Email 37 - Chrissy Called To Be STL (Sister Training Leader)

"This is what just about all of our area looks like :)"

 My poor finger... 

but it was worth it! ;)

"One thing that poorer families eat when they don´t have much, or what they eat as a snack, is arroz con huevo (rice with fried egg). I don´t know exactly why, but we all LOVE it, and Hna Palomino gets a kick out of Americans eating it, so she makes it for us all the time, haha."

More goodbyes! Again! And a shot of our district :)

"I ran into Hna Fuller!"

Hi family!!

Thank you for the emails :) :) And I LOVED everybody´s pictures! Brad and Kate look so OLD! I haven´t even been gone that long!

It was another solid week to finish off the transfer- and Hna Palomino and I aren´t going anywhere! I´m stoked to have another 6 weeks with her.

Unfortunately, we are losing our sweet piso-companions, Hna Hansen and Hna Thunborg. They´re the best, and it´s really hard to see them both head off to other areas, especially because they´re closing their area, so we won´t be getting more Hnas living with us :( We also sent our District Leader off, and we had an Elder finish his mission and head home to Mexico. Crazy!

Okay. I´m gonna tell you right now, it is reeeally hard to type right now, haha, because, on Friday, I almost cut off the top part of my left pointer finger! Definitely a mission miracle right there, because considering the way I cut it and everything, it should´ve been sliced right off. Gross, huh?

Thankfully, I live(d) with two nursing students who took fabulous care of my weak-stomached self, President took a look at it and said I don´t need stiches or anything, and I was able to avoid getting a single drop of blood in the cookie batter I was making! (Haha, yes, I cut myself with one of the crazy handmixers they have here)

Good stuff. It doesn´t hurt or anything anymore, it just looks nasty.

In other news, President Jackson extended the assignment of Sister Training Leader to me for this next transfer. That basically entails monthly meetings at the mission home, teaching in zone meetings, and exchanges with all of the other Hnas in the zone. That should be a very big learning experience, haha, because all of the other Hnas have a lot more experience in the field. I´m excited to get to work more with President, though!

Alrightie. Updates.

F------o is still not baptized. He´s reading, praying, can answer the baptismal interview questions like a champ, and we´ve taught him everything we and everyone in our district can think of, so now it´s just between him and the Lord. He´s just convinced he´s not ready yet. Hna Palomino and I feel like this is just a trial of patience for the two of us, and we´re confident he´ll get baptized this transfer.

We actually have quite a few potential baptisms. S---y and A----o are both progressing splendidly :) We had told S---y that we wanted him to meet the bishop this week, so he shows up to church and starts looking for the bishop to meet him, haha. He´s very prepared to be a member of this church.

Have I told you about R-----o and V-------a? R-----o´s from Colombia, he´s a single guy in his late 30s with a twelve-yr-old daughter, V-------a, who´s handicapped physically so she walks with crutches. She also acts like she´s 25, and I love her SO much! They came to a baptism on Saturday, and loved the welcome and the spirit they felt there. All of the other missionaries fell in love with V-------a and her sassy attitude right away.

R-----o´s had a really tough life, and he has major issues with trust, which is a big impeding factor on his faith. He´s had a lot of experiences where something appears to be really great, he trusts in it, and then things go terribly wrong. He´d just gotten out of a really bad relationship that went like that when we found him. We´re trying to help him find the faith he needs, and it was really cool introducing him to President Jackson when he and Sister Jackson showed up to the baptism :) He basically confirmed everything we´d been teaching in just a few words. So great.

I´m also not sure I´ve told you about R---n and M---a J--é. They´re a couple we were teaching a while ago, and we decided to try again with them, so we stopped by yesterday and met some of their friends. While we explained the Restoration, Hna Palomino pulled out a Book of Mormon and started explaining what it was. One of the friends there, B---a, snatched it and said, "another testament?? Like a second Bible? That´s awesome! (to her husband) You have one of these, right?"

In all my time here in Spain, I have never seen a reaction like that to the Book of Mormon- but that´s exactly how it should be!

Our ward mission leader once put it this way: If I love astronomy, and I have a book that I absolutely love about astronomy, I´m not going to reject another book about astronomy if a friend offers it to me. I´m not going to say, "woah now, I already have a book on astronomy. Yes, I want to learn more about it, but not if it comes from any other book than the one I already have. Now go away."

Haha.

Also, A----a came back from vacation! She went to Valencia with her boyfriend to visit her family over there. We´re still going over everyday to read with her, and on Friday, we walked in and her boyfriend was there!!! He was SO nice to us, and even sat in to listen as we read 2 Nephi 4- which ended up being PERFECT. He´d been telling us how he hasn´t taken a vacation in years, and how, now that he´s had some time off, he´s realized how happy it makes him, how much he loves it, and how much he needs it. During the lesson, I told him that the Gospel is the same. He may not realize it now, but if he gives it a try, he´ll see how happy it makes him, how much he loves it, and how much he needs it. He seemed to like that idea :)

It´s so interesting to see how the Gospel can still click for people who don´t know anything about God. There´s so much about the Gospel, and so much that we have- and sometimes we just don´t even realize how blessed we are.

We´ve shared the talk, "Your Wonderful Journey Home," a few times this week, and for anyone that hasn´t read it, I highly recommend it! President Uchtdorf explains this all so well; that we knew all of this at one point.

"You knew with absolute certainty that God existed because you saw and heard Him. You knew Jesus Christ, who would become the Lamb of God. You had faith in Him. And you knew that your destiny was not to stay in the security of your premortal home. As much as you loved that eternal sphere, you knew you wanted and needed to embark on a journey. You would depart from the arms of your Father, pass through a veil of forgetfulness, receive a mortal body, and learn and experience things that hopefully would help you grow to become more like Father in Heaven and return to His presence.

In that sacred place, surrounded by those you knew and loved, the great question on your lips and in your heart must have been “Will I return safely to my heavenly home?”

...Everyone you see around you... was valiant in the premortal world. That unassuming and ordinary-looking person sitting next to you may have been one of the great figures you loved and admired in the sphere of spirits. You may have been such a role model yourself!

Of one thing you can be certain: every person you see—no matter the race, religion, political beliefs, body type, or appearance—is family. The [person] you look at has the same Heavenly Father as you, and [they] left His loving presence just as you did, eager to come to this earth and live so that [they] could one day return to Him.

However, [they] might feel alone, just as you sometimes do. [They] may even occasionally forget the purpose of her journey. Please remind [them] through your words and your actions that [they are] not alone. We are here to help each other."

And after reading, over and over again, the talk, "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox that Mom sent me this week, I know that our Savior has done everything possible to give us the chance to come home. He complied with ALL that His Father sent Him here to do. All of it. 100%. He did it so that we could be cleansed so that we would be able to go home, and changed so that we would want to be there. (Highly recommend that talk, too. Thanks, Mom!!)

I know that this Gospel is the path He´s laid out for us. I know it! We´re doing all we can to help these people accept it and follow it, but it´s all up to them. I´m really, really grateful to already be on this path with my awesome family!

I love you guys so much!

Have another stupendous week, and then don´t forget to write to me and tell me about it! ;)

Love,

Hna Chrissy-liss