Fwd: Castillo

HOLA Family And Friends!

The week started off great, with a trip to a Chinese buffet for Preparation Day. Fun fun. But AFTERWARDS I got super sick and could not work for two whole days! I have never felt so sick in my life, haha. Couldn´t sleep, couldn´t move, couldn´t eat, diarrhea. It was really bad. But I drank lots of Aquarius (Gatorade here) and took some medicine and now I´m back in action.

This week is transfer week. And I´m staying here in Lleida with my companion! I´m so glad! I didn´t want to leave! And we are planning a ward activity and other fun stuff is happening, so I´m glad I´m staying.

Also we got to go the Castle finally! You can see it from basically wherever you are in town and we´ve always wanted to go. So we went inside and toured it with the other missionaries today. It was cool! We kept thinking we were in Hogwarts or something or in the Sound Of Music.

As far as missionary work goes, everyday we do the same things and sometimes it´s a really big mental fight to keep going. Don´t get me wrong, I love what we do. And when we are in lessons I can always feel that what we are saying is being guided by the Spirit, and that´s an amazing feeling. But my body is always so tired, we are on our feet all day long. But we are meeting with a lot of awesome people. There´s a guy, Richard, from a Portuguese speaking African colony, that is working on giving up alcohol. I told him to start small. That he can only drink one glass of wine a day instead of two, and we´ll go from there. Also we are teaching a younger Peruvian guy. He works in his convenience store and we teach him as he checks out customers. Haha it´s awesome. He´s really nice. And I always buy an icecream or Aquarius when we are there. Also there´s a family of a mom and her two daughters that we ALWAYS see. Every single day we run into them in the street. It´s the funniest thing. We visit them in their home or in the street sometimes too. We taught them the Plan of Salvation with the little pictures that Hermana Manotas has, and they loved it. But the mom doesn´t see the importance of the Book of Mormon, even though we have given her one in her language and we read it with them and we invite them to read it. But wha I´m learning is that we can only do so much. And once we have done what we can, that´s all we can do.

Everyday we see miracles and we meet new people who are willing to listen to the message we have. I know that the gospel blesses peoples lives, and it changes lives, because it has changed mine. The mission experience is hard. It´s not easy. But it´s making me a better person and I´m forever grateful for the trust Heavenly Father has in me to be here in Spain to serve. But the longer time I have in the mission, I realize that the mission is more for me spiritually than for any of the people we are teaching. It does more for me and for the rest of my life I´ll be a stronger person and a better member of the church from my mission experience. I´m doing things I never thought I could do! It´s amazing. 

Love you all so much!

Hermana Birch