Tuesday, September 24, 2013

This is in her area!


We had a missionary activity this week en el campo. SO beautiful! We hiked and sword fought and had a dandy ole time!
 
 
Wow I cannot believe its Monday again... This week has been way too fast. I am torn between wanting the rest of my mission to go this fast or wanting it to slow down so I can really savor every moment! It was a kinda weird week, we didn´t have a normal day all week! But it's okay because we saw a lot of miracles and met some really great people!
So Monday night we decided to follow up on some former investigators from our Area Book and we found a miracle! Antonio is like 80 something and has family members upon family members that are members! He is so great and really wants to learn more about the Book of Mormon. He´s so intelligent and willing to learn. He lives with his niece, Mari, and her husband, Antonio. We haven´t met Antonio the Younger yet, but Mari is so sweet. She can´t read but she prays so beautifully and was so excited to talk about Christ with us. The feeling in their home was wonderful and they are ready to hear more now, which is so awesome.
We´ve gone to El Palo a few times this week. It's the pueblo that our area covers and it's the closest pueblo to Malaga (on this side at least). El Palo used to have a branch and a building years ago, but over time the branch was consolidated into the Malaga wards. Thanks to the Lord and our efforts, we have seen miracles there!
We met Ana a few weeks ago, but were finally able to see her this week. She´s probably about 75, she´s not just a greatgrandmother, but she´s a tatarabuela! She lost her husband about 40 years ago when he was killed in a robbery. SO SAD. When we shared with her that families could be together forever, she was so excited and touched to find that out.
So awesome. So we were following up on a name given us by the Elders Quorum president in El Palo. The address was for this street that literally on the beach. As we were walking along it, we were like, THIS IS UNREAL!! So beautiful, and so tempting :) Hahaha but it was this family, where 4 of the daughters were baptized. Pepe ,the dad, kept on telling us over and over again that we are free to come over any time and that "mi casa es vuestra casa." They literally live as close to the ocean as you can get, in the most beautiful house ever. Basically, we are going back Tuesday. Hahah I took pictures so you can see the view! BUT we are teaching one of their daughters that lives with them that isn´t a member.
ALSO, ESTRELLA´S FAMILY IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!!!!! I am dying. I am so excited! And the really cool thing is, they are too! They keep telling us how anxious they are to start a new life, all clean. They are wonderful and the baptism is going to be beautiful!
So really, this next week is going to be amazing. I am so excited for the baptism and helping them prepare and feel comfortable. I hope everyone has a great week next week and keep Patricia, Dolores and Samara in your prayers as they prepare this week for baptism on Saturday!
(I asked her what they did on p-day.), Haha okay so last week we hiked the hill behind our piso and sat up in the mountains by the castle writing letters. I kid you not that is what we did. And today we are going to make lunch with all the elders from our zone and play futbol and chill. Its always fun and of course, email and grocery shopping. We went to the mission home to play softball as a zone and have a bbq with Pres and Sis deere and the Castillos (the office senior missionaries). It was fun!
Hermana Folsom


Letter from 9/16/2013

These are the Malaga and Fuengirola sisters at the mission home on Monday with Elder Cortes, my district leader). I am third from the right.


Becca and her new companion
 
Greetings from the wonderful city of Malaga Spain! Another week, more stories and por fin its getting cooler:) AND I hit my 3 month mark this week... WOO!! I feel like that just flew by... Pero bueno. This week was insane. So fun. So tiring. So crazy.
Thursday was CRAZY!! Every single one of our lessons was draining and it was such a roller coaster day. We had people tell us that its still "too hot" for learning about the gospel and acting in faith, but maybe later on when it cools down they will be willing to learn more
 Estrella´s family is progressing like CRAZY!! They loved church on Sunday and they are so excited to be baptized next week. I love going over and teaching them because they have such a desire to change and really want to be baptized. AWESOME!
Cool experience. Saturday, I could NOT get it together. I left the phone at home, the Book of Mormon and the address to one of our appointments later that day. It was bad. So since I´d left the phone AND the address at home, I had to try and find our way to this family of recent converts who I have only visited once and it was in my first 2 weeks here.. I prayed so hard the whole way and I can´t really remember the walk but somehow we were led to their doorstep. It was so crazy and such a miracle that we were able to find them becuase they don´t live in our area and we didn´t have the phone to call the elder´s for the address. THEN it was a blessing that I left the phone at home because my water bottle leaked all in my purse and soaked EVERYTHING! So it was a blessing that I didn´t ruin the phone! Crazy how the Lord watches out for you, huh?
OH wierd connection, Hermana Nielsen´s aunt and uncle are the Hickman´s in our stake (Graham). Crazy, huh? AND Sister OHara just moved into their ward in North Salt Lake. This girl is crazy connected to me! But can I just take a moment and say how much I love Hermana Nielsen? I would not have been able to make it through this week without her and laughing off the scary/crazy/stressful moments! Okay I´m done now :)
So this week was long, fun, crazy, but so wonderful at the same time. I feel like I am really getting to know the members now and our investigators are doing well. Thank you all for your love and prayers and know I am praying for yo uall back home as well:)
 
 I wanted to share with you my experience this week from applying the Work of Salvation broadcast into missionary work. Our new bishop has really adopted an attitude of missionary work and the blessings for our ward from focusing on this are showing! The ward council is working together to welcome in our new members (we have 14 planned for this month!!) and its so wonderful to see the ward being run the way the prophets and apostles have been telling us to run it. Its cool seeing how much better the work can go with the whole ward involved! Really makes me excited and feel not as overwhelmed with all the work we have to do!
 
love you all and miss you and have a great week!!
Hermana Folsom



 

Letter from 9/9/2013

Preparation Day going toFuengirola
 
Heyo fambam!! Another week has gone by, holy fast! Can you believe that Thursday, it will be 3 months since I reported already? 1/6th of my mission, gone. Holy guac. But its been great!

So this week, Hermana Johnson left and Hermana Nielsen came! She´s from Salt Lake City, she´s 20 and she´s AWESOME! I haven´t laughed as much as I have in the past 5 days than I have in so long! We get along really well and teaching with her is super fun. I am really hoping we will be together for at least another transfer because so far so good! Really, she´s aweome and already love her so much. Its been interesting getting a new companion so soon, its really testing my knowledge of the area and the people since I´m having to show her around, but I know a lot more about this area than I thought! And with the changes, now our district is HUGE!! We have 5 companionships. We all traveled to Fuengirola together today and I was like, Holy Hannah. But its so fun!

Estrella, the gypsy family that is like all women and all less active, they are our miracle family! I love my gypsy family here, they are so loving and so excited about the gospel. Everytime we go over, they have another family member there that they want us to meet and teach. We now have 4 baptismal dates for their family and more coming, I´m certain! The whole family committed to coming to church next week too.. Presidente Muñoz, the ward mission leader, jokes that after we reactivate/baptize this family that they are going to HAVE to build us our own chapel because the ward will be too big to hold all of them! Its so great and I love going over to teach them. They love reading the Book of Mormon and sharing their testimonies with the members of the family not familiar wiht the Church. My favorite moment from last week was when we invited Corral, one of the grandkids, to offer the closing prayer and she was uncertain and all of a sudden EVERYONE started explaining and offering help and testifying about prayer. Such a great family!

Funny story, we were talking to this man at his door and all of a sudden the door opened and his daughter walks out with a sheet over her head, waving her arms around and holding a pencil like a wand. And this was right after he was telling us how so many of our celebrations come from Paganism and how witchcraft is of the devil and stuff and he looked SO embarrassed when his daughter did that! It was so hard not to bust up after that!

I have officially arrived. Wednesday I couldn´t go to FHE because I was picking up Hermana Nielsen from the train station. On Sunday, ALL the Nigerians (our most faithful Noche de Hogar students) came up to me and said they missed me on Wednesday! I am officially cool. I can die happy now. Hahah but really, I love the Nigerians here, they are such good people and have such a close, family centered culture.

So overall, all is going well. I am disfrutando my time with Hermana Nielsen and we are working hard to prepare Estrella´s family for baptism. We are keeping busy and loving the work. I cannot believe its already September! Oh and on that note, I was cold for the very first time this week since I´ve been in Málaga!! It rained and I actually wore a sweater!! Fall has arrived :) I love you all and am praying for you all!! Stay cool and have a great week!!
Love all of you and enjoy your week!!

Hermana Folsom



Monday, September 2, 2013



 
Greetings from Malaga! I am going to stay here next transfer!!!! WOOO!!! BUT Hermana Johnson is leaving me:( And Hermana Nielsen is coming to finish my training. She´s been out about 4 months and from everyone I´ve talked to, she is SOLID! I´m super pumped! I´m definitely going to miss HJ but Hermana Nielsen sounds cool and I think we will do a lot of great things here in good ol´ Málaga 3.
Holy hannah this gospel is perfect. The more I study it, the more I am convinced that only a perfect God could make it. Every single thing is accounted for and all is balanced and fair and perfect. Seriously,Heavenly Father is the best. I am in awe of how perfectly things work out when we are doing His will. I love this gospel and I am so grateful for the opportunity to share it with His children here in Málaga.

I love that you sent something bout the Atonement being for everyone because thats really been the focus of my study this week. I´ve been studying a lot about mercy and justice and I´ve discovered Alma 42 is golden. It's really remarkable how perfectly balanced the plan is. Were we only to be judged by justice, nobody would receive eternal life, but were we only to be judged by mercy, it wouldn´t be fair. As I am studying mroe about the Savior and the Atonement, the more Ï come to realize applying it is a daily thing that every person should do.
 
The biggest miracle this week is named Dolores. We were visiting this Gypsy family which is very menos activo. The grandma, Estrella, is in her 70s probably and she has 8 kids, almost all of which are less active, or never were baptized. Her youngest daughter, Patricia, lives with her and was never baptized and her oldest daughter, Loli, goes over everyday with her daughter, Dolores, and granddaughter, Island. So we go over to visit Estrella for the first time and turns out she really wants to come back to church, but she can´t walk and has no way of getting to the chapel! And as we are teaching this family, they are all getting so excited about the gospel again. Loli told us that she looked up the videos on YouTube that the missionaries showed them when she was little and they were all baptized and she just cried and cried because of the feeling she felt! THEN her daughter, Dolores, asks us a million questions and wants us to teach her more, and said she would be baptized September 21st!! I am so excited to see this family come together and all come back and hopefully be sealed in the temple. Its such a miracle that we met all of them and they are prepared to come back at this time.
ALSO ANA MARIA SAID SHE WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED!!! Remember my Polish friend? She told us after church yesterday! I was so giddy!
 
We took over teaching Palma´s mother in law, Ana, this week and let me tell you, that woman is a gem! She buys special treats only for the missionaries and she has such a tender heart. She holds that family together single handedly. She cracks me up, such a typical Spanish woman, and she is really earnestly trying to know if this is the true church. She came to church for the first time yesterday and said she felt really peaceful and tranquil there. Good sign, right? Haha but Palma is doing well, I love having her in lessons with Ana because its like having a member present. She explains things to Ana and testifies along with us. We are really working with this family and I really love them so much, they are like my malagueñan family.
 
Anyways I´m excited for my new companion, sad to see HJ going, but ready for this new adventure and finally working in our area! Its really beautiful and it's the historic part of the city, so you could probably look up what some of it looks like, Plaza de la Merced and the castillo and everything. Its beautiful and there is work to be done!


Roman ampitheater in our area... like right down the street from my piso. Pretty cool, no?
 
 
One things a lot of Malagueñans say is that malaga doesn´t take care of its history, which is sad cause there is a lot of Roman history here, it being one of the oldest ports in Europe. Pero bueno... Its still beautiful, especially the part I´m in now.
 
Okay my nerd moment, I was on exchanges this week, and the hermana that came to my place with hermana johnson is named hermana brimhall and she wrote me a note and signed it HB, but it looked like HP with her handwriting and I got SO excited thinking Harry Potter wrote me a note.. alas no!
My ward is smaller now, I really have no clue how many members, but we usually have around 100ish membesr at church on Sunday. They just divided the wards so its smaller now. But it's good cause we are getting to know the members. Yes I get enough to eat, maybe a little too much but that's okay!! One of the members feeds us every Thursday after weekly planning and her maid cooks like a BOSS so I´m content:)
Love you all and thank you for your love and support!!
Anyways I love all of you and love mondays:) Have a great week everyone!!
Love,
Hermana Folsom

A Fair and New Investigators

 

Oh my dear heavens it is already week 6! My first transfer is almost done... Wow this is madness. I hope that the rest of my mission doesn´t go by this fast otherwise I will blink and it will be over! I am loving it still and we are definitely getting into a rhythm here in the centro.
SOOO our crazy goal for this last week! 555 new investigators as a mission, whereas the most we have ever gotten in a week was 236. AND the outcome is.... 558!!!! It was an amazing, miraculous week really and I don´t think I have ever prayed so often before in my life! But it was wonderful really.
To describe my week, I would relate it to Ether 12:6, you receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. I started this week super excited and with a lot of faith that we would be able to get 7 new investigators this week, I was really excited to get started! Then Monday night, all of our plans failed us and then all of our backups failed us. And I swear we knocked the doors of every single person in our area book! I was dead tired but it was just Monday and I knew we could get new investigators the rest of the week. THEN Tuesday night all of our plans failed us again. AND all of our backups. We walked even farther and knocked even more doors on Tuesday than we had Monday. We talked to everyone we saw and we prayed all evening. It was a really rough day. Wednesday we were all talking at FHE with the other missionaries and it was really hard hearing about all their success stories and knowing we still had 0 news, and we were starting to get down, but we decided to keep working. AND WE RECEIVED A MIRACLE!!! Thursday we had FIVE new investigators!! I know that we needed to work hard and put in our effort so that the Lord could bless us and that He led us to these elect. From then on, the rest of the week went amazingly! We finished with 10 new investigators this week, higher than we were expecting! It really was a week of miracles and faith and trusting in the Lord.
On Monday we went to the Feria for pday and it was okay, but watching the flamenco dancing was so great. Our new area was the hub of feria and so it was hard to work at nights because there were a LOT of tourists! Our street at night was buzzing with people all week. But it's cool because a lot of people dress in traditional flamenco clothing for feria so we saw the coolest clothes all week! My favorite is when the kids dress up, so cute :)
One of our new investigators, Kingsley, is awesome. I swear he is going to be a bishop or stake president someday. He is so faithful and really solid. His one hangup is that he prefers baptism in natural waters rather than in the baptismal font. BUT I have no problem with that because that means we get to have a baptism on the beach :) He´s Nigerian and I just love Nigerian English. It really is different. My favorite thing he said was, "Kingsley you are a king!" He has such hope and knows his divine nature, its a miracle we met him! Actually it was because we were on a bus we take a lot and we missed our stop somehow. We were really worried about making it home on time and I joked to Hermana Johnson that I guess we were just going to have to have a lesson in the street so we had more time to get back when this man stopped us and asked if we were missionaries! He´d met with them before and wanted to meet with us again! Such a miracle we met Kinglsey!!
We went to the home of a less active woman and she has 5 daughters and 3 sons and a few of her daughters were over and they all only have daughters too, so I was in a home of all women. It really made me miss home and my sisters! There was one moment when I asked them a question and all of them started talking at once and I was like, "Am I at home right now??" hahaha so great! I´m excited to go back!
 
A parade during the fair right outside our window.
 
 It is really multicultural here but I love it! I´ve met people from all over and its so fun hearing different people´s stories. Its a little hard sometimes though because we switch between teaching in English and in Spanish and my brain is so confused when I go from one phone call in English to our Nigerians to another phone call in Spanish to our Spaniards! Hahah but its fun. Unfortunately, we had to hand Francisco off but he still will call us occasionally and tell us about his progress. hahah apparently Pres Deere was out with the elders when they taught Francisco and he raved about his "angeles" and how we are the best missionaries here. No complaints coming from me about that :) Palma is really making progress. She´s gone 3 days without smoking and she really is a changed woman. She´s happier and has such a hunger and thirst for the word of God. She really is an elect lady and I feel so blessed to be able to work with her. I think she teaches us more than we teach her! I absolutely adore her.
Anyways I love you and have a good week!!! Be good, do good!
Love you all and know I am praying for you!!
Hermana Folsom