September 9, 2013

My Family!

I´m in Murcia!!!! But some how you knew how to figure that out before I could tell you. I was pretty impressed with that. Anyway, something else you seem to already know, my companion´s name is Hermana Jarvis. She´s from Oregon, she´s 22 and has been out for 9 months now so she´s pretty experienced compared to most of our mission. Murcia is cool. It´s a pretty big city. It´s the 4th largest city in our mission behind Málaga, Sevilla, and Granada. It´s dirty like most cities are, but I´m excited to get to know the city better. Our area also covers quite a few pueblos too (those are smaller neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city). It´s finally starting to pick up a little bit here. The whole country of Spain basically takes the month of August off to vacation which is strange but true so the summer was really hard for missionary work here so hopefully it´ll start picking up even more now that it´s September.

Church yesterday was so much fun! The people here have such a love for missionaries because most of them are only 1st or 2nd generation members in their family so they know how important the work is and they have such an appreciation for it. It was so fun to meet them and get to know them! They are all so sweet and kind and patient with my spanish haha. There were 2 ladies there that I had met in the temple while I was in the MTC and that was way fun! I remember sitting in the chapel before the session and they were transfixed by mine and Hermana Swenson´s eyes because they don´t see much besides brown eyes here so they were like "que bonito,que bonito, tu ojos!" haha basically just saying how pretty they thought our eyes where. It was fun to have a familiar face there. Their names are Carmen and Paula. Just two funny quirky old ladies that I love already.

We´ve gotten some good investigators that hopefully will work out. There is a spanish family (which is a big deal) that had a baptismal date with the Elders but they´re ours now and we figured out that they´re not married so we´ll have to tell them tomorrow that they can´t get baptized this month. The two hardest things about Spain are word of wisdom and law of chastity. Everyone drinks or smokes here. And then a lot of people will have kids together and live with each other but never get married, although they call themselves married so that gets a little tricky sometimes. But we´ve set a goal for 3 baptisms this month, yikes! and now without them it´ll be kind of a stuggle, but we´re going to fast and pray and just hope that we find a few people this week that we can teach and who can be ready in 2 weeks for baptism. Thank goodness we have the Lord on our side, because I couldn´t do this by myself. 

So guess what!? I get to sleep in until 7:30 in the field! It´s such a blessing. Yes it´s still early and a little tough cause I´m just always tired, but it´s so much better than 6:30. Sadly that´s only for summer and once we finish this transfer we have the winter schedule and we wake up at 7, but hey! Still better than 6:30. It´s almost like heavenly father knew I wasn´t a morning person, haha. Some other interesting schedule changes that happen in Spain, we have this thing called Medio Día at 2 everyday where we just go home and eat and have free time for an hour and a half and then study some more and we don´t have to be back out until 5:30 so that´s kind of fun! The free time can be nice, but I´ve noticed that that´s when I get into trouble with homesickness and stuff like that. But I´ve come up with some things to keep my mind off of it, so I´m not worried about it, it´ll keep getting easier the longer I´m out. 

The other missionaries here are awesome! I have a great zone and I´ve seen them every day since being here which is kind of fun! Friday we had a zone conference, saturday we had a ward activity that we all went to, and then church yesterday and today for p-day we´re going to make lunch and watch a movie in the capilla (chapel) together so that´ll be fun. It´s not all of the other missionaries all the time, but it´s fun to get to know them and see other missionaries. Hermana Jarvis and I are the only Hermanas in our zone which is kind of strange, but it´s fun too. The elders are crazy but great. I did get to see Hermana Flake when we got our trainers! That was so much fun to see her and get to talk to her for a while. She isn´t in my zone, but I might get to see her when we do multi-zone trainings so we´ll see, but it was so nice to have her there when all this crazy stuff was happening.

So spanish...I can understand a lot of what people say, especially if they have a south american accent. Southern spain accents on the other hand, I can hardly pick out words sometimes. It´s kind of crazy. They speak like they have marbles in their mouth, they randomly won´t finish the end of some words or they´ll not pronounce the s in a word and they speak super super fast so you can´t catch the words that you do know. I know I´m supposed to be here in spain, and they say when you can understand southern spanish accents you can understand any other accent, but sometimes I wish I was in south america (and I actually had a dream that I got transfered to south america the other night) because I really can actually understand what´s going on. But oh well, it´ll come and when it does I´ll be so grateful for it. 

Well just keep me in your prayers as I know you already do and I´ll be so grateful! I´m starting to feel a stronger love for this work already, but it doesn´t always make the hard times easier. I love you all lots and am so grateful for the strength and support you are to me! I love you!

Hermana Walton