Friday, May 23, 2014


New area and take note... NEW ADDRESS!!


Cartagena! Week 1!

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Paige Walton

May 19 (4 days ago)
to me, Elliot, Tyler, Luke, Whitney
Wow, well, it´s was a full week, full of lots of crazy stories and things like that. But I´m finally here in Cartagena! 

We had a fun pday last week, spending time with our branch president and his family. Then tuesday we had district meeting, but it was kind of more of a farewell party with cookies and signing journals and all that fun stuff. Then we went back home and I spent the rest of the day packing and cleaning and doing everything else we needed to get done before I left.

Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early! I caught my bus to Sevilla at 6:15, got there at about 10. It was nice to get off that bus and think that I never have to take that bus ride again, but man, I really do miss Badajoz. I absolutely love that place! It´s been weird to go from a place where I loved the people so much and we had such a good relation to a place that´s so incredibly different than that. I know it takes time, it took a lot of time for me to love Badajoz, but I really do just miss it there. Anyway, once I got to Sevilla, I had some lonely waiting time until the elders that were traveling with me came. We then hopped on our bus and headed away! We went from Sevilla to Granada, with a little layover there, and then Granada to Murcia. It was kind of fun and stange to be back there for a little bit. I never thought I was coming back to this side of the mission, but apparently the Lord had other plans. Then I bought my bus ticket from there to Cartagena and headed there on my last little leg of a long trip. I got to Cartagena at about 8:30. Then we went to the cburch building for a FHE and that was fun to get to know some of the members right off the bat. 

Then we had weekly planning thursday and then we went to visit a member whose mom was in the hospital, she was like 97 years old or something like that and she wasn´t doing well. So we went to go be with the member, and the mom died when we were there. Oh my gosh! My first real day and we had someone die on us! It was crazy! But I think it was a good thing we were there for her so she didn´t have to deal with it alone. It made me so grateful to have a knowledge of the gospel and to know that it´s not the end.

Friday wehad a huge talent show with all 3 of the Cartagena wards and it was way cool! I loved it! We also had a cita with an investigator name Alícia and she´s awesome! I´m really excited about her! She´s younger and is Spanish and she´s just great! I´m hoping we´re going to be able to work with her for a while longer because I loved teaching her. 

Saturday we had kind of an average day, lots of citas failed us and we didn´t end up with too many exciting things that day.

Sunday we had church! It was nice to be in a real church building again, but the ward we´re in is still about the same size as the branch in Badajoz. So although I may be in a ward, it still doesn´t feel like it, which I´m actually ok with. I really liked being in a branch. Then we went home for medio día and then we had a cita that night with a man named Samuel who had a fecha. I say had because we walked in, he was very excited to say a prayer so he prayed, and then he told us that he didn´t want to get baptized anymore. He told us that he had already been baptized and that he felt like he would be playing a game with God if he got baptized again. He just didn´t get it. We tried to explain everything to him, but he was having nothing of it. We´ll see if we ever see him again. But then we went to a member´s house. It´s a family from Ghana and I love them already! We went to their house and ate with them that night and then headed home.

Today we had a fun pday. We went to a country club like thing and hung out with our zone and had a mini birthday party for 2 of the missionaries that had birthdays last week. Then the elders played fútbol and we had a fun time! Crazy thing though! President Deere called us and we are being taken out of our trio. Hna Samuelson is going to Málaga tomorrow morning. We don´t know why, we think it might be an emergency transfer, but we´re not sure. I´ll miss her for sure! I know we weren´t together for very long but I love her already! It´ll be nice to be just me and my comp again, but there were definitely some positives to being in a trio. Welp, at least we´ll have more space in our piso now! And it was fun while it lasted. 

Well, that´s about all I really have to tell you this week. Oh! And my new address! For any future sending purposes here you go!

Hermana Paige Walton
c/ San Pedro de Pinatar Nº4, 5ºA
Cartagena, Murcia 30203
España

Well I love you all a bunch! Have such a good week! Love you! Send me some letters! Haha, but really...

Love you!

Hermana Walton

This was the day after we got to Skype with her for Mother's Day!  Best present!


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Paige Walton

May 12 (11 days ago)
to me, Elliot, Tyler, Luke, Whitney
Hey Family! 

Oh man it was so good to talk to you all yesterday! I just loved seeing your faces and hearing your voices and all that! I especially loved just laughing with you all.

Well, I know you guys already know about transfers, but for those that are not aware, I´ve been transferred to Cartagena and will actually be serving in the area that Hna Flake opened, so that´s kind of fun! I will be in a trio with hnas Daines and Samuelson. I´m really excited! It´ll be hard to leave Badajoz, but at the same time I don´t know that I could´ve worked hard here for another transfer. I´ll let you know more about Cartagena and all that stuff next week, but it´s really close to Murcia, my first area. It´s about 30 minutes south, on the coast, so that´ll be fun!

Anyway, I don´t have a whole lot of time today, so this´ll probably be a short one this week, sorry. But we went to Sevilla Friday for zone conference and also for a zone pday. We went to the Sevilla Fair which is the biggest one in all of Spain and it was really cool! I loved seeing it! There was a part that literally was like Lagoon and then another part with lots of restaurants and all that kind of stuff. It was really pretty to see, especially with all the women dressed up in their flamenco dresses, so cool! It was soooo incredibly hot though! Man, Sevilla is not the place to be in the summer if you don´t have to be there.

Saturday we had a fun relief society activity for mother´s day and we went and ate ice cream with them. Sadly that was the highlight of our day on Saturday, haha. 

Sunday we had church of course, I sang in sacrament meeting and also gave my farewell testimony. Yes, I cried.  Then we went to the León´s house to eat afterwards. After that we came back to the church building and SKYPED!!!!! Best part of the day! So good to talk to you all! And then we had our ward activity and watched a movie with the members. We watched The Other Side of Heaven. Not quite as many people there as we normally have, but it was still fun! 

Well I´m sorry it´s kind of a lame email this week. Nothing too exciting, but I´ve got to go. I love you all so much! Have an awesome week!

Hermana Walton
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Paige Walton

May 5
to me, Elliot, Tyler, Whitney, Luke
ALOHA! (Yeah, I know it´s not the right language or country)

Wow, there´s so much to tell you all about this past week! The week of consecration really did bring more miracles than we had imagined and more than we could have asked for. So let´s start with Monday. We had our pday and then we had a lesson with Carla. Haha, oh that girl. She told us that she may or may not be pregnant (that makes 2 investigators that aren´t sure) and asked us if it was ok to use the 5 day pill that will kill any fetus for up to 5 days after "the act". We´re still not sure what happened. Then we had FHE with a member family that night. It´s the family of our branch mission leader. They´re great! Love them! We were supposed to have a few investigators there with us, but it didn´t work out, but that was ok. We had a lot of fun playing games together and sharing our favorite scriptures. 

Tuesday we went to Cáceres for our district meeting that morning. Then we came back and headed out to work. We had our first few citas fall through, but we found 2 new futures! So we´re hoping something will come from that. Then we went to Jack and Teresa´s house (they´re menos activos) and had an awesome lesson with them! We´re hoping they might actually start progressing for reals this time. We´ll see. Then we had a cita with Gladis were we set another fecha with her. It´s not a for sure thing, but at least it´s a fecha. 

Speaking of fechas, I´m hoping you all remember Carmen, the little girl we baptized in Murcia, well her parents finally got married about 2 weeks ago and that Dad is getting baptized in 2 day!!!!!! Oh my gosh I am so excited! I couldn´t be more thrilled! I honestly was a little worried when we baptized Carmen that the parents weren´t going to keep going and that we would just have her go inactive, but things aren´t seeming to turn out that way! The Lord is definitely blessing the people here! 

Wednesday we met a new investigator that morning. His name is Manolo, he was the guy that stopped us on the street last week. We had a very interesting lesson with him and a member. Haha, the member is an older man and he ended up talking more than we did. We didn´t really teach anything and the member talked about everything from the word of wisdom to baptisms for the dead to how we have to be married to make it to exaltation, oh man, haha, it was an interesting lesson, but it was definitely inspired that he was there as the investigator asked him if he would come to the next lesson as well. We went to Dani´s house for lunch (our branch mission leader) and then came home for a short rest and then right back out. We always go visit with some older people in a residency home on wednesdays so we went and did that, and then we had some good citas. We had a cita with another new investigator, Aya. She´s from Africa. She came to church on sunday and says she wants to come to our church every sunday so we´re excited about that! Then we went and visited with a member names Cristina and her 6 year old son Jeremy. Cristina is finally getting her patriarchal blessing this weekend! We´re so excited! And Jeremy, oh I love that kid. He´s so sweet. One of the older missionaries gave him the picture book of the book of mormon and while my comp and Cristina sat there talking, Jeremy asked my to read to him a bunch of stories, of which he was very interested in every single one of them and then he asked me to read the birth of Christ, the Christmas story to him too. Oh my gosh! That kid! He said the cutest thing! He was talking about faith that other people had and he said, "I hope I have enough faith someday to see Christ. I don´t right now, I´m only at level 1 and I have to get to level 5, but I want faith like that someday." It melted my heart! The things we can learn from little kids. It´s incredible!

Thursday morning we had weekly planning and then we went out and taught Mariana and Marta, the 2 new investigators that we picked up last sunday. It went pretty well. They can feel the spirit, but they´re just not realizing it yet I don´t think. Then we went to a Primary activity and taught the kids about mission life and how it all works. After we went and got some ice cream because no one came to english class and then we went and taught Flor. She´s a member and she asked us to be her visiting techers because she didn´t have any. I love her to death and we´re trying to help her with some things. She´s great! She´s Brazilian.

Friday morning we were supposed to have another cita with Aya, but she ended up having to go to the hopsital, so that didn´t work out. After waiting for a while to see if she would come because we didn´t know, we had to go catch a bus to Mérida to go eat with a member, Petri. Love her! She´s so sweet! We had fun talking with her. Then we had a meeting with Dani to plan our activity for the next day, and then we had a Girl´s night with the YSA members in our branch. We made cookies and other things and talked and we were going to watch a movie (don´t worry, it would´ve been mission appropriate) but we didn´t end up having time before we had to be back in piso. But we had so much fun with them!

Saturday morning we went way out in the boonies of a pueblo to go teach a future that we got from the elders in Sevilla. We finally found someone, Dani, to take us out there in his car. So we drove and hour and 15 minutes to get all the way out to their house. The kid´s name was José, he´s 21 years old. His entire family was there too, so we ended up teaching a family of 5 from Bolivia. José made us lunch, and we sat and chatted and got to know each other. They´re a way cool family! They definitely didn´t know how mission life works as they invited us to stay the night and have a BBQ with them the next day. Haha, obviously we couldn´t but it was nice of them to invite us! We´re really excited about teaching them. It stinks that they´re so far away, but they said they were willing to come to us, so that´s always a good sign. Most of all the parents were so excited! That´s the coolest part! Because I wasn´t sure what was going to happen, but that was out biggest miracle this week, that family. Then we had an activity later that night and we had a menos activo come. His name is Chema. He´s only been a member for 2 or 3 years and he´s super cool! He´s 22 years old and we had fun with him and we had a lesson with him yesterday as well. We´re working hard with him, he´s definitely "rescue"able. 

So that´s been our week. It was a really good one! Lots of really good inspiring stuff and even more miracles! It made me feel so good to have that probably be my last real week in Badajoz. Transfer calls come in this week and we´re pretty sure I´ll be heading off to another area. I´ll let you know on Sunday what´s happening. This week we´re emailing today, but we´ll be in Sevilla on friday for zone conference and a zone pday , then we´ll travel back saturday morning and work saturday night, sunday we get to SKYPE!!!!! and we´re having a branch movie night right after that and then it´ll be pday again. And if I leave then I´ll leave tuesday night/wednesday morning, so I basically have only a few real days left in Badajoz. 

Oh Badajoz, it´s been a good area. It´s a hard area, but it´s were I´ve seen the most miracles. I´ve honestly become a missionary here. Of course I´m not a perfect missionary, but I´ve learned how to deal with just about every situation here, haha. Yeah, I´m ready to leave, but I will always love Badajoz, the people, and especially the crazy members, even with all their quirks and imperfections. 

Well thank you all for your love! I can´t wait to talk to you on sunday. For those reading this that I won´t talk to on sunday, Happy Mother´s Day! Love you all!
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Paige Walton

Apr 28
to me, Elliot, Tyler, Whitney, Luke
Hey there! 

So we had a really good week this week! We had our district meeting here this week and the ZL´s were there too. They were so sweet! They wanted so bad to help us get something going here, so the entire district meeting was helping us. We asked our ward mission leader to come and help us out and the ZL´s did President´s lesson for getting references that we learned in special training conference a few weeks back. It went surprisingly well and we got some awesome new references. After that we were walking the Cáceres missionaries to the train station for them to head back to their areas, and there was a man that stopped us in the street. He apparently had been contacted by missionaries before and wanted to know when we could meet with him. So we have a cita with him this week and we´ll see how that goes. 

After that we traveled to Sevilla. We had intercambios (exchanges) so we had to meet the sister training leaders in Sevilla. I went to Jerez with Hna Cameron and Hna Herrera stayed in Badajoz with Hna Anderson. It was nice to get out of Badajoz for a little while, but I missed it a lot more than I thought I would. I was good for me to recognize that I do still love this place. So we got to Jerez at about 9 that night and still had an hour and a little bit to go out and work. We were supposed to have a cita, but she wasn´t there, so we spent the rest of the night contacting and trying to find antiguos and menos activos. Then we went home to their piso to plan for the next day. I was sitting down, well in the process of sitting down, when a gecko scurries out from under the desk! Oh my gosh! It was huge! I´m really bummed I didn´t get a picture of it, but we were a little bit in shock. Haha, we had no idea what to do. We spent a good amount of time trying to get it out of the piso, but it was a big sucker and was super fast too. We finally got it out into the hallway and calmed down a little more. We decided to try to put it in a box and take it outside so it wouldn´t come back in or go into the neighbor´s pisos. We were trying to get it in when it escaped and ran under the neighbor´s door. Haha, woops! We quickly shut the door after that and started laughing so hard!

The next day we had a pretty good day. We had a few citas, but a lot of them fell through. We got some cool futures though so that´s always nice. There were a lot of miracles that happened in Badajoz while I was gone though which was so nice! That´s one of the best things about intercambios, they usually spark something good. 

On Thursday we traveled back to Sevilla and then back to Badajoz. That night we spent about an hour making phone calls trying to find some citas. Everyone wanted to meet with us, but at all the wrong times, haha. So that was frustrating, but we did get some good citas for this week, so that´ll be nice. Then we went to the house of a YSA member. She´s so cool! Her name is Betty, she´s from Taiwan and is here studying music. She´s a piano major and she plays incredibly! It was fun to get to know her better. She´s a really cool girl. Oh! We also got a really cool phone call from our ZL´s that day. There is an investigator that lives in our branch boundaries (even though it´s really not that close to us) that a companionship thought in Sevilla. They taught him lesson 0 and he accepted the challenge to get baptized. He´s really excited and we´re trying out best to find a way and a day to be able to go out there and meet with him. 

Friday we found some good new futures. We went to a house to knock a door of an antiguo investigator. When we got there, I realized it was the same house as an investigator that we´re trying to drop. haha, we decided to try it anyway. The antiguo turned out to be his mom, and we got to meet his sister too. They´re both really cool and I can see a lot of potential from them. Then later that night we were walking home and there was a group of 12/13 year olds walking down the street. One of the girls was  like "Hey look! Testigos! (Jehovah´s Witnesses)" We politely corrected her. As soon as they heard my gringo accent, they asked where I was from. When I told them I was american they thought it was the coolest thing and they came over to talk to us. They asked a little about the church and then told us "maybe you guys could teach us a little about your church someday!" Of course we said yes and got the phone number of one of the girls. 

Saturday we had coordination meeting with Dani, our branch mission leader in the morning, and then we had an eating cita for medio día with a family that lives like on the other side of the city than the capilla. I wasn´t feeling up to walking it that morning, so we decided to try the public bus system for the first time. ha, yeah, bad idea. It took an extra hour between waiting for the bus and actually getting there. Haha, yeah learned my lesson, even when I´m not feeling it, don´t take a bus for the first time if you don´t really know where you´re going. We got there just fine, but a little late. Then we had a few more good citas that night and then headed home. 

Sunday we had church of course in the morning, and then we had another eating cita with a member. So we got there as fast as we could, ate and then headed home. We then had a cita with Mariana and Marta, the mom and sister that we found on friday. It was an awesome cita! We´ll see where it goes. Marta, the daughter, is 22 years old and she really surprised me. She asked if she could say the prayer at the end (ok, someone asking to say it is a really big deal!) And then we had a movie night in the church for an activity right after that. We invited her and she without hesitation joined in. So we took her with us and she seemed to really enjoy herself. Thank goodness the other YSA members were there. There are a few girls of that age in our branch and they were all there and they welcomed her so well! I was really impressed. They even asked her to go out for a walk with them afterwords, but she had to be home. So we took her home and then headed home ourselves. It was a really cool day. Yes, of course it wasn´t perfect, but it was a pretty good day. 

This week we´re also doing something as a mission. We are doing a week of consecration and perfect obedience. We´re expecting awesome experiences and even more miracles to fill this week! I´m so excited! It´s been a while since I really felt like I was doing something here in Badajoz, but things are looking up again. I´m excited to have a week to give even more of myself to the work, and then test the Lord. I have no doubt that it´s going to be a great week! 

Well thank you all for your love, your prayers, your support, and your examples. Keep up the good work at home, look for opportunities to share the gospel, they´re there. It doesn´t mean you have to give a book of mormon away, just share a little part of your testimony with someone who truly needs it, and someone who truly wants to know. You´ll be blessed, I promise! I love you all! Have an awesome week!

Hermana Walton