"Whensoever I take my journey into Spain...": January 2014

Thursday, January 30, 2014

January 27

Baptism

Me being Mary Poppins

Good morning brothers and sisters. We would like to welcome you out to the 32nd general weekly email. Anyways... This week was SO FAST! I really feel like I just emailed ya´ll so its odd that this is happening again so fast! But no complaints from this side of the world:)

So we have this super cute Argentinian member here in the English branch (she´s an au pair for one of the families here) and she served her mission is Argentina and speaks fluent english. Her "family" is in Germany this week and next so we had a girls night! (it was just dinner and a message, but it was so fun!) She made us empanadas and mac n cheese. Literally the best meal I´ve had in awhile. I missed mac and cheese I guess! Hahaha but it was fun and she told us all about her mission and life and she was so excited for us to come over! She says she has some friends she wants us to meet too so thats exciting:)

You could probably tell by the title, but LOLI GOT BAPTIZED! She really was such a miracle. The service was beautiful and her kids and their respective novios all came and loved it! Even cooler yet is that a good majority of our rama showed up to support her. It was a hit. And she´s a member now! WOO! She´s so excited and so happy now and she´s really hitting it off with the relief society ladies so thats great. Now we just gotta work on getting the rest of her family and sending them off to the temple to be sealed:)

Also on Saturday, we had a practice for this musical number we are doing at stake conference as missionaries and I was in charge and it was actually really fun! I was enjoying myself thoroughly bossing all the missionaries around and leading the group. They sound AWESOME. I´m going to see if I can sneakily get a recording of it on the voice recorder ya´ll sent me so you can hear cause its GREAT!

Random Things

Stake conference is this saturday and sunday so we will be BUSY this weekend! And I did pretty good with terms and there are a few native elders that speak fluent english who helped me with the rest.

Sorry I don´t put my testimony in these emails too often. I feel like I do, but we always run out of time! Something kind of cool though, since I just finished reading the Book of Mormon all the way through, I decided to read the New Testament all the way through now. I am loving reading about the Savior´s life and His ministry. It's cool reading it as a missionary because there are so many things I can apply to my own "ministry" as a missionary!

We actually teach the restoration first usually, unless otherwise directed by the spirit. One thing that I LOVE to do when we teach the Plan of salvation is after explaining the 3 reinos de gloria, I ask them which one they want to go to. Then I ask what they would be willing to do to get there. Then I´m like, Committment. But it works for members too. We have a lot we have to do in order to get there and it helps me put everything into perspective that way.

Being a missionary is hard, but you have a lot of help. There is a reason why the Lord has asked that missionaries go through the temple before, they are set apart and given power and authority. I really could NOT do this on my own, there have been a lot of times on my mission when I have had no clue what to say, but I open my mouth and something comes out. The Lord works through us and its our job to be worthy instruments.

My scripture for you is Matthew 4:21-22. I love this example. we should be like these disciples. The Savior called to them and they "immediately" dropped what they were doing and followed Him. Put the Savior first in your life!

Os quiero mucho mucho y espero que todos tengais una semana espectacular. Que Dios os bendiga:)

Hermana Folsom

January 20

Knocking on castle doors.

HEYOO Familia! Hows it going in the great ol´ US of A? Things are going here in Spain. And by going I mean going great! We are still seeing cool miracles. Right before she left, Hermana Hoffman described Puerto as "on point" and boy was she right! The Lord has been preparing people and we are here ready to harvest!

So I think I explained a little bit about Loli but I want to write her story cause its cool. So Loli is the sister of Petri. Petri invited everyone she knew to the ward Christmas party in December which was AWESOME and we´ve gotten several investigators thanks to that. One of which is Loli. She absolutely loved the church when she came for the party. She said that she felt at peace and comfortable there, not guilty like when she goes to her church. She came on her own to church a few weeks later, even without Petri, and we talked to her then and started teaching her that week! Loli says that she feels so right at our church and as we´ve taught her everything, she says she feels its true. She accepted a baptismal date and is now on track to be baptized on Saturday! Loli says that had she not stopped going to her church about 10 years ago taht she would not have been ready to receive our message. She totally is noticing everything thats happened in her life to lead up to now. And SHE´S GETTING BAPTIZED SATURDAY!

Also we had a really cool, really good lesson with Harris on Friday in the home of the nicest members. The wife is a convert and the husband was reactivated as she joined the church. We asked her about her conversion story over dinner and as she was telling it, I kept on looking over at Harris and he was just laughing cause SO MUCH of her story and his matched up! We taught about hte Plan of Salvation and he accepted a baptismal date! he´s like pretty serious about getting baptized while he´s here, he just is still waiting for that confirmation of truth, but we even talked through logistics of his baptism. I´m just still praying that he recognizes his answer.

It was a really good week. We have a LOT of work. Like its actually kinda stressful planning for everything. WHICH IS A GREAT PROBLEM TO HAVE! I´m really enjoying doing this work and seeing the outcome of all the hard work we´ve put into this area. LOVE IT!

Have you ever read our Search for Happiness by Elder Ballard? That convert member gave a copy to Harris and since its in our missionary library, I decided to read it too! So during meals and stuff I´ve been reading it and he kinda explains why we are a peculiar people. I really like it!

I got a call from one of the zone leaders this week and I´m the missionary chorister for our missionary choir for stake conference. So I get to boss our zone around musically... in spanish. I don´t know musical terms in spanish but we´ll see how it goes! We have our first practice saturday and then the conference is the first.

Kinda cool, our stake had a youth activity on Saturday. So basically all of the youth in one ward here are inactive, so all the youth went to that town and I guess they got put in companionships and were each given a youth to go look up and invite to come to a pizza party later that evening in the church. Isn´t that cool? Then they all chatted and spent the day with the less active youth. I was like, what a cool missionary experience for all of them and they all had super cool stories to tell yesterday at church.

My favorite part of this week? It was probably Friday night when we went to the Rhinehart´s for dinner and a lesson with Harris. They made chili ad homemade ice cream and it was YUMMY and CHILL. And I learned how to pop whipped cream from my arm into my mouth.

My scripture for you this week is 1 Nephi 22:25. It talks about how the Lord is our Shepherd but I love the part that says, "and they know Him" because the true disciples of Christ really do know Him. Know Him!

Love you all so stinking much and miss you all but I am really enjoying serving here. Have a most excellent week! LOVE YA!

Hermana Folsom

January 13

New companionship!

Arcos de la Frontera

Hello lovelies! So news.... I´M A MOM. We picked up Hermana Andrus on Tuesday and got back to our area to offically start her training on Wedneday. She´s from Sacramento and is super chill. This is shaping up to be a pretty good transfer I think! Training an American is a lot different than a Spaniard. The only thing we really had to do with Hermana Corral was practice like the actual lessons so she knew which points to hit and stuff. With this, I actually feel like I´m doing something. She hears us speaking Spanish and is all like, WHOA. And I´m like, just you wait like 2 more months and you will NOT be that impressed with our Spanish sista! Haha but she´s sweet and learning fast. She gave a STELLAR talk in sacrament meeting and I was like, BUSTED. You DO speak spanish!
Kinda cool tradition. So last monday was el día de los tres reyes magos (Three Kings Day) and they have this cake called the Roscón de reyes. In it there is a bean and a little ceramic toy. If you get the toy in your piece, you are the King and you wear a crown but if you get the bean in your piece you have to pay for the next year´s Roscon de Reyes. Guess who got the bean? BUT since I won´t be here next year, we decided that the buck gets passed to the poor missionaries who are here then:) It was fun, we spent the evening with the Streeters, since Sister Streeter is Spanish. So it was like an American Spanish mix of a celebration. Pretty good first and last Three Kings Day.

Having a new missionary is like having a miracle magnet. I am a firm believer that the Lord puts cool miracles in their paths to help them along in their first few weeks. We´ve been having a hard time getting people to accept baptismal dates, but one of the tasks for the first week of training is to invite someone to be baptized. So Hermana Andrus invited Petri´s sister, Loli and also another investigator, Joel, to baptism and THEY BOTH ACCEPTED!! Also we found this less active woman and she said if we can show her where the capilla is, she will start coming again, she had just moved and didn´t know where the capilla is! Stay tuned for more miracles:)

WE HAVE THE BEST MEMBERS IN THE WORLD. The American branch is getting so excited about missionary work and now they are all asking us to do lessons at their homes. I´m just like, well we only have one English investigator, but YOU all have friends, so.... Hahah but they all love us. Today, Millie took us to Arcos de la Frontera, a famous BEAUTIFUL white pueblo here in Cádiz. I took a million pictures and it was so fun! And they are offering to take us to another one when they get back from vacation! WOO! Really we are well taken care of here:)

Random Things

I saw people on base wearing seahawks gear and i was like THATS MY TEAM!

Cool miracle: we are teaching a member´s sister, Loli. She´s come to church three times now and we wanted to get her to commit to baptism. We taught one of the best plan of salvation lessons I´ve taught yet on my míssion and when we explained the celestial kingdom to her, we asked her what she was willing to do to go there. THEN SHE ACCEPTED A BAPTISMAL DATE! It was great and the spirit was so strong.
I´ve noticed that our investigators that are progressing the best are ones who we teach with all or mostly members present lessons.

My scripture for you is Helaman 5:30. I love to use this when I explain to people how the Holy Ghost answers our questions. Its not a voice of thunder or something loud and shouting at us. It's a still small voice. and we need to be looking for it to answer our questions. It's not going to come and shout in our face, we have to actively seek it.
LOVE YOU ALL!! Have a great week!
Hermana Folsom

Monday, January 6, 2014

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

Sunday, January 5, 2014

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!