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Paige Walton	6:05 AM (9 hours ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke

Well this week was interesting. Haha, it probably won´t be a very long email because honestly I can´t remember much about what happened. Haha, it was just one of those weeks. Went by really fast, and by the end of it, you wonder what happened and if you really did anything. So let´s see. We had a special training conference with President Deere on tuesday in Sevilla, which means we lost another day to traveling, that´s one of the harder things about this area, we are always traveling! At least once if not twice a week and we lose a lot of time working in our area. It was a good conference, but it´s hard to be traveling for 7 hours in total just for a 3 hour conference. 

We did find a cool little hotdog place though. It´s right next to the capilla and it´s like a gourmet hot dog place that people have told us about and that´s supposed to be really good, so we caved one night and bought one on our way home from the capilla. They´re huge! They´re pretty good too, not an I´d eat you everyday good, but they´re pretty good. 

We also had to drop one of our fechas this week. Gladis, she told us she wasn´t really ready or wanting to do it right now, so we said ok and we´re going to keep working with her and maybe in the future things´ll work out. We also still haven´t met with Fransisco as he spent yet another week at the dentist´s office, but we´re crossing our fingers for this week. As for Maria, we gave her a challenge to read as much of the book of mormon as she can in one month and try to figure things out. She just doesn´t have a strong enough understanding or testimony of things yet to get baptized. So we´ll see how it goes after this month, if she´ll read and all that kind of stuff. And then after that we´ll see if she´ll either get baptized or we´ll have to drop her as an investigator. It´s rough, but those are kind of really our only two options with her right now. She´s been investigating for 2 years, has had plenty of opportunities to get baptized, has had fechas and everything, she´s just never gone through with it yet, so we´ll see. 

We went to Sevilla again saturday night for Stake Conference. We rode down with a member family which was nice, so we didn´t have to pay for it. Then we stayed the night with the hermanas there. They have this little baby piso and we had 7 hermanas staying there that night, it was a little crazy, but we had fun! We made a megabed with all their mattresses and just covered their entire livingroom floor, legitimately from wall to wall, and slept the best we could. haha. We also found a cute little 50s dinner so we went and got real american milkshakes! 

The next morning (sunday) we went to the general session of conference which was a special broadcast for Spain, Portugal, and Cape Verde from church HQ. It was kind of fun to hear some of the general authorities actually speaking in spanish. Gringo spanish is great! And a whole lot easier to understand. Then we were expecting to just go home after that with the family, but apparently they had other plans. Haha. We couldn´t find them after the session so we called them and they told us that they had gone to eat with another family that they knew there and they weren´t going home until 6 ish. So we said ok and told them we´d wait for them in the capilla and get some planning done for this week that we hadn´t had time to do yet. Then the bishop from one of the wards in Sevilla came in and told us that we had to leave so that he could lock up the church. Well, we explained our situation to him, and he then replied with an invitation to join him and his family for lunch. We accepted of course as we had no where else to go. They were the cutest young little family. They had 3 adorable little kids and we had fun playing with them. We had fish, mashed potatoes, and salad. It was like a normal sunday meal! And then hung at their house and looked at scrapbooks and all that fun stuff (nope, somethings never change in mormon culture) and then the mom took us back to the chuch to meet the family there at 6. One problem, the family wasn´t there, and they didn´t show up until 7:30. So that was fun! We put ourselves to work though and cleaned up all the chairs they had set out for stake conference. Needless to say, we got our workout in for the day. They finally came and then we headed for home. 

So yeah, that´s my week. Nothing too exciting, but yep. Haha, sorry it´s nothing grand this week. We´re praying for new investigators this week as the ones we have don´t seem to be progressing at all. We are still going to work with them as much as we can, but some new work would be a great relief for us right now. But I have the best companion and we keep each other entertained and busy, so although it´s a hard area, and the work is rough, we´re happy, most of the time, haha, and working hard. 

Well I love you all lots! Good luck in all you do this week and I can´t wait to hear more from you next week! 

Hna Walton

1. Our massive hotdogs

2. Our car ride to sevilla (yes, we were really sitting that close together the entire trip, oh european cars!)

The Rollercoasters of mission life...

Kristen Walton< kbwalton3@gmail.com>

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6 Months and Still Going Strong!!! 1 message

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Paige Walton < paige.walton@myldsmail.net>	Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 4:39 AM
To: Kristen Walton <kbwalton3@gmail.com>, Tyler Walton <tyler@goxp.com>, Luke Wilding <lukewilding4@gmail.com>, Whitney Wilding <whitneywilding3@gmail.com>, Elliot Walton <ewalton15@gmail.com>
Yeah so I hit my 6 month mark this last week! How crazy is that? Man I can´t believe that, but at the same time I can. But things are going well here in Badjoz (I hope you learned how to pronounce that one now dad). We´ve had our rough moments, and this last week was hard, but that kind of just how mission life seems to go. It´s a constant roller coaster and you have to work hard for everything you get, only to turn around and work 10 times harder to keep it.  So this week started out good with a nice, fun p-day (the castle that I sent you a picture of last week). And then things went a little weird after that. Tuesday we basically spent all day, apart from 4 hours, on a bus. We had intercambios (exchanges?? maybe that´s the word??) with the sister training leaders on wednesday so that was why. We caught a bus on tuesday morning to go to Cáceres (a 2 hr bus ride) for district meeting there. Then we stayed there until we had to catch our bus to Sevilla (a 4 hr bus ride) where thank goodness we got to watch a movie! That´s the nice thing about the longer bus rides on nicer buses. So we read the spanish subtitles of the movie Megamind. Haha, it´s a pretty funny movie. I enjoyed it. In Sevilla we met up with the SHEs and then Hna Brown came with me back to Badajoz (a 3 hr bus ride!). Haha oh man, traveling, I never thought I would spend so much time on a bus. It´s a dang good thing I don´t get car sick. It´s still not fun, not at all, but it´s at least managable. Wednesday was a good day. Just a normal day. We emailed a menos activa a spiritual thought for the week because she lives too far away for us to go out and visit her, then went to our Ward Mission Leader´s house for lunch where we are liver. Yeah, not a fan, haha. Then we met up with the elders and went to a residency home to go spend some time with some elderly people. That´s always fun! They´re so sweet! A little hard to understand sometimes, but they´re still fun. Then after that we had some good citas with 2 of our fechas. Well ok, we thought we had one good lesson, and the other one kind of through Hna Muse and I for a loop when she got back and we talked about it. I´ll tell you about it in just a sec. Thursday we traveled again to Sevilla to re-exchange companions and then Hna Muse and I headed back to Badajoz to get back to work. So now about the tricky parts of this week. The first lesson we had on wednesday was with Gladis. We talked about the importance of coming to church and what it means and that she needs to be there on Sundays. We thought everything went well, she told us she understood it all and she got why she needed to be there and everything was fine, until she didn´t show up to church yesterday, again, and when we called her later we found out that she went to church with her husband (who she´s been seperated from for a while and we haven´t heard good things about him from her) in her other church. Oh man, that was a rough one. Especially since the rule here is that your investigators have to come to church twice before you can baptize them and next week is stake conference in Sevilla, so now we´re going to have to move her baptism back a week, at the least.  The second lesson we had was with María. She was very iffy about everything. We found out she isn´t consistently reading the BoM which we didn´t know. And then from other people, we found out that she´s got some fears of commitment and doesn´t really understand the Atonement, so her baptism in a week and a half isn´t feeling too strong right now either. We´ve got a whole lot of work to do with her still, but we´re praying for a miracle that she´ll be able to make it work for the 8th.  As for Fransisco, we´ve seen him in the streets and talked to him a few times there, but haven´t been able to meet with him this week. He spends all morning in rehab for his legs and then this past week spent the afternoons in the dentists office. He´s getting a whole lot of work done, teeth pulled, replacements being put back in, all that fun stuff, so he hasn´t had much time or energy to meet with us, hopefully this week though. But yeah, we will probably have to move his baptism too. So there´s the info for this week! Haha, oh man. It was a week of lots of prayers and frustration and fasting. And if there´s one thing I learned this week, it´s that I do absolutely nothing in this work. Everything that happens depends on other people. The missionary I am and can become is so dependant on companions, the people you meet and get to teach depends on the Lord, and the decisions they make and things they do depends completely on them. This work is so very much not about me. I may be here, I may be the one doing the actions, but I am not doing anything. That´s what I´ve learned this week. It was funny, Hna Muse and I were talking yesterday about how last week all these miracles just kind of fell into our laps, and we asked oursleves "could it really just be that easy?" And this week we found the answer to be a big strong NO!!! Haha, man, we really had to work hard this week with the little time we felt like we had, and hopefully it´ll pay off soon, because we felt like we just back-tracked the whole week. Yet somehow in the midst of this week, I could honestly see my love for this work grow. I could see myself being sad to think of leaving this life that I´ve begun. I found myself being ok with rejection and laughing it off instead. I found my testimony of my Savior grow and I knew that even though it was a rough week, I have nothing to complain about, because I have my Savior, and there is nothing that I´ve felt that He hasn´t. There is nothing that gone on that hasn´t been a part of my Heavenly Father´s plan. There is nothing that happened this last week that wasn´t left in His hands. And how grateful I am for that knowledge, that everything in the end is in His hands.  I know that this is the work of the Savior, there is no doubt that He is in it, that He only needs us here so that we can strengthen ourselves and become better, I know he doesn´t need someone as weak as me out here trying to bring His children back home to Him. He could do it so much easier with others, but I know He knows what I need. The things I need to learn and grow, the experiences I need to push me to become the person He needs me to be, all of this can only be found through the experiences of the mission. I´m learning that now. And that´s why I´m here. To be the instrument in His hands. That although I am weak, He has called me to this work, that I may bring some soul unto repentance and back to live with His and receive His glory in the next life. There is no greater work than this, the salvation of our brethren. I love my Savior and am grateful for His atoning sacrifice. I cannot understand fully the atonement, but I know enough to be grateful for it. I love you all. Don´t worry about me out here, I´m living on the Lord´s time and always in His hands. Know that I am always praying for you and I love you more than all the stars in the sky. Hermana Walton One of my favorite picture of Badajoz! Look how pretty it is!!!!

Yay, looks like a GOOD week!

subject)

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Paige Walton	10:46 AM (1 hour ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke

the castle that we went to today. hna muse, me, elder chapple, and elder medina

Miracle Week in Badajoz!!!​!

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Paige Walton	10:39 AM (1 hour ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke

Man, I wish I had 3 hours to tell you all the cool things that happened this past week. It was an incredible week. And things like this don´t happen in European missions, and most definitely not in Badajoz, haha. So the great part of this week, we set 3 baptismal fechas (dates) this week! And it´s not a family, it´s 3 seperate people! Which yes, getting a family would be awesome, but getting 3 seperate fechas in a week is a big deal. Let´s just say that the hermanas in Badajoz haven´t had a baptism in more than 5 months. So we´re very excited about it! We are also very humbled for this experience. The elders here are having the complete opposite experience, walking the length of their area one day, the width of it the next, and then having to do it again. They aren´t finding anyone to teach or anyone that is home and will let them in. I feel very much like my favorite scripture this week (Alma 26:11-12). We had a lot of success, but we know that none of it is coming from us, it has all been blessings from the Lord. We don´t know why we are the ones to be here for these blessings, but we are so grateful to be a part of these miracles. 

Alright, so investigator #1: His name is Fransisco. He´s a 55+ Spanish man. He´s in rehab and walks with crutches because he had an accident about a year ago and is finally starting to be able to walk again. He has a friend that´s a member in the US and he came to hear about the church through him. He´s just a really funny guy. We love him and he just soaks up everything that we give him. He´s got awesome questions and loves reading the Book of Mormon. He´s got a fecha for the 15th of February for now, but he´s got a big word of wisdom problem we´ve got to work through before that so we might have to push it back a little bit.

Investigator #2: Her name is María. She´s 28 and also spanish (what!?!?! yeah that´s right! no this hardly happens) and she´s been investigating the church for a few months. She´s been waiting for a sure answer as to whether the church is true before she gets baptized and from what we know, she´s doing everthing she can to get an answer and just hasn´t gotten one yet. So we had an awesome lesson on faith and read Alma 32:26-37 and set a fecha with her for the 8th of February.

Investigator #3: Her name is Gladys. She´s from Equador and is 45 ish years old. She´s currently living with a member friend and her son (16 years old, just got his 18 year old girlfriend pregnant. yeah, she´s got some really big family problems going on right now). But yeah, she´s awesome too. We set a fecha with her for the 8th of Feb as well.

Well those are the 3 investigators we have that are progressing right now. We are so grateful for them and for the chance that we have to work with them. They are great and we love them! Keep them and us in your prayers so that things may go through and that everything works out with them.

So funny things that happened this week. Last week for p-day the elders told us they were taking us to a surprise place. We had no idea what to expect, but we said ok and followed them (which can be a dangerous thing with elders). We walked for a while and finally came to this funny little park that has the coolest little toy! It´s a see-saw but instead of just moving up and down, it spins in a circle too! It was super fun! We spent a pretty good amount of time there hanging out, the best part...we were sitting there playing like 5 year olds and our ward mission leader walks past us with a look of "are you really going that?" on his face, it was pretty great.

Today for p-day we had a less active member take us and the elders to a nearby pueblo and we went to a really old castle. We couldn´t go inside it, but we were walking all around it and on the walls and all that cool stuff. It was really pretty and we had a good time. Then we went and got pollo asado (really good chicken) and went back to his house to eat. It was a fun day. It´s nice to be able to see what´s around you. And can I just say that Badajoz is beautiful??? There´s not a whole lot to do from a tourist standpoint, but it´s a beautiful old city. 

Well I wish I could tell you more, but that´s all I have time for this week. I love you all and hope that you can always feel that love. I hope that you can feel how much your Savior loves you too, because I can promise you that he does. He will be there to catch you when you fall, to comfort you when you cry, and to carry you through the fire. This gospel is true, I have no doubt of that. Everything I hold dear I have because of it, and I wouldn´t want my life any other way. Although there have been hard things because of it too, I wouldn´t trade them, for they are forming into the person that I know my Heavenly Father wants and needs me to be. And I hope that who I will be someday. I love you!!!

Hermana Walton

the sweet see-saw

Badajoz!!!

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Paige Walton	6:44 AM (13 hours ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke

Alright dad, let´s see if I can spell it so you can try to pronounce it. Baaa-daaa-hose, or maybe bah-dah-hose? Yeah, I think the second one is better. Alright, well this week. Man was this a big week. It was so much fun though! So tuesday I spent the morning packing, and although we missionaries may not have a whole bunch of stuff, it really does take a while to re-pack everything when you leave. Then we said goodbye to our mini missionaries and went to Alcantarilla, one of our pueblos in Murcia where I got to say goodbye to some of the people who I came to love more than I knew. Then we woke up wednesday morning and went to the bus station. We said goodbye to some of the elders that left before me and then my bus left at 11:15. Saying goodbye is never fun. As happy as I was for a transfer, saying goodbye to the members, the investigators, and the missionary friends you´ve made there is really hard. So my bus ride was literally to the other side of the country. We got to Sevilla at 6:45 where I met my new comp, Hna Muse. By the way I love her to death! She´s from Texas and I just love her. Then we caught a bus at 8 to get to Badajoz and got here at 11:30 wednesday night. Woot woot! a whole 12 hrs on a bus! haha. Yeah, it was a long day.

But wait! It doesn´t end here. We had time for weekly planning and one cita (which ended up falling through on us anyway) before we headed back to the bus station to go back to Sevilla again for zone conference the next morning. We got to Sevilla at 11:30 and then stayed the night in the piso of some of the hermanas there. Then we had zone conference in the morning and it was way fun to get to meet some new missionaries and see old missionaries that I hadn´t seen for a while. Oh! And my new district leader is Elder Harman and he basically is like Luke´s twin. It was really weird. But they look super similar and they have the same body build and they´re basically the same person. After zone conference we had a little time to eat and chat and then we caught another bus to go back to Badajoz friday night and got back here around 7:15. Oh man, we traveled so much this week! It was weird, but fun too. Although I haven´t gotten much sleep because we´re always getting home late, haha, but that´s ok. 

Then Saturday we had a normal day. We found this awesome new investigator that is just the coolest! His name is Maxi and he was an antiguo investigator. We got a cita with him and it went incredibly well and we´re hoping we can set a baptismal date with him tonight at the cita we have with him. He came to church yesterday, is married, stopped drinking on his own, and is basically a golden investigator! It was an incredible blessing. Oh! And did I mention if we get a baptismal date with him, that´ll be the first time the hermanas here have had a baptismal date in more than 5 months? Yeah, Badajoz is really pretty and clean and very european, old cultural buildings and all that fun stuff, but it´s known as one of the hardest areas in the mission. Haha. Woot woot! But we´re picking up some good speed and we´re going to get things going, so I´m still really excited to be here. 

So there isn´t a ward here, it´s a branch of about 45 people that regularly attend. It´s weird to have a small little building that´s like an office building as the church instead of a church building, but it´s kind of fun to have that experience too. From the people that I´ve met here so far, the members are really strong members, as you have to be in Spain, and I´m loving some of them already. It´s not hard to love people during the mission. When they´re the people you´re always around, who are taking care of you and smiling at you, you learn to love them as soon as you can. And the sooner the better.

Well things are good here. I´m loving Hna Muse! I´m really excited to work with her. And hey guess what! I got my package mommy! The day before I left! haha, nice timing huh? Yeah it was about time, but thank you so much! It was such a sweet package! I´m so excited for those books and for all the family history stuff. I was so hoping I would get that story of Lewis Barney, and there it was! But thank you so much! It was so appreciated, by my companion as well, she said to send you a big thank you for her little bag of goodies as well. I got your letter too, so I think I got everything that was sent there. And here´s my new address so you can send me stuff here in Badajoz too! 

Paige Walton

c/ Antonio Alvarez Nº6, 2-C

06005 Badajoz

España (or Spain, it doesn´t matter)

Well I love you all lots! Hope that everything is well there and that you´re enjoying the snow and cold weather! I´m always praying for you and know that you´re with me always. 

Con Amor, 

Hna Walton

This is a picture we took at a member´s house in Murcia the sunday before we left Murcia. It´s me and elders Adamsom and Johnson.

Transfer, transfer!  Off to new exciting destinations!

I´m Going to Portugal!!​!

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Paige Walton	11:39 am (3 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Whitney, Luke

Alright, so I´m not going to Portugal, but it´s about as close as you can get. I´ve been transferred to Badajoz!!! I´m super excited too! So I´ll probably pick up a little portugese, it´ll definitely still be spanish because i´m still in Spain, but I´m sure I´ll learn some portugese words too. My new companion is Hermana Muse, and she was actually here in Murcia with hna jarvis right before I came here, so I´ve heard lots about her and met her very briefly once. I´m super excited though! After 4 months here in Murcia, I´ve made some awesome friends and met and taught some incredible people that will be so hard to leave, but I´m also ready to have something new. Plus 4 months in a area is a good amount of time. Not too much, not too little, so it´s probably better that I leave before I get sick of it, haha. 

So let´s see...oh!!! Happy 2014 everyone!!! Isn´t that crazy? I feel like that came super fast. We had a lot of fun. We went to the capilla first and hung out with some of the members there. Then we went out to be a part of the spanish new year! It was super fun. We went to a big plaza and they do this thing where instead of the ball dropping thing they all watch the clock tower in Madrid and when the clock chimes 12, you eat a grape for every chime. So every chime you eat a grape and it represent good luck and prosperity for the 12 months of the year...I think. But it was super fun! Then there was a live band playing after. We stayed for a minute and listened to the worldly music that we actually do miss every once in a while, and then it was time for us to leave and head home.

We also had a really big zone conference this week with 2 other zones. We  had a normal zone conference for the morning and President talked and Hna Deere and the APs and then we had a lunch break. My stake president made us all paella! He´s incredible, and makes us paella all the time, and it is some dang good paella too. Then we had a talent show after lunch. There are some incredibly talented missionaries here, and some super funny ones too. I also got to see Hna Jarvis which was so much fun! We sang together for the talent show, we sang Part of Your World. I forgot how much I´ve missed her. She´s just the best. And then we took advantage of the little time she had before they had to catch a bus and went and visited some of the people we taught together. And then they missed their bus...so she stayed the night! Haha, that was so nice for me. To see her and have a break from a lot of stuff. It was so fun.

We also had some mini missionaries with us this week. It´s been interesting. It´s kind of been a tender mercy to help me get through the last little while I have here, but it´s been tough too. The planning and all that has surprisingly easy, we haven´t run out of thing to do, but it´s hard to be with them and my comp all at the same time. Sometime I´ve felt like it was the 3  south americans who can speak and have fun, and then that american girl over there. Haha. Oh man, language barriers, they don´t help with a lot of things. There are other reasons too, but ya know, whatever. We have tomorrow morning and then they´re going home so I´m not worried about it. And then I only have tomorrow night and then I´m gone!!!! Man that´s crazy! But I´m so excited, I can´t say it enough, I´m just SO EXCITED!!!!! 

So last night and today was yet another holiday here in Spain. I really am convinced they make up holidays just to get days off of work. Today is Dia de los Reyes, which is to celebrate the 3 wise men coming, this is the day that the spanish kids get their gifts. They usually get something from santa too, but they get more from the wise men. 

Today was a fun p-day. We went to the capilla and played fútbol with the elders and some members for a little while and then we went to go find some food. After going to 3 different places (that were no where near each other) and finding that there were way too many people in all of them, we finally found a good place to eat. We went to a place called a wok. It´s like a chinese buffet. And they have one of those things where you can pick all your veggies and meat and seafood and they´ll cook it all together for you. It was super good. And they had sushi too!!!! I mean it wasn´t the best sushi and it was a little dry because it´s a buffet and they only used cooked fish and veggies, but it was a good little taste to remind me.

Well, I honestly can´t think of what else happened this week, so I´ll end here. And sorry no pictures again this week, I don´t have my camera with me again. But I love you all and hope that everything is going well. Good luck with the moving of wards and all that. Don´t worry about me. I´m doing good! And I know that all the trials that I´ve had, I´m having and I will have are here only to help me grow. Some one sent me a quote, I can´t remember who, but it said that although sometimes we feel like we are straying from the Lord because of our weaknesses, it may very well mean that we are coming closer unto the Lord and allowing him to show us our weakness. I sure hope that´s what´s happening to me. I know that one day I will be ther missionary I hope to someday be, and the person that He wants me to be. I love you! Thank you for being my family and my friends. You are the greatest blessing in my life. I´ll talk to you next week from almost Portugal, haha.

Hermana Walton