Sunday, July 13, 2014

July 7th








 
Yet another tiring, but crazy and satisfying week! And by the way... HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY PEOPLE!!

We saw some COOL miracles this week! Ma...(12) is the little brother of E.. (17) and J.. (15) who both were baptized in Paraguay 2 years ago and moved here a few months ago. We´ve been teaching them all since E.. and J.. have been less active pretty much since their baptism and Ma.. has been becoming more and more interested and BEGGED to come to church this week! He accepted a baptismal date for the 20th and I am pretty positive he´s going to do it! They are a great family and the older siblings are getting reactivated as a result of this! Cool stuff:)
ALSO we had the BEST 4th of July! WE all went over to the Castillo´s (the senior couple that works in the office) for district meeting and a barbecue. It was so much fun all sitting around in their family room, singing songs and we even had the meeting in Spanglish! Hahah it was a great day!
 
RANDOM THINGS
Speaking of Mexican food, there is a mexican less active man that I met last night and I told him how much I miss mexican food and his girlfriend invited us over for mexican food sometime! YES! So we had 3 investigators when I got here, but they are all really great and I can see them all progressing towards baptism. Right now we have 2 baptismal dates, one is the son of the less active woman mentioned in my 1st paragraph and the other is Ma... From what I gather, the members here do not like hermanas from bad experiences in the past, but we are really trying to gain their trust and show them we are serious about this work! We do have some REALLY GREAT youth that love come out with us though, there are 2 recent convert girls and E.. and J.. (remember the mini missionary from malaga?) and they all LOVE coming out with the missionaries and have begged us to use them now that summer has begun. Our zone is weird cause its our district and then La Mancha. Take a look at a map and see how close that is. But they are good missionaries, I like my district already! And I LOVE fish, dad, just not muscles and big clams (little ones I like though). 

 My piso now is my favorite one that I have stayed in yet, it's really clean and lots of space and I get my own bathroom for the first time again since October... WAHOO!! I really like it. I am quickly learning our area and I like it, there is a lot of potential here! Also our investigators are awesome. Almost all of them come to church and read. WHAT THE HECK? This place is great. Last pday we went into Malaga cause it was concilio so I wanted to see all my friends and this week we are going to the zoo! There is a lot to do around here, but since its so touristy, it costs a lot of money to do stuff. but I wanna hike here too!
The new area is not quaint like my last two pueblos have been, but it has mountains and beach and we run to the beach in the mornings and go along the road along the beach for a little bit and it's BEAUTIFUL. I am a big fan! I would be okay if I didn´t have to go on another long distance train for awhile, but lucky me cause I don´t! They have the bullet trains and go RIDICULOUS speeds, but they are expensive so unless you go like to La Mancha, we don´t take them. we take a lot of intercity trains too. The fruit here is really fresh. They have something called melon, which is like cantaloupe but juicier and sweeter and I love it! But people here eat fruit for dessert. Like melon would be the dessert after our meal. also yoghurt is a dessert here too. I´ve adapted to that custom actually. Its a good way to finish it for your palate. Trust me.
We met an American woman doing service this week, and she told us, with her fist raised above her head, "GOD HAS WON" and then with her other fist down to the ground, "AND LUCIFER IS BOUND!" She is very adament on these things, but apparently we made an impression cause the elders actually ran into her and tried to contact her and she said that she wasn´t interested cause she had "2 special people in her life" and started to describe us and one of the elders goes, "Would they happen to be named Sister Folsom and Sister Lionetti??" and she was like, "YEAH!" Funny, huh? So I guess she was actually interested!
 
My scripture for you this week is Moroni 8;25-26. When I was studying it this morning I saw it in a way I had never seen before. The gospel of Jesus Christ is set up in a way so that we can progress and become like Him. With each of the steps, each of the ordinances, we develop Christlike attributes and as we endure to the end, we will eventually become perfected and become like Him. I love this gospel!
LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Os quiero, vale!
hermana Folsom

June 30th

 
I feel like it has been YEARS since I last wrote you guys! I am now in my new area in Fuen! Its really odd being in President´s ward- his son gave a talk in church yesterday and I sat by Hermana Deere in Sunday School. Odd stuff, man. Its really beautiful though, right by the beach, lots of tourists and a lot of sun. Our building is SURROUNDED by pools. Oh my gosh its a terrible temptation. We leave our building and right in front of us is the entrance to the pool, wide open, calling me saying, "BECCA!! COME SWIMM!!!!" and I say, "I AM OBEDIENT, NO!!!!!!" Its okay though.
 
IT was really hard saying goodbye to Dos Hermanas. I have grown the most there and learned so much. The people there are incredible too and we saw so much growth in the area. Some cool highlights from my goodbyes are that I was feeling really bummed about not having any converts in Dos Hermanas and we were going to go say goodbye to a family of investigators, M. I.. and A.. and their kids, and when we got to their house, they told us that everybody was over at G..´s (the member who gave us them as a referral). We went over and they had thrown me a surprise going away party!! It was so perfect and so Andaluz. Then, we ran over to P..´s afterwards and he told us that he and M.. are seriously thinking about marriage and that they want to be members. Also W>> wants to be a missionary.  I miss that place so much and cried my little heart out all day Wednesday, but I am growing to love Fuengirola and working hard to build up this area.
Also cool, I already know some of the members! J..., a JAS (young single adult) who is preparing for his mission right now and goes out with us a lot, he served a mini mission in my district during my first transfer- a year ago! I already knew him! Also one of the families that fed us every week while Ï was in Málaga just moved to Fuen 3 weeks ago. We had the coolest reunion yesterday at church!
 
RANDOM THINGS
My companion is Hermana Lionetti. She is from CA and is in Hermana Blake´s group. She´s a great missionary and we get along really well!
 
It was AWFUL saying goodbye to Dos Hermanas. I feel like such a different missionary leaving there than when I came there, I have grown up a lot, learned a lot about this work and myself and how I work. I feel like all that hard work and tears there were preparing me to come here and just hit the ground running and be able to apply everything I´ve learned and internalized up to this point here and just GO! I feel a different, more hastened energy here, I don´t know, its hard to describe. Our area is pretty solidly middle class I feel like. We have people from all over, there are a lot of south americans here too, I´ve missed that. I love comida latina. My replacement was Hermana Moreno, she is the sweetest hermana in our entire mission so they are going to do work. She´s also the only spanish hermana!
Love you all very much! have a great week! LOVE YOU!
Hermana Folsom