Thursday, April 24, 2014

pictures!

Inbox
x

Paige Walton

Apr 21 (3 days ago)
to me, Elliot, Tyler, Whitney, Luke
I don´t remember if I sent this one, but here´s a picture of some of the youth we have here in Badajoz, this was at the wedding we went to a few weeks ago.


Sevilla in the heat! This is in the plaza de españa

Paige Walton

9:11 am (3 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke
Hey there! I hope everyone had a good easter weekend and especially easter day! Can I just say that I´m so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel that I have in my life? Honestly, the knowledge of the gospel is the greatest blessing we have. To know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who gave his son for us, there´s nothing more comforting than knowing there´s someone that loves you that much.
Well this week was slow, again. We really don´t have investigators right now and we´re working on finding some news. It doesn´t help that we are losing a lot of time traveling too. We were in Sevilla again. We had an awesome special training conference with President Deere. He gave us a new way to find some people to teach and we´re excited to try it out. It basically consists of going to the houses of the sometimes overlooked members of the church, ya know, the ones who may not be best friends with the missionaries or don´t have the big callings or anything like that, even the new members. We then help them make a list of all the part-member families, the menos activos, and the people that they´ve seen at church before that aren´t members. We of course have to invite the spirit first as this is a big list and we want and need the spirit there. Then at the end we ask if they had any impressions of who needs us from the names on that list. It´s a really cool way to do it, and we´re really excited to try it out!  We´ll see how it goes!
Then on Wednesday we went to spend time with a cute little newly wed couple in a pueblo. Ok so they´re not that recently married, but they´re young and she´s pregnant, and they´re from England! Love them to death! We had fun at their house.
Honestly there´s nothing really to tell you. Haha. It was Semana Santa here. We saw a few of the processions and they´re definitely a sight. I filmed a little of one, so you´ll be able to see it when I send my SD card home soon.
We also gave each other haircuts yesterday! Haha, oh man, that was an interesting experience. Luckily they turned out fine, but haha, that was fun!
I also sang in church yesterday too. Every month we have a Sunday where everything is planned by the missionaries and I didn´t have a part in it, so instead I was assigned the musical number. I sang abide with me ´tis even tide (in spanish of course) and it turned out pretty well.
Well, apparently Spain has spring tease weather as well. I started to get my sister missionary tan lines at the beginning of the week (man are they attractive!), only to have the end of the week be rainy and cold again. They say it´ll be like that until about June. Who knew the bi-polar pc weather exists in Spain as well?
Well I love you all to death! I really do! I can´t wait to talk to you all in 3 weeks! Love you all! Have an awesome week!

Hermana Walton

Sevilla! Again!

Inbox
x

Paige Walton

Apr 14 (10 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke
Hello there!
 
So this week, well, it was kind of a slow week. But I guess that´s kind of just become Badajoz. It´s kind of rough. Honestly, sometimes I just don´t know what to do there. We need so badly to find new investigators, but I´m not really sure what to do. We keep finding glimmers of hope, only to have them fizzle out and die the next day.
 
We did have one miracle this week though! So we were walking around Tuesday night with nothing set, no citas or anything just knocking doors, and that kind of fun stuff. But then, we got a phone call from a member. She asked us where we were and if we were doing anything right then. We weren´t of course, and weren´t too far from her either. She then wanted to give us a reference and asked if we could go meet him. So we told her we had time right now if she wanted to take us there. So we went and met him. His name is Juan. He is homeless, and he lost his wife and his mom about 2 years back and his dad when he was really young. So he has no family, is homeless, and honestly, just kind of really doesn´t have much going for him right now. But we went back Wednesday morning and had a cita with him and it went really well. We had another cita with him on Friday night too, but we were a little late because of traveling and he wasn´t there. Because he´s homeless and doesn´t have a phone or anything like that, it´s a little tricky to get in touch with him, but we´ve been searching for him since then to see if we can meet with him again. He´s definitely got some good potential and needs the gospel so badly!
 
We also had a Zone Confernce last Friday in Sevilla, so we came down Thursday night and stayed the night there. We had a good conference and then the senior couple that was there brought stuff and made us all rootbeer floats! That was so sweet of them! Then we traveled, yet again, home. Only to turn around and travel right back again this morning. We have a special training conference with both sevilla zones and President Deere tomorrow so that´ll be fun! And we got to spend pday here in Sevilla again.
 
It´s kind of a crazy time here in Spain. This week is something called La Semana Santa, meaning, the holy week. They literally spend all week parading around little floats of their saints and their virgins and Christ. It´s a very interesting thing to watch. It´s a little strange for Americans because the people that walk aroung with the floats are dressed in outfits of the KKK (this is where the KKK got their idea from) to hide their faces. They make promises to the saints and to the virgins and when they participate in this week, it takes away their sins. Interesting idea, but it literally goes on all day, everyday, this whole week. It´s a cool cultural thing, but it kind of just has a creepy feeling to it.
 
Well things are fine here though! It´s nice to have a little break from Badajoz and to be with other missionaries. Things are still going well with Hna Herrera and she´s been a big help! I´ve definitely been feeling my energy draining and I´m getting a little burned out of Badajoz, so it´s nice that she has a big flame still, so that´s been good. Plus I just love her!
 
Sorry no pictures this week, the computer I´m using today is a little ancient and there isn´t a way to attach one this time. But soon, I promise.
 
I love you all! I hope you have a fabulous easter and that you enjoy your spring break! Remember the thing we really are celebrating and the thing that we teach. Christ, that he lives, that he was resurrected and that by him and through him, we will be too someday. He loves us, we can show that love by sharing the gospel. Find someone to share it with this week. Love you!
 
Hermana Walton

Saturday, April 12, 2014

no subject)

Inbox
x

Paige Walton

Apr 7 (5 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke
Hey there!
So a big week! Transfers happened last week and Hna Muse is officially gone. Love her to death and I´ll miss her, but things are going well with Hna Herrera too. She´s awesome! We get along well already and are laughing and having fun together, so that´s always a good thing. She´s excited about Badajoz too so that´s really nice. But yeah! Things went well with the transfer. It´s always a little hard at the beginning just because you go from having a really good friend to be with all the time, to having to be with someone you´ve never met before, but you get used to it pretty fast and start making a new friendship.
So we left really early Wednesday morning to go to Sevilla to make the exchange and we got there around 11:30 and then Hna Muse hoped trains and was gone. I hung out there for a few hours waiting for my new companion and then we rushed to the bus station once she got there, only to just barely miss the bus (not our fault, but that´s a different story). So we waited there in Sevilla for 4 more hours talking between us and the other missionaries that were there. Then we finally got on our bus and got back to Badajoz around 11:30 that night.
Then we did some weekly planning on Thursday morning and went out to work that night. Nothing too exciting, knocking doors mostly. Then Friday we had to cut out a 3 hour chunk to make brownies. We had a good morning of working so I didn´t feel too bad, but still. We had a wedding of some members on Saturday and they asked us to make brownies. So I really didn´t feel too bad, but it was hard to lose so much time this week, for traveling, making brownies, the wedding, and then conference.
Anyway, Saturday we had the wedding, which was so much fun! It was an awesome way for Hna Herrera to get to know a lot of the members too. We had a lot of fun. It was a cute couple named Maria Ester and Eugenio. Love them both! They´re older, but they´re great! I´ll attach a picture for you. So we spent the day there and helped serve food and clean up and all that fun stuff. Oh there was also a member that re-wrote the words to as sister´s in zion to make it a wedding song and we sang as a relief society and they had me sing a solo on the last verse. Uh oh, they´ve figured out my secret, and they´re pouncing on it! Haha, no, but I´m happy to do it.
Sunday was a great day! It always is when general conference is involved! We went to the capilla to watch the first two sessions (I was able to watch those in english on a member´s laptop thank goodness) and then we headed to a member´s house later on for an eating cita and to watch the last session with them. That one I did have to watch in spanish, but that´s alright. Although I do have to say, the people that translate do not have the same power in their voices as the actual speakers. It is much better in english. What a blessing it is to be able to understand them!
Well things are going well here. We lost our fecha, again, but I feel like it was for the best. You know, there are a whole lot of times when I ask myself what I´m doing wrong, why am I working so hard, thinking I´ve finally found success, only to have it fail again and again and again, but I think I´m finally starting to understand it. The Lord´s ways aren´t man´s ways. It may not be happening exactly as I´d like it to, but it could be a whole lot worse too. I am grateful for everyday, maybe not always in the moment, but I know that it´s changing me into who I need to me one day.
I love you all! Thank you for your prayers, your support, and your love. I can´t wait to see your faces on mother´s day! Just a few more weeks! Love you! Have an awesome week!
Hermana Walton

no subject)

Inbox
x

Paige Walton

Mar 31 (12 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke
Alright, so I don´t have much time today, so this might be a little shorter than normal. Anyway. Sevilla is incredible! It´s so pretty! I´d love to serve there, but it´s also one of the hotest places in the mission, and considering that all the time I really have left in the mission is during summer weather, I would probably die if I was there. Haha. So we were there on p-day last week and we did end up going to see the Plaza de España. It´s so cool! I´ll attach a picture or two, so don´t worry. But we had a lot of fun there. Then we went on splits with the hermanas there and we went and taught this older man that´s actually American but he´s lived in Spain the last 40 or so years. His name is Charles. He´s incredible! I loved getting to teach him. It was weird to teach and pray and all that stuff in english, but it so cool to meet him. 

Then we spent the night there and woke up the next morning for the special training/tri-zone conference with President Deere. Ok, can I just say he is an incredible man? I can´t get over how cool he is! I´m excited for you all to meet him one day. He just has such a love for this work and for all of us. We´re pretty lucky to have him as our President. Hermana Deere too. They´re just both incredible. Anyway, we had a fun conference with them and the APs and it was so much fun to meet new missionaries and to see old friends I hadn´t seen in a while. Then we had to race to the train after to try to catch it because we got out of our conference late (surprise! haha, actually that happens basically every time) and we literally missed it by about 30 seconds. Haha. So we had to wait 3 hours for the next bus that left, Oh those bus rides. Honestly, if you´re not in a car, there´s no good way to travel between Badajoz and Sevilla. It kind of just stinks, haha.

Then wednesday we had a pretty good filled day with lessons and things like that. Thursday we had weekly planning and nothing too exciting happened (except that it really hit me that my comp is leaving me and I´m going to have to take over the area).

Speaking of taking over the area. We got our transfer calls this week. Hna Muse will be heading out to Granada and I will be here with a new comp. Her name is Hna. Herrera and she´s south american but lives in Barcelona. She´s younger than me in the mission, so I get my first shot at being senior comp. Which I´m excited for, it´ll definitely push me and help me grow. But at the same time, I´ve never done it so I´m not sure exactly what to do. I know it won´t be that different. I just hope with all of my heart that I can keep the success going that we´ve been having here lately when Hna Muse isn´t here. It´ll be hard to have her leave, but that´s kind of just how it goes. Haha. I think it´s harder just because it´ll just be me and my comp without any other missionaries out here, but I´m banking on the fact that things are going to go well and the Lord will provide. Plus my spanish is going to get that much better! That´ll be fun! And weird, haha, I´ll literally have no one to talk to in english. But oh well. It´ll be good for me.

Well I´m out of time. I love you all! I hope you´re doing well and that you´re enjoying life and all it has to bring you. Have an awesome week! I´ll write more next week, sorry it´s kind of another lame one this week, but I´ll have a bunch to tell you next week. Love you love you love you!

Hermana Walton

The Plaza de España!!!

Hello from.....S​EVILLA!!!!​!!

Paige's mission
x

Paige Walton

Mar 24
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!
subject)

Paige's mission
x

Paige Walton

Mar 17
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