We are here in Torrejón for ANOTHER 6 weeks! This will be my 4th transfer with Hermana Nydegger! WOW!! That means I will have been here in Torrejón for a third of my mission! Isn´t that crazy to think about? I am SO happy about it and excited to be here longer. I have more time to strengthen relationships with so many wonderful people. This is a wonderful ward, I have a wonderful, hard working companion, and I´m grateful for 6 more weeks to be here! It´s SO weird to think that I´m almost a third the way through being on a mission! What in the world?
Ok...second of all, I LOOOVVVEEEDDD talking with you all yesterday for Mother´s day! It made my day and I have to tell you how incredible it was for me! As I was talking to you in Spanish, and as I was talking with Dad and Grandpa I felt the Spirit so much! The realization of all of the blessings that Heavenly Father has given me just hit me hard. I just realized how much the Lord truly has been helping me to learn Spanish and has been helping me in every area that I need help with here! My heart was touched, the Spirit bore witness to me that everything I´m doing right now is what I need to be doing and experiencing. I´m so grateful for the Spirit, I´m so grateful to have this gift to help us discern truth and to help us understand what the Lord would have us do, because He knows what´s best for us. Hermana Nydegger had printed out this really amazing thing...something her dad had sent her that she loves and she made me a copy too. It´s from this guy (Elder Busche I think)...it´s his advice for life and it is so powerful. But two of the things he said were:
¨God knows better than you, and knows what you need. He always attempts to speak to you. Listen and follow the uncomfortable suggestions that he makes to us. Everything will fall into place.¨
Another one was:
¨You want to be good and to do good, that is commendable. But the greatest achievement that can be achieved in our lives is to be under the complete influence of the Holy Ghost. Then he will teach us what is really good and necessary to do.¨
He had laid out (in bullet points) lots of advice for life and I loved it. But I´ve been really thinking about that first one alot lately...to follow the uncomfortable suggestions and promptings of the Spirit. The Spirit is ALWAYS going to guide us...but most of the time, we either aren´t listening or don´t recognize the Spirit because we´re distracted by everything around us. We can easily become distracted because of the opinions of others, because of the media, and even because of GOOD things that we find ourselves caught up in. But, Heavenly Father is ALWAYS going to attempt to speak to us and guide us through his Spirit. And the Holy Ghost/Spirit sometimes will prompt us to do things that ARE uncomfortable to us. I think alot of times in life we fear acting upon promptings we receive because the thing(s) we´ve been prompted to do seem uncomfortable and hard. WHY do we limit ourselves from receiving more and more blessings that the Lord wants to bless us with by fearing to act upon ALL of the promptings we receive from the Spirit? Yea, it´s hard to do uncomfortable things, nobody likes to feel uncomfortable...but we´re here on earth to progress and grow and become like God. It´s just like that simple analogy of when you learned how to ride a bike. Yeah, the first time you try it, you´re probably going to fall, you´re not going to be able to ride in a straight line right away, and you´re probably going to fall and scrape your knee. But, as you keep choosing to try again, and act upon the desire you have to learn how to do it, you eventually get the hang of it, and pretty soon you´re a bike riding champ. I´m probably not making any sense, but I guess what I¨m trying to say is we have to ACT upon all of the promptings of the Spirit, even if what we feel prompted to do is uncomfortable or it seems hard. The only way we´re going to increase our Spiritual knowledge, and become better people is by truly ACTING upon ALL of the Spiritual promptings we receive, no matter how uncomfortable they are. The greatest achievement is when we are truly living our lives under the complete influence of the Holy Ghost.
As a missionary I´m so grateful for the Spirit. The Spirit is the true teacher and the best teacher. So why don´t we do everything we can to try and recognize it, to eliminate things that would distract us from discerning it´s promptings. It´s a gift Heavenly Father has given us, USE IT! Let is bless your life!
Also, this last weekend we had an incredible Conference with Elder Snow and his wife from the Quorum of the Seventy as well as Elder Nielson (a former BYU History teacher who is extremely brilliant). I learned so much from them. One of the things they talked about was the temple and how as missionaries, "what are we doing to help people understand the importance of living worthy to enter the temple, to make sacred covenants or promises with God?" What kind of people do we want to be? The temple orients us and helps us understand who we are, that we are literally sons and daughters of our Father - the creator of the universe. The temple centers us towards Christ and helps us understand our relationship with Deity. The temple is such a blessing to us. With the Restoration of the Gospel, we have the Lord´s priesthood power, the authority of God to act in His name on the earth. Joseph Smith received these priesthood keys from the Lord to perform such sacred ordinances in the temple, and because of this Restoration of God´s priesthood authority, we have temples all over the world now that bless our lives and center us towards Christ. I am grateful for the temple, for the lessons I learn there, and for the opportunity to help people here in Spain understand the significance of God´s Plan for them, and to help them work towards entering the temple.
Ahh! I love being a missionary. It´s hard, but never in your life do you have an opportunity to completely consecrate your time and your energy towards building the Kingdom of God, literally, on the earth. It is incredible.
Ok....funny thing from the week. There is this super cute and loving family from Ecuador in the ward. The mom´s name is Leny...she CRACKS me UP! She is hilarious! She has been divorced from her husband for a few years now, and has 2 daughters in the ward here (Belen and Nicole) who are SO fun and cute! The other day Leny comes up to us and was like, "Busca me un tio guapo" (Find me a man/one of your good looking uncles for me). "Tengo que casarme!" (I have to get married!) "Yo limpio, yo plancho, yo cocino..." (I clean, I iron, I cook...) Basically, I wish so bad you could have heard her say it. She is just so funny and that´s totally a Latino thing to say....basically "hook me up with one of your guapo uncles!" I love her.
Ok....well, another 6 weeks in Torrejón and I´m looking forward to it! I love you! Have a great week!
Here are some fun pics of the week.
1) Elevators are nice and tight here! This is us with the other hermanas and elders in our district on our way home from a member´s home after medio dia.
2) Also, we ate at an American Restaurant today...Go American Food!
3) I got me some sweet Spiderman Grafiti :)
4) We went to a cool park today in Torrejón with a mini Eiffel Tower. Also...random peacock! Cool!
5) SQUID!!! Welcome to the grocery store!
6) Also of Jhon...he´s getting baptized for sure this weekend! We are excited! He is such a cutie :)
7) Also...pretty flowers :)
8) The best looking family in the world!!! I love you! It MADE my day to talk to you yesterday!
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