Last week was a LONG week. We went to Barcelona to drop Hermana Reeder off. We got there Monday morning stayed in the office all morning (got picked up from the train station which was nice so we didn´t have to take the metro to the office), and Hermana Reeder went through her suitcases eliminating and organizing. We went to the Hermanas piso in Barcelona and ate lunch there and took short naps. Hermana Reeder got pretty sick. She kind of had a fever. We then left and went to that locutorio. Tuesday we went back to the office so she could get medicine from Hermana Pace where we stayed there for a little while. We later stopped by Burger King and went to Las Ramblas and back to that great food market. I got a jamon bocadillo and fruit and candy and a smoothie-it was so good. Then we went back to the office and then to Singing with the Angels. It was so neat to be out there and to be with all those missionaries. We stood in a big half circle and we sang some hymns. Members came from the nearby cities to say good bye to the four missionaries that were departing. It was fun to see all the sisters and some of the Elders that I know. Then we went to the Hermanas piso in Barcelona but a different Hermanas´ piso this time and there were 9 of us Hermanas staying there that night!! It was wild. I opted to sleep on a thin mattress on the floor. I had said good bye to Hermana Reeder at Singing with the Angels and she spent the night in the mission home Tuesday night and left early Wednesday morning to go back home. It was hard saying good bye but I knew I would see her again and that it was her time to go. I loved being her companion but I am also way excited to be with Hermana Jorgensen.
Wednesday morning, Hermana Jorgensen
and I woke up and took the train back to Zaragoza. It was so nice to be back!! We
dropped our stuff off, unpacked a little bit and then we went to district meeting.
I love district meetings with Elder Tirado as our district leader-he is amazing
and so spiritual and humble. I also LOVE having the Churchs in our district they
are really special people and I feel blessed for the opportunity I have to get to
know them and be in their presence. Elder Tirado is still training Elder Farah and
then Elder Spencer went to Barcelona and picked up a fresh new missionary originally
from Brazil but grew up in Malaga, Spain so he speaks perfect Spanish-Elder Oliveira.
He is a nice kid.
Then Hermana Jorgensen and I went
about running some errands. We had to buy
her a bus pass and figure some other things out. We still have to get her empadronized in Zaragoza.
We went grocery shopping because we had no
food!
Thursday was Hermana Jorgensen´s
birthday! The morning was kind of dull. I snuck into our room and made her a card
and blew up some happy birthday balloons. She didn´t get any mail because her family
didn´t know her new address in time. She
has a lot of birthday packages awaiting her in the office. For lunch we went to
the Churchs house. It was so nice to be with them. Hermana Church is the best cook
ever. Then we met the elders at our favorite frozen yogurt place: Smooey. Then we had a few citas and to end the night before
we went to Esther and Helen´s house; some of my favorite people and they made
Hermana Jorgensen some cake!! It was so sweet
of them. So overall her birthday was pretty good.
Some good memories from the week:
Lost my voice! But I wasn´t sick and didn´t have a sore throat at all. I couldn´t talk from Wednesday until Saturday! Weird! And I was so tired. It is hard sending a companion home. Poor Hermana Jorgensen is my rebound companion. She´s perfect. She has energy to keep me up and going. She is optimistic and she gives great advice and she´s a hard worker. I LOVE HER and I know we will have success together this transfer and I know she is the perfect missionary to keep this area up and going successfully. She is amazing. I am so blessed to be with her.
Lost my voice! But I wasn´t sick and didn´t have a sore throat at all. I couldn´t talk from Wednesday until Saturday! Weird! And I was so tired. It is hard sending a companion home. Poor Hermana Jorgensen is my rebound companion. She´s perfect. She has energy to keep me up and going. She is optimistic and she gives great advice and she´s a hard worker. I LOVE HER and I know we will have success together this transfer and I know she is the perfect missionary to keep this area up and going successfully. She is amazing. I am so blessed to be with her.
Bright in his closing prayer after
a lesson:
"You know God? I was just walking and I saw my sisters sitting and teaching so I joined with them, and now I am nourished by the good word and I can help others come to you and you´re just full of surprises, God!" Bright is known in my mind for his amazing prayers. What simplicity. It´s an amazing example to me of the kind of close relationship I want to have with Heavenly Father in my prayers. Bright tells Him anything and everything.
"You know God? I was just walking and I saw my sisters sitting and teaching so I joined with them, and now I am nourished by the good word and I can help others come to you and you´re just full of surprises, God!" Bright is known in my mind for his amazing prayers. What simplicity. It´s an amazing example to me of the kind of close relationship I want to have with Heavenly Father in my prayers. Bright tells Him anything and everything.
And Bright got help from the branch
president! He now has a place to live and food from the church. He is doing well.
And he LOVED Jeffrey R Holland´s talk in the Sunday morning session. When Elder
Holland asked the final time: "Do YOU love ME?" Bright almost shouted
yes! Haha. I thought he would stand up and shout Hallelujah, start singing the chorus
or something hahah. But it was incredible. The whole time he was shaking his head
and he even started crying hard. He has an amazing testimony and is such a strong
person I really look up to him.
Friday at Happy´s house:
Pius left them to travel to Madrid for the weekend. He often does this and just leaves Happy and their two children at home. It´s hard for Happy, she often tells us that the children give her headaches. I don´t know how she does it by herself. She is very optimistic and strong, I really look up to her. Anyway, whenever we visit her one of us takes care of the kids, while the other one teaches and then we switch. Well, I forgot to tell Hermana Jorgensen that and so I took care of the kids the whole time to give Happy a break. I was trying to distract and occupy Joseph... hardest task ever, and I had inspiration just to whisper in his ears the three most important words I have learned to say in my life: "I love you." I whispered it very clearly so he could understand me (he doesn´t speak yet even though he is two years old. I think he is struggling with the Spanish/English thing). Also, it might be a part of physical and verbal abuse as well, as well as malnutrition. ANYWAY, I whispered "I love you" and his face lit up. He got the biggest smile on his face. THE BIGGEST SMILE. It was beautiful. It was a miracle. He calmed down. He focused. He pretended to whisper in my ear back. I kept whispering the same thing over and over in his ear. It was amazing; a moment I will never forget in my life.
Pius left them to travel to Madrid for the weekend. He often does this and just leaves Happy and their two children at home. It´s hard for Happy, she often tells us that the children give her headaches. I don´t know how she does it by herself. She is very optimistic and strong, I really look up to her. Anyway, whenever we visit her one of us takes care of the kids, while the other one teaches and then we switch. Well, I forgot to tell Hermana Jorgensen that and so I took care of the kids the whole time to give Happy a break. I was trying to distract and occupy Joseph... hardest task ever, and I had inspiration just to whisper in his ears the three most important words I have learned to say in my life: "I love you." I whispered it very clearly so he could understand me (he doesn´t speak yet even though he is two years old. I think he is struggling with the Spanish/English thing). Also, it might be a part of physical and verbal abuse as well, as well as malnutrition. ANYWAY, I whispered "I love you" and his face lit up. He got the biggest smile on his face. THE BIGGEST SMILE. It was beautiful. It was a miracle. He calmed down. He focused. He pretended to whisper in my ear back. I kept whispering the same thing over and over in his ear. It was amazing; a moment I will never forget in my life.
Friday at Engracia´s house:
"I only have an hour and a half of work every morning but it´s better than nothing. I may not have food and I may have hard days of hunger but prayer is my alimiento." (alimentation?..I don´t know the word in English... nourishment?). Her faith is incredible. She is incredible!!! I love her SO much.
"I only have an hour and a half of work every morning but it´s better than nothing. I may not have food and I may have hard days of hunger but prayer is my alimiento." (alimentation?..I don´t know the word in English... nourishment?). Her faith is incredible. She is incredible!!! I love her SO much.
Saturday was CONFERENCE!!!! J. We saw the Relief Society session and I had a crying
moment. There were three African women in the English room with us and they are
all recently baptized. They are the Elders´ recent converts. They don´t know a ton
yet but they are so faithful. We stood up and sang “I stand all Amazed” and they
were singing horribly at the top of their lungs, but they were proud and praising
their Lord and God. Tears came strolling down my face. They are amazing examples.
They have probably been through so much. Their culture and life is SO different
from mine yet we are sisters in the gospel. We are daughters of a loving Heavenly Father. He
knows us individually and He sent His Son to die for us. Christ died for me and
for these amazing women as well. After the song I gave them a tight hug and thanked
them for their singing. I even complimented this one woman named Beauty because
she was wearing a gorgeous traditional African outfit. She was shocked when I told
her she looked pretty. She secretly behind my back told her friend that the American
girl said she looked pretty. And then she got out her camera and had the woman take
a picture of her. Compliments can go a long way-who knew? It was an incredible moment.
After the session I took a picture with all three of those women. And they told
the elders before they left: "We saw angels today for the first time"
(they were talking about the young adults who sang at the RS Session who were all
wearing white shirts). It was amazing.
Sunday at the church building for
conference, Hermana Jorgensen, Hermana Church and I had the opportunity to re-watch
the Relief Society session but with one of Elder Spencer´s fechas because she couldn´t
come to any other session because of work. She is incredible. She LOVED the Relief
Society session. She was so impressed with the organization of the church in general
and that there was an organization for women. It made me proud and grateful to reflect
on the special purpose that the Relief Society has. And she is excited to get baptized
this weekend. And she gave us a referral for her friend who also wants to learn
more. Her friend lives in our area! So we
get to teach her. J
Sunday between sessions we had a
nice luncheon outside of the capilla with tables. Mostly people from the other branch
were there but our Branch President and his wife were there. We have such a good
relationship now!!! Things have changed completely. I am so blessed to have seen
the miracles here in this beautiful area for the past 6 months. I love his wife
and he was very kind to us. I love Hermana Jorgensen. She is very up to beat and
a quick learner. Her Spanish has improved incredibly since the last time I saw her
in the MTC. I am so impressed. She is amazing. I am so lucky to have her and so
is Zaragoza.
After the luncheon we got on the
bus and picked up our two investigators, Maria (14 year old born in Madrid, but
her mom is from Nigeria. Maria speaks perfect Spanish and a little English and her
mom speaks English and little Spanish-interesting and common situation among the
people here). The other investigators´ name is Kate. She is also from Nigeria. She
has three children: 1 here and 2 in Nigeria. All the Nigerians here know each other
in some way or another. She is amazing. They both are. We picked them up and Bright
and brought them to the church. The church is far and it takes two buses to get
there, but they came and I showed them the way. We taught them a lesson in the baptismal
font room before the Sunday morning session started and it was amazing. They both
are going to be baptized on the 20th! And we need to get Maria´s mom involved and
Kate´s son. I don´t remember how old he is. I think he´s eight hopefully. But anyway,
they loved conference especially Kate. She loved Elder Holland´s talk. It was the
first time that I have seen her face light up. It was neat! Maria stayed in the
English room though I suggested she go to the Spanish room. But she chose to stay.
She didn´t really say anything afterwards, but we are meeting with both of them
this week to talk more about it all.
I loved conference! It was amazing
and just what I needed. We couldn´t see the last session but apparently we are going
to watch it tomorrow as a district in the church building. I wish more of our investigators,
recent converts, and less-actives came because there were a lot of talks that I
heard where I thought of some people, but I know that these men are men called from
God to speak to us. They were inspired to tell us those things. We are so blessed
for this opportunity to hear from them.
I love Zaragoza and I love my new
companion. Things are going well and they will get even better. Thanks for your
love, support, and encouragement.
Wednesday we are going to Lleida
for more training with our Zone; without the Paces and the Churchs. I am excited
to go with the elders and we are going to get the double barrel napolitanas again!!
I am so excited.
Today for preparation day we are
going to a bull fight! My very first one! So we will see how it goes. I am kind
of nervous but mostly excited. I will let you know what it´s like.
Thanks for your prayers and advice. Keep continuing forward being true to the faith.
J
Love, Laura
Singing Angels
Laura with her new companion Hermana Jorgensen on her birthday at the Church's
Laura with Hermana Jorgensen
Laura at bullfight in Zaragoza
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