Spanish food! pt 1

A miracle this week!! We were stopping by to visit our investigator, Juan. We had a member with us, Hermana Nalbundyan (her younger sister is serving in the mission right now). She served her mission here a few years ago. She is amazing. She is from Armenia but has lived in Spain most of her life. So we´re in the stairwell of  Juan´s apartment and a younger lady passes us on her way up the stairs to her apt. Hermana Nalbundyan says hola, buenas, to her and then blurted out ¨do you speak Armenian?¨the lady stopped, turned around and turns out she is from Armenia as well!! They started talking really excitedly together in Armenian and me and Hermana Lamoreaux just look at eachother not understanding a word but like, what just happened!? Hermana Nalbundyan followed a prompting and turned a friendly hello in a stairwell into a NEW invesigator! Her name is Lillit, she let us into her apt and we visited her and her mom, prayed with them and set up a return appt. And we now have given them a Book Of Mormon in Armenian and invited them to read! It´s the unexpected things, the promptings that we courageously follow, that will bring miracles. This is the Lord´s work, we just need to obey the Spirit or else we never would have found Lillit!

Also we have a family from Iran that we are teaching. They are super sweet. It´s a 16 year old son and his mom. We are going to keep teaching them, we have a book of mormon for them in Persian. She gave us some green tea and muffins. The green tea....mmm we´re still not sure if it had caffiene in it...?

Also our fecha, Juan from the Dominican Republic, is still progressing. Slowly but surely. He actually couldn´t come to church this Sunday so his fecha has to be reset but he wants to get baptized!

We gave Sara and Javier the audio of the Book Of Mormon hoping they´ll finally read/listen on their own. If they don´t then we might have to drop them :(

This week was the week of trying lots of new foods!! We ate at a member´s home, she´s from the Dominican Republic. It´s so fun being a missionary. People really really give their very best to us, and treat us really well. They set the table really nice and use their fine china when we come over to eat with them. We´re so spoiled. 

She made us fried yucca (super good), baked yucca (weird), and then marisco which is like this huge paella type dish except there´s like shrimp with their eyes and legs and everything. It was definitely an experience. Once again, my companion wins for being able to eat everything on her plate! And then yet another spanish dessert where they cut up fruit into teeny pieces and then serve it in a really really sweet liquid.

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More pics

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Inviting Everyday!

Hola!! The weeks feel so long and I can´t remember what I have or haven´t told you. Haha. But this week I invited someone to be baptized every single day, in Spanish!! We have lots of investigators who COULD be baptized but they´re either not married to the person they live with or they´re not reading the Book of Mormon! Wow, it´s just like pulling teeth to get people to read! I read the Book of Mormon everyday for an hour during Personal Study and it´s amazing how much I learn about the gospel. I have like 4 markers that I use to highlight and make notes in the margins and it really helps me soak it all in. I love the gospel and the Book of Mormon is PROOF that it´s so real and we are God´s children! I just wish I could help the people we are teaching to realize that THIS is what they need to do to find out if the church is true or not and when they do they WILL know and they will have the desire to be baptized! My spanish is lacking in that department.

The mission is great. It´s just so great. Me and my companion get majorly lost about 2 or 3 times a day. Whether it be getting on the right metro, getting off at the right stop, and then walking the streets and using our map to find the right building. Phew. But it´s fun. We end up running alot to lessons and lunch appts. So just picture us in our coats, skirts, with my heels, and our bags and map, running the streets of Valencia, and that´s a pretty good idea of the day to day life of the mission. Whitewashing, it´s the best.

85 year old Vincente made us his famous paella and tapas! It was so fancy! He´s so cute. He had out all his fancy china for us. He only has one leg and sits in a wheelchair. He´s amazing. He showed us his huge Book Of Mormon and his huge paella pan. The food was interesting. My companion was proud that she was able to eat it all. It was a lot of dried meat, hard cheese and the paella was interesting. He made so much and he was so insistent that we take the rest, like literallly 8 lbs worth of the paella in a pot and take it to the elders so we walked this big ole thing of paella across town. Haha. 

It´s getting WARM! It´s been so cold, all the natives have said that it´s never this cold even in the winter.

We had lunch with a family on Valentine´s day. They are from Bolivia. The mom and the older daughter both play the guitar and they took turns playing for us. It was so good. So Spanish.

Mom can you send me the mp3 for How Can I Be, the youtube video one, (do you know how to do that?) because I can put it on a flashdrive and we can play it in our apt? Also no, I didn´t get the package. 

Oh also our baseball playing Domincan, JUAN, came to church yesterday!! Whoo hoo! Miracles do happen! Now I just need to invite him to be baptized. Also me and Hermana Lamoreaux had a goal to have 2 baptisms by the end of this month and we realized last night that this Saturday is our last day to have the baptisms (we don´t do baptisms on Sunday)....so yeah we´re kind of freaking out. This week is go time and we are going to work our tails off to make it happen. 

I love you! Have a good week! 

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Arrival in Spain

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Vincente is the man!

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More Paella pics

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Paella with Vincente!

Paella with Vincente! More about him later.

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Todo bien!

This week was so great!!! I loved Specialized Training! It got me SO PUMPED to work really hard and my faith was strengthened so much! 

A miracle for me this week was yesterday. After church we did Zapato Misional. It was so amazing to be with the members and the other missionaries in our district to visit less actives and investigators in their homes to sing and to share testimony. I felt the Spirit and I just felt a lot of love in the room when we did that. Elder Smiley in one of the homes asked me to bear my testimony so I did. It was really good that he did that. 

The members in Valencia 2 are SO AWESOME. We have member lessons all the time because of them. They invite US to go out and teach their friends with them. It´s so great. There´s a recent convert, Richard. He´s from Nigeria. He is the sweetest man. Our ward mission leader, also from Nigeria, told us a story about him. Richard had been reading the Liahona before bed once about miracles happening to various latter day saints. He had a dream that night that he was riding his bike, and someone gave him money. The next day was sunday and Richard didn´t have enough money to come to church but he rode his bike and someone gave him some money and he could ride the bus to church!! How amazing is that! The strength of the members here, especially Richard strengthens me so much. Richard is very giving and likes to give us gifts. I asked my comp, ¨Why does Richard give us stuff, when he doesn´t even have enough money to ride the bus to church?¨and she said ¨that´s just how Richard is¨. He´s so FUERTE! 

I admire my companion a lot. I´m so glad to be with her. I know that I´m very lucky to have her. We work hard. We work full days. We try really hard. She likes to correct my pronunciation. It humbles me a lot because sometimes I don´t think her own pronunciation is very good so why is she correcting mine? But I know she´s just trying to help me and it teaches me to be very humble. If we go over time at lessons, we end up running back to piso to make it in before 10. Usually after we have eaten with members so I´m like super full and hating that we´re running. But she looks at me like do you want to be obedient or not, so we keep running. 

A personal miracle I had was that I wanted to try really hard after Specialized training to EXPLODE out of bed in the morning instead of groaning and murmuring in my head like ¨is it really morning already¨.  So I´ve been working on that this week and I actually notice a huge difference on the day. Our alarm goes off and immediately I pull off the covers and go into prayer mode and it really helps because I start the day off on my knees instead of feeling tired. It reminds me that I´m here for God and not for me. It just starts the day off right.

Also my companion told me that Elder Smiley shaves every morning. Even though he doesn´t have any facial hair. But because it says it in the white bible for elders to shave everyday, he does. He´s like ¨well I just have to be obedient¨. I love that. He´s my inspiration. 

Está todo bien.

Con amor,

Hermana Birch

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Fwd: 1st week in Valencia (my first area)

01 27 2015

The mission, Valencia and Spain so far in general//

. lots of orange trees growing in the streets

. number of men i´ve seen peeing on the road (or metro station) = 2

. lots of old people walking their white fluffy dogs

. dog poop in the sidewalks because there´s NO GRASS anywhere (oh and dog pee)

. waking up early every single day and it´s SO HARD. luckily my comp. is AMAZING and jumps out of bed and kneels to pray. WHAT AN EXAMPLE

. COLD showers!! and our piso is always cold. good thing we´re like never home. 

. fresh bread from consum!! soo good!

. people dumpster diving (literally)

. RUSHING and being BUSY always!! I never have a moment just to relax. its one thing after another after another. SO DIFFERENT than what I´m used to. but it´s so good and keeps us focused. but I literally never have time to just lounge on the couch, not even for a second. how crazy is that? my trainer is super focused and we do NOT waste time! 

. my feet and legs are just always SORE 

.´tengo prisa´ is everyone´s favorite thing to say to us. just means I´m busy.

. riding the metro is AWESOME. love contacting on there too because they can´t escape us! well sometimes they do. I tried contacting a guy on the metro and I was being so persistent that he walked to another part of the metro. haha.

. GRAFFITI everywhere!! 

. apparently my comp. likes to play the ukulele too!! so we´re going to go find one today before preparation day ends!! so excited!!

. this first week was a little bit different. we had intercambios because my comp is a STL so I went to Catorroja with Hermana O´Neill. 

. number of doors we knocked = way too many

. number of doors where someone was in there bathrobe or pjs or a dog ran out and wanted to kill us = all of them

. number of doors that were even the slight bit interested = CERO

When I was assigned to this area I was a little bit bummed. I had really wanted to be with Hermana Diorgia in Barcelona, who I was with for the first night at the mission home. Our lessons and street contacts had just gone SO WELL and I loved that she didn´t speak English because it forced me to learn Spanish that much better. I just LOVED our time together I felt like we really worked hard and would work really well together. So I was praying for her to be my trainer. And it was a righteous desire and I was so sure God would let me have it. Then I was so upset when I got an English speaking companion, to be honest. Haha, I know that´s bad but I really wanted that. I love Hermana Lamoreaux though. She is good at Spanish and we work really hard. We never waste time, we walk fast to everything and she pushes me to always be on time and to go quicker and be more effective which is what I need. I´m kind of a slow person :) 

Last night we finally had an AWESOME street contact!! I had been in Catorrja all day for intercambios with Hna O Neill, and was feeling discouraged. We knocked so many doors and nothing. And we street contacted ALL DAY LONG and we didn´t get ANY references. It was a really really long day of just walking and knocking and climbing stairs. It was rough. So I was feeling the rejection, but Hna Lamoreaux came back from the conference with so much enthusiasm and faith, it was so contagious. So after I picked her up at the train station we dropped stuff off at piso and then we had the last hour before curfew to contact. So we ended up talking to this girl who was walking her dog at like 9:45pm. She was so cool! It was GOLDEN! Her name was Paula and then her friend Jose joined us. I gave her a Book Of Mormon and we got her information to meet with her again. It was really cool, it was the best contact we´ve had. She said she´d read and share it with her Grandma because she would find it interesting as well. I just couldn´t believe that Paula let us talk to her for so long and that she didn´t even try to leave. We testified and told about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ and I know Paula felt the Spirit. I´m so grateful for that contact. It happened as soon as I restored my faith and enthusiasm again for missionary work after a rough day of rejection. That was a big lesson for me. And I´m so grateful for my AWESOME comp. who loves this work so much! I love the work too, I just still can´t understand what anyone is saying!! I mean I´m getting better. And I can definitely understand the gist of the conversation. It´s just the details and also the actual Spaniards talk SO fast and their ¨lisp´ is rough to catch up on. So I can understand the south americans we run into, oh and there´s so many Nigerians here as well, I can understand their Spanish too. But the actual Spaniards...no. Not yet. 

Oh and I just want to say. It doesn´t matter WHERE you go on your mission. Literally the only people that talk to us are the HUMBLEST of humble people. We talk to so many Nigerians and old people. Old, sick people and poor people, also people with disabilities. The other people here who are well off and have good jobs are too busy for us. It´s sad because EVERYBODY needs this message!

Oh and we listen to THE BEST TWO YEARS SOUNDTRACK in our piso everday. It´s so good. That movie is the best.

I can notice a really big difference in how my day goes depending on my attitude. When I have the Spirit during lessons and contacts, it´s AMAZING the things that come into my mind to say. When I feel sad, discouraged or like giving up, the Spirit leaves, and I´m of no help to anyone, not my companion and certainly not the people who need this message. 

The Elders in our area had a baptism this week, so that was awesome. Oh and one of the Elders was in the CCM with me. He looks just like Luis and Juan Mejia, and he´s from Colombia. Haha. Doesn´t speak any English and so we teach him words and it´s so fun. 

Con mucho amor, Hermana Birch

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Week 2 in Valencia

Wow what a week. There have been challenges this week!! I´m sick, my big toe was swollen (it´s going down), I have trouble during lessons knowing what to say or knowing what is being said, oh I fell down the stairs and hurt my elbow, but we did get our investigator to church on Sunday. His name is Frank. He´s from Ghana and he speaks English!! He wants to move forward from his past with drugs and follow Christ! His fecha/meta is to be baptized on Valentine´s Day! It´s so funny how we met him. When we leave our piso we always contact the first person we see. He was the first person we saw and when we said hi to him he just looked so surprised that we were talking to him, I´ll never forget his face. It was so funny. 

We finally got HOT WATER in our shower! Because I´m sick we called Hermana Pace and she said to take a hot shower and when we told her we don´t have hot water she started freaking out, she said that´s now how we live here, we´re in Spain! I was like, well I just thought that´s how people lived here!! Haha, so we called the landlord and he came and fixed it. Yeah. Should´ve called him a loooong time ago.

We ate at 2 member homes this week. Super nice to be fed by members! Really good food, too! For dessert the Spanish bring out a fruit bowl of bananas, oranges or apples. And there´s always bread and hot chocolate during the meal! 

Also at two homes this week when we were visiting they gave us like this packaged dry bread, like a crouton, but unflavored, as a snack.  At one house she gave us apple soda from colombia, so we dipped it in the soda. Also, everyone here is from Colombia, Ecuador, or Bolivia!! Or Nigeria!

We had zone enfoque this week. I love getting together with all the other missionaries in this area. They´re all super great. 

There´s a member here who we love. He´s a recent convert. His name is Richard. He´s from Nigeria. He´s so awesome! He has such a strong testimony. He speaks in English. He loves the gospel. He comes to a lot of lessons with us. He´s so giving. After one of our visits with him he gave us neopalitanos and juice! Neopalitanos are a chocolate filled pastry/croissant. We love them! They´re in all the panaderias here and we eat them a lot. :) They had them in the MTC too, super good. And then at church yesterday he gave me and my companion a journal and a nail care kit, haha, so cute. 

The mission president is coming for Specialized Training, to our zone for the missionaries! So exciting!!

Also we visited this really cool man the other night. He was 85 years old, in a wheelchair, only one leg. But he was so adorable. He spoke really loud. He had a HUGE personalized Book Of Mormon. It was like 3 ft tall and it had different volumes and the print was huge! And it has his picture and testimony in the back. So funny. Also he is a cook and makes paella for the missionaries. Can´t wait to try it someday. But he showed us his paella pan, it was like taller than dad!! He was so proud of it. So cute. One of the elders described him as ¨celestial¨  because of how faithful and service oriented he is. I would agree.

My companion is so funny. Everytime she gets really happy or something good happens, she yells ¨The church is true!!¨ or ¨the church is so true right now¨ . Haha, it´s funny. 

The work is hard, the work is GOOD. ¨This life is the time for men to DO THEIR LABORS¨. In other words, DO WORK. 

Love you so much,
Hermana Birch

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