Date
September 23, 2019
Area
Jae´n, Spain
Companion
Hermana Makayla Walker
Semana 17- I am an indestructible VIKING
Hola mis amigos!
It's been another incredible week in the best country in the world!!
I really think I'm going to move here permanently...
The temperature is falling with the onset of autumn and every day at 2:00 little children in navy and white uniforms run along tile sidewalks, the castle of Jaen watching over from above, to their rustic, spanish homes where their carefully prepared paella and tortilla await them.
I can't imagine a much better life, aside from being a missionary here (CLARO)
The more I'm here the more I realize how much it really means to me to have the opportunity to be a representative of Jesus Christ. Everything about it is absolutely beyond any price.
The beginning of the week was Zone conference in Malaga, which was amazing! It always touches me so deeply at the very end when all the missionaries stand and sing our mission song. President and Hermana Bussey stand in front of us and hold hands and sing as tears just fill their eyes and fall down their cheeks. I love them so much.
The rest of the week was filled with soooooo much. There's a new law in europe that makes it illegal to have people's contact information without them knowing... soooo we had to shred all our paper area books and call every person in our contacts on our phone. It's brought both embarrassing experiences and MILAGROS!
Here's the thing with phone calls:
they're in spanish. and I live in andalucia.
Which means that sometimes the only way I understand their under-pronuciated words without body language context clues is by listening to their tone of voice. My trainer also decided it was good for me to do it entirely on my own... so here's some fun things I did.
1. A lady called and I said "hola, como esta?" She said bien and then started rambling off a whole bunch of things. I honestly had no clue what she was saying, but it sounded fairly positive, so I just said, "oh me alegra!" ("I'm glad").
Then I looked over at my companion who had clasped her hand over her mouth in half horror, half hysterical laughter. Surely regretting her initial decision to let me handle the calls on my own, she took over until the conversation ended.
After she hung up she explained to me that what I thought was positive small talk at the beginning of the call was in fact an elderly lady saying, "my husband died". To which I said, "oh I'm glad!"
Nice. Hahaha it's okay though because miraculously she still wants to meet with us.
2. Somehow after that experience, Hermana Walker still thought it would be best that I make the calls. We had a contact named "Juani", who I called and said, "Hola! Esta es Juani". It was kind of a man's voice, so I was a little confused, but they said, "soy Juani", so I kept going, starting to say, "Hola Juani, somos las misioneras..." but before I got too far they said, "no, not Juani, JUANI". I said, "Síííí, hola Juani, pues..." then again, "NO. NO juani, JAVI!!!". It wasn't until Hermana Walker cut in that we confirmed that we were in fact talking to Javi, a man. Not Juani. Oops.
3. We have a viking friend. We had been talking to him about a month ago, and he had shared some things about his life. 1. He is a viking. 2. He makes viking clothes for a living. And 3. He fights in his viking clothes regularly. At one point he was talking about the trials of life and said, "I'm a Viking, but I'm not indestructible". Hahaha. So ever since then we sometimes say to each other as a motto, "We are indestructible VIKINGS!!!"
but then he wasn't super interested and the conversation died out.
Then fast forward to this week, when we were calling everyone in our contacts. It was just like any other call at first. Some guy named Miguel Angel. We called and said, "Hola, esta es Miguel?". He said yes and we told him we were the missionaries. We asked him if he had talked to the missionaries before and if he wanted to meet with us, and he said yes! As we were trying to set up a time to meet, he mentioned the work "viking". Immediately our ears perked up in an "aha" moment and we looked up at each other in realization and mouthed, "we are indestructible VIKINGS!"
Haha it was crazy. But we made the cita with him. And when we went it was one of the sweetest experiences I've had. He explained that he had been really good friends with the elders and that because of that he knew he could trust us too. He talked for a long time about all his worries and all the questions of his soul. At one point he said, "I just want to know how I can be happy". I said, "God has a plan for us called the Plan of Happiness!". And we talked to him about how God has provided a way for us to be happy, we just have to follow the path. He had been talking about how there were so many paths in life. And we showed him a picture of the tree of life and explained that there is only one path to happiness.
Later as we were walking away with him, we ran into a member from our ward. She said that she was glad he was meeting with us because she knew that the missionaries could help him be happy. Then, in his broken english, he gave a recap of everything we has just taught him. He pointed to me and said, "Yes! She told me that there is only ONE way to happiness! And it is with God's plan".
It was just the sweetest thing and I can't think of anything I would rather be doing right now than helping these people in Spain know the way to happiness!
4. We also randomly kept running into this guy named Black, who had been friends with the Elders before and had mostly just come for English class. We had assumed that the elders had tried teaching him already and he wasn't interested, but this week we ran into him again and he said, "Hermana's let's meet this week". We weren't about to deny. So we met a couple days later. We got to know him a little better and then asked him what he knew about the Book of Mormon. He said, "I don't know, what is that book? Tell me about it". Our jaws kind of dropped and we excitedly explained what the book was. He then expressed that he really wanted to know which church was true. We had him read Moroni's promise and then he said, "so you're telling me that if I read this book, I can know which church is true??". "YES!", we said. Then I said, "we can also tell you answers to things like, "where did we come from, and where are we going after this life?" He pointed at me and said, "THOSE are GOOD questions". Then he expected answers, so we taught the plan of salvation too.
It's just so amazing to be able to see how the gospel helps everyone with all their questions and with all their needs!!!
I'd like to just end with this paragraph from the bible dictionary about Christ.
"He is the greatest Being to be born on this earth—the perfect example—and all religious things should be done in His name. He is Lord of lords, King of kings, the Creator, the Savior, the God of the whole earth, the Captain of our salvation, the Bright and Morning Star. He is in all things, above all things, through all things, and round about all things; He is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; His name is above every name and is the only name under heaven by which we can be saved."
President Nelson said,
" The more we know about the Savior’s ministry and mission—the more we understand His doctrine and what He did for us—the more we know that He can provide the power that we need for our lives."
I know that that is true with my whole heart!! The more we learn about Christ, the more we love him. We love him by serving him and his children, and the more we do that, the more power and joy we receive!
Have a great week!!
Con amor,
Hermana Ferguson
P.s. I kissed a frog