Tuesday, September 30, 2014

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Paige Walton

Sep 29 (1 day ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney
Buenas! (the common spanish greeting...)

Well, we had a good week. A little slower than would have been nice, but that´s alright. That´s misisonary work for ya. Haha. We did have some really good things happen though, too. We have a part member family that we´re teaching. The kids are all members and the parents want to get baptized, and they are working on getting married so that they can be. It was a little strange though because the Dad would always come to church but he would never show up to our citas, and this week we finally got to teach him! It was so nice! He´s got a few things he´s got to understand, we´re going to have to start over with him, but it´s so cool how excited they are to get baptized and how much they really just want to do it. They´re from Romania and they´re waiting for a paper from there and then they can get married, so hopefully that will happen soon. 

We also got a new investigator this week who is really cool. Her name is Ana. She´s 17 and she was a refernce from one of her friends who is serving a mission in Greece right now. So she already has that connection to the church and she knows a little bit and she´s so open! She´s really cool. Sadly she didn´t end up coming to church yesterday, but she really is just incredible! We´re really grateful to be able to teach her. 

We also had a tri-zone conference on Friday with President Deere and a whole bunch of missionaries which was really fun. President gave a really cool taller on the atonement and it really helped me to understand it better. It´s crazy how much you learn in the mission. Simple things that you thought you understood, you realize they have so much depth to them and that you really are only just beginning to understand it. But that was a really fun conference and it was fun to see some friends that I hadn´t seen for a while. 

I had to give a talk yesterday in church. It was interesting...I guess it went well. Haha. I didn´t have much time so it was a little rushed in preparation, but it turned out fine. 

I really am not sure what to write about this week. Haha. Sorry, it´s a lame one. We just didn´t have that much going on this week. We did a lot of walking and door knocking and not much came from it, but we´re trying to get the area going a little more. 

I do have to say that I´m so incredibly excited for general conference this weekend, though! It´s almost better than Christmas for a missionary! I just love general conference with my whole heart. I´m excited to see what it has for us this time. Something cool President Deere always invites us to do is to write down one or two or however many questions that you want and then pray about them and ask to receive an answer during conference. I invite you all to do it, too. It really works. That´s the coolest part about conference, I think. It´s always brings personal revelation. 

Well, I hope all is well there at home. I love you all! Thank you for being in my life! Have a great week!

Hna Walton

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

MÁLAGA

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Paige Walton

Sep 22 (1 day ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney
Hey there! 

Alright I´m pretty sure that I start all my emails out basically the same way, but at this point I don´t really know what else to say. So "hey there" is just going to have to keep working. Haha. Sorry. 

Anyway, it´s been a good week! We had a really good pday last week and we all went bowling together as a district. I do have to boast a little of myself and tell you I got the overall win with a 149! Haha, I´m pretty sure that´s a new record for me. But we had a lot of fun. Then we had district meeting afterwords. 

Tuesday was sent finishing packing and saying goodbye to people and getting everything situated before transfers. It was a long day, but we got everything done. Well, almost. There were a few people I wanted to see that we didn´t have time for, but I got most of them in. 

Wednesday was spent traveling the whole day. I left at 10:45 and got to Málaga at 5:30. Then we went home and dropped my stuff off and then we had english class and noche de hogar that night. 

Since then we´ve had some good citas and some good futures and all that. It´s been nice to change areas and get something new, but I´m also in that weird transition period now of having to start over and learn new names and streets and bus schedules and all that again. But that´s ok. It´s not like I didn´t expect that. But things are going well! I love my comp! She´s so cute! She´s from Sacramento, CA and we get along really well and are just laughing a lot, so that´s a good thing. 

I´m also really excited to be in this ward. It seems great. Obviously I don´t know much yet, but I´m very excited. Málaga is a different place, but in a very good way. I´m excited to be in the southern part of the country (Andalucía) which is what everyone raves about in the mission. People always say they love Andalucía, so I´m really excited I´ll be able to finish my mission here. Oh! And here´s my new address for those that will actually use it...aka...Mom. Haha.  

Hna Paige Walton
Avda Manual Torres Nº6, 1ºB
Málaga, Andalucía 29003 
España

Hey guys, sorry it´s short this week, but I gotta go now. Love you all with my whole heart! You´re the best! 

Hna Walton
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Paige Walton

Sep 15 (8 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney
Ok, well let´s start with the big news first. Transfers! Friday was a rough day. We got a call from President while we were in an eating cita and we couldn´t answer and so we knew for sure he was going to call back, we just didn´t know when so we spent a lot more time just waiting and thinking about what was going to happen until he finally called again. And I´m very excited to tell you all that I will be ending my mission in no better place than Málaga! I´m super excited! There are 4 wards there and I will be in ward 2 with Hna Andrus. I met her briefly, but don´t know her very well. So I´ll tell you more about her next week. 

So Monday last week we went book shopping (don´t worry, stricktly after the mission stuff) and then hung out at home for a little. Then we went and had a cita with a cute little menos activa family that we love! They´re getting there are will come back eventually, but it´ll take some more time. 

Tuesday we a cool activity for the women of Europe where there was a broadcast from Germany and we got to hear from Elder Bednar and Elder Ballard along with a few other people and general authorities. It was pretty cool.

We did have a pretty big miracle this week, actually we had lots, but Tuesday our Bishop called us to tell us that he had talked to Xiomara´s mom and that she had agreed to take the lessons, so we got to go see her on Wednesday and she´s really great! We´ll see where it goes with her. Then we went and ate with Neli and Juanito, our older couple that had fechas before. 

Thursday we made cookies with the menos activa family that we love. The family was obbsessed! Haha, the cookies turned out very well, so that was good. And then we finally got to have another cita with Alicia. She´s an investigator that we´ve had since a little before I got here, but she wasn´t around for summer...but we finally got to see her again which was nice. We also have a posibility of teaching her sister, too.

Friday was the day we got transfer calls, so it was stressful just for that reason, but we also had a huge miracle! Lydia, one of our menos activas, has been sick since I´ve been here and she hasn´t been able to hear very well at all because of it. But we went and had a lesson, it wasn´t anything special, but we said the closing prayer, and she looked at us and said "I can hear!" She then ran to the window and started screaming and was running around the house laughing and singing and happy as can be! In some moment during the prayer her hearing came back. It was such an incredible miracle. 

That night we went to an activity and the elders did a really funny missionary remix version of a popular enrique iglesias song called bailando. It was hilarious! 

Saturday we had some really good citas, especially with Aichata, a new investigator from Africa. She was taught by the elders but we lost contact with her since they passed that are over to us a few transfers ago, but she´s great! We´re really excited about her. 

Sunday was my last day at church here, but it was a great one because we rescued Xiomara officially! I just love that girl! I really feel like she was the reason that I came to Cartagena. Then we went to her house to eat after church and we had a cita with Sila. He´s still progressing, but he probably won´t get baptized on the 27th. And then we went and said goodbye to some of my favorite people. That was rough, but it´s ok. I knew it was coming at some point. 

It was a really good week. I´m sad to have to leave Cartagena, but I´ve been very grateful to be here, too. I´m excited to see what Málaga has to offer. I´ll let you know all about it next week. Love you all!

Monday, September 8, 2014


Uh face masks???  ha ha
Making cookies with the YSA

Paige Walton

Attachments5:20 AM (10 hours ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney
Hey there everyone! 

Well, this week was a lot better. It didn´t start out all too great, but it got a lot better. We changed our pday this week and so we emailed last monday, but then we went out to work. We had a great lesson with our fecha, Sila, and also with Xiomara, my favorite person in the whole world! I just love her so much!

Tuesday we had our pday. We changed it because we had gotten some tickets to go see all the historical sites in Cartagena, and a lot of them aren´t open on Monday, so we did it on Tuesday instead. We went and saw some old Roman ruins, and a really cool old Roman Ampitheater. That was really cool! When we were there we met some Welsh people. They were really funny. It also made me feel a lot better that they were more white than we were. We may not be as tan as spanish people (even though this is the most tan I´ve been in my life), but it´s good to know that there are still people more white than we are. Haha, anyway. Then I got some new skirts! Man, I´ve been needing that for so long. It´s nice to have more than one option of which skirt I´m going to wear. 

Wednesday we had a cita with María José. She´s our 27 year old spanish investigator that´s progressing really slowly. Still no changes in the speed of her progression, but she´s definitely still progressing so we´re very happy about that. We had an eating cita with us and Xiomara came, too. She had fun. She´s friends with their son that´s on his mission, so I think it was really good for her. It was fun to have her there, too. 

Thursday was kind of spent as a walking around day. 

Friday we had zone conference in the morning. Then we had a really good cita with Lydia, our menos activa, well one of them...haha. And then for the afternoon we had a girl´s night with Xiomara and the YSA members of our ward to help her feel more comfortable in the ward. We made cookies and had so much fun! It was really nice to do something different. We had a good time. 

Saturday we had another good cita with Sila and taught him finally about the Restoration (he needed a basis of other things before we could even talk about that). We also had a really good cita with Nicolas, one of our other menos activos. Then we went to the church and I had the elders give me a blessing because I´ve been having some dizzy spells lately that we´re not sure what´s causing them (don´t worry mom, it´s nothing to worry about, we´re taking care of it). So they gave me a blessing and it´s been a little better since then, but they still happen every once in a while.

NEWS FLASH!!!!! Nicolas is no longer menos activo! We rescued him yesterday. Yesterday was really nice. We had all 3 of our progressing menos activos in church yesterday -- Lydia, Nicolas, and Xiomara. It was so nice to see them all there! The cool thing is that Xiomara can be rescued if she comes to church next week, and Lydia can be rescued the week after that! So we´re really excited about that. We also had another really good cita with Sila. He´s still got his baptismal fecha and things are going well. We´re really excited for him. I´m just bummed that I won´t be here. He´s hilarious though. We´re grateful that we´ve been able to teach him. 

Oh we also found these really cool face masks at the grocery store that we´ve fallen in love with and we´ve used them a few times. Of course we took pictures, I´ll attach one for you to see our loveliness. I´m also going to send a picture of one of the sites we went to that has part of the old Roman road and how the ciy would´ve looked back then. And then I´ll also send one of us making cookies. Enjoy!

Anyway, it´s been a good week. Not perfect, but good. We´re a lot happier and we´re doing well. Thank you for all your support and love and prayers. I love you all so much! See you December 27th! (It´s a for sure things now :)  ). 

Hna Walton

PAELLA!!!!​!

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Paige Walton

AttachmentsSep 1 (7 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney
Alright Family! I´ve got some good stories for this week. 

Although things are still going more slowly and we´re still dying a little of heat, things went better this week. Let´s start out with our miracle cita on Wednesday. We had a cita with a menos activo named Nicolas. We weren´t really planning on seeing him, but we had some time and called him because we were in his area. He didn´t sound peppy or happy or like his normal self at all on the phone and so we knew that something was up. We got to the lesson and he started complaining about a lot of things and we just threw the lesson we had planned out the window and went with the spirit. And thank goodness we did. We got to the end of the lesson and he admitted to us that when we called him and asked to see him he had decided to tell us that he was done with the church, with God, with all of it. He was going to pack up all his things and he was going to run the next day without anyone knowing where he was going, because he didn´t know where he was going to go. But when we were talking to him, he completely changed his mind and decided that was not what he needed. I don´t know what we said to change his mind, but I can promise you it wasn´t us. It was a really cool miracle though, and we were very grateful to be able to be a part of that. He´s now come to church 3 weeks in a row and can get rescued once he has an interview with the bishop!

We also got to finally see Xiomara this week after going a little while without seeing her. She´s just so cute and I love her so much! She also came to church yesterday and is very close to being rescued as well. She also is getting herself prepared to receive her patriarchal blessing which is something she´s really excited for! 

Last night we had a cita with Sila, our muslim investigator, and we set a baptismal fecha with him! It´s set for the 27th of September. He´s still got a lot of things to learn and a whole lot of questions we have to reslove, but we think we can definitely get him there! So pray for him please! It a very interesting experience to teach him, but it´s also been good to have something to push us both, something different, not our normal "catholic" investigator. Haha, 

We also had a really fun eating cita this week. We went to our Bishop´s house on Tuesday and we walked in and they say, actually you guys are going to cook for us and we´re going to tell you how to do it. So they taught us how to make paella from scratch and it was so so so good! I´m so excited! And it was an all-natural paella, unlike a lot of other paella dishes I´ve eaten, and it was so much better, too. I´m excited to make it for you all someday. 

Oh, and I got my trunky papers this week! Those are the papers that tell you your release date and all of the things you have to do before you can go home and so that the mission can prepare for your leaving. It´s crazy! One of those times that it hits you that a mission really does end. You guys will actually also be getting your own trunky papers this week. And it will have a date on there for my release date, but just ignore that. We´re working on changing it. It´s looking right now like it will be the 27th of December. Hna Deere is working on finalizing that and she said she´d let us know as soon as she knows, so as soon as I know, you´ll know as well. But it looks like I will definitely be home in time for BYU to start winter semester. WOOT WOOT!!!! Haha,

So there´s your update for the week. I love you all! Have an awesome week! Talk to you next week.

Hna Walton

Our paella with the Bishop

Paige Walton

AttachmentsAug 25
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney
Well hey there! 

Alrighty so this week...well...we had intercambios with the SHEs this week and that was really fun. I was with hna Blake and she´s just so cute! Love her so much! We had fun together and had a lot of miracles. The biggest of which being that we had citas the whole time which hasn´t happened in a very long time. That was a nice break. During intercambios we went to see Hna Brown "die" as she went home this week. That´s just so weird to me that that group is home now! It´s already weird not having them here, but I´m excited for them as well. 

We also went to Lydia´s this week and ate lunch with her. She´s one of the menos activas we are working with. We ate Fufu which is a classic African food that you eat with your hands. It´s like a really sticky corn meal/potato thing and you dip it in soup and then eat it and it´s really good! It wasn´t the first time I´ve eaten it, we had it a few times in Badajoz, but it was the first time I´d eaten it with my hands, haha, so that was fun!

We also had an investigator in church yesterday! It´s a pretty big deal considering it´s the first one we´ve had since I´ve been in Cartagena. It was really nice to have someone there. We´ve had menos activos, some that are pretty consistently coming now which is nice, but not investigators, so we were very happy about that. His name is Sila. He´s from Mali and is muslim, but we´ve been teaching him for the last 3 or 4 weeks and he seems to be actually progressing so that´s good! It´s interesting and difficult to teach someone who has no christian backgound knowledge, but it´s a good challenge, too. 

We also got to meet the first member in Spain yesterday. He lives in Utah know, but they come back every summer and were in our ward yesterday. He´s incredibly hilarious! He speaks some crazy spanglish and he´s so cute! My comp and I both gave talks yesterday, too, and he just kept complimenting us. I mean ok, they were pretty decent talks, but they weren´t as good as he was saying. He was just a really funny old man. So we took a picture with him. haha. 

Let´s see, I´m not really sure what else to tell you all about. It´s been a fine week. We´re really excited that this week is the last week of August and we´re hoping that things can finally start to go back to normal a little bit after this week. We´ll see though. 

We´re going to go see some cool historical sites here in Cartagena for pday today which we´re excited about. Cartagena is where the Punic Wars were fought and it´s also the 2nd largest Roman influenced city in Spain, so there are some really really cools things to see here. I´ll take lots of pictures and hopefully have something cool to talk about next week. Haha.

Well I love you all lots! Have a great week! Enjoy the rain and keep on keepin´ on. Love you!

Hna Walton