January 6th--Three King's Day

Holy moly I feel like this week just flew by! I cannot believe its already Monday again... SO I GOT THE CHRISTMAS PACKAGE!  And as requested, I wrote down my reaction to all of it as I opened it. The sweater is SO cute and the batman shirt is awesome. I already have worn it several times. The reeses and ferreros are the BOMB and half gone. I love all the colors of the nail polish, the tights and socks are needed and adorable, wore them already! And church stuff is genius! I needed a calendar and I love all the pics and everything of Jesus! Oh and I love the earrings and I am almost done with my journal so that was just in time!  Thank you so much! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

SO we got transfer calls and I am going to be staying here in Puerto with Hermana Childers and we are going to be training! I´m actually really excited to be training. I think it will be good and I´m excited for our new comp! AND Hermana Hoffman is going to Málaga :) I´ve been telling her all about it:)

New Years Eve was... not fun. I was really sick. I´d been up all night the night before vomitting and most of the day as well. So we were out of commission and had to cancel our plans to go spend the evening with some members and eat the grapes at midnight:( I went to bed at 930... But it was nice cause we went to Sevilla the next day for a trizone conference and so I got to sit all day in the capilla there which was a needed break!! But I´m all better now! Oh and the sweet thing about being in a branch is that EVERYONE found out that I was sick and people have been asking me all week how I´m doing and everything. Its sweet.

 

RANDOM THINGS
 As a mission, we have the goal of baptizing 600 people in 2014. Its cool that basically I´m going to be here for all of that! I´m so excited! We are seeing a lot of excitement in the English branch over missionary work and I´m loving it. Most of the members have grown up in Utah and now as married life have served in places where they have military stakes overseas, so they haven´t really seen a lot of success in this work. But now, with the baptism last month and now someone else being taught, they are getting so excited about it! They are all inviting us to teach lessons in their homes and calling our investigator and having him and Zac over. I love it! One of the sisters in the branch told me that when we leave, she and her husband ask each other how they can get us to come back. And another couple told us what a blessing that its been to have been able to have us teach someone in their home. Its really cool that its not just helping us, or the investigator, but also the members! It makes me think of in chapter 4 of Preach My Gospel, there is a quote by Pres. Packer that says that we need to understand how the missionary feels, the investigators feels and the members feel when the Spirit is working with them.

 Okay so Friday night I was out with Annie, our mini missionary, and EVERYONE failed us. We were literally walking around all night and it wasn´t just that people failed us, but they flat out rejected us. Its odd but its taken me until almost 7 months in to finally be flat out rejected, door slammed in my face. BUT it was a bummer cause it was with our mini missionary! I was really getting discouraged and I still wasn´t feeling 100% better and we had an hour left and had already gone through all our plans, all our backups and some. I just sat down on some stairs and was ready to cry. Then I remembered something one of my old Zone Leaders told me. When you don´t know what else to do, pray! So we knelt down there in that building and said a prayer. As we finished, I was like, there is one more person we haven´t tried! So we get up and go to find this person. Turns out they had moved, but his aunt was still living there and told us she wants us to come back and teach her and she accepted a book of mormon. It was really a testimony to me of the power of prayer and the importance of EACH soul to Heavenly Father!
So I was walking and it was a narrow sidewalk so the mini missionary, Annie, was right behind me. Suddenly I heard something that I swear was a human screaming and it was right as this man with a little girl and a dog passed me. I gasped (okay I screamed) and look him really intensely in the face and go, "¡ME ASUSTÓ!" (You frightened me) He like freaked out and started getting really apologetic and kept on saying that he was sorry. Turns out it was his dog barking but I thought that Annie was DYING behind me! I hope that man accepts the gospel someday despite this crazy sister missionary...I don´t know if I described it well but it was traumatizing and embarrassing.

My scripture for you this week is D&C 6:20. I love the imagery of being encircled about in the arms of our Savior´s love. And all we have to do is keep his commandments. I love promises in the scriptures! I also love the Holy Ghost. Always live worthy to have it as your constant companion. YOU HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF HAVING A MEMBER OF THE GODHEAD WITH YOU ALWAYS. How cool is that???

Love you all and miss you oodles! Happy Three Kings!

Hermana Folsom

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December 30th

Heyo familia and amigos! This week was definitely an odd one, but also a great one! I LOVED getting to talk to everyone on Wednesday, but an hour just wasn´t long enough:( But it was great none the less:)

So we have these investigators. They are poor beyond belief! He plays the accordion in the streets and she sells toys and they barely have enough to pay rent, let alone feed their two little kids! It broke my heart when I figured out just how poor they are and despite how much they lack, they still are so giving of what they DO have! It was such a reality check for me and made me feel so grateful for the upbringing I had and suddenly I was like, wow. I have a LOT of stuff. It proves to me though that you don´t need money to be happy. Their kids are the sweetest and so content with whatever small toys they get. AND they are loving learning about the gospel! She has been reading the Book of Mormon and she says she feels so good everytime she reads it and loves it so much!

We had our first lesson with an American investigator on Sunday and it went really well I think! We were so nervous about teaching in English all week and we´d been practicing the First Vision since he agreed to meet with us! We went over to the Price´s and he and Zac came over as well as the Price´s neighbor. We taught the Restoration and my companions conspired and worked it out so I had to give the First Vision! I was so nervous, like more than the first time I did it in Spanish! Haha but it went really well and the spirit was super strong! I am so excited to keep teaching them!  It really was an incredible lesson though. We had three great members testifying and teaching and it just went so well!

SUPER COOL! So ever since the MTC I always wanted to serve here in Puerto, especially since my favorite teacher in the MTC, Hermana Ganaza, is from here. When I found out I was going to be here over the Christmas vacation, I was SO excited, hoping to get to see her. AND YESTERDAY SHE CAME TO CHURCH! She´s so sweet, she was my little mama in the MTC and when she saw me at church, she got so excited and gave me a HUGE like 2 minute long hug and kept going "Oh, mi niña!" It was so great getting to see her and that hug was THE BEST! She even gave me some names of her friends she wants me to work with. :)

 

RANDOM THINGS

 Bahaha yeah as I was talking to all of you, I had the realization, wow. I am such a missionary! But at least I didn´t commit you guys to sharing the gospel like other of my friends did... GO SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS! 

Yeah it didn´t hit me it was Christmas until Thursday. Then I got sad. But then I ate chocolate and got over it. Haha I decided my poor final companion is gonna hate me cause that whole last transfer I´m just going to sing "I´ll Be Home for Christmas." 

My scripture for you this week is 1 Ne 3:6. We are blessed if we do the Lord´s will WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE. This is something I´ve really decided to focus my mission on, to not just do this work, but to do it with a smile and love every minute of it! Because really when we don´t murmur and when we are enjoying living this gospel, we will be favored of the Lord. 

Have a great new year and see you in 2014! LOVE YOU!

Hermana Folsom

© 2014 Microsoft Terms Privacy Developers English (United States)

December 23rd

 

WAHOO its almost Christmas! Except it really doesn´t feel like it, especially because here they don´t do gifts on Christmas, they do it on the Reyes Magos, which is January 6th.

SOO last Monday I did something kinda cool that I completely forgot to tell ya´ll what it was! I went to the UK and saw Africa! Let me explain. Jessie, our American investigator took us to GIBRALTAR!  I loved it! Gibraltar is beautiful, it's just like stereotypical British town on the coast of Spain. It's funny, like Heavenly Father knows that it belongs to the UK so the second you cross into Gibraltar, it's all cloudy and gray. AND BEAUTIFUL! We hiked up the rock and played with the monkeys (one of them styled my hair, I´ll send a picture) and looked around all the old military stuff left over there from WWII and then went back down the mountain and into Spain and had some Spanish tapas to finish off our excursion. It's funny because my last zone was just the city of Malaga, but now my zone here is the entire province of Cádiz. SO even though it took 1 hour and a half to drive to Gibraltar, its still in our zone! It was a fun day!

This week we did another finding week. The most new investigators we´ve ever found in a week as a mission was last finding week when we found 558. But our mission has grown considerably and so the goal for this week was 800 new investigators. I´ll admit, when I heard the goal, I was like "Okay, well this will be nice to motivate us to work hard, but we could NEVER do that!" BUT WE FOUND 847 NEW INVESTIGATORS LAST WEEK!!!!!!!! It was great. We as a companionship saw so many cool miracles because of it, the first one being our Romanian family.

We found them looking for former investigators, who has supposedly moved but we met their neighbors, the Romanians! Mario and his wife, MariOla and they have the most precious little kids. When I met that family, my heart melted in my chest and I felt so strongly that they are going to accept this gospel. I have never felt such a strong connection or conviction before about anyone else yet until I met this sweet little family from Romania. We started explaining the Book of Mormon to them and they got so excited and before we had even asked MariOla anything, she was telling us that she felt the spirit really strong and she loved how she felt with us! And then Mario had great questions and told us that if everyone in the world was like us that the world would be perfect. And then their little girl, with her raspy voice, kept on asking me when she could go to church and if we could take her RIGHT THEN! They are amazing.

ANOTHER miracle this week was... CODY GOT BAPTIZED!!! At first, we were really worried. We had gone 2 hours early to fill up the font and to set everything up. We had checked it periodically the first 45 minutes and it was filling up fine, but then 10 minutes before the baptism, we went in and the font was not even half full! We were freaking out! The drain had broken and it wasn´t filling up at all! We were so blessed because the old branch president had just showed up and he fixed it for us and got it going right again. And then Cody was like 30 minutes late so it was full by the time the program was half done. But it all turned out well and we had a really good turn out! Almost the entire American branch came! I think they were all so excited to see an actual convert baptism in their branch:) It was a great baptism and Cody felt so good and looks so happy!

December 16th

 

Lovely, amazing, wonderful family of mine! How is everyone doing? Super stoked for Christmas in almost a week?!?! I am!

 This week was a harder one, but it was a really enlightening week. I have never felt so close to my Savior and felt like I completely had to rely on Him before. I am so completely convinced of the amazing power of the Atonement. Everytime I think about it, I am in awe. I really have to stop and just sit in awe sometimes. There is an amazing Mormon Message about the Atonement in Missionary Work. We watched it together as a companionship last week and IT IS AMAZING! It includes a talk by Elder Holland when he explains why this work is so hard sometimes. I love what he says (you have to read this in his voice) when he says that "Salvation was NOT a cheap experience!" And then he goes on to say how because Christ suffered so much, perhaps we have to experience at least a little bit of how difficult it was for Him. I am so grateful for my Savior and what He paid for me. He knows each of us so perfectly and so personally. Its remarkable, really. I know I could not do this work by myself and I am grateful that after I have done my best that I can reach out and He´ll do the rest.

 WE ARE HAVING A BAPTISM ON SATURDAY!! Cody met the missionaries through the American branch president. He is AMAZING! The kid has already read the whole Book of Mormon and believes so firmly in what we are teaching him! He has a good heart and is putting in the right place! SO stay tuned for my first American baptism! EXCITING!

RANDOM THINGS

(Editors note: These are little bits of info gleaned from her personal notes to family members)

 

 The return of Sofie... I fell asleep while we were all talking one night and Hermana Childers goes, I think Sofie fell asleep! Hahah I may have to name one of my children Sofie one day.  

A blessing for me ....my piano playing has definitely improved. I can improv now and I can sightread almost anything (because people hear you play the piano and think you are some magic music wizard and can play/transpose anything they want on the spot.) but its been great being able to use my talents to bless people here!

 There WERE 4 sets of missionaries in our district, but the Todds go home tomorrow so now we are down to just 3. The Todds are amazing. They took such good care of us for even just the few short weeks I overlapped with them. We went over Saturday to help them clean out their piso and pack a little and it was fun, she fed us good Southern cooking.

Saturday we also went to eat at the Calzone House (its owned by the branch president´s mother in law and she´s asked that we go eat there FOR FREE whenever we are in Rota cause its good for her business) It's AMAZING italian food and they absolutely love us there, so no complaints by me! (We even share a message with the waiter:) 

 love you all and talk to you in 9 days!!

 

Hermana Folsom



December 9

Christmas tree at the Streeter's. If you look real close you will see Angel Moroni on top. 

 

Hello family!! Oh my goodness I cannot believe its only/already been a week!

Some funny  things that happened this week: We had an investigator that is CONVINCED that my name is Sofie. I have no clue where she got it! Its better Sofie than what she used to call me: Sofa. Her prayer one time went like this, "Por favor bendice a Hoffman y Sofa." Sofa in spanish is couch. I prefer Sofie!

So Saturday we went to Rota to have an American day (we only get out there about once a week, most of the time we work with the Spanish branch) and it was SO HARD teaching Americans! I was trying to explain the prayer and I could not remember how to say "Dear Heavenly Father" to save my life! We were teaching at the branch president´s house and I was like, great. They probably think I´m an idiot and can´t even speak my native language. But even though we don´t memorize the lessons, you get accustomed to saying things a certain way and so I found myself translating how I would normally explain the prayer or something as opposed to just saying it in English!

 

Our American investigators are rocking it! Cody is on track to be baptized on the 21st.  He´s 14 and is really smart. He´s almost finished the Book of Mormon! Then Jessie told us she wants to be baptized with her husband when he gets back from Training.

Also none of the piano players were in either branches in church on Sunday so I got to play for both Sacrament Meetings! And next week I get to give a talk in BOTH branches! I´m just going to write one and translate it. Oh the blessings of working with 2 branches.

The members are loving having 2 new sisters in the branches and so everyone is feeding us so we can get to know them! One day last week we had TWO back to back eating citas... BUT it's so great, we are getting so many references and really gaining the trust of the members. I´m just getting really fat in the process

 

 Most of our investigators are related to each other and are the family of this one member who is AWESOME! Our branches are so special. We found out this Sunday that at the first of the year the stake president is sending in the papers for us to become a Ward! It's such an exciting time to be here in Puerto. The members are really getting the Spirit of missionary work and its making it so much fun to work with them! We actually got to do splits this week (2 of us went to one lesson and another went with one of the Ward missionaries) and it was really cool! we want to do it again! So the work here is going good, slow at times but definitely picking up!

A little about Christmas. There are statues of Jesus and Mary here everywhere even when it's not Christmas, but now everyone has their really extravagant nativity scenes out - it's so cool! (Belén is a nativity set. Belén also means Bethlehem. cool)

I LOVE CHIRSTMAS TREES! We went to the branch president of the American branch´s house the other day and it reminded me so much of home I almost didn´t want to leave after the lesson.

Love you all!!!

Hermanas Folsom

 

December 2nd

My new address:

Avda Sanlucar Nº8, 3B

El Puerto de Santa María, 11500 (Cádiz)

SPAIN

 

Greetings from the lovely little pueblo of Puerto de Santa Maria!! Oh  my goodness, so much to say and my little frozen hands can hardly type it all!! So I am in Puerto right now with Hermanas Hoffman and Childers. Hermana Hoffman is from Nevada and has 1 less transfer in the mission than me and is half Brazilian! She went to BYU and was studying biology. And Hermana Childers is from Camas, WA!!! She has 8 months in the mission and is rockin! She went to BYUI studying photography. They are both so sweet and funny and we already get along really well and work well together. I´m really excited for the rest of this transfer!

About Pueblo, its as precious as precious can get! I absolutely adore this place! Its a city (smallish) but is a pueblo of Cadiz. The branch is pretty small and pretty great. And here´s the crazy part, THERE IS AN ENGLISH BRANCH AND THE SISTERS WORK WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!  Church was good, weird in English for the English branch, and so great in Spanish. I´m already falling in love with the people! And we´ve already seen so many miracles here, the work is picking up apparently! we have technically 2 branches, but they are both small. The English branch has like 5 families and the Spanish branch has attendance of about 65 each Sunday. There are 2 sets of missionaries here, us and the elders, and in Rota is where the Todd´s are. There is an American military base there!  We work with them now because the Todds go home in 3 weeks. Our area is so much bigger than it was in Malaga. I was so tired and so shocked by how much walking we do at first but now I´m getting used to it (although I´m still EXHAUSTED!)

SOO since there are a lot of Americans in our area, we literally had the best Thanksgiving in the mission, I´m convinced of it! We started out at the Todd´s and they had appetizers and we played games and stuff. It was us, the Puerto elders and the Jerez sisters, the daughter of the Todds and her family who are visiting, and like 6 marines from the base. It was so much fun! And so much English. It was actually really weird cause I was going from strictly Spanish to now all English activities. I think I forgot how to English. It was a struggle. But then we went to the restaurant of the English Branch president´s mother in law (weird connection but it makes sense) and had a big Thanksgiving feast with like 25 invites! IT. WAS. DELICIOUS. And the Marines showed up to that too. One of them is a member and he brings his friends to activities like this all the time apparently. Basically it was a wonderful Thanksgiving and they gave us the leftover turkey! I think I could get used to it here in Puerto :)

Our new apartment is incredible. One of the nicest ones I´ve seen! It even has a really modern kitchen! the only thing is that its FREEZING!! But that's okay, we have a heater and have closed it off in our bedroom and we basically do everything in there now. We even did comp study in there today cause the study room was FREEZING!!! Both Hermana Childers and I are new to the area and Hoffman has been here for 2 transfers already. I actually took 2 trains to Puerto. It was crazy and a little stressful but luckily my layover was in the city of one of the SHE´s, so they picked me up and took me to their piso to hangout until my next train left, and then both my comps were on that train so we actually met on a train!

Saying goodbye to everyone in Malaga was brutal. I lost it when I said bye to Estrella and her family. Such a dork. But they cried too so I don´t feel so bad. All day Tuesday I was like, this is stupid. I hate goodbyes. Why did I decide to do this! But now I'm good cause I like meeting people so I'm happy again!

 

Spanish food is bomb and everyone here is anxious to give us food! So I get fed... a lot. Hahaha one of the members apparently smacked a sister missionary Gibbs-style when she didn´t eat all her food so I´ll be sure to eat everything on my plate here... hahaha!!

LOVE YOU ALL!! Have a great week!!

Hermana Folsom

Happy 20th B-day!!!

Holy moly familia I am 20! WaHOOO! No longer a teenager... Odd. SOO old;) Hahaha still not old enough to have been a missionary before the announcement though! so this was a pretty great week!

First of all... I´M LEAVING MALAGA! I am going to Puerto de Santa Maria, its near Cadiz and apparently its BEAUTIFUL. STOKED. And... I´m going to be in another trio. My comps are going to be Hermanas Childers and Hoffman. I´ll let you all know more about them next week after I actually meet them!

SO we went to the Picasso museum on Tuesday and it was cool! Its really quaint and it was cool getting up close to the artwork. Also strange and kind of surreal being in Europe seeing originals of paintings I´ve looked at in books! So it was a pretty good pday:)

FUNNY Spanish mistake I made the other day... SO el papa means the pope and la papa means potato. Someone asked us a question about what happens when the prophet dies and she´s catholic so I was explaining the difference and I said "When the potato dies, all the cardinals come together..." Shoot. Haha she died laughing when I said that.

The package arrived on Wednesday!! And thank you!!! I´m so stoked to make enchiladas today:) I haven´t opened the post it note or the squishy package yet, I´m waiting until I have cake in my mouth to do that;) We really get so little on birthdays in the mission, so I´m milking this thing as much as I can! Haha but when we eat, we are going to put on the tiaras and dance and blow up the balloons and party! Hahaha I´ve been picking up and smelling the tortillas package all day. I cried when I first opened it and smelled it because it smells like home. I missed corn tortillas. Haha thank you for wrapping all those presents! the paper was darling and it was fun seeing presents galore when I opened the box!

 

Happy thanksgiving and happy birthday to me!

Hermana Folsom!