Buenos Dias to all my friends and family!!
I hope this email finds you all
happy and healthy, getting started with school again, as fall is setting in.
WOW the timing in the mission is still very strange. It is weird to me to think
that it is September, and I arrived here almost 3 months ago, and I turn 20 in
one month. Wow what a surprise it was to be transferred here to Alcobendas,
I thought for sure I would stay in my area longer, with my trainer, but the
Lord had different plans! Oh but I love it here, goodness gracious, it is just
about 40 minutes away from my last area, but it is so different! The city is SO
clean, there are trees everywhere, and I think there is a chance that I won’t
die from secondhand smoke now. haha It wasn’t that bad in Cuatro Caminos, but I really do love this area. I feel a little more at home, it
even smells like Colorado sometimes!
So Hermana Aagard and I arrived here
Tuesday, signed papers for our new apartment with the mission office Elders,
and found out that we live RIGHT across from them. We can see their apartment
across the street from us, and many times throughout the day. It is funny
though, there have not been sister missionaries here in 8 years, and all the
elders in the area are SO AWKWARD and seem like they want nothing to do with
us. haha we are trying to slowly warm them up to talking like normal people. SO
these elders found us a really nice apartment, we are so blessed! It had
nothing in it though... haha they just moved in a bunch of IKEA boxes full of
our bed frame, desks, and chairs, and we have spent every single minute of our
free-time building so that we can study on chairs instead of on the floor. We
ate off of the cardboard that our desk came in for a few days. Haha. We joke
all the time about how we are just like a newly-wed couple, making do with what
we have.
I love my new companion! She is
about to complete 6 months in the mission and I have so much to learn from her.
She is full of fun and I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Last transfer
I felt like a was losing a bit of my personality and ability to have fun, but
Hermana Aagard sure reminds me that we can still be ourselves and have fun! I
am more of a morning person, she is more of a night person, so it is great! She
doesn’t always like it, but she will even go running with me in the morning,
and she is so bold and dedicated to this work. She is a contacting machine! We
are ready to see miracles raining down. I am lucky to have her. Scratch that!
It was not luck; it was a blessing from the Lord!!!
It is definitely difficult; we are
at about the same level of Spanish, so it really takes a lot of concentration
on both of our parts to understand what others are saying and to be able to communicate
ourselves. It is pretty incredible though, because we both had native
companions before this, and had quite a few of the same feelings and
experiences. And we have really witnessed the Lord’s power to step in, because
we both truly have no idea what we are doing here. It has been exhausting,
contacting all day, not having all of the materials we need, trying to get our
apartment set up, and feeling like the bar is set SO HIGH by all of the office
Elders here who have so much time in the mission and know what they are doing.
They all seem to think we are silly and needy and do not know what we are
doing, so we have kind of had to fend for ourselves. Slowly but surely. We are
far from perfect, trying to meet everyone from the ward and find our way around
the city (we look so silly walking around with maps all the time!). And we are
already exhausted. haha It is already so painful to get out of bed every
morning after walking all day!
Our ward is incredible. It has
doubled in size in one year. Half of our ward is very recently converted to the
gospel, and our ward is one of the highest baptizing wards in Madrid, which is
crazy because the Elders are in the office all day until 6, and only proselyte
after that. This shows the power of references from members. So many of the
members are members because one family was baptized, told their friends, and so
on. We feel so welcome in the ward, everyone wants us to come visit and eat at
their house. They are excited to have sisters here and we are excited to be
here! And talking about tender mercies.... the Bishop speaks English! And so do
his two daughters and wife. Interesting fact, our baptisms are held at his
house in his pool because the church building does not have a font. Cool huh?!
There was a baptism this last Saturday, it was a beautiful experience.
So, all in all, I am convinced that
each portion of the mission will be difficult in its own ways. This is still
hard, but there is something that is always constant in my life... it is this
gospel. Everyone deserves to have this blessing in their life.
Really quick cool story! We were
contacting along the street and met a lady who was waiting for an appointment,
and had an hour left to go, and we asked if we could teach her a lesson, so we
taught her about the restoration right there on the bench. She was so cute, and
asked if she could right down the scriptures we shared because she liked them
so much. She told us about how she is living in Spain alone, her children are
in her country, and her husband deserted her, but she knows she can always feel
so close to the Lord. SUCH GREAT FAITH! She closed our lesson with a prayer,
thanking the Lord for sending us to her. And she had us both crying, and said
afterwards, that whenever she prays she can feel His presence near. Such a neat
experience. We meet with her again tomorrow. We are so excited!
Well, that’s all for this week! Have
a great week, I feel your prayers, and I love my friends a family! OH and thank
you to Jeanne and Mary and Wade for letters, I feel so loved :)
I just remembered something that I
wanted to share!! My companion shared this analogy about being on a mission, or
really about life in general. We are all very pointy rocks. I happen to know
that I am incredibly pointy. In the sense of being on a mission, we are put
into this nice little stream that starts to smooth off this pointy parts. Then
we are put into the mission field, this very fast-moving river that where it is
difficult to take everything in all at once. Sometimes it is so painful to
experience all of the changes and hardships and see all of our weaknesses all
at once. This applies to people who aren't serving missions too! We all know
what these time are like. We feel vulnerable, alone, or just simply inadequate,
but these experiences smooth us out and help us draw nearer to our Savior. I
think that is a wonderful analogy. I still feel like such a pointy rock, and I
can see so many things that need to be smoothed out, but we all have the same
goal – we want to be nice and smooth and shiny. All of our rough edges are
always smoothed out through Christ’s Atonement.
One more thing! This is a quote from Elder Jeffery R.
Holland in his talk "The First and Greatest Commandment":
"What I need, Peter,
are disciples—and I need them forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save
my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need
someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in
Heaven has commissioned me to do. Ours is not a feeble message. It is not a
fleeting task. It is not hapless; it is not hopeless; it is not to be consigned
to the ash heap of history. It is the work of Almighty God, and it is to change
the world. So, Peter, for the second and presumably the last time, I am asking
you to leave all this and to go teach and testify, labor and serve loyally
until the day in which they will do to you exactly what they did to me.”
I think we can insert each of our
names where it says "Peter". I try to renew my commitment every day
to be this kind of disciple of Christ – someone who truly loves the Lord. I can
give up my desires and teach and testify and serve if that is what the Lord
asks.
Have a great week, I love you all!
Love, Hermana Emily Mather
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