Fwd: Scripture

Jacob 2:18-19

18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. 19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good--to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.

​

Not that baptisms are riches, but my new companion had like 5 baptisms in her last area. And she says that it's not because of anything they particularly did with the investigators. It was the friends of members or people just coming out of the shadows of part member families. She said that what made the biggest difference was how obedient she was. If we give our 100% every day and every moment we are bound to see baptisms, the Lord will bless us with fruits of our labors. Perfect obedience brings blessings, but strict obedience brings Miracles. 

So what I'm doing right now is trying to evaluate what I need to change so that I can be sure I'm giving the lord my 100% and not 90.

The Lord really does guide us every moment of every day, and it's incredible. It's also very hard to describe! But trust me, it's true. Coincidences are soooo normal, they happen all day long to us. But we know they're not just coincidences. To quote the Lizzie McGuire movie song (or is it Princess Diaries...) "miracles happen!!"

It really is up to the Lord if we have a baptism or not. He puts people in our path that we have to talk to. Then the Spirit tells us to talk to that person. At that point it's up to me to follow the prompting. I don't want to ever let the Lord down by not talking to someone. Following the Spirit EVERY time though, takes a lot of effort and doesn't always happen. But I want to leave, at the end of my mission, and be able to say, that I did absolutely EVERYTHING I possibly could. That I left everything I had in Spain: my blood, sweat, tears and most importantly, my testimony. 

On Friday evening we did a church tour with an investigator from Honduras. I still am flabbergasted by how amazing it was. We had planned to meet at 5:15 and we had a member join us as well. So the member gets there and we waited together for

​ he investigator ​

for 40 minutes! She had never been to the church before and she was on her way home from work when she looked at my text and remembered. So glad I sent a text. The tour was so spiritual. I have never felt the Spirit so strong in a lesson before. We went to the baptismal font and I started crying a little bit as my companion shared her testimony of the Restored Gospel. Then our last stop was the chapel. We talked about the Sacrament and how this is the House of the Lord. Then we asked her how, "how do you feel right now, being here in the church?" Her answer surprised me, it was like straight out of The District. She said "I feel like I'm at home. When I walked up to the church today and saw your smiling faces, I felt different. I felt peace. I felt happy." Then we knelt and said a prayer in the chapel, only the light from the open windows to light our faces. My companion offered a prayer and then Melissa right after. I love it when our investigators pray. It's the most beautiful thing. She was thanking Heavenly Father for her blessings and then she started crying. The Spirit really does dwell in Holy Places. 

​The mission is such a rollercoaster of emotions of everyday. We had a visit with a less active in the chapel and we sang a hymn, Sweet hour of Prayer. It was just us three in a classroom. i started crying so hard. i couldn´t control it.  i felt so embarassed. i was so overwhelmed in that moment for some reason. i was frustrated about having a native companion. yes, it´s great. But it´s really hard too. Like my spanish is getting better, but it´s still really hard to communicate at times and when you get two natives together, like my companion and a member, sometimes i really have no idea what they´re talking about.​ 

​but the mission is great, i´m doing great. i´m so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow from having a native as my companion. i also think people like us more because she´s from the south of spain, the ¨cool¨ part of spain with her ¨cool¨ accent.​ :)

love you!

hermana birch

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Hermana Birch

Spain Barcelona Mission

C/ Calatrava 10 -12 bajos

Barcelona, 08017

España

Enviado desde mi iPad

Fwd: Hace calor!!

Querida Familia y Amigos,

This week has been so fun! And it is HOT! 

It is so hard to email you guys because I never know what to say. So many things happen everyday here that strengthen my testimony, it´s just impossible to put into words. 

We had a ward activity for a festivo here for Saint Juan. Everything was going great until it started RAINING so we all had to go inside the church. Haha, but it was really fun. I´ll try to send you the video of the skit that we did with the Elders!

We are getting a new mission president, so that´s exciting. We were all crying the last time we saw him. We sang our mission song, Brillan Rayos de Clemencia (Brightly Beams Our Father´s Mercy in English) and all the Hermanas were crying like babies. It was so sad, we love our mission president. He´s like an apostle.

We were walking on Saturday and it was superrr hot. We were on our way home for mediodia, starving and hot, and this guy contacts US. He clearly had a disability, he wasn´t all there, but he just immediately started talking to us about Jesus Christ. I immediately judged him though. I was really impatient with him and kind of rude. He really wanted to show us a religious book he has and he told us to wait and he was going to go get it but I was really blunt with him (like Spaniards always are to us, haha, learned from the best) and said ¨No we really don´t have any interest in that book, but we do have a book for you¨. 

So we exchanged numbers to meet with him later that day. He called us like 5 times before our next visit with him just to ask us about the Book Of Mormon. And then that night we showed him the Because He lives video of Jesus Christ and he got so excited about it, like a child. As I watched him watching the video I realized how innocent and childlike he is and I felt so bad for judging him. I started crying. I was so overcome. I couldn´t believe that I had been so rude to him. He came to church with us the next morning. He asked me during Sacrament meeting if he could go out for a smoke and I said he had to wait until the meeting was over, in 20 minutes. Then I gave him the Word Of Wisdom pamphlet that I was using to fan myself and he read it. But he said it would be very hard for him to quit smoking. He kept whispering to me at church about the Book of Mormon and asking to talk to the bishop. Haha. He´s so funny. I think that how we treat these people is a real test of how Christlike we really are. 

I am so grateful for the mission, literally there are no words to describe how great it is. We live by and are guided by the Spirit in everything we do and we work so hard and it´s only through the Lord´s help that I am here.

I love you all so much!

Have a fantastic week! Thanks for keeping in touch with me!!

Con amor,

Hermana Birch

--

Hermana Birch

Spain Barcelona Mission

C/ Calatrava 10 -12 bajos

Barcelona, 08017

España

Some pictures

District mtg

One TRUE Convert

Querido familia y amigos!

​

Happy Father´s Day and Happy Birthday to Branden and Dad!!! 

Something Hermana O´Neill has taught me this week that has absolutely helped me a ton: We are on our missions, yes, to convert others. But hopefully our one TRUE convert will be ourselves!! I love that so much. I think if my mission has done anything to me yet, it has done just that, converted myself. I´m so glad about this. I´m so glad to be serving a mission. Every night me and Hermana O´Neill before we go to bed we just talk about how much we LOVE being missionaries and being Mormon! haha

Que mas, que mas....a miracle we had this week. We had an AWESOME district meeting this week. It seriously was the best. I felt the Spirit so strong. We made a goal as a district to be the missionaries we wanted to be, you know the missionary in your head that does EVERYTHING right. Well we made a goal to do that for the rest of the week, and it was really awesome. I focused myself a lot on that. Me and Hermana O´Neill have started contacting people as we wait to cross the street, something that a veces is super awkward, but I think it´s really good. We actually found a really cute Spanish lady with two little girl twins who has great potential. Our bishop will be really happy because he wants more Españoles in the ward. 

Oh, we had an extremely Catalan dude that we were teaching. He has been to church like 4 times (before I got here) and so we want him to be baptized ASAP! Pero, he is SUPER Catalan pride and everything, he doesn´t like the church that much because he says it´s just all south americans and nobody speaks his language (catalan), which is super dumb to me because we all speak Spanish! So it´s been AWHILE since he´s been to church because of this, but we committed him to go this week. We had no idea but turns out that one of the speakers from Sacrament meeting ends up teaching the Gospel Doctrine class as a sub for his daughter who usually does it, and one of the first things he says to the class is in Catalan, which I´ve never heard anyone speak Catalan at church before. And I was sitting next to our super Catalan pride investigator dying inside. I couldn´t believe it. I know that our investigator felt a lot better about church that day. It was a little miracle to me.

Also I have really been focusing on the Spirit to tell me who to contact. We walk in the street and we walk by TONS of people. And sometimes knowing just WHO to contact is the hardest part. Because we don´t have time to contact EVERYONE but I´m trying not to be choosy about who to contact. Like we particularly like contacting south americans and moms with families. But I´m working on contacting spaniards and men, too. 

​I love you all so much!! I know that life is really hard sometimes, but with the help of the Lord, our burdens are made light!​ He truly does make our weaknesses strong, if we try! I feel this every single day of my mission!

​con mucho amor,

Hermana Birch​

--

Hermana Birch

Spain Barcelona Mission

C/ Calatrava 10 -12 bajos

Barcelona, 08017

España

Más

This week we knocked a lot of doors! We had knocked a lot of doors
this one day and I was so exhausted and it was hot. Finally a lady let
us into her house and we talked to her about the church. She was super
nice and I was just grateful for missionaries in Barcelona that had
made a good impression on her. She used to Live by a chapel so she saw
missionaries a lot but never talked to them and she said she had
always wanted to know what we believe, and bam here we are. It was a
short visit. It we have her information and she wants us to come by
again.

Also I was feeling super sick the other day. We walked 30 minutes to
stop by an investigator and I was literally dying with every step. My
stomach hurt and I felt nauseous, like I could just fall over. When we
got to her house I was so weak, but we were only there for 10 min,
just enough time to invite her to English class the. We had to walk 30
minutes back to the chapel for the class. And I was so weak and sick.
So we sat on a bench and I said a prayer for strength and health that
I could just make it to the chapel. And then as we were walking I
started feeling better and I had energy again. Even though we didn't
have any water or food. I know God is here with and loves His
missionaries.

Hermana Birch
Sent from my iPad

Chapel Lleida