her mom be baptized if she would like to do it.

Cristina was overwhelmed with joy. In the third visit, a week after we first met this family I asked Fausta to be baptized on the 26th of February. She said yes! Thanks to Cristina talking to her and Fausta reading the Book of Mormon, Fausta finally had received her answer that it was her time to be baptized. As we started teaching her we realized the importance of simple and powerful lessons. Fausta can´t sit there for a long time and she does not have a good memory so we had to adapt our teaching. Thanks again to Cristina she learned everything she needed to learn in order to be ready for her baptismal interview. We ended up moving forward the date because Cristina has to work the 26th and so Fausta was totally prepared to be baptized even a week earlier than her original fecha. It was a miracle the change in attitude that she had as we visited her.

In the baptismal service, Cristina gave the talk about the Holy Ghost. It was neat how she started crying and finally told her mom that it was her time. It was her turn to be baptized and she wasn´t too busy and she had to be in Spain for this reason...to finally be baptized in the true church of Jesus Christ. It was wonderful to see the family come together during these times and to see Cristina´s faith and testimony reappear as she received all of the lessons again and became newly converted in the gospel after so many years. AMAZING.

It was a wonderful baptismal service of Fausta and Lupe. We were truly blessed to have taught them. It was so easy! They were so prepared and so easily did they accept all of the commitments and teachings. They didn´t really have questions and they constantly bore their testimonies to us. It was incredible. My new companion´s first two baptisms in the mission and the first two baptisms of the year in this new area/ward that we are still white washing. The ward says that we are angels. It´s been wonderful to make our reputation with the people so quickly and to have them trust us as their missionaries.

Changes are happening throughout the world with the increased number of missionaries-elders and sisters.

Pte Pace received special permission to have the two day sisters conference to prepare the sisters in the mission to train. The day after the conference ended over 10 missionaries finally received their visas to enter Spain and enter the Barcelona mission. Over half of these missionaries are sisters! How exciting.

I received a phone call from Pres Pace today informing me that Hermana Jorgensen (!) is coming to Hospitalet tomorrow and will pick up her new companion that she will train on Thursday. So she will be white washing and training (like me) in Hospitalet Barrio 2 (the ward that I served in with Hermana Walker). I am so excited for her to come and to help her get to know the area! After those last two baptisms we now have few people to teach and will need to focus on finding new investigators. Luckily, this will give me the time to show Hermana Jorgensen her new area and to introduce her to some of the members that I quickly learned to love during the months of November and December. I am so excited to live with her again and I am excited that she will be in that ward. :)

Pres also informed me that 3 new sisters are coming from the states this week and 7 elders. Next week 4 elders from the states are coming. The following week (the normal transfer week) 7 sisters are coming in!!!! And 2 elders. How exciting! So many sister missionaries! Right now we have 23 sisters in our mission. 3 are going home Feb 5th. And then 5 of us are going home March 20th. But how exciting that almost every sister in the mission will be training a new sister missionary from the states!! The work is moving forward and it is so great to be apart of it.

As far as my companion and I we will stay together through March. We are a great team and I love her so much. Slowly, she is learning a little more English every day and she is always helping me with my Spanish, which is wonderful. Besides the fact that we are both sick, we still have a lot of energy and enthusiasm to work! There is a lot to be done in this ward and I predict that in the near future they might either put a set of elders in this ward to work with us or maybe another set of hermanas. Pte Pace says that almost every ward/branch in the mission will soon have 4 sets of missionaries-Hermanas and Elders. How exciting that we can help move the work forward!

Please, be a member missionary. Support the missionaries, invite them into your homes, and trust them with your nonmember friends. We all have the desire to serve the Lord but the missionaries cannot do it on their own. Help join us and join the missionary force! :) It is an exciting work and the Lord´s hands are in every detail.

I love you and I love this gospel. Live it! Love it! Have a good week.

Love,
Hermana Johnson

Barcelona Mission: (Hospitalet) Week-10 2013

This last week went by so fast! Time is going by so fast!

We have mostly been working with our two fechas that we have and preparing for their baptism this weekend. We are so excited for them! Especially my companion-it being her first two baptisms in the mission! It has been a breeze to teach these two women because they are so prepared.

Fausta is about 65-70 years old and is scared about being put under the water. We brought a member with us to teach the lesson, which we don´t usually do, (her daughter is always there to help us teach). In fact this was a miracle story in itself! The member´s name is Ruben and he called us the other day and asked us why we haven´t called him yet to use him in visits. We apologized (this is not the first time this has happened...we are still trying to get to know the Ward so we haven´t been calling as many members to help us out yet). Good thing he called us! We invited him to come out with us to teach our two fechas that night. MIRACLE. He is from Peru. Fausta is from Peru. The same part of Peru. Fausta had a cleaner in her house for many years in Peru and it turns out the cleaner´s son worked with Ruben for 14 years in Peru!  Plus, Ruben speaks Ketchuwua just like Fausta so he was able to help us teach her the principles. Then, she decided she wants him to baptize her and he resolved all of her doubts and fears about being baptized. It was perfect!!!
As a side note, the daughter, Cristina, has been  trying to find her records back in Peru because she has been less active for many years. She mentioned to Ruben that she tried emailing someone in Peru to ask about her records. Turns out her and Ruben were in the same Stake!!! Ruben is still friends with the Stake President and offered to contact him for her! It was such a coincidence.  Cristina was worried that if she couldn´t find her records, she might have to be rebaptized; which she was willing to do if she had to. She also received her endowments. Lately she has been trying to come back to full activity in the church. She wants to be a better example for her atheist daughter and her 7 year old son who wants to get baptized this year. This family is really progressing!!

Lupe is the other fecha. She is SO prepared and has been the easiest to teach on my mission. She is so great. So another miracle. We took Ruben with us to that visit also. Turns out they are also from the same area and Ruben knows people related to Lupe´s husband. It is such a small world! Lupe also asked Ruben to baptized her, because her husband, unfortunately can't do it.. But he is recently coming back to the church, though. It is just amazing that all these people were brought here to Spain at this time to meet each other and help each other into the Gospel, and that my companion and I could be apart of it. The hands of the Lord are in every aspect of His work.

More miracles happened this week. Sunday we had a wonderful consejo de barrio! The Bishopric gave us just about the whole time to go over our informes.  The leaders in the Ward were pleasantly surprised with all of our work that we had done with the less actives in the Ward...people that they had been trying to get a hold of and had lost contact with.  It was wonderful! I have never been to a more successful consejo de barrio in my whole mission...not even in Salt Lake. The Bishopric continually expressed their gratitude for our work and they expressed their complete support. It was perfect. We were able to give information needed for every auxiliary organization and they were able to help us in many ways as well. It was just like a District video!

When Hermanas Dalton and Oslund from Valencia stayed with us, we also saw miracles Monday night when they helped us work in our area and gave so much helpful information about some of the recent converts who are now less active. They were also able to visit with some people that we have not been able to contact. It was wonderful.

Ruben once again helped make miracles happen as he suggested that we try to visit a less active family that Hermana Rivera and I have been trying to contact. He said why don´t we just stop by to see if they are home? So we did and I asked Miriam, who lived there if we could just talk for a quick ten minutes. She let us in!!!! A miracle. She even gave us some hot chocolate...definitely a plus on a coooold night. We shared a scripture, set up a return appointment, met her children (one who is not baptized and is of baptismal age!), and then as soon as we almost started to end the lesson her husband walked in the door. It was great meeting him and seeing the look on his face when he saw the missionaries in his home...definitely confused. Hermana Goodman, Ruben, and I gave our  testimonies and I asked if we could pray. Miriam of course said yes and I asked if we could kneel. The whole family was shocked, especially her husband, as we all knelt on the floor in a circle and I offered the prayer. IT WAS WONDERFUL!! We thanked Ruben for his help and ran home to make it before 10:00pm planning. I called Miriam´s Mom, who is an active member and told her about visitng Miriam. She started crying over the phone and couldn´t stop thanking us. She offered to help us with anything at all. She told me that she loved me at the end of the conversation. It was AMAZING. What a blessing it is to be a missionary and have the opportunity to help families come together and be strengthened in the Gospel.

During a three day conference, I gave a short presentation on what I have learned on my mission. I spoke about Charity. I will have to tell you about it sometime. It was an amazing conference and an amazing experience. But for some reason after my presentation I kept shivering as if I was cold. (It was around 12 P.M.)
Hermana and Pte Pace gave me blankets and a heating pad. I fell asleep on their bed and didn´t wake up until 6 P.M.!  I was so sad because I missed Hermana Jorgensen's presentation (my last companoin in Zaragoza). They gave my companion and I a ride home and I went right to sleep until morning. I am feeling a lot better now. And the great food the Elders brought over helped. Now we are running to an appointment.

Hope you are doing well. I love you a lot.

Love,  Laura

Barcelona Mission: (Hospitalet) Week-09 2013

We are doing well here in Hospitalet.  We really have been focusing on finding more investigators. It is a focus in our companionship study and we have been making goals of numbers of contacts that we would like to do each day. Some days are tougher than others but I am so grateful for the enthusiasm of my companion and for her motivation. This week was a little tough for us because we had many citas set up-almost every hour of everyday. Yet, 80% fired on us and we found ourselves struggling. We did back up plans, (not the best that we should have done), and we did make a lot of phone calls. We have been trying to focus on getting to know the members of our ward still. Yesterday we set up a food calendar for the members to sign up to feed us for this month. It didn´t have as much success as we thought it would. We do have citas to eat and we will call those members ahead of time to confirm. We have specific plans to help this week go more smoothly and successfully. Some of these goals that we have come up with are these:

-Be more obedient and diligent in our studies, planning, and prayers.
-Call the day before and/or the morning of to reconfirm our citas planned.
-Make at least two back up plans for every hour of everyday.
-Contact more and give more powerful testimony to the truths that we know.
-We want to make some 3x5 cards with the metro stops/areas of our area and make a list of the people-members, recent converts, less actives, investigators, and antiguos- on each card, so that if all of our citas fire we have a list of places to go and people to visit. This will help us make our back up plans.

These are a few of our goals and plans that we have created. We know that if we have the faith necessary we can help the mission complete our new goal of 20 baptisms per week. We know this is possible and we want to be a part of it!

My companion is incredible. Hermana Rivera is actually who I needed in my life. She is such a good example to me and she is so excited about the work! She gets sad when we don´t do our best. This helps us to try harder to do our best at all times. It has been such a pleasure working together with her. I don´t feel like I am alone in tackling this new area. We each give 50/50 to this companionship and it´s wonderful.

Despite our harder days this week, the Lord did bless us with some miracles. Hermana Rivera is sharing an incredible one about this less active family that we are working with. I will share one about a reference that we received from Elder Cerqueira. He contacted a Romanian woman who lives in our area. We called her, set up a visit, and she fired on us. We called and set a visit with another reference for a different day but she also fired on us. She happened to live right next to the Romanian woman and Hermana Rivera thought to try contacting Delia another time. We rang the bell and she let us in. We knocked on her door and she let us right in. Hermana Rivera was amazing at starting up Lesson 0 and getting to know Delia and a little about her family. It was incredible the friendship that immediately was formed. This woman, Delia, is amazing. She has so much faith in the Lord and she has so many miracle stories that she told us from her life. She was beaming with happiness talking about her Savior, Jesus Christ. She assists a 7th Day Adventist Romanian church near Sagrada Familia. She goes to church every Saturday but she is really interested in getting to know more about our church, and she hasn´t heard really anything about it before. We gave her a Book of Mormon in Spanish but told her that we would get one in her language to which excitedly responded. We have high hopes for her and can´t wait to see her again.

Our two fechas Lupe and Fausta are incredible! Lupe is amazing! I just want to be like her someday. She says the most intensely personal and special prayers I have ever heard. Whenever she prays I think of the words broken heart and contrite spirit. She really has a broken heart and is always ready and willing to learn and a contrite spirit. She is so humble and special. Her husband is a less active member now returning to church. Seeing them together is a delight because they love each other so much. He bore testimony of the sealing power in the temple and how he can´t wait to get sealed to her. He says that he knows now is her time to get baptized and that her heart is so ready to accept the gospel. Every commitment we ask Lupe to do she has already done and received her answer-pray about Joseph Smith being a prophet, pray about the First Vision, pray about the Book of Mormon, pray about the Plan of Salvation, repent from sins, etc. She is so prepared. I have never met anyone so prepared in my whole mission. Hermana Rivera and I are definitely blessed with this wonderful opportunity to teach her. She is incredible.

We are excited and ready to start a new and better week. We already have the week full of citas with members, recent converts, investigators, and less actives. So this week we will be focusing on back up plans so that we try to avoid as much as possible what happened last week.

Love,
Hermana Johnson

Barcelona Mission: (Hospitalet) Week-08 2012

Dear Family,

We went to the Christmas/ New Year’s open house at the Mission President´s home. It was so wonderful to be in their decorated home and we got a less active family and an investigator to go. We had good American food, which was wonderful!  Hermana Eyre played her violin, Hermana Robinson played her flute, and Hermana Pace played the piano. It was beautiful to be there and the Spirit was so strong. I got a lot of pictures and videos. When we were leaving Pres. Pace yells out my name to come back up the stairs. He said "I didn´t get to say goodbye to you yet." Then he said, "Does your family know how much of an amazing missionary you are?" Then he pointed at my companion and my investigator and he says "You have a really good influence on the future of this mission and on the future of this church with these people right here." "I love you and keep working hard and Merry Christmas."  What a nice thing to say.

This has been a week full of miracles that is for sure! Hermana Rivera, is wonderful and we are doing great together-having fun and working hard. At the end of each day we have been discussing the miracles that we have seen throughout the day. Saturday and Sunday were both wonderful days full of miracles.

We have been working with an investigator named Xavi who is 23 years old. He has been visiting with the missionaries since February. His dad is a very less active member and his mom and sister are not interested in the church. He has a lot of doubts and struggles that he is dealing with. He has been reading in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. He has met with plenty of Elders and Sisters and comes to church every Sunday and to every activity and to English class. His second home is the chapel. You will often find him there if he is not at school or at work. He wants to get baptized very badly but knows that Satan will attack him harder after baptism. He knows the importance of the covenants made at baptism and does not want to risk breaking them. He watched the videos and listened to the words of the prophet and apostles on the church website. He read articles. When we saw him at English class on Saturday morning, it was the happiest I have ever seen him. He said that those have changed his life and feels that he can be baptized in January. His prayers are more sincere. He says he better understands his purpose and his life. We'll see what happens.

Our week is full of citas with members, recent converts, and our two fechas that we now have!  A lady named Lupe wants to get baptized on January 12th. She is amazing and SO PREPARED.

The other fecha is Fausta. She is probably around 70 years old and living with her less active daughter who is now coming back to church. They are from Peru. We learned that we have to teach her VERY simply or else she will not understand. This is challenging my companion a lot, because she loves to talk. But it is perfect to simplify things and to really put Elder Richard´s counsel to practice-simple yet powerful lessons. She has been to church and likes it a lot. She also has been reading the Book of Mormon slowly.  Her daughter, Cristina is so excited for her mom to finally be baptized on January 24th. She told her, "Mami, finally there is nothing to hold you back for more years. This is your time."

We have been doing a lot of the 12 weeks, a lot of the activities, and a lot of watching the District videos. We love doing it because it is so informational and helpful. We have been working on Lesson 0-"How to Begin Teaching" and Lesson 1 "The Restoration."  My companion loved the video of the "Purpose of Missionaries with the Robles Family"-their story and them making it to the temple (my temple in San Diego!) in the end. It was a sweet experience watching it and that is really our goal-to help these people make it to the temple.

After our lessons with people throughout the day, we have been evaluating ourselves to help us realize what we can improve and what we did well. This has really been helping us better ourselves and knowing what we can do to help the investigators more.

Happy New Year!

Love, Laura