July 15, 2013 Maddie from from Murcia Hello Family! Oh my heavenly days, what a miraculous weeK! It went by way too fast and almost afraid of this next week cause we might not have as many miracles! Plus it´s the end of the transfer and I keep having dreams that I´ll train which I´m terrified to do! If I don´t train this transfer...for SURE in September because we´re getting like 16 new sister missionaries and none are leaving! So basically everyone but the SHE´s are going to train. ha. So let me start with a little side note. It was brought to my attention this week that I¨m a negative person. haha kind of hard to imagine-it was a little hard for me to take. Hermana Jarvis told me that I tend to focus on the things that go wrong in citas more so than the things we do well. Or I focus on what I can´t do as opposed to what I can do. That´s part of comp inventory every week, but it was good to hear because I took a step back and tried to figure out what changed about my personality and I realized that´s how things were my first transfer (take this out before posting it on facebook too) BUT Hermana Castrillo, as much as I love her, after most citas she would kind of rail me for what I did wrong and so I started setting higher expectations for myself that are higher and harder to reach and I would focus more on the bad part of citas. Cause truth be told there are few citas missionaries have that are flawless. Anyway, so I started thinking about how I could change my attitude. I didn´t even realize I had that problem! But I got mom´s packages in the mail this week and in one of them were those little notebooks for me and my comp and we use those to write the miracles we see everyday :) So that has helped me find the good in everyday so I appreciate my mission more at the end. Always a positive thing. Okay so Wednesday we had a medio dia eating cita with a member, Paula. I´ve talked about her several times. She´s wonderful. We go to her home every week now for food cause they love having the missionaries over :) Anyway so we were saying the closing prayer and she kind of paused. She said, ¨Hermanas...I just had someones face pop into my mind that I want you to visit!¨ So we whooped out our handy dandy planners and got the information and she specifically asked us to not tell him that she sent him. His name is Juan and he lives like two doors down from Paula. We visited him a day or so later and he was SASSY!!! He was making fun of how bad I speak Spanish and how bad Hermana Jarvis´s gringa accent is. (She only has 6 months on the mission, so she´s still perfecting her Spanish.) Anywho, so we introduced the Book of Mormon to him in his door. He answered the door shirtless with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth haha. But he said he´d be interested in hearing more and learning more about the church. It was just him and his son there so we told him next time we´d come we´d have a woman with us. He agreed. So we were going back for our cita and Paula- hahaha these little girls from Morocco just came up and were talking to me about how funny my name, ¨hermana muse¨is.. At least I can talk to little kids....at least!! :) anyway, so we were going to our cita with Juan and we were going to get Paula first. We saw them ¨casually¨ talking in the street. As far as Juan knows we were knocking doors on his entire building and we found him. haha! Anyway so we chatted in the street with them and some how Juan got our times mixed up! So we have another cita with him tomorrow, a noche de hogar in Paula´s home :) Anyway in that street meeting or whatever, he told us that when we´re around he feels kind of a special spirit or a feeling that he´s never felt before and he likes talking to us! :D We found out he´s going through a really hard time right now-going through a divorce from his wife and then the horrible economy here in Spain has him out of work like every other hombre. Oh, my heart goes out for the people here. Their economy is so so bad. Mostly women are the bread winners here and the men can´t find jobs. So Juan is suffering from that and is feeling the effects of that. But looking back at that if it weren´t for the Spirit bringing Juan´s name and face to Paula´s mind....we NEVER would´ve found him. If we don´t find people they Lord brings them to us. He´s ready to learn about the gospel and if he can work on the Word of Wisdom...he´ll be golden! That same evening we had a cita with Eli. Her family is the family from the Dominican and they all have fechas. Well the whole family isn´t progressing except Eli so we´re focusing more on teaching Eli. Her mom is usually in all of the citas but she doesn´t keep her compromisos...(sorry, I can´t think of what that word is in English...) So yes, we´re focusing more on Eli and this week she´s told us that she wants to be baptized sooner than the 31st. So we made a calendar for her and kind of laid out the plan of what we had left to teach and just let her having a physical thing to look at. We were shooting for this weekend but she didn´t come to church yesterday so she needs to come one more time. That´s really her only problem...getting to church. She reads, she´s prayed and she knows this is right for her getting to church at noon is just difficult cause 12 pm is ¨early¨ here. haha! Anywho, so we were going to her house to kind of lay out the plan for her baptism and talk with her about a lot of serious things that would´ve been a lot easier if it was just her and even her mom. But her brother´s are really distracting so we literally prayed that they wouldn´t be there. How horrible...but Eli was our priority. We got to their house and Eli was the only one home! We were able to have a really awesome cita with her and clear up a lot of questions she had, we were able to talk about her baptism which we still don´t have a secure fecha for...but it was just really awesome to see quite literally how our prayers were answered and we were able to work effectively with her this week! We challenged her to pray specifically about a fecha to be baptized and we´re just waiting for that answer now. So I guess reading this it may not mean a lot, but it was SO crucial for us to have her by herself and it was an incredible tender mercy! I´ve truly seen through other little miracles and tender mercies this week how the hand of the Lord is literally in EVERYTHING. As a missionary it´s one of the biggest miracles and blessings to witness almost first hand how the gospel of Jesus Christ touches peoples lives and hearts. The gospel is so precious! I´m so grateful I have it in my life and that I´ve been able to serve a mission this far...it´s already going by way too fast! I´m starting to pick up a little Murciana accent....instead of saying ¨grathias¨ like a normal white girl trying to learn spainish....I say grathia now. :D hehe Anyways I know the Gospel is true. The Book of Mormon IS the word of God and is for us in our day. Only through reading the Book of Mormon and praying can we know if it´s true. When we struggle with our investigators to help them learn if it´s true...the key is usually because they haven´t read. That is the key. The Book of Mormon is the keystone to our religion and without it....it falls apart. I´m grateful for this knowledge and for the opportunity I have to share that :) I love you all so much! Good luck at Girls camp this week mama! I´m sure you´ll do one heck of a job! :) I can´t wait to hear about it! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALLORY AND MOM!!!!! :) I love you both a ton! Love, Hermana Muse
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 02:32:36 +0000
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