For starters, we had a surprise companion exchange? (I can´t remember what its called in English haha) on Tuesday! Our Sister Training Leaders called us in the morning and told me that my bus to Sevilla was leaving in a couple hours.... So that was just a little crzy and Hra. Robayo and i ran around like mad women trying to get ready and fix all the appointments for the day haha. But in the end, it all turned out well (even if just barely made it onto the bus with 30 seconds to spare)! The next 24 hours I spent with Hra Grant. She actually lived in New Jersey for the first half of her life! This was the first time since the MTC that I´ve had a companion who speaks fluent English and let me tell you, I took advantage of it! Poor Hna. Grant haha I talked her ear off! She´s going to BYU too and it was fun for me to tell her about all the things that have changed on campus. We had a great time together and I definitely learned a lot. This exchange was special for me too because I had my first exchange back in August in the same area and I got to visit a family I had taught before. it was amazing to see their progression. One of the daughters looks and acts exactly like Jenna so it was extra special :) Later, we even got to meet the Bishop of the ward there and he and his wife took us to see the brand new chapel. SO BEAUTIIFUL! It was almost like seeing a temple. The members in this area had been renting a piso (floor/apartment?) for years and now they have enough funds and enough members for their very own chapel. I want to serve in this area soooo badly. Especially since I find out this is the ward all the members from the military base go to :D Oh my gosh i would just love that! Cross your fingers for the Dos Hermanas area! Someday...
So guess what? I learned a new word in Spanish, that I never EVER wanted to learn: piojos. LICE. My companion and I got LICE. Oh man it was so awful but I´m so glad we can look back and laugh at it now haha. We had to wash all our clothes and our bedding like 3 times and members let us come over and they brushed our hair for us haha (so embarrassing!). It reminded me of The Great Lice Episode of The Lahti/Morrow Reunion a couple years ago haha (sorry, Popes!) I hope we can look back on that expereince too and laugh!
So quite honestly, this week was a rough one. Not just because of the lice. Missions are hard, man! And I just want to say that I won´t ever say that the mission is easy. I knew coming into this that it was going to be hard, but I didn´t know it was going to be this hard! haha. I have so much more respect for return-missionaries, no matter for how long they served--2 years, 2 months, or even 2 weeks. I could come on my email every week and just write about the good things but it wouldn´t be real. I hope you don´t read this and think I´m ever complaining or that its ever unbearable. It may be emotionally, physically, and especially spiritually demanding but let me tell you--its amazing. It´s amazing. No matter how hard it got this week, all I could do was laugh and pray, and push through it.
And we have two GOLDEN investigators who have made it all worth it. I would go through the struggles of this week a hundred more times for Estela and Antonia. They make it ALL worth it. Antonia is well on her way to baptism. The date is still set for October 11, less than 2 weeks! She is a special lady and has been prepared for a long time. We visited her the other day and her son happened to be there and we taught the lesson to them both and it was so special to be able to see her share her love and her testimony of the gospel with him. She wnats him to accept the gospel in his life SO badly because it means so much to her. It reminded me of how the gospel of Jesus Christ, our knowledge of the Savior and His Atonement, is the best gift we could ever give someone.
And Estela! oh my goodness,I love her to DEATH. She´s only 11 years old but spiritually speaking, more like 30! We taught her the Restoration one visit and asked her to pray about Joseph Smith and if he was a true prophet of god. We asked her the next day how her prayer went and all she could say was "muy muy muy muy muy MUY BIEN!!" She doesn´t believe, she KNOWS Joseph Smith restored the church as a prophet of God and that this chruch, The Church of jesus Christ of latter-Day saints, is true. I have never in my entire life seen someone so open and so able to feel the Spirit. She just soaks up everything in the lessons. She invited a friend over to listen to a discussion with us and we sked Estela to tell her friend the story of Joseph Smith (expecting her to say only a sentence or two because she had heard the story only once the day before) and she just turned to her friend and said thingls like "he saw a pillar of light" and "he saw Jesus Christ and the Father" and "Heavenly Father pointed to Him and said, Listen" and Hna. Robayo just looked at each other in unbelief, like "did she just recite the first vision?!?!" haha this girl is incredible! She reads the Book of mormon every day and says that when she doesn´t understand something, she prays until she understands. Like serisously, this girl is an angel from heaven and makes me want to be a better missionary!! But I know that it is the Spirit that converts the hearts and minds of the children of God and helps them remember the Great Plan that they heard before this life. The amazing plan of our Heavenly Father that we shouted for joy when we heard!
And this email is way too long but I just want to share my testimony that I know Heavenly father loves us and he cries with us during the hard times and smiles and has joy with us during the happy times. And we are never given a trial that we can´t handle, and there´s always a tender mercy, something we learn or the person that we become because of that experience, that makes it all worth it.
I love you all!!!
HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!
PS Hows your Book of Mormon reading going? My companion and I are in 2 Nephi, whoop whoop!
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