Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Pues nada

Hola! Feliz Pascua!

¿¿Como estan??

Pues, Me and my companion are finally friends!! Our companionship was kind of flailing for a while there. We were only companions and we didn´t get along super well. As far as the work went, we did. But I´m with her 24/7, it was getting rough. I realized though, that I didn´t want this. I wanted to get along with her. And that maybe it wasn´t her that needed to change, but me. So I started praying to have charity, after reading about it in Preach My Gospel. It took a few weeks, but now we get a long so great, it´s almost weird! I love it, the mission becomes so much better when you love your companion! Who would´ve thought!!?? Haha. Sad that my training is almost over and I´m about to leave!! I´m so sad to leave Valencia 2!! This is my home! I love the people here way too much!! 



So my legs have been super itchy lately and then it just started spreading everywhere.So we went to the hospital, turns out it´s just eczema. But it´s because the water here has so much calcium and it dries out my skin. Weird. 



Remember when I used to be afraid of contacting? I´ve come so far from when I was in the MTC in Madrid. And we would go to the park and I would let so many people walk by without contacting them. Well we don´t do that anymore. Not when you are put on an intercambio with someone who contacts every single person on the street! Me and Hermana Reid had a miracle day, we had 7 new investigators in one day!! The goal for the mission is that everyone can get 6 in one week, so 7 in one day is a lot!! We just didn´t have any citas planned so we just hit the streets and we followed the Spirit to tell us what to say and who to talk to, it was awesome! Now I´m not even scared to contact. 


When we´re walking on the street, anyone who walks past us we say ¨Hola! Disculpe. Somos misioneras de la iglesia de Jesucristo y tenemos un mensaje de Jesucristo y su iglesia. Usted es una persona muy creyente?¨ Basically 90 percent of the people say ¨Tengo prisa¨ (which literally translates to ¨I have busy¨) and keep walking. We just keep trying to talk to them and talk about the Book of Mormon and the Bible and how we believe in the same church Christ established when he was on the Earth. It´s kind of fun. And then if they´re still listening we ask them if there´s a time we could stop by their house and share more with them. It´s so great when they say YES! I´m so excited for all the people we met yesterday that are interested in the Restored gospel. 

A long-time investigator came to church for the first time this Sunday!! So we stopped by yesterday, and he wasn´t home, but we stayed by the timber (the thing you have to ring to get in to the apt building), and good thing because he came walking up behind us. So we went up but couldn´t go in (cause there wasn´t another woman) and we asked for some water, talked about church, confirmed our NDH (family home evening) for tomorrow, prayed and then left. I realized that we had totally forgot to invite him to be baptized!I was so upset! I knew that we could set a fecha (date) with him tomorrow at the NDH but it would be different because the member would be there and also his wife and sometimes he´s kind of shy and maybe wouldn´t accept it. So even though it was super awkward, we knocked on his timber again, we still couldn´t come in without another mujer, but we asked him to be baptized and he accepted a fecha!! It was awesome!! So I learned that sometimes the Spirit tells us to do awkward things, like go back up to someone´s piso, even though you were just there, but you just do it anyway!

My Spanish is coming along. I read the Liahona (the church magazine) in Spanish and I can understand it, it´s just hard actually speaking the language. But I know for sure that God is helping me to learn the language, as missionaries, we learn the language so quickly, people are always super surprised that I´ve only been here 3 months (well now like 4). ç

I love you all, have a wonderful Easter and enjoy General Conference!
Con amor, 
Hermana Birch






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Monday, March 23, 2015

Fwd: Valencia Fallas




​(Matilde)




​(Blessing from Nigeria made us meat pies- happened to be on Pi Day...haha)




​(Zahrah, our investigator from Iran. Always has herbal tea and treats for us)


Fwd: Valencia Fallas


 



Literally it feels like we´re in DisneyWorld!



 

Fwd: Valencia Fallas




Hola familia y amigos!!

Valencia does this crazy thing called ¨Fallas¨. I really don´t understand it. But there´s fireworks going off all the time, bands playing in the streets, churro stands on every corner and big muñecas (statues/figures) in the streets that apparently are going to be set on fire on the last day. I still do not know what the point of Fallas is but it´s pretty fun! 


We had 6 investigators at church this week! It was awesome. I wish you could feel the Spirit in the room during gospel principles. The teacher, our mission leader, Victor from Nigeria, is so strong and has such an amazing testimony. He does so much for the missionary work here. The investigators were asking really good questions, and there were so many of them present, and the cr were helping too, ah, it was so amazing. 


Hna Lamoreaux and I after church realized that we just needed 1 more new investigator and 1 more member present lesson to hit pautas (goals)! I had prayed earlier that morning and then again before we left that we would find a new investigator. I was thinking it would take a special circumstance to get a new because it was already 7pm and we were about to visit an investigator, not much time to contact. On our way to that lesson though, someone in the street asked us for directions and we started talking to him. He was SUPER nice, probably the nicest and most humble person I´ve talked to in the street. We testified and set up another appt (we´re soooo sad he´s not in our area) but he was the New we needed!! And then after the lesson with the investigator (not a mbr present) we ran to a recent convert Matilde, who´s ¨son¨is not a member and we were going to try to get our last member present that way. But he wasn´t there!! I was so sad! Before we got there we tried calling a bunch of members to see if they could come with us last minute but nobody could, for backups. So we sat and had a lesson and prayed with Matilde. After we said the closing prayer David came home!! So we had a member present and shared pretty much the same lesson again and then prayed with him! We hit pautas for the first time!! 

I love Hermana Lamoreaux so much. I can count on her to back me up when we are contacting and in lessons, it´s the best. Last night after we hit pautas, we decided to go visit a MA with our last 40 minutes. He wasn´t there (or probably sleeping) but we had passed some girls on a bench on the way there, and I told my companioin that I wanted to go contact them. So we walked back over to them. They are 20 and 22 and really funny. Have no religious background at all but they accepted the pamphlet, and a return visit and we prayed with them. It was really awesome. So we got two more new investigators! I love that God puts people in our path that we can talk to, we just have to have the discernment and faith to do it!


Some funny things;
- because of fallas, everyone is getting drunk and partying. well we got on the metro to go to church Sunday morning and there was throw up all over the metro. and then there were these two drunk guys pushing eachother around and security came. exciting.
- this week everyone wanted to feed us when I was NOT hungry. and they always give us meat and I have to force it down.
- we celebrated pi day in our piso. we made a pudding pie and a boxed cheesecake and then ate it. so fun.
- rafael (blessing´s husband) rode his bike to church in his white suit. what a champ!!

I love you all, love your emails, think about you often and can´t wait to Skype you for Mother´s Day!! (Literally I´m counting down the days) 

Also you guys should ask me questions so I can know what to write to you about. 

Con amor,
Hermana Birch






Monday, March 9, 2015

Fwd: Zone photo







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