August 5, 2013 Maddie from Murcia Finding Joy In Little Things Hello my dearest family, Man, I have a very full heart today looking back on the little tender mercies and answered prayers we experienced this week! I had to make a list so I could remember to write them home! Alrighty, first on the list we have Isabel. We´ve been teaching Isabel since the end of June. I´ve written home about her before, I believe. She´s from Bolivia and has the worlds most adorable children! Nico is 4 months and Irene is 2 years old. Isabel always calls me Nico´s girlfriend cause he always smiles really big at me. Let´s be honest though....of COURSE he smiles at me: children love me! :) Anyway, we found out last week that Isabel and her boyfriend, Gustavo, aren´t married. Welcome to Spain. They won´t not live together cause they´re planning on getting married next year when they go back to Bolivia. Isabel also told us that Gustavo supports her and lets her do what she feels is right, but he has no desire to listen to us. Alright, nothing new. Last weekend we fasted for Isabel and that Gustavo´s heart and mind would be opened to listening to us. This week we went to Isabel´s house to teach her about fasting. We walked into the house and for the first time since we´ve started teaching Isabel, we met Gustavo!!!! It doesn´t sound like a big deal, but let me pause and tell you the mind set of peple here...when people hear, ¨misioneras¨ they automatically think monks or nuns. Little old people who go around calling people to repentance and devote their entire life to their mission. So for him to meet us is a REALLY big deal and I saw it as a huge tender mercy. He sees that we´re young, normal people. We introduced ourselves to him and he seemed really nice! We didn´t teach him or anything, but we´re getting our foot in the door with him little at a time! AHH I´m so excited about that!!! We invited Isabel to fast with us, but she can´t because she´s breast feeding still but we let her know that we´d be fasting and praying for her. That really touched her heart and she really appreciated it! GAHHH she´s seriously PERFECT! She came to church yesterday which was perfect being fast and testimony meeting, for the first time, I could feel the spirit really strong in our ward. It´s usually a little irreverent and loud but the spirit was so strong yesterday. She had to have felt it too; she’s very sensitive and receptive to the spirit. It was so cute...in Relief Society they asked for volunteers to clean the church this week and she raised her hand! Something about that was just really humbling. We also taught the spiritual thought in Relief Society yesterday and we used videos from the Missionary Broadcast. We used that, ¨I´ll Go Where You Want Me To Go¨ video with the missionary family (lds.org/training/wwlt/2013/hastening/special-broadcast#media=16902107223790014226-eng). By the end all of the women were crying. Relief Society is the same all over the world.....Spain or America...women cry! haha but it was wonderful. The spirit was strong! We´re really trying to work with members right now and getting them involved in missionary work and for the most part, they´re responding well. Even though Isabel isn´t progressing and she can´t really get baptized until she gets married, it´s been a HUGE blessing teaching her the gospel. The gospel has touched her life and she´s touching her children´s lives. We texted her a scripture to read and she told us that she read it to Nico to put him to sleep. Ah, she´s just an amazing person! I absolutley love her. Another cool story is Samantha! Samantha is a new investigator. We were walking past a little ice cream booth in the street when at the last minute I decided I wanted ice cream and in about half a second I found myself at the ice cream booth asking for a chocolate something or another. Samantha was working. She started speaking to us in English and we asked her how she knew English so well. She then asked us why two American girls were so far from home. I love when people ask that cause it´s like, ¨ha. well here! Let me tell you exactly why I´m here!¨ We told her we´re here serving missions for our church yadda yadda ya and we showed her the Book of Mormon. We gave it to her, got her information and told her we´d get in contact with her. FINALLY we found a future on the street that lives in our Area! They usually live in our ward boundaries just in the Elder´s area so she´s golden! We walked past the ice cream booth a few days later and there she was again! We walked over and she said, ¨ven! besitos!¨ (come here, kisses!) and we did the whole European besito thing. I can´t imagine not doing that when I get home...shaking hands seems so weird to me! She had read the intro to the Book of Mormon and she even brought it with her to work at the booth to read in her spare time!!!! She only has Sundays free and yesterday she went to the playa (beach) so we couldn´t meet with her :/ but we´ll keep walking by the ice cream booth :) Maybe she´ll start giving us a frequent shoppers discount! whoop whoop! Another sweet cita we had this week was with a new guy, Juan Antonio. He´s Españolo and was born in a catholic home although his mom is a testigo (Jehovah´s Witness). He´s 30 something give or take and lives with his parents, which is really common here. We sat and chatted with him on a bench. He works here in Murcia but lives in a pueblo called Zeneta (Theneta- as the Spaniards would say) which is out in outter darkness! So we just met with him during his break in the morning. He had tons of good questions about the Book of Mormon, and a few that weren´t really important. One being, ¨do you know what year Jerusalem was destroyed?¨ Haha, but at the end he was like, ¨how do you know this book is the word of God? People have the quran and other books that they know are the word of God. What makes you so sure?¨ This was the only thing I said during this lesson because they guy talked a mile a minute and I didn´t get most of what he said, but all I said was, ¨Juan Antonio, there´s a promise here in Moroni that promises those who read, ponder and pray, that they´ll receive an answer from God. We´ve done this many times and I know with all of my heart the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It´s meant for everyone. You just have to have faith and trust in God to answer you.¨ Something about him changed after that. We read the promise in Moroni and I don´t know if he felt the spirit or something, but he just got kinda quiet and when we gave him the Book of Mormon he said, ¨thank you so so much!¨ BAM!! The spirit strikes again! He had to leave and get back to work, but it was an awesome lesson! Hermana Jarvis was kept on her toes cause he knows the Bible forwards and back but she did an awesome job answering his questions!! Last awesome success story this week. We met with an antiguo investigator which is someone who met with the missionaries before but got dropped for whatever reason. And we have a binder full of Antiguos so we went through them over the last few weeks and weeded out the good ones and we´ve been contacting them. Good but that also means we´re using our phone minutes and we don´t get more till the 19th of the month. We got a text the other day saying we only had 20% of our minutes left.....anyway, not important. So we went to El Palmar again this last week and visited this Antiguo, Magda. She´s Bolivian and works a ton! We toqued her timbray (or however you spell that) outside of her building for her to let us in. She came down stairs and wouldn´t really let us go in the building. We just kinda chatted with her outside. We asked her if she still had her Book of Mormon and she said she didn´t know ( I think....I¨m not positive what she said...) So we gave her another one. Before we left, I just testified to her that I knew that if she read the BoM that her life and family would be blessed and that I know it´s true. Again, I could almost literally see the change on her face. She paused for a second and let us in. We walked up to her piso with her and had a lesson!!! It was awesome! After we walked out of the lesson we had to go home because it was almost time for curfew. But that day we only taught two lessons. I told Hermana Jarvis that even though we only taught two lessons, I felt the spirit working through us today and that was enough for me. This week, I felt the spirit working in us and in the hearts of our investigators, and that is what missionary work is about, being an instrument in the Lord´s hand. Getting baptisms is a REALLY nice extra, like really nice, it´s like the french fries at the bottom of the bag; that´s the best part of the whole meal! But from my experience so far, there´s more french fries in the container than in the bottom of the bag, and that´s okay. That´s how it goes. When the Spirit can work through missionaries that´s what´s important. That´s something I´ve been striving to do more the last few weeks, being more receptive to the spirit so I can be a tool in the Lord´s hand. When we pick up a pen the pen doesn´t tell us what to write. We tell it what to write. Heavenly Father is the master and His missionaries are His pens. Everyday I have to pray that I can be an instrument in the Lord´s hands and not hinder the work here that He has for me to do. As I´ve prayed for that I´ve seen how it´s changed the way I do missionary work. Something I learned my second day in the Provo MTC was that you can have an awesome lesson, but if the Spirit isn´t there....you´ve accomplished nothing. The spirit is what converts people, not the missionary. If I don´t baptize anyone on my mission, at least I´ve helped people feel the Spirit and it´s opening the door for missionaries in the future. Even in normal people´s lives. There are so many people that are ready to hear the message of the restored gospel, but are we being receptive to the spirit? Do we have fear of rejection? Probably. That´s normal. Before my mission, if someone would´ve asked me about the church, cool! I would´ve told you anything you wanted to know. Would I have gone up to someone and started a gospel conversation? Not a chance. It also helps now that I´m doing it in a foreign language cause when people respond for the most part I don´t understand them. haha :) Just kidding, But we have to have courage. What is better than getting a prompting to talk to someone? It´s like getting a reference from Heavenly Father. There´s nothing better! :) I love my mission more and more everyday. Not any of our investigator´s are progressing right now and that´s frustrating but we´re working through it and finding strength through our Savior and the Atonement. I know my Savior is mindful of us and missionaries all over the world. Missions are tough. If they were easy, everyone would do it! Everyone SHOULD do it but that´s just not the case :) What a wonderful blessing we have to have the gospel in our lives and it´s so precious. We don´t need to keep it to ourselves. Share the gospel! Share the gospel! SHARE THE GOSPEL! Invite people over for FHE´s. Have dinner with the missionaries and non-members. There´s thousands of things to do, you just have to find them! :) I love you all so very much! Have a wonderful week! Love, Hermana Muse
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 12:45:30 +0000
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