Zone Conference & Beyond

This week I had a Zone Conference, and it was amazing! We talked a lot about listening to our investigators. In reality, this is one of the hallmarks of good missionary work. We also talked a lot about being bold and identifying ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ.

I read in John 9 this week and it talked about a blind man who was healed by the savior. He didn't see who healed him, but he knew to some extent it was the savior. The Pharisees  subjected this man to a harsh round of interrogation, but the man never denied the work that had been done. He is banned from the synagogue, but as he is leaving, he meets the savior and discovers for a certainty that He was the man who healed him. It´s much like our lives in which we must be bold and have faith before we know anything for certain.

We also did more exchanges this week. Nothing terribly eventful. Most people waved us off. One even yelled off in the distance "CULT!"   I wanted to give her a piece of my mind, but I realized that I needed to follow the example of the Savior. Specifically, my works here are good enough. I don´t need to prove anything. I´m here to teach those who will listen.

We had an amazing investigator this week. A few weeks ago, we stopped Rs because Hermana Sanchez felt a strong prompting to talk to her. When we met with her, we could tell there was some sort of light within her. When we started the lesson we asked if we could sing a hymn, and Hermana Sanchez asked me to pick. For some reason, out of the 209 songs in the Spanish Hymn Book, I could only think of Christmas songs. So we sang O Come All Ye Faithful.

My companion and I were a little worried that this was going to be weird for her. I was certain she was going to tell her friends later something to the effect of "These weird girls asked me to come learn more about their religion and they told me some stuff about golden plates and angels, and then we sang Christmas songs..." Nonetheless, as we started singing, we saw her face light up.
I could feel the spirit strongest when we read James 1: 5 to her (If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him). I know we can talk to God and he will answer our prayers.

At the end of the lesson, even before we had time to say anything, she asked "What do I need to do to be baptized in your church?" We were both speechless. We´re meeting with her sometime this week.

We´re plodding along on R´s baptism. We had to push it forward a week because there was no way we were going to teach everything to her in time for last Saturday. It´s best to go a little too slow than to go too fast. We wanted to make sure she understood everything and felt comfortable. But we do have her baptism set in stone for this Saturday. :) She´s excited.

I´m singing with the Elders in the program, so I´ll be sure to send a video (which is apparently not against my mission rules!) and some photos of R, Hna. Sanchez and me. 

This Week Was Pretty Awesome

Here is Kathleen's latest letter from the field (posted by her Mom--just so no one thinks she is sneaking out and playing with Facebook!!)

I´m so happy to hear about Whit's mission. It sounds like he was really successful. He certainly had the right attitude. If you go into a mission looking to find yourself, you´ll be sorely disappointed. A mission is about finding others. And what he said about creating yourself is true. I´m understanding the importance and developing a desire to be more like the savior. One of the characteristics of the Savior was that despite his own discomforts, fears and insecurities, he never turned inwards and focused on himself. He instead fought his afflictions by focusing on loving and comforting others.

This week was pretty awesome! We have one investigator, R, who we are preparing for baptism on the 29th. She´s from the Dominican Republic and she is full of sass and doesn´t care what anyone thinks about her. She is awesome! She gets the Telling-It-How-It-Is Award. Also, she is super prepared. She understands things so clearly and beautifully. It´s like the Spirit is whispering in her ear the whole lesson.

This week she brought her adorable grandson, P, to the lesson (he is just like his grandmother). We talked about prayer and he even answered some of the questions in the lesson. R knows how to pray like we do, but her grandson doesn´t. She asked P to pray at the end of the lesson, and he protested. She was having none of it. Her response: "You know ´Our Father´ don´t you? Good. Say that." I had to hold back my giggling.

I gave a talk in church. Apparently the congregation was a little surprised. A lot of them told me my Spanish was really clear, and that I´ve learned a lot since I´ve been here. This week I have to give the lesson in Family Home Evening for the branch. I sure hope I can speak as clearly then.

We also had a new investigator this week. We met A on the street the first week we were here, and she said she was looking for a church. She´s also from the Dominican Republic. She has three children, but unfortunately, they are in the Dominican Republic while she works here. She said she really trusted us and that´s why she invited us over.

We could tell how prepared she was to hear the Gospel. When we talked about her beliefs she expressed frustration that there are so many churches that teach different things, but to her "there is only one God." We taught her the first lesson, and she understood everything: Prophets, apostasy, the church Jesus Christ established on the earth. She accepted the message so well. She´s a really special person.

Spiritual thought for the week:

In my personal study this week I read the first chapter of John. In verses 6-9 I felt like it was speaking directly to me. I know that I was called by God to do this work. I know I´m here to bear testimony of the power of the Atonement to all who will listen. I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives. 

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

In verse 12 I was reminded how powerful the Atonement is and how powerful and real the ordinances of the Gospel are. (Particularly, baptism).

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

I love you all.

Warmly (even though I´m freezing),

Kathleen

El Campo

Post No. 1.  10/27/14:  My last evening in the MTC I used that story to try and uplift one of the missionaries going to Russia (James Christiansen´s mission). He was really struggling, and he believed that he didn´t have the social skills or Gospel skills to be a good missionary. I had him read the story, and I told him how I knew that he was exactly where the Lord wanted him. I told him that I loved him and that he was going to do good work in Russia. He had tears in his eyes. When I left the next morning, he told me he was going to miss me the most of all the Spanish speaking missionaries.

The field is AWESOME. I love it here. I was hoping I could surprise you guys, but either my credit card statement or mission president spoiled the surprise. Not quite sure which. 

Nonetheless, I´m in Segovia! It´s the most Spanish thing I´ve ever seen. There is a super tiny branch of no more than 25 people. Nineteen came to church yesterday and this includes four missionaries. We need 150 people to make a ward... We seriously have our work cut out for us.

My companion is Hermana Sánchez! She´s 22 and from the south of Spain. She speaks some English, so we have some funny moments where we can barely understand eachother. We get along great! We´re a really great companionship, and she loves being my companion as well!

I can´t even begin to tell you how awesome I think she is! When I was in the MTC, I kept telling the MTC President that I really want to be the best missionary I can be. He would talk a little about the usual things that make a good missionary; then he would say that he doesn´t think I´ll have a problem with any of that; then end by saying "Wow! I really hope one of you gets Hermana Sánchez! She´s the best missionary I´ve ever seen!"

When the president told me that I was getting her as my trainer, I felt like I won the jackpot. I was thrilled!

The other two missionaries here are Elders Brewer and Roca. Elder Roca is on a mini-mission, a three month mission before he starts his real one. He´s a really good missionary. The four of us accidentally run into each other every day. This city is super small.

In other news, we have a baptismal date set for the 22nd of November. It´s the sister of one of our other investigators.

Post No. 2.  11/10/2014:  I forgot to tell you guys about my first impressions of Spain. In the area where I´m serving, it´s super diverse. A lot of the people here are from Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. And obviously there are a lot of Spaniards. One of the first things I noticed is that grandparents are super involved with their grandchildren. I almost always see children with their grandparents instead of their parents.

Also, the older generation likes to dress in casual suits any day at any hour of the day. I kind of like it. 

Proselyting here is kind of interesting. When we´re not teaching, we´re typically street contacting. Normally, people think we´re Jehovah´s Witnesses or trying to sell them a copy of the Book of Mormon. Occasionally, however, we do have a good fortune of talking to someone who is really interested.

We´ve had an incredible week. We´ve been really diligent and obedient, and it has really paid off. On Tuesday, I went to Madrid to do exchanges. My companion was Hermana Whiting, who I actually met on Facebook in a group for sister missionaries. We had an awesome day together. We taught two people, Al and Jeff.

Al was interesting. She is from Hong Kong, and she was in Madrid for work. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She was very open to both messages. She had really good questions, and really wanted to understand what we were teaching.

Jeff was really fun to teach. He has a great sense of humor. We started teaching him about the Word of Wisdom, but we got side tracked on part of the Plan of Salvation. This went on for a really long time, but finally the "teach people, not lessons" mode kicked in for me.

A lot of times, missionaries don´t have all the answers, but the scriptures do, and that´s what Jeff needed. I gave my testimony about prayer and scripture study, and how I know that all of life´s questions can be answered through them. Hermana Whiting did the same. I asked him if he would pray that night and search the scriptures for his answer, and he agreed.

After Sister Whiting and I got out of that lesson, she told me that it was a big deal that we committed him to pray. Apparently he never wanted to pray previously due to some bad experiences with his family. The fact he committed was a big step for him.

One of the things I´ve learned this week is that free agency has a lot to do with how receptive and how prepared someone is to hear our message. We have met a lot of people who are prepared to hear the message this week though. We could really tell how the spirit was working through these people. They had never heard of the message before now, but it seems as if they recognized it as we taught.

We taught a man named An this week. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel. He had a lot of the same questions as Joseph Smith: Which church is true? How will I know what church is true? He understood what we taught him very well and even said he would think about getting baptised. Hopefully we´ll meet with him towards the end of this week.

Yesterday, in church a man walked in during the last hour of church. Hermana Sánchez had met him before and so we started talking to him. He said there was something "magical" about us and wanted to learn more about the church.

We´re teaching a lot of people right now, and I wish I had the time to tell you about all of them! We even have a baptismal date for Rebecca. She´s a really special investigator. 

We´ve also been working a lot with the members to look for more referrals. The work is really hard, but I never realized it could be so fun!

As far as spiritual thoughts go this week, I was reading In Alma 20 forward, and I love the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehites. In Alma 23: 6, it talks about their conversions. It says as they were truly converted, they never fell away. They even buried thier weapons to show the Lord that they were truly penitent. Even when the Lamanites came to battle with them, they neither turned to the left nor the right (Alma 24:23) when the Lamanites came to kill them. They were diligent and steadfast in their conversion. They truly followed the doctrine of Christ and endured to the end.

I love you guys!