Week 4: Stories that make the mission

 

Happy birthday mom and dad

 Fountain in Spain

it snowed today!!!! yeah it is cold!

Hola Familia y amigos,

What a  week!  I love this gospel and this work!  I love my Savior and the opportunidad to teach His gospel!

First off, before I forget P-day is changing to monday as of next week. So our next P-day is monday march 4. Also, my address is:

Hermana Shelby Olsen

Avenida Dr. Mendiguchia Carr 12 Planta 3, Puerta A

28913 Leganes

Madrid

Spain

And if you want to send me a letter here, I would do it soon because I don´t know how quickly i will get it and  transfers are in like 2 1/2 weeks.

Okay, we had a great week.  Lets start with some miracles.  Some of our investigators really are progressing.  Paulino has changed the most.  Usually when we went over he would just want us to teach english and then we would share a scripture.  But in only 2 weeks, he has not cared as much for English class, and has been really insistent that we start with a prayer (something we always did, but usually after teaching some English or whatever--now it is the first thing we do).  

Paulino has really opened up and told us about his concerns and he asks us a lot of questions.  He knows it is important and good, but his biggest struggle is actually acting.  Especially to come to church.  This is our biggest problem with most of our investigators. Nobody came to church this sunday, and I was really disappointed...  If you all could pray that things can happen the way they need to so that our investigators can come to church that would be great!  Prayer really helps!

Another miracle was when we went to go visit someone that our ward mission leader wanted us to visit.  He wasn´t home so we walked back to the metro to think about where we wanted to go to do contacting. And who did we run into at the metro? The very man we were looking for!  He is less active and he didn´t sound too interested in coming back to church, but we had a good talk with him, and were able to do our part.  It is his choice if he acts or not.

Paco is a miracle too.  We taught him yesterday about Jesus Christ and he said if he came to know it is true he will be baptized.  He is an older man with parkinsons and very lonely, so I know this gospel can help him!  Im so excited for him!  He has so much potential!

The other sisters in our ward had a baptism this week.  I don´t know the girl very well, but the Spirit was very strong.  Her family has recently re-activated and she was 14 so she never got baptized when her family went less active.  She bore her testimony after being baptized, and the Spirit was so strong.  She couldn´t stop crying.

This week, we woke up at 7:50 one day. oops. Tender mercy from the Lord for 2 of his tired servants? I think so.

We went to a Relief Society activity and learned how to make Armanian Empanadas.  SO GOOD!

We had a really good district meeting and President and Hna. Jackson were there.  President interviewed all of us.  He told me I had a great attitude, and that made me feel good.  District meeting was good. we talked about persevering to the end.  I shared a scripture about following the Holy Ghost (D&C 68: 4- its AMAZING!)

We had a correlation with our ward mission leader.  He is really good at his calling.  VEry willing to help and make sure the baptism or whatever is a spiritual experience.  He said something like it needs to be spiritual before social.  I really liked that.  He also fed us fried bananas and hot dogs.  so good!  I like the food here!  no sea food yet.  which is good!

During lunch in the piso one day, i was looking through my folder of family history stuff that Grandma and Grandpa gave me.  I found a personal story that Grandpa had written, and read the whole thing.  I couldn´t put it down.  I learned some stories I didn´t know.  Love you Grandpa!

We actually had a really funny week.  Full of those crazy stories every missionary has.

First off, I am much better at doing contacts.  I set the personal goal to do 5 a day, to help me, but I usually do more.  I don´t have a hard time doing them, but I feel like I dont do them very effectively.  Con tiempo.  (with time).  We had some funny contacting stories.  We  (me and hna. coakwell) have the joke of ¨lets see how fast you can get rejected¨ because we had this lady that Hna. coakwell started walking towards and the lady just looked at her, said No. and sped off.  so funny.

My funny contact was when I walked up to this family and started telling the mom that we were missionaries, but before I could even say the word missionaries she stopped me and said, I know.  Oh freak, I thought.  The only reason she knows is if she is anti or something.  I had never met someone that was anti so I was preparing for the worst when she said, ¨We´re members.”  What?  Who contacts a family of members in the middle of Spain?  It was so funny!  We did besos and then went on our way.  But really, I contacted a family of members? so funny.

Also this week, I was doing my laundry and we don´t have a dryer (i don´t think anyone does) so we just use a drying rack.  I started a load right in the morning and we had all our studies, weekly planning, and lunch.  Plenty of time for my winter tights (it is cold here!) to dry, right?  Not quite.  I went to put them on and they were still wet.  Just damp.  Knowing it would be better to wear them than not, I tried to think of how I could dry them faster.  My blow dryer of course!  Picture a missionary blow drying her tights so that she doesn´t freeze in the cold.  Yup.  Classic me.

Our last, and funniest adventure happened on sunday.  We were trying to visit a less active that Bishop has asked us to see, but she lives really far from any metro.  So we decided to take a bus.  Only we missed our stop and the next stop was really far and on the side of the highway.  It also didnt have any buses going back to where we wanted to be.  So we tried to find a cross walk to the other  side of the highway to find a bus going the right way.  The only cross walk around put us in the median on the highway.  So we treked a bit on the shoulder of the highway, at night in the dark.  

We finally found a sidewalk, but only got to it as we dashed across the highway when there were no cars.  This sidewalk led to the mall, and we knew there was a metro on the other side of the mall.  It is a huge mall with lots of stuff, and we were worried about trying to navigate our way around the mall, so we decided to go through the mall. I can´t imagine how weird it would be to be in the mall on a sunday, but to make it worse, I´m a missionary!  Oh it was the weirdest feeling ever.  I was glad to be out.  So funny though.

Oh, we also had a FHE with a member family.  After the lesson and game, we were just being silly with the 8 year old daughter and she was trying to stuff  a toy down Hna. Coakwell´s shirt.  To get Hna. Cockwell to look away so she could put it in her shirt, she pointed down the hallway and shouted, ¨Look Jesus Christ over there!"  SO FUNNY!

Con Amor,

Hermana Olsen