Friday, March 2, 2012

Arrived in Spain March 1, 2012

All,

I for-SURE have jet lag.  At the moment I am a walking zombie; same with the other 30 or so people that got here.  We are SO tired, and we are being forced to stay awake.  We must make it to 7:00 PM before going to sleep.

It was SO hard to say goodbye to all the people I have grown to love the past almost 3 months that I have been serving in Rose Park.

Monday we threw a super fun surprise birthday party for Hermana Harris. She was totally shocked and had no idea about it before hand. The sweet and amazing Perez family volunteered their house and Hermana Vicencio made some amazing taquitos!!!!! SO GREAT.   We got some good pictures.  Hermana Corona (The Relief Society President) even got a piñata which we hung out outside and hit open. It was so fun!! Hermana Harris loved it so much.

Tuesday was a great day!!!!  All four of us went to teach Nestor.  He´s great and is going to get baptized in a couple of weeks. Then we all went out to eat with our district at Taco Bell. It was so much fun.  We got some good pictures and Hermana Harris got a huge cookie for her birthday (delivered to the mission office by her cousins) so she cut it into pieces so we could all have some!  Then after that the four of us went to Sister Mayberry´s house.  We had a testimony meeting.  The Spirit was so strong and tears were streaming down a lot of faces; especially Sis. Mayberry´s.  She kept saying how we were angels to her.  It was sooo neat.  We sang "Be Still My Soul" to start out (which immediately brought the Spirit and some tears) and then we ended our visit by singing "God be With You Till We Meet Again."  It was so great and of course her prayer at the end was AMAZING.  I want to be like her someday. Her testimony is so strong.  She says that we are her adopted granddaughters. :)  I love her.

After that, Hermana Marshall and I got permission to be on our own for the rest of the day!!  We made a list of whose houses we wanted to visit to say goodbye and we took great pictures and everything.  It even stopped snowing for us right when we started riding our bikes.  It was so great to visit all those people.  There were more we wanted to visit but we just didn´t have time; especially traveling on bikes where it´s not as fast as the car. (Hermanas Magdaleno and Harris were teaching).  We had the best last dinner ever that we could have ever asked for from the best cook --- I know-Julia!!  She and her sister made us homemade pupusas.  BEST THING EVER!  We got some good pictures and we love that family so much!!  Gooood memories.

We got home a little late that night and I really began feeling the head cold coming on.  Luckily I had packed most of my things that morning before personal study, but I still had a little left to do.  I definitely couldn´t sleep at all that night.  I couldn´t breathe out of my nose and there was no more Nyquil left in the house.   :( So I started to finish up packing instead.  We made it to the airport around 8-ish.  We said bye to the amazing Hermanas Magdaleno and Harris.  I love them SO MUCH. Then we bought calling cards and called our families! :)

On the flight to Atlanta I sat next to a guy named Brenden.  It was incredible the way the conversation turned.  We talked about so many things about the gospel.  I taught him the first lesson, recited the First Vision, taught him the Word of Wisdom, and the Law of Chastity and part of the Plan of Salvation.  It was soooo great!!!!  :D  He was expressing his frustrations at people who act like hypocrites; go to church on Sunday and then do other stuff during the week.  I agree that it´s super sad.  But I told him that honestly, it´s between them and God and we shouldn´t be the ones to judge.  He then brought up that his dad thinks his little 3-year old boy is going to hell because Brenden refused to get him baptized into the Catholic Church.  He expressed his concerns and opinions about it and then I said,  "I want to show you something that I think you will like"  I opened my Book of Mormon up to Moroni 8.  He loved it. :D  It was such a great conversation.  At the end I was super sad because I didn´t have a book to give to him, so I gave him a pass along card instead.

I told the other sisters about him and how great that 3-hour flight was.  My good friend Hermana Jorgenson says she has a Book of Mormon!!!  We randomly saw him at Chick Fil A and we gave it to him and I marked Moroni 8 for him. It was so great!!!! :D Best plane trip ever.

We finally got on the flight to Madrid.  I was sooo long and I wasn´t able to sleep much because I am sick.  My ears are still plugged too :(  I sat next to a Swedish guy.  He lives on the island Majorca, off of Spain in the winters and lives in Sweden in the summers and always visits his son in Florida.  He was super nice and friendly but said he wasn´t interested to hear my message.  Oh well.

We got here this morning at 9:00 AM.  It´s already March 1st!!!  What?!  We like skipped a day or something.  GORGEOUS warm weather today.  I am not even wearing tights!  Love it!!!  So pretty.  Will be here until March 16th.  The new MTC Mission President is super nice. It’s great to be here just a super weird transition from being in the field working all day with people and now back to the MTC schedule. We get to go to the temple next Thursday.  GORGEOUS and SO CLOSE.  I will send pictures next time.

Love you,

Laura

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