Spain is HOT in July...

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Paige Walton	11:32 AM (25 minutes ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney

¡Hello! 

Welp, this week was a lot better than last week. We had a lot more to do, thank goodness, but it was still a little slow. We did still have a lot of citas fail on us, but we got through it and had a decent amount of lessons, so it was ok. And thank goodness we had some rain on Thursday which cooled it down here a lot. We´re geting some nice breezes and it´s been a little cloudier as well which is one of the biggest tender mercies to me! I´ve been so grateful for that! I mean don´t get me wrong, I´m still sweating buckets, but I think I´ve cut it down to maybe a 2 gallon bucket in place of maybe a 5 gallon bucket. Hopefully this continues for a little while. Dang spain and it´s crazy weather, sadly the heat won´t really go away until late October, November ish. It will be managable by the end of September, but it will still be hot. I guess it will also depend on where I go for my next and last area. WHAT!?!?!?! Yes, that´s right. In 4 weeks (well, a little less) I will be heading off to my last area. Oh my gosh that´s so strange to think about. Obviously I´m super excited to see you all, but I´m also getting more and more nervous about leaving the mission and going back to real life. 

Well, we did pick up a new investigator this week. Her name is Gertrudis and she´s 85. Yeah. Haha, she´s great and she was a reference from a member. She loves when we come over and she likes listening to us, but I really don´t think she´s going to progress that much. Mostly because she just talks the whole time and we don´t say anything. Haha, we tried to start teaching the plan of salvation this morning and we were there for about an hour and the only thing we talked about was pre-mortal life. Yep, in an hour, that was it. Haha, she really is super sweet! But it´s going to take a while if anything is going to happen with her. 

As for other investigators, we really haven´t seen any of the ones that could really progress this week for one reason or another. We did get to see Maria José, though. She´s the one that lost her little girl that´s progressing slowly, but she´s progressing. She finally committed to come to church next week. Only it´s not to come on a Sunday. We´re just going to show her around and let her feel the spirit there. We´re hoping that will spark something in her. But it´s a big deal that she said yes. We really are seeing progression in her, but it´s going to take a while for her to really be willing to take it all in. 

We also had special training with President Deere this week and interviews as well. I just love him. He´s really the best. I know I say that every time, but it´s totally true. He taught us about finding, especially in a time right now, where we´ve got to find, or we aren´t going to make our baptismal goal for the year. Obviously baptisms isn´t the only thing on our minds, it´s not the only thing that counts, but we have the faith to be able to do it. 

We did have a really cool miracle though on Saturday night. We went to visit a menos activa that we had never met and hadn´t been able to get to her house to see her all week and we were finally going to be able to get in there and see her. When we left, we knew exactly why we had a hard time getting in there all week and why we had to be there that night. 

So we walked in and there was a room full of youth, like 20-25 years old. And we both looked and each other and were like, welp, this could be interesting. And then there were 3 girls sitting on the couch and they just got up and were so extremely open to us and were so sweet! We sat there and talked to them for a good while and they had a bunch of questions about who we are, what we do, the normal things, and it was just so cool! They happened to all be named Andrea, haha, 2 of them live in Madrid and one here, and she´s got a whole lot of potential. We´re really excited about her! We got all their information and it was just such a miracle. We were so grateful. 

It´s times like that when you really do know that Heavenly Father is watching out for you. We were so grateful. 

We did have kind of a sad thing. Xiomara, the 18 year old menos activa that we´re working with that I just love with my whole heart, didn´t come to church this week. Had she come, we could´ve gotten her an interview with the Bishop and all she would´ve needed would´ve been and assignment and we would have officially rescued her, but it didn´t happen. Now we have to start all over again for the 3 out of 4 consecutive Sundays, but that´s ok. It was kind of for a legitimate reason. 

But there you go! Oh! We also had a really fun eating cita yesterday. It was with a English family that used to live here and they´ve been back for the summer visiting. They´re super fun! It was the mom and the 2 sons, 17 and 13 years old, and it was just so much fun! I felt like I was home with the fam again. The younger son was making stupid jokes the whole time, the boys wrestling and just being brothers, and we just had so much fun! I´ve decided english is a funnier language than spanish. The jokes are just a lot better. So that was nice, too, but we just had a really fun time! 

So I hope you all have a great week! Enjoy school starting, you may actually miss it one day! Love you all!

Hna Walton

the incredibly old roman ampitheater in cartagena that´s right outside a menos activa´s house. like right outside! it´s so pretty! the hill part at the back is the stadium seating, this is a back shot.