Email 62 - "One of the Best Weeks of My Mission!"

Chrissy and her new companion Hermana Hillman

"Our new piso! The most 'Utah' looking building in all of Spain... aside from maybe the temple, haha. We only live in a tiny part of that building, but we have stellar water-pressure, a cute little balcony, and like I said before, I can drink water from the tap again, so life is good :)"

"Running into HERMANA FULLER"

 "My new district"

  "The metro benches I´ve "missed" so badly... (so the metro does exist here, it just never actually helps us get where we´re trying to go, haha, so we just walk)"

 "The rain in Spain rarely came...unless you´re outside contacting."

Hi family :)

Yep, still in "Zion!" We´ve had a little bit of every kind of weather this week, but I´m told the cold´s starting up again this week. Oof.

So here´s the down-low on my new area and comp:

-So it´s super weird being in Madrid again. All of my other areas were just SO drastically different in every possible way, and now I´m back here with the brick buildings and hispanics. So sometimes it feels like I´m back in Vallecas with Hna Palomino, haha. In all of my other areas, there was a lot of more-or-less efficient public transportation, but we don´t really have any of that here. The little roads are pretty crazy, and we just walk absolutely EVERYWHERE. I mean, we did a LOT of walking before...but now I feel like we just never stop, haha. 

-The ward here´s mega-strong, which is awesome. Our bishop is a wealthy, world-traveling German guy who´s next-door neighbors with President Jackson and prefers to speak English with us. The leadership´s all way strong, too. The only major bummers of this ward is the TINY chapel (they have to split Sacrament Meeting into 3 seperate rooms- you have to watch the meeting on a screen)...and there´s no pianist. BUT all of the more important things seem to be going stupendously. The members are all way nice.

-Hermana Hillman is the Mormon, Canadian version of Kirsten Duntz from "Elizabethtown," haha (just the way she looks and talks). She´s studying business at BYU, and we´ve gotten along beautifully this week. She´s super chill about everything and we went crazy with some goals to hit the pavement this coming week. I´m stoked! She reminds me a lot of how I was at the beginning of the mission, and I think our new companionship is giving us both huge confidence boosts :) She´s basically just made it really easy to love her to death already.

-I´m basically surrounded by spiritual giants in my new district. I don´t know why, and it probably shouldn´t be like this, but I kind of feel like I need to be more on my toes with contacting and things like that because we run into the APs in the streets at least once a day, haha. I have a lot of missionaries to look up to!

So this week we had just an absurd amount of failed appointments. Like... it was just absurd, haha. But with that being said, this was one of the best weeks of my mission! We just worked HARD. Hna Hillman and I are already really comfortable with each other, and we´ve both been making a lot of progress this week with our weaknesses. I was almost giddy the other day when I discovered how easy it was for me to do something that´s been hard for me ever since I started the mission. And like I said, we´ve both been having mega-confidence boosts.

Here are some of the people we´re focused on:

-A---l: a guy in his early 40´s, SUPER humble. He´s had almost all of the lessons already, and he really wants to be baptized. He just needs to have his girlfriend´s heart softened so they can have a reasonable conversation to decide if they´re going to separate or get married so he can be baptized.

-P------a: a 30-something-yr-old lady, member reference, who had a LOT of doubts the first time I met her. We had a very spiritual lesson with her about the purpose and pattern of prophets, though, and in her closing prayer, she said, "Thank you, because I think I´m finally finding what I´ve been looking for."

-T-----a: young mom of a 4-yr-old. Works a lot. She has a lot of faith, but she´s looking for her answers in the wrong way. She just doesn´t seem to get how the spirit works yet. We´re meeting with her tonight and that´s what we´re focusing on :)

-E-----o, Y-----a and D----n- sweet, VERY faithful family. We had our first lesson with them on Saturday, and they came to church! They want to know EVERYTHING right away, and unfortunately, the member we brought to the lesson with us, thought he could tell them everything right away, haha. ...Two hours later, when we finally left the house, I think they were a little overwhelmed. They definitely have great intentions, though. I hope everything works out :)

I just feel like I´m really helping people. I looked over my week this morning to see what I could write home to you all about, and I just want you all to know how much I love the Gospel. I know I´ve said it before, but I love seeing how it helps people. The Spirit was strong in the lessons we had this week. We may not have had a lot, but the lessons we did have were solid. It felt great.

I love love love focusing on people´s relationship with God. I don´t think there´s anything else that brings the Spirit so strongly, and so quickly to the room. It almost seems like it´s the topic Heavenly Father most anxiously testifies of with the Holy Ghost, because it´s the foundation for everything else in the Gospel. People need to know that Heavenly Father loves them.

One quote we´ve found ourselves sharing quite a bit is one I found in President Eyring´s talk, "To My Grandchildren." It´s by President George Q. Cannon, and it goes like this:

“There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon. There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed. There is not one of us that He has not desired to save, and that He has not devised means to save. There is not one of us that He has not given His angels charge concerning. We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are the children of God, and that He has actually given His angels—invisible beings of power and might—charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping.”

I hope you all have an awesome awesome week. I love hearing about how everybody´s doing. Please know that we´re doing great :)

-Hna Grover

PS- we found a "Taste of America" store today! We bought Goldfish, Reeses, pancake mix, Sniders pretzels and maple syrup. Yum. There were semisweet chocolate chips... but they were 6 euros, haha. Crazy. I had already spent 20 euros on what I just mentioned! I still have a can of pumpkin and a bag of chocolate chips left, but those Ghiardelli choc chips are always welcome anytime you want to stick ´em in a package :)