Saturday, September 15, 2012

Barcelona Mission: (Zaragoza) Week-20 2012


What a week! The weeks are just flying by like crazy. I can´t believe I am sitting here at this computer emailing you again.
Mom! Thanks for all the emails and all the news --- especially about Bryanna and Jasmine. I would love to see the picture of them two in their little swimming pool.
Thanks for telling me about the weather in San Jose. I am so excited for Natalia to go on her mission there. I wrote her a long letter of suggestions and advice. We ate with her family yesterday in between the Branch meetings and it was so good!
No one really writes me anymore these days, but I love getting the letters from Sis Maczko because I love rereading my emails and reading about others´ experiences in the mission field.
It was exciting about the BYU football games. Keep telling me the news I want to hear about them; especially about the game against Weber State. My District Leader, Elder Tirado, has a scholarship to be the mascot for Weber State when he gets home next summer.
We had an interesting week. Every day is filled with adventures and stories. It´s hard to keep up with them all!
Zone Conference was great. The Church’s drove us in their car. So nice to be in a car! It was their 44th wedding anniversary and Hermana Reeder and I pretended like we forgot. On the night before, we made a card and created a fun little poem for them. We also called up the Zone Leaders and had them buy them some napolitanas in the morning and we called up the Paces to tell them about it. When we got to the Church’s house in the morning, Hermana Church immediately said it´s our anniversary today. We acted like we were surprised and we congratulated them. At the chapel before the conference, Hermana Reeder (violin), Elder Dixon (one of the Zone Leaders) (violin) and Hermana Pace (piano) were practicing a song.  Meanwhile Pres. Pace showed me all the numbers of how companionships are doing and said that Hermana Reeder and I are basically leading the Mission! …And that our Zone and District is leading the Mission because we all got in 20 lessons last week. It was incredible!
For the Church’s anniversary, before the conference started, we read our poem to them. Then they received their napolitanas and Hermana Pace and Pres. Pace sang a song to them – "Let Me Call You Sweetheart".  They said it´s a tradition between them because it was a tradition between Hermana Pace´s parents. It was wonderful and the Churchs were so surprised! They knew it was all because of Hermana Reeder and I. It was exciting to see them so happy and it was the least we could do to serve them because they do so much for us. On the car ride home I told them that I would take them to JDawgs (because they have never been before!) and that we could go on a double date to see the old archive films on the first floor of the BYU library. I love them so much. They are on many alumni associations for BYU because Elder Church is an archaeological researcher. And their son right now is a professor for the Communications Department. And their daughter makes films for BYU and for the Church. It´s exciting to hear all of their stories. I can´t wait for you to meet them someday.
One miracle this week is that man, Javier, whom I sat down next to on the bus a couple months ago who was inactive for 10 years came back and he blessed the sacrament on Sunday! It was amazing to see him up there, now fully back into the church. In Gospel Principles class the Branch President´s wife was teaching about missionary work. She asked me if I had an example of an experience or confirmation where I knew that I was here for a reason. I shared the story of finding Javier on the bus, answering his prayers, and helping him back into the church and then him blessing the sacrament. It was wonderful.
Another little miracle is about an investigator we have that I told you about before. Her name is Sonia, (originally from Cape Verde.) She is so great about keeping her reading commitments and always has a question for us or something special to share with us. We left her the General Conference edition of the Liahona and she has almost read the whole thing! It was neat because she read a talk that she wanted to share with her sister-whose baby is in the hospital. It was a really touching talk about how things will work out and how special lessons are learned. Anyway, it really touched me and it was kind of answer to my prayer of how to help my own sister who recently found out that her daughter has a hole in her heart. We cried together and she suggested that I share the talk with my sister as well. Sonia is so amazing. She fits into the Branch really well and seems like she´s already a member. She needs to pray and find out if the church is true and then make the decision to be baptized. She thinks she would like her sister to fly from Portugal to see her baptism, if she decides to, but we don´t think this will happen because her baby is in the hospital and will be for a while. It´s an interesting situation and we have been praying and asking some members to help us help Sonia to know that she is ready to be baptized.
And another miracle was when we were teaching a lesson and a Catholic Priest from Poland, who lived in the piso joined us. We were teaching a girl our age who wants to become a nun and her mom who is against it. We prayed hard that we could have the Spirit. We had planned to teach something different but then we knew we had to teach the Restoration lesson.  At first the Priest was very defensive and wanted to argue. But when we reacted calmly to his comments, he calmed down. My voice was a little shaky as I taught the First Vision lesson and it was the most powerful part of the visit.  I know at least the girl could feel the Spirit and we knew that if she felt the Spirit, she could influence the other two. She wants to serve the Lord and we told her that she could serve a mission for our church. She seemed to like that idea better because she wants to have a family someday. It was incredible. After the First Vision lesson the Priest kept quiet and let us finish. We bore our testimonies of the truthfulness of our message and we invited everyone in the room to read, pray, and ask if it was true. They all said that they would. We promised that they would receive an answer if they did and the Priest even backed us up on that promise!  He ended politely by saying thank you for the message and that he does not agree on many points of doctrine, but he admires that we could testify with such confidence. He said a lot of Pastors and Priests don´t meditate when they pray, or don´t feel anything when they preach, so he admired that in our prayers we expressed our sincere feelings and thoughts to God. It was incredible where we were at when we started the lesson as compared to where we were at the end. After we walked out the door, Hermana Reeder and I just took a deep breath and hugged each other on the stairs. It was exhausting, but I am grateful for the Spirit that helped to guide us and hopefully touch the hearts of those people.

Here in Zaragoza, people find us and just walk up to us. This is a prepared place and we see miracles every day, it seems. We eat meals with the members now and have had wonderful experiences with them and see the difference it makes at church on Sunday. People are more approachable and are interested in what we are doing.  There really is a great spirit these days as compared to when I first got here back in April. I feel so blessed and privileged to be a part of it and to be seeing all of these changes.

One last miracle to share is that we went and visited an older woman (member) in a residence home on Saturday. She is the most social one in the group of older people there. She gave us a little tour of the place and introduced us to everyone as Sister Missionaries from the church that she attends. She even bore her testimony to one woman, testifying of God´s love for her and of the Restoration of the church. She had no fear as an 88 year old woman with a walker. It was a huge testimony to me...if she could do it that easily, so can I. What a great example and a boost of confidence and motivation for me to have no fear about talking to people.

This weekend we are helping three Africans to get baptized. Our whole Branch is surprised, but excited. It will be a busy week and we have a lot of work to do to help them. We are confident that the Lord will help us do His will and not our will. I love being an instrument in the hands of the Lord and helping people come closer to Christ.

Have a good week. Keep moving forward and don´t look back. Learn from your mistakes and trials and move forward. "The future is as bright as your faith." –President Monson

Love you so much,
Laura

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