Tuesday, November 19, 2013

View from the  mountain we hiked up.

Street art

Cool passage by our apartment
 
Hello lovely wonderful family of mine! Hows yall doing?? I cannot believe its been another week already.... This week has been... fast. Hahaha I don´t really know what else to say about it!

So we were on intercambios on Tuesday and I had to host Hermana Ramsay in our area with Hermana Corral. We had the day so perfectly set, all our plans really well fixed with people that NEVER fail us. HALF OF THEM FAILED US TUESDAY! It was awful! I was like, I promise, we normally don´t get failed this much!
Okay so really sad side note, I have not met as many victims as abuse before in my life as I have met here in Malaga. So many of the people we come in contact with have been abused, men, women and children! Its really sad. It's so devastating seeing how much it messes people up.
Also sad news, but also kinda exciting, I had an interview with President this morning and he told me I´m leaving Málaga. He won´t tell me where until he makes the official calls on Thursday, but I know I´m being transferred for sure. He says I´m going to love my new area and that its really special. And I know its not Cordoba. But thats it! Hahaha so I´m starting all my sad goodbyes right now! Its exciting but sad at the same time!
Oh btw I switched pday which I´m sure you know... we are going to picasso today1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALSO send anything to the mission home now since I´m getting transferred....

The Lord really is hastening His work. Haha I made a really lame joke to President last week in my letter to him about that actually "the Lord really must be hastening His work because this last week just FLEW by!" Hahah but really its so true, when we are busy and engaged in his work, suddenly I turn around and its Monday again!
 
I´m so super stoked for my package!!! I am pretty certain it will get here before the weekend, they usually only take 1 week. Haha the elders today were asking what I want to do for my birthday since it will be my last pday in Malaga too and I told them all I want to do is eat kebab and churros y chocolate. SO we are all going to kebab together then:) Hahaha they are so good to me:) 
 
Something that I am really learning lately is the power of the Atonement in people´s lives. My FAVORITE lesson to teach is lesson 3 because it all really focuses on the Savior and I love the part that talks about that through the power of the atonement we can be clean from sins.

I´m teaching a few Ecuadorians (is that how you say it?). Antonio is from Guayaquil and he´s a miracle. One day as I was getting on the bus, he stopped me and asked if I had something for him. I hurriedly handed him a folleto with our number on the back and prayed that he would call. The next week I heard someone calling "hermanitas! hermanitas!" IT WAS ANTONIO! He then asked for a book of mormon to read during his downtime at work! We are teaching him and he´s golden, the only thing is he works a lot and is on call a lot cause he´s a caregiver for a sick man and so we can´t see him a lot. But ecuadorians are the best.
 
Hey I got to play with Barbies last night at a members house... The grandparents had to go to a meeting and the daughter had to take a phonecall and they just all of a sudden left us alone in the room with their granddaughter so we played barbies until her mom was done with the phone call. Hahaha it was fun.
Love you all so much and don´t forget about my bday next week. LOVE YOU!!

Hermana Folsom

Monday, November 11, 2013

November 11th

Zone Conference


Las Tres Companeras
 
Well. Another week has gone by and I left home exactly 5 months from today, crazy huh? I actually cannot believe I have just a little over a year left. Suddenly I´m like, crap. I still am just like a kid in this whole mission business and I almost a third of the way done! Hahaha just gotta keep chuggin along I suppose :)
This week was a little rough. I was sick for most of it, not too bad, but enough that it slowed me down and all. My comps were good to me and its really a blessing that we are 3 now. I was physically capable of going to all the lessons and everything, but the second we would sit down, my head would start pounding and I had NO clue what was going on! SO they taught most of the lessons from Monday to Wednesday. Thursday I was mostly better and now I just have a little cough. Interesting thing about being sick on the mission, since you see SO many people give you their home remedies. I cannot tell you how many ways of getting rid of a cold I heard this week. BUT half a spoonful of honey and the other half of lemon juice is MAGIC. I took that one morning and literally instantly my sinuses cleared up! Hahaha crazy! But all is well now :)
Okay cool and crazy story of the week.... We were at this one member´s house and she was telling us how one of her 11 kids was baptized, Ana Mari as well as her son, Carlos. And literally minutes after we take down the info of Ana Mari, who happens to walk in but Ana Mari! She said she NEVER goes to her mother´s house on Wednesdays at 8, but felt compelled to go that day. She invited us over for later that week! When we went over, the second we walk in her door, she said she felt the spirit enter her house again. Ana Mari is amazing. She said that even though she physically left the church, she never stopped believing. She said she misses the Book of Mormon and that she feels like now is her time to go back to church. Then she proceeded to give us TWELVE references. Let me repeat that TWELVE REFERENCES!! She´s amazing. She´s the president and founder of a society to help people who have been victims of marital abuse because she herself was one and now she says she´s had all this experience so she can help others. She also said though that although her organization helps people, that its nothing compared to the gospel. Then, she not only came to church yesterday, but brought her friend (also named Ana) and her friend brought her two adorable sons. SHE´S A MACHINE!! Everytime I think about Ana Mari, a big smile comes to my face and I am just amazed at all the miracles that happened to put us in her path and remind her of what she´s missing.
ALSO super cool. Remember how my ward divided? Well our first Sunday after the division, our attendance in Sacrament meeting was 78. Now, only 2 months later, yesterday the attendance was at 126! We really don´t fit in the chapel right now! Its so incredible to physically be able to see how the Lord is accelerating His work!
 
The Primary is singing "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" as the special song. The kids LOVE it. It's adorable. Also I love it when I enter the primary room (I just go for singing time then leave) and they all go HERMANA FOLSOM HERMANA FOLSOM! It's cute.
I am loving the work, loving the people and loving my comps!
Love you-
Hermana Folsom

Monday, November 4, 2013

November 4th



A mural near our apartment


We went to an egyptian museum thing... it was just a warehouse full of fake egyptian artifacts
playing weird music.


The terrific trio of Malaga 3!
 
GOOOOOOOD MORNING FAMILY!!
Hello family. So, I´M A MOM!! Sort of. Last week at the end of pday, President called us and let us know that our dynamic duo would soon become a terrific trio (my words, not his). Hermana Corral is from Cartagena and is assigned ot the Mexico Puebla mission, but is waiting for her visa and so she reported straight to our mission and we are training her until her visa comes and she can go to the Mexico MTC. So she hasn´t even gone to the MTC yet. I keep forgetting that she just barely reported on Wednesday! CRAZY! And we have no clue how long she will be staying or anything, just as soon as she gets word that her visa comes, she goes to Madrid then flies out to Mexico! So she got dropped off with us Wednesday evening!  SHE´S GREAT! She always has the perfect thing to say in lessons, she´s so nice and she´s BEAUTIFUL!
 
So I don´t remember if I´ve told yall about Ana and Andrés and his kids yet? Ana is a member and her son Andrés and his 2 sons live with her but they aren´t members. She´s a sweet lady and raised 12 great kids. Andrés, her son, is incredible. He really wants to change his life and accepted a fecha for the 30th of this month! He´s had a rough life and I am certain he will find (and is currently finding) the peace he needs in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I went to Granada yesterday! We had stake conference so we rode a bus for 2 hours to Granada, sat for 2 hours then got back in the bus for another 2 hours to go home. It was a long morning, but the conference was so good! It was ALL about missionary work and what we can all do together. Fun fact, this time a year ago, our stake had 26 missionaries, now there are 52 missionaries serving in the Granada stake! Cool, huh? Hahah the bus was half filled with just missionaries... But it was fun and a cool experience!
Well this week was pretty good, REALLY fast and I cannot believe its already Monday again! But I would rather be busy and have it go fast than have nothing to do and the week drag by! I´m tired, a little under the weather, but still STOKED to be here! Hey good news, ITS FINALLY COOLING DOWN!!!! I got to wear sweaters all week and I even busted out my boots on Wednesday! Its weird cause during the middle of the day it still gets hot, but the mornings and evenings are FREEZING because of the humidity. Oh yeah and HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEN!! We didn´t dress up. We also forgot to buy sweets. And people partied on our street all night so we didn´t really get sleep. But oh well!
Hey I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!!
No baptism this week and most likely not another one next week but stayed tuned for the week after! Hahaha we really are being blessed here, actually when President called to assign us Hermana Corral, he noted how much success we´ve been seeing! We really have clicked and gotten into our groove and keep getting better each day. Really its so exciting how much the Lord is accelerating the work right now! EVERYONE is getting involved!
Technically my birthday is in the next transfer, but transfer date is the 27th of November. And it takes about a week for packages just so you know.
 
Love you all and miss you all!! Anyways have a great week!!
Hermana Folsom
 


October 28



David's baptism
 
Hello, hola, bonjour, whatnot.
hahaha okay ANOTHER crazy week!! First off... DAVID GOT BAPTIZED!!!! It was crazy, we met him on the 13th and he got baptized on the 26th!! We had to teach him everything before Friday the 25th so he could be interviewed. We finished teaching him everything he needed to be taught before baptism literally minutes before he had to be interviewed! It was madness. But a miracle! He already was living the gospel standards and everything doctrinal that we explained, he readily accepted and prayed and felt like it was true! 2 weeks ago, I didn´t even know David existed and now he´s a priesthood holder preparing to go to the temple! Its remarkable, we really had nothing to do with his conversion process, we came in at the very end just to brind him the means of coming unto Christ. AMAZING!!!
Also, IT RAINED ALL THIS WEEK!! I was in heaven. I missed it so much and everytime we were walking somewhere, I had a huge smile on my face! 14 years of complaining about the rain and now I can´t get enough of it! It was nice though, I finally got to use my cute sweaters and such! But today its hot again, so back to the short sleeve shirts!
Hahha so David gave us a reference for this woman, Esperanza. The first time we call her, she just immediately starts calling us "mi cielo" "mi vida" "amor." She´s like a 60 year old Cuban woman and she´s DARLING!!  She is GOLDEN! She asked David to give us her number because she is looking for God in her life. She walked to the capilla by herself, praying for God to direct her and asking people along the way!! She´s so sweet.
So in the madness of getting David ready for his baptism, his interview was Friday night. We were a little hestitant to plan everything really fixed until after he passed, just because of how quickly everything happened. Well Friday night was the Ward Halloween Dance and I think we accidentally attended! We taught him and then had the interview before the dance so he could go, and then we wound up in the library doing the programs during most of the dance, occassionally popping in to ask members to do things:) Hahaha it was killer though! They were playing a lot of American pop music that I know and I just wanted to dance SO BAD!! So we went into the library, closed the door, and danced by ourselves to one song:) hahaha but it worked out and the baptism was beautiful, one of the best ones I´ve been to here (not even trying to brag, it really was, and not even because of us!).
 
Siestas are the best! I hadn´t done it until this week and I´m not sure I´ll ever go back to not sleeping after lunch. We just turn off all the lights in the piso and crash on the couch for like 15 minutes before studies. Also mediodia is the BOMB!!!
Funny story: We went to meet this member, Ana, and her grandsons answered the door, go wide-eyed, then get all like smooth and start winking and trying to flirt with us! Ana came up and shooed them away and I hear them running to their other cousins going "ven! ven! americanas guapas! americanas guapas!" then they all came running to look at the pretty americans at their door. hahah
 
love you all and have a great week!!
hermana folsom

October 21



I FOUND REESES THERE!!! It's like a posh american supermarket.. hahah over priced but so fun going in!


All the Hermanas in the Malaga district and Elders photo bombing us.
 
Oh my goodness this week was incredible! We basically ran from lesson to lesson and I am exhausted! But it really was such a great week. So many miracles and we are definitely seeing the blessings of trying to be as obedient and diligent as we can be.
So last Sunday, one of the recent converts in our area brought a friend, David, to church. We talked to him and he said he was interested and that he wanted to talk to us more! We have seen him a few times since and now he´s getting baptized on Saturday! David is so great!  He´s GOLDEN and so excited for his baptism Saturday if all goes well! He himself is such a miracle and we´ve had so many instances teaching him where we witness so many miracles!
Also this week we visited all our young adults in our area :) Hahah lessons with them is kinda weird, you just feel like you are hanging out! We have a couple that are 25 and 26, and 21 and 18 year old girls in our areas and when we "teach" them, its so odd! Hahah but so fun! They are all so sweet and all of them are so willing to come out and teach with us, so its good! I just can´t imagine what it would be like serving in a YSA ward! CRAZY!
The Primary pianist hasn´t been coming lately and the Primary program is next week. SO I was volunteered to sub in to be the pianist. So I get to play the piano for the Primary program now... ALSO I had to give a talk on Sunday and they asked me to call everyone to repentance and pray for missionary experiences. I felt so weird from the pulpit saying that stuff, but it was my assignment! Hahah I felt like an old time minister or something, "REPENT MY BRETHREN!" Hahaha yeah... anyways...
 
Crazy week but great one! Have a good one all ya´ll!1
Con MUCHO amor, besitos y abrazos,
Hermana Folsom


October 14th



Plaza de los Tores near our apartment!


Samara's baptism!!
Good afternoon, morning, evening, whatever... to all of you! I think its probably going to be morning when you read this so.. GOOD MORNING DEAR FAMILY! How was your week?? This week was great! Really busy, really amazing!
First and foremost, with transfers being this week, we found out about our futures for the next 6 weeks on Saturday. And... drum roll please.... I´M STAYING IN MALAGA!! Although you probably already knew that from the subject but thats beside the point... but really, I´m stoked! I´m staying and with Hermana Nielsen still! We are baptize everyone and their dog this transfer! Hahaha really though I´m so excited, we work really well together and we are such good friends. This transfer has FLOWN by and I´m certain that the next one will too!
Also great news, SAMARA GOT BAPTIZED!! She did it!! We had a private, just family, missionaries and bishop baptism on Thursday evening for her. She got there and she saw the program cause we´d originally planned to sing the opening hymn, pray, then get her in the water before she freaked out even more. BUT she said she wanted to do the whole program first. So we changed it and had the testimonies and musical number first. We asked her mom, her aunt and her grandma to give testimonies and oh my goodness they were incredible!  Then Patricia, Samara´s mom, bore her testimony and shared her feelings from her own baptism 2 weeks ago. Then all of us missionaries sang I Know When I am Baptized. THEN what about made me cry. Estrella, the grandma, bore her testimony. She said that for years when the missionaries would pass by to visit her, she would tell her family not to open the door. She was so not interested in coming back, but then, one day, the day Hermana Johnson and I passed by, she said she felt like the Lord Himself was knocking on her door and she told them to open it. And now she is coming back to church, her family is reactivating and being converted and to hear her talk about the change in her home is incredible! She says that they are completely different and attributes it to the day that her Father in Heaven knocked on her door. Que fuerte! She got ALL of us in tears!
THEN the grand event, the baptism itself! We went into the bathroom to walk Samara to the font and she started freaking out again. She really never has put her head all the way under water, even when she goes swimming or in the bathtub and the poor girl was terrified! We´d had her home teacher come over the night before to give her a blessing and it helped but she was still scared. We told her to count to 10 after the prayer was over and that by the time she got to 10 it would be over. She gave us a little sassy look, said she would be doing the baptism backwards so they couldn´t see her face and that he BETTER only do it once, then flounced into the water. Haha but it was beautiful!! THEN she fainted in the water. As Elder Buckway lifted her back up, she went slack and her eyes stayed shut for a solid, terrifying 30 seconds. In my mind I was like, Shoot. We killed her. But then she shot awake and goes THAT SCARED ME! But then she was all happy and fine. She describes the experience of being like in heaven, cradled in her Father´s arms. So I guess if she feels that way... Our district leader keeps relating it to King Lamoni. But it really was a tender mercy that she was able to be baptized al final. And it was beautiful and she is LOVING it!
 
So this week was good and eventful and I expect many more like this one to follow!
Our teaching pool is actually getting really big. Its crazy we are having the problem now that we have too many people and not enough time, but we are working hard to balance things and prioritize. Our baptisms HAVE been increasing so much since we split the ward and our new bishop is so focused on missionary work. The area I´m in right now hadn´t had a baptism since March but now we´ve had 2 and 3 or 4 in the works! Really, when the ward comes together in this work, you see miracles! I LOVED that so many talks in conference focused on this because its so true! 
 
 Last pday we had a party in the chapel with our district and we were planning on just doing email in a locutorio nearby but then thanks to the LOVELY spanish custom of mediodia (really i love it 6 days of the week but pday it kinda stinks cause everything closes between 2 and 6, basically all of pday) they were all closed and we had to go back to our area which is about 30 minutes from the chapel, so we only had 45 minutes to email. It was rough, but the party was fun! We played board games. And today we are going shopping and then having a bday party for Hermana Nielsen and Elder Lopez in our district. Twill be delightful! 
! Funny story! We were singing (okay I was singing) happy birthday to Hermana Nielsen during mediodia on Saturday in our piso and our kitchen leads out to a little patio that ALL of our neighbor´s kitchens look down into. And I was singing loudly, opera style and I forgot the windows and door to the patio were open and pretty soon after I finished singing, we hear some kids from upstairs singing to her too... OOPS! Hahah it was funny though. they were singing in englsih and their accents were GOLDEN.
Love you all and hope you have great weeks!!
Hermana Folsom
 

October 7th



Tracting at the castle.
Wow sorry I don´t really have a lot of time this week, but I love you all!!
Hahah don´t worry, I´m going to write more:) So this week was CRAZY!!! A lot of miracles, crazy happenings and spiritual experiences!
 
Friday we went to visit a woman in El Palo and we weren´t quite sure where she lived, so we left pretty early to catch the right bus up to her house. 2 and half hours later we finally arrived!! We got on the bus that normally takes us to El Palo and asked how to get to the separate pueblo where she lives. We got on that bus at the right stop and it took us up and around and all the way into the campo! We go along this broken pavement road, its just us and the driver, he pulls a 3 point turn and then parks. We look at each other and are like, shoot we are going to die!! Hahah then we finally left again and he took us up and around. I had asked him to tell us when to get off for our stop and we get to one stop and he says he could drop us off there or somehwere closer, so naturally we said somewhere closer. We go to this roundabout in the middle of nowhere, literally, he pulls over the bus and tells us this is where we can get off. He dumped us in the middle of nowhere and we couldn´t even find it on the map!! With a lot of prayers and questions to nice old people we saw on the way, we finally made it to this woman´s house! Hahah it was madness! But she was so nice, so excited about church and so willing to read the Book of Mormon, so I guess it was worth it!
Also fun little tidbit, if you are ever at a lack of physical exercise to do, just dance hard to Spanish guitar music for 30 minutes and all is well! We were being good, doing abs and such one morning and started talking about how one of the Hermanas in our zone told us her brotehr used to dance hard for 30 minutes for physical acttivity, so we tried it! It worked. Hahah sorry, weird tidbit from the week.
But this week was crazy, fun and exhausting! Conference was wonderful, we even got to stay up until 12 to watch all of the Sunday afternoon one!!
 
hermana folsom
ps CONFERENCE ROCKS

September 30th

Exchanges! On the right, Hermana Poulton, me and Hermana Blake. SO FUN!


Running up the gigantic hill by our house in the mornings!!


BAPTISM PICTURES!! Hermana Nielsen, Samara, Patricia and yo!!



P-day at the castle!
 
Holy guacamole where to begin?!?!?! SO this was the first baptism for both Hermana Nielsen and I and neither of us were really sure of how to go about planning a service. Sure, there is a whole section in PMG about it, but that says NOTHING about clothes and arranging building stuff and everything. It was crazy. We definitely learned a lot about planning baptisms and there are a lot of things I would do differently next time. And by next time I mean later this week. But that's another story. Haha we were going insane finishing teaching Patricia and Samara everything that we completely forgot to arrange who to confirm them and we were trying SO hard to get someone in our lessons that could baptize them, but it was not to happen. Then, everyone and their dog was getting baptized Saturday and baptismal clothing was just not to be found. Until about 15 minutes before the baptism. Really it was crazy. Hahah but the service was beautiful and the elders helped us a lot and know we know!
SO about the baptism.  Samara and Patricia were SO excited for their baptisms and when they got in their clothes, they were even more excited. There were 7 people being baptized Saturday in our chapel from our district so it was a big service! Samara was 5th and Patricia 6th. They were in the front, so excited, watching the first 4 people be baptized, then the 4th man had trouble being immersed completely, so they had to attempt 4 times before it was good. And poor Samara, she´s only 8, she already was a little afraid of the water and that just tipped her over. As we are walking her to the font, she starts crying, saying she´s not ready, she doesn´t want to, and just crying. Then her poor mother was so upset and tried dragging her to the font, which made her cry worse. Then practically the entire ward was in the bathroom trying to calm the poor girl down. Finally, I made everyone leave and we walked Samara outside and Obispo Padilla and the Elders Quorum president and his daughter who is 9 came out and calmed Samara down. In the end, she didn´t get baptized. BUT Patricia did! And she loved it! And she is really glowing now! So incredible. And on Sunday, sweet little Samara told us that she wants to be baptized still, this week! Haha she´s such a mature, sweet little 8 year old! Whoo. What a crazy weekend! We were SO exhausted, emotionally, physically and spiritually by the end of Saturday night! But I am so happy for this family!!
Also, I have a Haitian mom now. Last week, a woman, Viergela, was baptized and she invited her friend, Eline, to the baptism and confirmation. Eline lives in our pueblo, so we started teaching her Tuesday. She is LISTA!! She said that at church she felt like we were the one religion she´s seen that actually follows Christ and that she feels like it is right. As we were leaving last time, she pulls us both into a big hug and said "Ahora, soy vuestra mama de Haiti!" She´s darling. And so amazing.
The other day, we were sitting at a bus stop waiting so we could go to our pueblo, and this big group of older, blonde British women come up to us and start asking us for directions. We wound up sitting there talking to them for about 10 minutes and they were hilarious! They are just older women that go travel the world together. And like half of them are named Marilyn. They were like little birds twittering on a wire. HILARIOUS!
So this week was insane, but next week will be even crazier and hopefully we´ll have another baptism this week! I hope everyone had a great week and an even better one to come! LOVE YOU!!