Hermana Walton has been out on her mission for 8 months officially today!!!

Hello from.....S​EVILLA!!!!​!!

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Paige Walton	7:14 AM (3 hours ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke

Hey there! So I´m in Sevilla today (Seville for all you gringos out there)! It´s a huge city on the southwestern side of Spain. It´s a pretty cool, old city, but a little too hot for me. Anyway, we have a huge tri-zone conference with President Deere here tomorrow that starts at 10 in the morning. So we would have to come down a day early, and we finally just decided we might as well come down and spend pday here and then go on splits with the hermanas here. So that´s the plan! We´re really excited for the conference tomorrow. When you´re little lonesome missionaries who sit out in the middle of nowhere without other missionary contact, it´s really fun, more fun than usual, to go hang out with other missionaries! Plus I´m getting to the point where I know a lot of the missionaries and some of the one I´ve served with before will be there so it´ll be fun to see them too.

Honestly, it was kind of a slow week. We had a lot of citas fire on us and we ended up spending a lot of time walking around and knocking doors of futures that we had. In fact, that´s what we spent all of Wednesday morning doing. So we had a 3 hour chunk of time and we had no set citas (they´re really hard to find for the mornings). So we went through our huge list of futures that the elders left us and we set a whole bunch of plans. We wanted to keep track of how many doors we knocked and by the end of 3 hours we had hit 25. Whole bunch of people either not home, or not wanting to talk to us, haha, sometimes we really aren´t sure. We did have 2 people say we could come back, so that´s good! We haven´t gotten in contact with one of them again, and the other one we have a cita with this week, so we´re hoping for the best, but we´ll see.

Honestly, that´s kind of the most exciting thing we did this week. Haha. We got ice cream one day...and we had an eating cita where we had some really good BBQ...and we had a ward activity where we watched the Work and the Glory movie and we had to make a boat load of brownies (if you want something from spaniards, you literally just have to tell them you´ll make them brownies and they´re all over it).

Haha, oh man, sorry it´s kind of an uneventful week. Hopefully next week will be a little better.

So today for pday we are most likely going to a place called the Plaza de España. It´s a huge castle ish thing and a huge plaza with a "tile" or each of the cities in Spain. It´s pretty cool. And! They filmed a part of Star Wars there! Cool huh? I think it´s the part where Anikon and Patimay are walking around a cool old place in the 3rd one. Haha, good description, I know. Sorry, but you can google it.

Well, let´s see...what else can I tell you so that this isn´t an absolutely boring email...well...it´s the last week of the transfer! I will have officially completed 6 transfers in the mission with 6 and a little bit more to go. It´ll be sad to say goodbye to Hna Muse. I love her to death! And I think it is in great part to her that I am becoming the missionary that I am, but I also think it will be good for me to get a new companion and pick up a little bit more of the responsibility in the area. I´ll let you know what´s going on next week. We´ll see how it goes. I´m not sure what´s going to happen, well that´s kind of not true. She´ll leave, I´ll get a new comp and we´ll keep working like nothing happened, but I have no idea if my comp will be older than me, if she´ll be younger, if President will ask me to train. I have no idea, we´ll see. I´ll let you know all about it next week!

So I guess I´ll just end with my testimony so that you have some spiritualness to this email too. And to through in a little of my life, I´ll share it in spanish. Maybe Luke can translate for you, or you can use google translate or something, haha. Pero espero que entiendas la importancia de este evangelio. He encontrado la verdad en mi vida, y es aquí. No, la iglesia no es perfecta (por lo menos las personas no son), pero el evangelio, si. Hemos tenido este gran oportunidad a ser miembros de esta iglesia, a tener la plenitud en nuestros vidas, a disfrutar de todos los bendiciones que nos trae. Que maravilloso. No sé porque fui elegido a ser una de las personas que tienen estas bendiciones, pero espero que pueda vivir una vida digna de ella. Solamente quiero deciros que yo sé que esta es la iglesia verdadera y restaurada en la tierra. Tenemos un Padre Celestial y él nos ama tanto. Tenemos evidencia de eso en cada momento del día. Él envió su hijo para que podamos volver a vivir allí con él. Yo sé que tenemos profetas quien tiene la autoridad y poder para dirigir la iglesia y para ayudarnos a encontrar la felicidad en esta vida. Familia, el camino es fácil, solo tenemos que seguir en las cosas que sepamos son verdaderos. 

 

Os quiero con todo mi corazón y espero que tengáis un buen semana! Hablaremos la proxima semana!

Hermana Walton

PS I´ll send you pictures of Sevilla next week!

https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=258f7e8253&view=att&th=144d00187f14c577&attid=0.1&disp=safe&realattid=f_hsvpzfyy0&zw

Shortcut to a powerpoint of their visit to Merida!  Looks beautiful and fun!

Last weeks email...

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Paige Walton	Mar 17 (7 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke

Alright, well I´m running short on time today, so I´m going to try to get through this as fast as I can and still make it good. Well, we´ve got some more good news for ya! We set a fecha with a kid named Moyse. He´s 25 and from Romania. He was a reference from a girl in our branch! We had our first lesson with him on wednesday and we both felt really good at the end to invite him to be baptized, and he accepted! We´re really excited about him. We are going to try out best to keep this one going and actually make it happen this time.

We also had another little tender mercy this week. Our investigator Karin, the 21 year old girl from Mexico (I think I told you about her) came to church this week! We were so grateful for that! It shows us that she´s really willing to progress and move forward with us. We´re really excited about the chance we have to work with her. She´s so cool! We´ve invited her to be baptized, she´s not sure yet, but I´m sure once she gets some more "gospel knowledge" inside of her she´ll feel it´s right, so we´re going to keep inviting until she drops us or says yes. Haha.

So Saturday we went to a pueblo called Mérida which is about an hour east of Badajoz in a bus. It´s in our branch and in our area (yeah, our area really is that big) so we went to visit a member. Ok, can I just take a minute to say how incredibly gorgeous Mérida is! Oh my gosh! It is probably one of the prettiest places I have ever seen! It´s so european and so quaint and historic and clean and just so pretty! Honestly, if I ever had to come back and live in Spain, I would live there in a heartbeat. It´s a super old city, like before the life of Christ kind of thing, ruled by the Romans. There are movies that have been filmed there and people from all over Spain come to see the ruins and all the cool stuff that the city has to offer. Anyway, we had to take a bus to get there and so we were kind of tied to the bus schedule. Which means we left at 9:30 in the morning to get there at 10:30 and then we were there with her until we came back later in the afternoon. So she took us sight-seeing and we had fun walking around with her (Petri) and Cecilia (our branch pres´s wife) and taking pictures of all the cool stuff. I´ll definitely send you a whole bunch so you can see how pretty it is. But we had so much fun walking around as seeing Mérida! Man, I so hope we can come back and see it! I would love for you all to see it!

Then yesterday we had a fun day too. We had an eating cita with a family that we love! The dad of the family kind of reminds me of you, Dad. Basically the same goofy personality and you even kind of look a little bit similar. Anyway, we went to their house and ate and then had fun playing fooseball and pool for a while with the daughter that´s our age and the son that´s 8 years old. Haha, I can´t explain why it was so fun, but we were laughing a whole lot and we definitely had a good time.

After that we went to an activity at the church were we did family history. Hey did you know that if you follow certian lines back on Dad´s side on the familysearch.org site that you can find a whole bunch of crazy royal lineages (like Duncan of Scotland and the Henry and Edward lines of England) and a whole bunch of other crazy royals? Kind of cool! Also, if you find the right ones, our family history goes back to before Christ! WHAT?!?!? Yes, there are people there who both were born and died before Christ did. It´s the coolest thing! Way to go whoever found all of that! That´s all I can say! Hey do me a favor and start doing the temple work for all these people would ya? I totally wish I could, but sadly that´s not something I´m allowed to fo as a missionary considering that the temple is out of our boundaries. But there is some awesome work there that needs to be done! Maybe set a family goal to get a little more of it done. The hard part has been done for you, now all you have to do is take the names to the temple.

Anyway, I love you all! I hope things are going well and that you are feeling closer and closer to your Savior everday as I am. As the easter season starts to creep up on us, I am reminded more and more of the love he has for us. Search for it, you´ll always find evidence of it. I love you!

Hermana Walton

Here´s some pictures of Mérida for ya! I had to put them in a powerpoint so that I could send them home faster and easier. Enjoy!

Three weeks til HUMP day!  woot woot

Hello Family and Friends!

I hope all is going well back home. Things are ok here. It´s slow here again. We had a few really good weeks with a lot of good work and some potential that we could see in the people we were teaching. Things have changes a little bit now. We lost our baptismal date. So there´s the 4th one we´ve had since I´ve been here, gone. And he´s dropped us all together. We thought he was absolutely solid, but yeah. I guess not.

Honestly there´s not a whole lot to report this week. I´m not really even sure what to tell you. We did  take part a little bit in the carnaval festivals. We had an invitation from our branch president and his family to go out and eat with them. So tuesday we went to a part of town called San Roque and we got barbacoa (BBQ). It was pretty good. Ya know, just a whole bunch of meet! Haha. So that was fun.

We are finally getting into spring though! It´s kind of funny because all of the spanish people are still wearing like their pants and their jackets and scarves, and we´re just out walking around in skirts and short sleeve shirts. Haha, we actually had a lady come and stop us in the street to ask us why we weren´t wearing something warmer. Haha, the crazy elderly population of spain. Love them to death.

Friday we went to Sevilla for zone conference. Hna Muse and I had to give a taller this time. So we talked on hope. Haha, oh man, we needed that more than anyone else did. We used chuches (spanish candy) so of course people enjoyed it. But yeah, it went really well.

Let´s see. I guess there is something exciting going on here. Our branch has applied to become a ward! I still think they´re a little small to function well as a ward, but that would be so cool to be here when that change happened! I would love to see that happen for them! They still have a little growing to do before I feel like they could be a solid ward, but I´m really excited for them and that they´re close enough that they can see it!

Well, that´s about all the news that I have for you this week. Sorry it´s nothing too exciting. Things are still good. We´re working hard and are going to keep trying harder and harder to find more people to teach. And thank goodness the branch members are working with us a little more, but we´ve still got a lot of work to do here. It´s kind of weird that I´ve only got 3 more weeks with Hna Muse and then I´ll be in charge with another companion. It´ll be weird to say goodbye to her. Thank goodness I don´t have to do it yet.

Hey you want to know something else weird that happens in 3 weeks? I hit my halfway mark in 3 weeks! Oh my gosh! That´s the weirdest thing to me! Man. It will never cease to amaze me how fast the time flies when you are in the mission. I still feel like this little greenie who just got out in the field. But man, I´m quickly becoming one of the oldest missionaries in our mission. Weird weird stuff. But at the same time it gives me more motivation to enjoy the little time that I have left. I want to be a missionary who comes home with honor and with a deeper and stronger love for my Savior and for so much more. I can see it coming, but there´s still a ways to go, so I´m so grateful that I have some time left to push myself more and see where I can be.

I love you all! I pray for you everyday and hope that you feel your Savior´s love and my love. Thank you for your examples, for your love and for so so so much more. You´re the best blessing I have! Os amamos con todo que soy. Que tengáis una buenisima semana.

Hermana Walton

My comp and I at the Carnival activity.

The cutest little Spanish man.  His name is Augustine.  We love him!

Paige and Hna Muse at the Carnival activity

Making cookies with Flor

Oh Carnival...what a funny thing!

Best Week in Badajoz!

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Paige Walton	Wow, hey everyone! So we had a really good week this week. Yet another week o...	8:15 am (2 days ago)
Wow, hey everyone! So we had a really good week this week. Yet another week o...

Paige Walton	8:15 am (2 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Luke, Whitney, Elliot

Wow, hey everyone! So we had a really good week this week. Yet another week of miracles. I know it maybe shouldn´t feel like that anymore, but I´m still amazed at how much Heavenly Father does for us, even when we really may not deserve it.

I´m going to give you a play by play of the days again so that I don´t forget anything.

So monday night we went to that testigo´s house for a lesson. Haha, oh man. We didn´t get killed or anything, we definitely held our own. But I can tell you one thing, the spirit definitely wasn´t there. And eveything they teach is so contradictory. It doesn´t make sense to me at all. Anyway, then we went to our Branch President´s house and had a noche de hogar (FHE) with them and with a recent convert. We had fun. As crazy as the President and his wife are, I love them to death. They´re super fun.

Tuesday we went to Cáceres for our district meeting and then came back and went to the President´s house again this time for a cita with a new investigator. She´s awesome! Her name is Karín and she´s from Mexico. She´s 21 and we´re way excited to be able to teach her. She´s only here for a few months studying and then she´s going back to mexico. She recieved the lessons from the missionaries before, but then they took elders out of where she lived and the missionaries never came back to visit her. So we´re way excited and we can definitely see a good future with her. Then we had english class with those little kids we teach and then a cita with Carla (the one who speaks 5 languages) but we did it in a member´s house this time and it went so much better! Things actually went well! We´re still working on getting her a new job, but after 10 years of receiving the missionaries, everyone says she´s the closest to getting baptized now than she´s ever been. So we´ll see how that goes too. Then that night the SHE´s (super hermana entrenadoras - sister training leaders) came for splits the next day. That was a great blessing! We usually have one come to your area and then one of us goes to their area, but this time they both came here and we went on splits in our area.

So wednesday we had splits with them. I was with Hermana Anderson. She´s great! We had a cita that morning with Raul, the miracle guy that called us last sunday. Haha, oh man. Yeah he´s a little crazy, so he actually dropped us, but after that cita we wouldn´t have continued teaching him anyway. He´s a very interesting person. He told us that he would call us again when he thinks the world is close to ending, or in his mind, when the robots start taking over the world. Then we went back for medio dia and ate some lunch and then went out again for that. We had a cita that night with a new investigator named Armando. He´s incredible! He´s from Uruguay and he lives here alone and his family is back in Uruguay still. He´s just so cool though! I don´t even know how to explain it, but he´s such a cool guy. We were at his house for a while, and then we went to do some other things we had planned, but everything fell through on us. 

Thursday we had weekly planning and then we went to a member´s house later that night to teach her how to make american chocolate chip cookies. She´s so cool! Her name is Flor Splorador (coolest name ever!) and she´s from Brazil. I just love her to death! We had so much fun! And then we had english class that night, but no one came. Yeah...those are always fun nights. 

Friday we had an activity with the branch for this crazy holiday called carnivals. Basically it´s kind of like mardi gras and halloween mixed together. It´s a 4 day festival where everyone (especially the young adults) gets dressed up in weird costumes and they are just outside all the time. During the day every once in a while they have a parade, and then at night they do this thing calles Botellón where they basically just get drunk. Haha, oh Spain. That´s really all I can say. Anyway, we went to an activity that night and it was fun. We got to judge the costumes which was cool. 

Saturday we spent the morning making brownies for an activity we had sunday night. It´s kind of funny, honestly spaniards go crazy for brownies, haha. Just say there´ll be brownies and you´ve easily just doubled your attendance. Then we went to Armando´s house after that and set a baptismal date with him! Yes, he´s getting baptized! We´re so excited! The 22nd of this month! He´s incredible! We taught lesson 1, the restauration and the spirit was so incredible strong. I really have never felt the spirit more strongly on my mission than when we shared the first vision with him. It was so powerful. It was one of those lessons that reminds you why you came out. There is no doubt in my mind that what we profess to be true is in fact true. There are so many things that just make sense, and the rest, well, the spirit makes up any doubts I´ve ever had. 

Sunday we went to church and then had an eating cita with some members. Because of carnivals, a normally 20 minute walk turned into a 50 minute walk each way as we tried to avoid all the extremely awkward men. I don´t think I´ve ever gotten weirder looks or comments. Some people even asked what we were dressed as, I´m pretty sure they thought we were immitating nuns. Then we came back and got ready for the activity we did last night. We had a movie night with the members. We watched the work and the glory and it was way cool! We made a whole bunch of brownies and it was just a lot of fun, and a really successful activity too, especially for a missionary activity. We´re going to watch the second movie on saturday and then the third one later too, but we had so much fun! 

Anyway, I´m out of time so I´ll end here. But I love you all and hope to hear from you all next week. Love you lots and have a great week!

Hermana Walton