Hola!
I was going to subject this e-mail whatever week it is, but honestly, I can´t remember how many weeks I´ve actually been here, so that didn´t work. This week FLEW by. It was definitely one of my favorite weeks on the mission so far.
Monday was awesome. First, I went with Hermana F to renew her residency card. Talk about an experience. We saw SO MANY MUSLIMS. I´ve never seen so many as in Spain, but the residency building had the most I´ve ever seen. It was actually funny to see how many different religious parties were there. Muslims, nuns, Jehovah´s Witnesses, and two Mormons. I guess everyone´s trying to get their hands on the people of Spain! We sat out in the hot sun for two hours, and I couldn´t even go inside with Hermana Frandsen, so we broke the rules and she was out of my sight and sound for about 20 minutes. Those were the scariest 20 minutes of my life. I´m going to have some serious adjustment issues when I come home. After getting that taken care of, we went with our District to an amazing Mexican restaurant in Plaza del Sol. If anyone ever visits Spain, you have to go to Plaza del Sol. It´s exactly what everyone pictures Spain to look like. It´s really, really beautiful. We sat outside together and ate DELICIOUS food. We all love each other and LOVE hanging out together. It´s amazing how much a mission can bring people together. While we were leaving, two men ran at us and yelled ¨Missionaries!¨ and stopped us. They were from Salt Lake. They said that seeing 10 missionaries walking together down the streets of Spain was the most beautiful thing they´ve seen in Spain. Nothing is better than that. I still can´t believe that´s me!
Tuesday was Intercambio day! I was with Hermana....MNY! YES. She´s my best friend here. I think that if we didn´t live together, I would die. It´s nice to have a companion, but sometimes, you need another face. Anyways, the Lord was working some serious miracles through us on Tuesday. We were a little nervous because neither of us is experienced, and we had lessons planned. Plus, I was (sort of) the senior companion because we were in my area. We also had two eating appointments planned that day (with two other sets of Elders). It was a packed day at first, but, everyone who we were going to have lessons with canceled (naturally), and we were left to go contacting ALL DAY. Thankfully, our English speaking investigator, DB, called and wanted to meet that day. We contacted for about an hour and got 8 referrals. That´s unheard of. 8 referrals in one hour with two twenty year olds who don´t speak a lick of Spanish!? Amazing. I know that the Lord was helping us. We went to DB´s lesson and it was AWESOME. We gave him a Book of Mormon and testified of how much it has helped both of us in our lives. We invited him to give the closing prayer (which he had never done), and, when we all bowed our heads it was silent for a while. Usually that happens when you ask someone to pray for the first time. They get nervous and don´t know what to say or how to start. But this time, it was a REALLY long time. I wasn´t sure what was going on, so I peeked my eyes open and looked at DB. He had his arms folded, head down and his lips were moving. He was praying in his head! I looked at Hermana Mny, and she was just laughing. He prayed silently for a good 10 minutes! I wasn´t really sure what to do at first, but then I decided, "DB is praying...so maybe I should too!" Hahaha. It was so so sweet. When he was done, he looked up at us and said, "I feel different!" As a missionary, there is nothing better than those words! When we got home, we told our "Master Jedi´s" what had happened, and they were so proud of us. We got the most referrals out of our zone that day, and taught an awesome lesson.
Wednesday, we went to the temple as a Zone. What a neat experience. I love my zone enough, and my love just grew ten fold when I saw all of them in the temple. Pavones (where the temple and the MTC are) is about an hour to the east of us, so we woke up really early and left. The session was in Spanish! Wowzas. I wa suprised that I didn´t get a headache. It was also a REALLY big session for the Madrid temple. They had to bring in a lot of chairs! My favorite people, the S's, were there. They are AWESOME people. Elder S is the first counselor in the MTC presidency, but they work really closely with our mission. Both were in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir until about a year ago, and they always ask me to play the piano for them. They just get me! I swear, Hermana S is me in 40 years. They take really good care of me (you would love them, Mom and Dad). The best news is, they are going home at the same time as I am.
That night, we had an awesome lesson with Ax. I´m not sure if I talked about her in my last e-mail, but she´s amazing. She´s 20, and so, so quiet. She´s my favorite one to teach because she never has any questions! Haha. She is very intelligent and very, very responsible. We watched "The Restoration" together. After it ended, Hermana F looked at me to talk. She wasn´t going to! Immediately, I felt a huge wave of the Spirit. I couldn´t talk! It´s hard enough to bear your testimony when you are feeling the Spirit in English, let alone in Spanish! Hermana F said later that she has only had one other prompting on her mission like this. She knew that she should let her companion speak. I definitely wasn´t in on that prompting! It turned out to be awesome. I´ll update you more on Ax in the Sunday paragraph!
Thursday, I learned many, many new things. I ate something I´ve never had before. Any guesses? You guessed it...cow stomach. Yes. I ate cow stomach. A HUGE plate of it. The whole plate was covered in a huge mound of rice, smothered in a cow stomach. On the side, there was half of an avocado (my saving grace), red onions, and a boiled egg. The cow stomach was yellow and covered in some sort of sauce. One side looked like the bottom side of a sandal, and the other side looked like honeycomb. I´ve never prayed more fervently or specifically in my life. It was the most disgusting I have ever put into my body in my 20 years of living, but I did it! It wasn´t that bad while I was eating, but I think that´s just because my prayer was being answered. Also, I was trying really hard not to barf. It was so rubbery. My bowels haven´t been the same since.
Friday was Zone conference! I played a piano solo (Consider the Lillies), and President Jackson (in front of the whole zone) told me that I´m playing the piano for his funeral. Haha. The conference was awesome. I love my mission president. He doesn´t focus so much on the number of baptisms that a mission has, but how many people return back to church after those baptisms. He told us that when we get back from our missions and people ask us how many people we baptized, we don´t give them a number. We tell them that we remember their names and what their faces looked like when they emerged from the water. That was so powerful. Hermana Jackson shared the story of Elisha in 2 Kings. "They that are with us are more that are with them." She´s awesome. We had pizza (from Dominos!!) afterwards and played a little basketball with the President.
That night, we had a Ward activity. We tried with all of our might to get investigators to come, but no one came. BUT, there were about 20 non-members there! People from the ward brought people with them! Miracle! The party was SO SO SO fun. They played musical chairs with every single auxiliary group in the church (primary kids, young men and women, missionaries, etc.). The High Priest group was my personal favorite. 80 year old Spaniard men walking at the pace of a turtle, dancing (obviously), and playing musical chairs! Hahahaaaaaaaaaa. It was hilarious. I wish I would have taken a video. The Relief Society was really getting into it too. They were adorable. We ate SO MUCH FOOD, and then, the members had a dance together! I have never had so much fun in my life. It is just so natural for Latins to be good dancers! They were all mocking us white missionaries for not being able to dance. Haha. We were all having so much fun and definitely didn´t want to leave at 10.
(Woah, I just realized how long this e-mail is...)
Saturday was a rough one. We literally forgot everything at home that morning, and were late to everything. Then, when we got to our eating appointment, the member gave us cow stomach and blood sausage. No, I´m not kidding. Everyone has hard days. Haha. Twice in one week? No, gracias. Also, one of my favorite Elders went home. He is from Spain. He just said that he wasn´t enjoying his time and thought that he shouldn´t waste the Lord´s time. I respect his decision, because that is definitely not something that´s easy to do. Mission life is so hard, and it´s not for everyone. I´m sad because he is so kind, and really an awesome missionary. Also, this night, we heard a gunshot and a scream right outside of our window around midnight. Uh....
Sunday, we had two investigators at church! That´s a high for us! Ax loved it, and E (the African man), loved it too. He hadn´t been to church in 12 years. We are going to ask both of them to get baptized this week. Opening an area is not easy, and things move slowly at first, but we are starting to see some serious successes!
All in all, it was an awesome week. We had so much fun and are really starting to reep the benefits of our hard work the past couple of weeks. Thank you so much to all of the people who had mentioned that they are praying for us! I promise that the Lord is answering your prayers!
I am really excited for my birthday! Everyone in my district is excited about it and we are thinking about what to do. We were thinking about going to an amusement park in our area (because my birthday is on a P-Day), but I guess we can only do something fun and big like that once on our mission, and it´s kinda early for me to be using that up. Regardless, we are going to have fun.
I am praying for Grandpa Smith! I will write him a letter today and send it. He's tough. He can do it!
Thanks for all of the support. This week has been so much better, and I´m really happy. It´s also been a lot cooler this week (thank heavens). It´s supposed to heat back up this week, but we are enjoying it for the time being. I am jealous of all of your scouting adventures! I haven´t seen a picture of Harrison out of his scout uniform all summer! Keep having fun in real nature for me! I´ll send you some pictures of my area next week. I promise you, it´s not what you think. Can you say ghetto? Haha.
Love you guys!
-Hermana Endicott
No comments:
Post a Comment