Happy Easter!!!!!!
I hope you had a wonderful time celebrating Easter yesterday, filled with lots of Cantata singing and egg-dying. I know that those weekends are quite exhausting but very fulfilling at the same time :) Oof, sounds like a busy time, graduation announcements, lacrosse games, Aaron with friends, Nathan with the job, HOW DO YOU DO ALL YOU DO? hehe. I sure love you.
Well, it is official, we have made it TWO WEEKS in the mission without a mobile phone. Wow, the past two weeks have been rough, going to appointments, unable to call the people if they don´t show, or call members to help us in lessons. But after lots of confusion and wrong addresses and looking, we have a phone, happy as ever to feel more efficient and not have to go to the church to make all of our phone calls.
It has been very interesting to me, learning to work with different ward members, investigators, companion, but I feel like a have learned so much about the Lord’s will for me, and I have learned a lot about myself. We are working on getting the ward here excited to come to teaching appointments with us and excited about missionary work. That is one thing I miss about Alcobendas, but members make a HUGE difference in the missionary work and they give the people we teach a friend to help them along the way and we are excited to get them more involved here.
Do you remember I told you about the little family from Bolivia: Virginia, Cristian, and Brian? We are still teaching them, and had a nice little lesson in the park, as we sat on the grass, pulled out the little pictures to explain the Plan of Salvation :) what a sweet experience. It truly shows me what an incredible message it is that we carry... it touches the hearts of people of all ages. Little Cristian understands the scriptures we read and read ponders what we say. I feel blessed to be here as a representative of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to testify that Virginia can be with her sons and live in happiness for all eternity. We have invited them to baptism, and I think Cristian was about to say yes, but Virginia began shaking her head right away, haha. She says she feels very unprepared, but we are working on that :) Oh it was so cute too, little Brian was embarrassed to pray and Cristian helped him very humbly and willingly.
God also continues to remind me that this is His work. Sometimes I think to myself, WHAT am I doing here? Am I doing enough? But he truly guides our steps... on our way to copy papers for English class, I felt the need to talk to a man on the street as I saw him from the distance. We stopped him and testified of the truth of the Book of Mormon and taught a lesson in the street. This man was very prepared, and I feel blessed to see the power of testifying of the Book of Mormon!! All of his circumstances seem to be leading him to search for the truth. Which of all the churches on the earth are true. We actually taught him a lesson in the street, and he planned on coming to English class. When he didn't come, we called him, and he said he was running late, but we ended up having a second lesson with him the same day, this time about The Restoration, and we watched the movie of Joseph Smith. WOW. I felt the spirit testify so strongly to each one of us there that God loves us, and because He does, we don't need to live in darkness, he has called prophets and apostles here on the earth to guide us. He has brought us the Book of Mormon. He was amazed, and committed to read and pray, sincerely wanting to know the truth. God is incredible, and I feel blessed to see his hand in this work.
I cannot tell you how much I love our district here. Where else can we all come together, all have a meeting completely in Spanish and hear very inspired talks that help us get excited about missionary work. I feel humbled and inspired by them. We talked about the power of prayer and humility. As I have been studying about prayer since, I have been making goals to pray more specifically for each and every person we come in contact with and their specific needs and make it a point to thank God everyday for those tender mercies and answers to prayers that we find. Family, I am sending a letter in the mail to you to show you a little bit of what I learned about the importance of humility, I hope you like it!
Since I have been working on improving my prayers, I would like to know SPECIFIC things I can help you with and add to my prayers. Will you please write me and tell me a little bit about your needs and I would love to pray for you. I know that the Lord loves us and hears our prayers. I know that when we feel like we are too tired or weak to go on, Christ has the power, and through His Atonement, He gives us to means to finish what He has sent us to do. I know this, because I feel it every day!!
I love you OODLES!!!
Have a splendid week :)
Love, Hermana (emaloooba) Mather :)
P.S. A few interesting facts about the islands:
- Lots of people, even younger teenagers... wear fanny packs here!! haha
- Everyone says "hola mi niña" "gracias me niña", ward members, strangers on street. Haha. Niña means baby
- And you know those beach houses in Texas on stilts? We live in an apartment on the beach like that... just kidding. Normal apartment building :) More pictures to come next week!
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| Hermana Burgos and I with Virginia and Brian (Cristian is in Barcelona right now!) |
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| We decorated boiled eggs with markers!! And had an Easter egg hunt for the ward family home evening! |
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