Spain is HOT in July...

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Paige Walton	11:32 AM (25 minutes ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney

¡Hello! 

Welp, this week was a lot better than last week. We had a lot more to do, thank goodness, but it was still a little slow. We did still have a lot of citas fail on us, but we got through it and had a decent amount of lessons, so it was ok. And thank goodness we had some rain on Thursday which cooled it down here a lot. We´re geting some nice breezes and it´s been a little cloudier as well which is one of the biggest tender mercies to me! I´ve been so grateful for that! I mean don´t get me wrong, I´m still sweating buckets, but I think I´ve cut it down to maybe a 2 gallon bucket in place of maybe a 5 gallon bucket. Hopefully this continues for a little while. Dang spain and it´s crazy weather, sadly the heat won´t really go away until late October, November ish. It will be managable by the end of September, but it will still be hot. I guess it will also depend on where I go for my next and last area. WHAT!?!?!?! Yes, that´s right. In 4 weeks (well, a little less) I will be heading off to my last area. Oh my gosh that´s so strange to think about. Obviously I´m super excited to see you all, but I´m also getting more and more nervous about leaving the mission and going back to real life. 

Well, we did pick up a new investigator this week. Her name is Gertrudis and she´s 85. Yeah. Haha, she´s great and she was a reference from a member. She loves when we come over and she likes listening to us, but I really don´t think she´s going to progress that much. Mostly because she just talks the whole time and we don´t say anything. Haha, we tried to start teaching the plan of salvation this morning and we were there for about an hour and the only thing we talked about was pre-mortal life. Yep, in an hour, that was it. Haha, she really is super sweet! But it´s going to take a while if anything is going to happen with her. 

As for other investigators, we really haven´t seen any of the ones that could really progress this week for one reason or another. We did get to see Maria José, though. She´s the one that lost her little girl that´s progressing slowly, but she´s progressing. She finally committed to come to church next week. Only it´s not to come on a Sunday. We´re just going to show her around and let her feel the spirit there. We´re hoping that will spark something in her. But it´s a big deal that she said yes. We really are seeing progression in her, but it´s going to take a while for her to really be willing to take it all in. 

We also had special training with President Deere this week and interviews as well. I just love him. He´s really the best. I know I say that every time, but it´s totally true. He taught us about finding, especially in a time right now, where we´ve got to find, or we aren´t going to make our baptismal goal for the year. Obviously baptisms isn´t the only thing on our minds, it´s not the only thing that counts, but we have the faith to be able to do it. 

We did have a really cool miracle though on Saturday night. We went to visit a menos activa that we had never met and hadn´t been able to get to her house to see her all week and we were finally going to be able to get in there and see her. When we left, we knew exactly why we had a hard time getting in there all week and why we had to be there that night. 

So we walked in and there was a room full of youth, like 20-25 years old. And we both looked and each other and were like, welp, this could be interesting. And then there were 3 girls sitting on the couch and they just got up and were so extremely open to us and were so sweet! We sat there and talked to them for a good while and they had a bunch of questions about who we are, what we do, the normal things, and it was just so cool! They happened to all be named Andrea, haha, 2 of them live in Madrid and one here, and she´s got a whole lot of potential. We´re really excited about her! We got all their information and it was just such a miracle. We were so grateful. 

It´s times like that when you really do know that Heavenly Father is watching out for you. We were so grateful. 

We did have kind of a sad thing. Xiomara, the 18 year old menos activa that we´re working with that I just love with my whole heart, didn´t come to church this week. Had she come, we could´ve gotten her an interview with the Bishop and all she would´ve needed would´ve been and assignment and we would have officially rescued her, but it didn´t happen. Now we have to start all over again for the 3 out of 4 consecutive Sundays, but that´s ok. It was kind of for a legitimate reason. 

But there you go! Oh! We also had a really fun eating cita yesterday. It was with a English family that used to live here and they´ve been back for the summer visiting. They´re super fun! It was the mom and the 2 sons, 17 and 13 years old, and it was just so much fun! I felt like I was home with the fam again. The younger son was making stupid jokes the whole time, the boys wrestling and just being brothers, and we just had so much fun! I´ve decided english is a funnier language than spanish. The jokes are just a lot better. So that was nice, too, but we just had a really fun time! 

So I hope you all have a great week! Enjoy school starting, you may actually miss it one day! Love you all!

Hna Walton

the incredibly old roman ampitheater in cartagena that´s right outside a menos activa´s house. like right outside! it´s so pretty! the hill part at the back is the stadium seating, this is a back shot.

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Paige Walton	10:47 AM (5 hours ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney

Fam! Hey there! 

Well, my first week with my new comp has been awesome! She´s great and we´re enjoying each others company and laughing and talking almost all day long. Which is good, because we have basically nothing else to do. It´s been a rough week between trasnfers and changing companions and august heat and all that. We didn´t get as much done as we would have hoped, but things are going to be better this week. We´ve had a lot of citas fail on us lately which is hard, especially when they´re at the hottest part of the day (and it gets REALLY HOT!!!!) but we´re somehow surviving. Haha, not sure how. 

Well, I really am not sure what to tell you about this week. There was hardly anything. Let´s see...on tuesday we went around to a whole bunch  of people so that Hna Daines could say goodbye. We ate lunch with an investigator that we hadn´t seen for a while, the old couple, Neli and Juanito. It was good to see them again, but they´re both not doing too well health wise. 

Wednesday Hna Daines left and I was with Hna Brown for the day until both our companions came in. We went to a cita at her recent convert´s house and had a mini testimony meeting that was really powerful and so cool! There are 3 young kids, too. They have some of the strongest testimonies I have ever heard! Strong enough to impress anyone. 

We basically spent the rest of the day in and out of the bus station for different reasons. We ended up being there 6 times in total. Haha, needless to say it was a long day, but then my comp finally came in and it was good to have her there!

Thursday we had a bunch of citas fail on us, friday as well. Saturday we finally taught together, and then yesterday we had church and it was fun to have her get to meet some of the members finally. We also taught a few more lessons last night. Yesterday was a good day. 

But oh my gosh, I thought I was going to be ok through the summer, it hadn´t been that bad, but it really hit this week. I don´t know what changed, but it was really stong this week. The sun here just beats down on you all day and it´s hot and it´s humid, and you basically just want to shower 3 times a day...or better...just stay in a cool shower all day long! No wonder everyone just goes to the beach, I would, too! Haha, just be grateful we won´t be back here to visit in August. 

We have interviews with President this Wednesday and we´re excited to be able to talk to him. He´s just an incredible mission president. He´s the best! Interviews with him are always just such a spiritual experience. I love them! 

Anyway, nothing really exciting is happening, haha. Sorry nothing to tell you about other than failed citas and ice cream runs and chuches and sweat and all that fun stuff. Haha, enjoy the PC summer for me. 

Love you all lots! Have an awesome week!

Hermana Walton

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Paige Walton	Aug 4 (4 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney

Buenas! 

i hope everything is going well at home. you´re going to have to excuse the terrible punctuation of this email as the button to make the letters uppercase (yes, it took me about 5 minutes after writing that to remember it´s called the shift button) doesn´t work, so sorry.

well, not too much to talk about this week. we are still working hard with xiomara, our 18 year old less active that i just love with my whole heart! i really do feel that i was here to find her. she´s progressing well and has come to church the last 2 weeks now, which means we need one more and then get her a calling and she will officially be rescued! 

we´re also working with some other menos activos, especially lydia. she´s from ghana and she´s so funny! i love her to death! she´s doing better health wise and has been better about coming to church. so we´re grateful for her progression as well. 

oh so we got transfer calls friday night and hna daines will be leaving to elche with another companion and hna flake to learn that area and take over when hna flake goes home in a few weeks. and i am getting hna rindlisbacher! i love her to death! she was in cáceres when i was in badajoz and so we were in the same district and i just love her a whole bunch! i´m so so so excited! it´s kind of strange though because she only has 2 more transfers before she goes home which means we´ll probably only be together for one transfer so she can teach someone new the area before she leaves, and in 6 weeks i´ll be heading off to the last area of my mission. WHAT!!!!! yes, that´s strange. 

anyway, i just love you all so much. i hope things are going ok at home and that spirits are staying high. know how much i love you all and how much your savior loves you, too. if there´s anything i´ve learned in my time as a missionary it´s the love of our savior and the joy of the gospel. of course, life is not perfect, but there is no better way to live. our heavenly father loves us so incredibly much! there is no way that i can believe he doesn´t exist or that he isn´t in everything that happens in our lives. when the hard things come the only way through it is patience and the love of god. there´s no other way. we can try to suffer by ourselves, but there´s no point, he´s waiting there for us, he loves us, more than you can even understand. i feel just a small portion of that infinite love for each of you, and i love you all so incredibly much, so i can´t even imagine the great love he has for us. allow yourself to feel it. don´t suffer longer than you need to.  

i love you all! have a great week! talk to you next week!

hna walton

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Paige Walton	Jul 28 (11 days ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney

Well, it´s official! I´ve been a missionary for more than a year! I´m OLD! WHAT??? When did that happen? It´s crazy to be on the old end of the mission. But kind of nice to feel like I´ve got a good amount of time under my belt as a missionary and can mas o menos get through any situation that the world may through at you. Maybe not always with class, but hey! That was never a requirement. Haha. 

Anyway I hope everything went well today with Grammy´s funeral and that you are all staying happy and thinking of the good things and not the hard things. That´s something I´m so grateful for. One of the things I really didn´t want was to have hard memories at the end of my grandparent´s lives of them getting to the end and suffering. I never really saw it that much with her and I can focus on all the love that I have for her and the good memories that I have with her. You all may not be able to escape from it like I can, but I hope you can try to focus on the same things. She may not be here in the flesh, but she doesn´t need to be. We just have to get through this short time in our mortality to be able to be together forever and never have to say goodbye again. 

Anyway, it was a slow week. Haha, I think we´re realizing something that we should´ve realized a long time ago. We have one really bad week and so we try really hard the next week so we don´t have to do it again and then the next week is great! Then we expect it to keep going like that without us really trying as hard as we should. Well, we´re going to start trying harder every week to set citas in advance so that we have things to do and that we can feel like we´re doing things. We are already seeing a lot of good things coming for this next week.

We did have a miracle with a menos activa this week. Her name is Xiomara and she´s 18 and I just love her so so much! She was baptized about a year and a half ago and was fine until she switched wards and then went inactive because all of her friends went on missions and she was left alone. So that was really hard for her and she hasn´t been back to church since. But we had a lesson with her on Friday and she asked if we could do it at the church and we of course said yes. We watched the Joseph Smith movie from the memorial building and the spirit was so strong as we talked about the legacy of the church and how she was now a part of that legacy and how she needed to be strong. It was especially cool because there was a ward activity with all 3 Cartagena wards that night after the lesson in the church and so she got to see some members that she hadn´t seen for a while and they just welcomed her back with so much love! Then she finally came to church on sunday! It was so good to have her there! I really do just love her so much! I had a feeling when I came here and saw her name. I had no idea who she was or anything about her and we had a tough time getting in contact with her, but I honestly feel like I was sent here to Cartagena to be able to be a part of her rescue. And I couldn´t be more excited! 

Well this week is the last week of the transfer and we´ll be getting transfer calls this weekend to see where Hna Daines will be going. It´s strange that I´ve been in Cartagena for that much time already, but I´m excited to have some more time here. I´ll let you know all about what´s going to happen next week.

I also got a haircut this morning! We have a member that has a hair salon and I needed it so badly so I went and got one this morning. I went short again, which feels great for the summer! I´ll try to send a picture next week when I have more time. Sadly she also told me that the water here and my showering everyday is killing my hair, haha, so I´m going to go back and she´s going to save my hair for me. Thank goodness! She´s so cute! She takes such good care of us. 

Anyway, I´m doing well and hope that you all are as well. Know how much I love you all and that you are always in my prayers! Every one of them. You´re the best family I could ask for! Enjoy the day with the family and give everyone a huge hug for me! Talk to you next week!

Hermana Walton

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Paige Walton	Jul 21
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney

Wow, what a week! Well, I just want you all to know that I´m ok. I really am. Don´t worry about me. I´m kind of going to be like Papa in that I´ve got lots of other things to worry about and to think about so I´m sure that being on a mission for this will actually be a blessing as I can focus on the blessings of an eternal family and the knowledge and testimon that I have and not on the sadness of the loss of Grammy. But I am also incredibly grateful for her and her example and her love for me and for all of us. 

I´m also incredibly grateful for the church in my life. I can´t imagine my life without the testimony that I have of this gospel. I want all of you to know that I know without a doubt that this is Christ´s church and that He stands at the head directing both the church and our lives. To find the peace and the blessings that He has for us, we only have to do the things he´s asked us and trust in him. Then comes everything we need in life. Literally everything we need He will give us if we do our part. 

Anyway, we had a really good week. Although we still spent time out walking in the heat, we had a lot of really good citas filled with the spirit. I don´t have much time to go into detail, but things went well. We even had a few people come to church yesterday! Not as many as we had hoped for, but considering that it was the first time in a long time we´ve had someone in church we felt pretty good. 

Yesterday was a really good day. We had a menos activa named Lydia in church and that was a huge miracle! We were very excited about that. Then we went to her house last night and she was completely different. She was smiling like I´ve never seen her smile and we laughed and smiled through the whole lesson. It was a testimony builder to me of the importance of church attendance and the difference it makes in our lives. I was also grateful to have a good spirit for the night time. 

After planning that night, I got ready for bed and was sitting in the bedroom playing solitare on the phone when I got a call from President Deere at 11:20. I had no idea what he was calling for, but then he shared the news and obviously the tears started flowing. It was more from shock than anything else. I know she´s ok, and I´m ok, too. I´m so grateful that we have an eternal family that we know doesn´t end here. It´s not until death that we part, but we will be able to see each other again and to be a complete family someday soon. I love you all! Keep your heads up and find the love of the Savior, he´ll always be there when you need him. Trust Him, he knows what he´s doing. 

Hermana Walton

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Paige Walton	10:38 AM (23 hours ago)
to me, Tyler, Elliot, Luke, Whitney

Welp, yet another week here in Cartagena! It was kind of a rough week. We had a lot of things fail on us and we didn´t end up getting nearly as much as we wanted done. But that´s ok, we started this week with a lot of really great miracles! 

So last Tuesday we had a tri-zone conference with President Deere and a whole bunch of missionaries and it was so much fun! I got to see a lot of friends that I´ve served with before and that was nice. I got to see Hna Flake for the last time before she goes home. That was weird. I cannot believe she´s coming home in a few weeks! That was really strange for me. But it was also really fun to see her and to able to have her here with me during something so big as the experience of a mission. Sadly, I forgot my camera so I wasn´t able to take pictures with the people that I really wanted to, but that´s ok. I´ll see them after the mission. It was a really good conference though. We talked about "Dos Veces en Blanco" or Two Times in White and how important it is to get our investigators not only to baptism but to the temple too. Our work isn´t to get them baptized, we should fight to bring them the eternal blessings of the temple as well. 

I don´t know if you remember Pepe from last week, but we found him again this week and he didn´t actually leave and go home! He´s staying here for a while so we´re excited about that and maybe we can make something happen with him. Or at least get hime "active" in activities and things like that. 

We also taught a member family that I love to death how to make brownies. Surprise! They really do love them oh so much! 

We also picked up a new area to work in from the Elders area. We rearranged our areas a little bit and we picked up the old part of the city! They´re the best parts! It´s the part of the city that makes you actually feel like you´re in Europe and it´s beautiful! We also now have the port in our area! Oh my gosh we are very excited! haha. We worked there all Saturday night and just sat by the ocean and watched the boats pass by as we made a whole bunch of phone calls. We did find some miracles. We found 2 southamerican families. We haven´t been able to get back in contact with them yet, but we´re working on it. Families are the best! 

We also had a really big miracle yesterday. We went and passed by an old investigator and we were able to teach her. She´s a young spanish woman. She´s married (big deal) and they just lost their little girl a few months ago. We taught her about the plan of salvation and it was one of the most spiritual lessons I´ve even been in. It was incredible. We asked her to pray to be able to feel the love of Heavenly Father and to know if what we were telling her is true and we´re going by tomorrow to see how it all went. She´s so sweet and needs the peace the gospel can bring her so badly in her life! We´re really excited to be able to teach her and help her find that peace. 

We also got a new ward mission leader yesterday. We´re really excited! As much as I love our old ward mission leader, he really didn´t understand his purpose so we´re excited to hopefully be able to get things going with him. The crazy part? He´s a recent convert! He´s been baptized for less than a year, but he´s incredible! His name is Victor and we love him to death! We´re so excited to work with him! 

Oh I do have to tell you though, I found out that one of the members from Badajoz passed away on Friday. His name is Antonio Martinez. He was the sweetest man and he worked so hard! He has cancer for the last little while and it finally just took him. It´s hard because he was such a good man and was doing so much good, but I guess the Lord needs more men like him on the other side. 

Anyway, that´s my week for you. Things are going good, a little slower, but good. It´s just such a blessing to know that Heavenly Father is in charge and not us. 

Oh! We also got news today from our President that a General Authority is coming in November and our mission is going to be considered for iPads! So maybe I´ll get to see how mission life with an iPad is at the end of my mission, even if it is only for a month or two. That would still be way fun! Oh how much easier it would make our lives! Haha.But I never thought I was going to see the day. Watch it actually happen right as I leave, I wouldn´t be too surprised. 

Well I love you all! Have an awesome week and keep working hard! Os amo con todo mi corazón y siempre estáis conmigo. Que disfrutéis de la semana! Hablaremos la semana que viene.

Hermana Walton

4th of July Spain style!  Burgers, dogs, singing American songs and the Flag!