6-9-14

Hola mi querida familia!

Hope I said that right!  How´s it going?!  

Holy Hannah!  Dev!  You´re an ELDER!!!!!!!!  That was so cool to see your line of authority!  I didn´t realize that Grandpa Carroll was ordained by Harold B. Lee.....what the COOL!

And by the way, Happy Father´s day to Dad and Grandpas Carroll y Kartchner!  I can´t remember if it was yesterday or this upcoming week, but I hope you feel like the best Dads and Grandpas ever!  Also....Grandpa Kartchner!  Happy late Birthday!!!  I hope you got my card in the mail too!  I Love you!  Ok....and speaking of Birthdays!  SARAH!  Happy late Birthday too!!!!!!!  Send me pictures of Carly!  I heard she´s huge!  I´m jealous you got to eat dinner with my family :)

Ok!  Big week!!  So....first off, we had this really incredible stake missionary activity in Torrejón this weekend!  Almost all the missionaries in our stake came.  President Jackson came and spoke to the members, and then all of us missionaries of Torrejón lead a presentation about how to contact people in the streets.  IT was hilarious!!!! We came up with all of these different scenarios that people could find themselves in when contacting on the streets of Spain. Hermana Hansen and Elder Bybee pretended to be 2 old spaniards sitting on a bench....wow I wish I would have gotten pictures, it was SO funny!  They were talking in these old people voices in Spanish.  It was great.  And then...I was a pregnant lady trying to pick up something I dropped off the floor...ok...kind of embarassing...but hey...every body loved it and they were dying laughing.  So, we had a really great meeting in the beginning and then the presentation and then after that all of the missionaries split off and we each became pretend zone leaders over a specific "zone" of Torrejón and all of the members got put with a missionary to go on splits with.  We contacted for 3 hours with them!  My companion was Stephy (Jhon´s brother!) I LOVE HER!  It was so fun!  We got 2 really great lessons in the streets with 3 Spaniard jovenes who believe in God...that´s not very common:).... and then another with a Spaniard JAs (Young Single Adult).  It was a really cool opportunity for me to take the lead in the contacting.  It was just evidence to me, even more, that the Lord is blessing me every day to learn and know how to speak Spanish better every day.  The ward received over 100 references all together!  It was so cool!!

Also, this weekend we had English lessons with this super cute Spaniard lady, Maitane.  She´s this lady that we met who works at the Renfe-train Station who is BUDDHIST!  Spaniard Buddhist....never met anyone like her! I LOVE HER!  We told her that as missionaries, we offer Free English classes and she was all over that!  So, last week she came to English class at the chapel and then told us about her big English test that she is taking this week (actually today) for another English class she is taking in Madrid.  She asked us if we could come to her home and help her more, so we went over last night and just talked to her in English the whole time.  She wants to practice her conversational skills in English and so we just talked with her and asked her about her life.  It was so amazing to me though, because she was SO curious about what we do as missionaries and what we believe.  She told us that she had heard lots of things about the Mormon church, but that she´s curious about what we really do believe in and what our message is.  I don´t think she´s going to be changing her religion any time soon honestly, but I know that we are opening a door for her to help her understand more about the Gospel.  She was so fascinated that we are here in Spain, as young girls, not being paid for what we do.  She asked us what kind of benefit we receive from being here for a whole year and half, away from our families and friends and from school and everything.  It was so cool because her questions lead into a whole conversation about what we do as missionaries and how we have the opportunity to see people change and become better people through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I know she was thinking real hard as we were talking to her about all that we were saying and as we were sharing our testimonies with her.  It was just amazing and the Spirit touched my heart and let me know that this was the beginning of her conversion to the Gospel, and she doesn´t even know it yet.  Even if we can´t help her work towards baptism right now, I know that our influence is making a difference. I want to keep in touch with her FOR SURE after the mission!  She is really cool and really sweet :)

Ok....also....another BIG deal!  Jose Manuel is getting baptized this weekend!!!!!!!  He was going to get baptized a little while back ago, but President Jackson felt like he needed to wait for just a little bit, so we have been praying about a date to present to him for when he´ll feel ready and be ready.  This weekend, June 14, is it!!!!  We are so excited for him.  His countenance and attitude towards our message has changed DRAMATICALLY since the very first time we met with him.  Uncles Spence...thanks again for your insight and email you sent me a while back, that has helped a ton!  It really is incredible to see how when people act upon their faith...even just to come to church, to learn more, they truly DO learn more if they are open, and then the Spirit testifies of the reality of our message to their hearts.  We are so excited for him!  It´s going to be a great week!

Other cool updates....the running of the bulls is coming up :)  por eso....hay muchas paredes en las calles!!!!!  There are a bunch of walls being put up in the streets here, getting ready for it all.... I guess they don´t just do it in Pamplona...and there are these other little walls within the big walls for people to hide behind.  I can´t believe people DO this here!!!!!  It´s insane.  Hermana Nydegger and I took some cool pics of them....it was a windy day, by the way.

Also....just now there was this little African boy that was being super cute and funny who came up to us here in the locutorio....I had to get a few pics of him :)  He was cute!

And then here´s me and Stephy when we were comps for 3 hours :)

I love you all....I hope you have the best week ever!!!!  

Hermana Carroll