Bon Jour!! and Pictures

Interesting detail from this week: I ended up having to teach part of a lesson in French. Oh boy am I rusty. I´ve ordered French study materials from the office and hopefully I can get good enough again to teach.
Mom: I loved the photos you sent me! They are so cute! In my last zone meeting we talked a lot about talking about families. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was designed to bless us and our families. We were asked to reach out and talk about the importance of families more, and this just about made my day. I think I´ll use them in lessons sometimes! :)
We had a pretty cool week this week. I was a little nervous about transfers, but we got the pleasant news on Saturday that we were going to have yet one more transfer together! Honestly, I wouldn’t mind three transfers with Hermana Griffin. She´s a great missionary, companion and friend! We´re seeing a lot of success.
Unfortunately, Elders Vasquez and Ballard left our district, but we´re getting some great missionaries in their places. They´re also going to some great places, so it´s been pretty bittersweet seeing them go.
I´m not sure if I ever wrote to you about Or before, but he´s a bit of an eternal investigator from C. We had been getting a little frustrated with him because he wasn´t keeping his commitments, but we finally got him to a lesson and he seemed like he felt a little cornered and maybe a little judged. He explained that he doesn’t have minutes on his phone most of the month and can´t call us to cancel, nor can he get a lot of time off of work to meet with us. Nonetheless, he really want´s to meet with us to learn more. We were pretty humbled by this experience and we definitely needed to repent. We actually had a pretty good lesson with him, and he even agreed to get baptized. He´s feeling pretty good about it and I think he feels a little more loved.
We have one investigator, Fy, who, albeit has a lot of potential, also will also ask us some strange questions. He seems to appreciate what we´re trying to share with him, but also has a serious case of cold feet. After agreeing to set up another appointment this week he asked: "If I don´t want to meet with you guys in the future, do I have to give your book back?" ... Baby steps...
Ji had a spectacular week this week! We were able to get her to come to a baptism with us, and she appeared to love it. Everyone loved her, and possibly they loved baby Ms a little more. We actually met her husband this week and we´ve been encouraging her to invite him to hear the message. She´s a little nervous, but she´s been sharing what we´ve taught her to him. He appears to be opening up. She even came to church and appeared to make a lot of friends.
Also, it´s like magic sharing the Gospel with her. Every week we pray and plan on what we´re going to share, and when we go to her house, she opens up and asks questions about exactly what we were planning on talking about. She´s always pretty thrilled when that happens. :)
We´ve done a lot of work with the members in this last transfer and we´ve found that we have a ton of allies in this ward. Last week, one of our friends, Ma, was walking down the street and saw a woman that looked a little sad. Ma, with the big heart that she has, started talking to her and trying to comfort her. The woman asked "There´s something different about you... What is it? Is it the church you go to?" Apparently, Adela was looking for a church and to have a better relationship with God. Ma got her number and told her that she would send "two angels" to her house.
When we got the referral we started running to this woman´s house. All of our plans fell through for that day. It was an incredible miracle. It was also kind of a strange lesson.
We met with her and her roomate and they both seemed interested. They were also polar opposites. Coa (the roommate) wanted to know if we prayed to the Virgin Mary. Aa in objection insisted that we came in order to study the Bible with her (typically a term used by people who have investigated the Jehovah´s Witnesses). She also had a question about the name of our church. It went something like this:
"What are you again? The Church of Saints?"
"No, we belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sometimes people know us as Mormons because of the Book of Mormon."
"But you´re not Mormons... Right?"
We actually had a really good lesson with her and brought her to church the next day. She made a lot of friends and really liked the church. She also made a lot of friends who wanted to teach her about the temple and the Word of Wisdom... We´re still trying to smooth out the details about the Book of Mormon. The point is that she made friends and does want to come back.
This week we tried to visit one of our members in the hospital. Aa is a wonderful older woman from Bolivia. She´s super sweet and she loves the missionaries. She can´t leave her home, but she always has it open if we want to bring an investigator over. She loves us a lot and she´s one of my favorite people in the world. She´s been waiting for a kidney transfer for 15 years, and therefore is in the hospital a lot.

We tried to visit her twice, but we couldn´t the first time because we would have to separate to visit her in her room. (This hospital has a lot of hoops to jump through. Only two people can come in at a time). The second time she didn’t want us to visit because she was worried about getting us sick. It really speaks volumes about how much she loves us and how important the work is to her. I was a little sad to leave her in the hospital like that because the hospital is dirty and kind of scary. I would love it if you guys would pray for her.
To top off the week, there was a baptism for another ward that meets in the same building. Two weeks ago I went on a companion exchange with the Sister Training Leader and it was a pretty inspired exchange. We were able to commit an eternal investigator to get baptized this weekend and she was baptized. It was a real victory. The other sisters were really happy to have us there and the woman who got baptized was really happy to see us too. It was pretty spectacular.
That´s all for this week! I love you guys!
Love,
Hermana Kathleen Sykes

Le Fe

Familia! y Amigos!

Wow... We have seen a lot of miracles this week. I´m not sure if I can get to all of them in the time I have. We´re going to hang out with Hermana Sánchez today and we are taking a little time out of P-Day to teach someone who seems really great!

First, an update on J! In fast and testimony meeting yesterday, she got up to give her testimony for what I think is the first time. She told the ward how thankful she is for us and because of the work we did with her, she wants to go on a mission. I think I can go home from my mission feeling like I had success. I don´t ever feel like I have had a more gratifying moment in my life.
She´s really learning so much right now and she is embracing the Gospel. It´s beginning to settle into her soul and she´s becoming such a confident, strong, wonderful young woman.

We´ve been working a lot more with Ns lately. I haven´t written about him for a while, but he has made a lot of progress in the last few weeks. We had a lesson planned for him a few days ago, but he was sick and so we decided to do more of a fun lesson to make him feel better. We read Moroni 7 with him, and he loved the part about charity and how it is the pure love of Christ. We talked to him about getting a priesthood blessing (one of three we offered people this week). He had never received one before, but he accepted. He told us he felt a lot better (and I suspect comforted) the next day. We felt an impression to talk to him about getting a patriarchal blessing, and he´s really excited!
One note about Spain: Due to the economic situation, it´s really hard to get people to come to church because few people are willing or able to change their schedules for fear of losing a job. With Nicolás, he hasn’t been able to come to church for the last few months because of work, but told us that he was trying to change his schedule so he could start coming to church. I don´t even remember asking him. He really wants to make changes in his life and do the right things.

I forgot to talk to you about Ls last week. He´s a member in the ward here, and he is INCREDIBLE. He is always super excited to help us and he loves helping our investigators. He´s even willing to help when it´s hard for him to come. He´s gone contacting with us, he´s given us good referrals, he makes the effort to be friends with our investigators. He´s the member that every missionary wants on their team! His brother, J is slightly busier, but is just as willing to help us. He was our mission leader for a while and really gave us a lot of support.  I made J thank you card this week to thank him for his help as our ward mission leader and it took five missionaries to sign it before anyone noticed that I spelled J's name wrong in the illustration I made. His name was J. Luckily, he found it amusing.

I love my companion so much. She´s like a carbon copy of Sarah (my sister for those who didn´t make the connection). Her sense of humor is the same; she´s super organized; she gives people funny nick-names. We get along super well!

Ml, a less active member who no one actually knew existed (he met with missionaries about 5 transfers ago and no one has met him), called us up out of the blue to talk with us. He was stressed because he hadn’t had contact with church for a long time because of work and he had to work on immigration papers in order to try and get a new job. He really wanted to meet with us, and he told us he felt so much stronger and happier afterwards. We met with him again and he brought us a bag of fruit and other snacks to thank us!

Ji appears to be progressing A LOT. The baby has still been a little sick, but she still really wants to come to church still. She is reading and praying and doing everything she can to learn more. She had mentioned this week that she felt really grateful that we had found her because she really wanted to change her life. She really feels like she has found the truth. We taught her about faith and the Plan of Salvation this week and felt like it answered the questions she had in her heart.

We visited a member Aa, because she had been very sick. We showed up at the right time because she was just returning home from the hospital and felt very lonely because no one was visiting her. We spoke with her for a few minutes and it became fairly clear she needed a priesthood blessing. The Elders dropped what they were doing to come and help. She had felt much better. We shared a scripture about faith with her, and she told us that every time we came to her house and shared something with her that she felt like it was exactly what she needed to hear.
Our zone leaders are teaching a man named Domingo. Domingo is easily one of the sweetest men I have ever met. You can tell that he´s had a really tough life and has come off of a rough road. Every time we see him on the street he wants to come and tell us about what the Elders are teaching him. He is so excited about the Gospel and wants to tell everyone about it. He tells us that he loves the changes it has helped him make in his life. I love being around him because he is always asking questions about the Gospel and how he can apply it to his life.

I've learned a lot about faith this week. I read in Ether 12 in the Book of Mormon a while back and I thought on this verse a lot. It is essentially just a list of miracles that occured in the Book of Mormon, but I love verse 18 the most. In reality, miracles are based on our faith, and faith is an action. When we show that we believe and trust in Jesus Christ, we pray, read the scriptures, serve others, attend church, forgive, repent, and become better people. This is what yields miracles.

"For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed, saying unto them that by faith all things are fulfilled—

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

And it came to pass that Ether did prophesy great and marvelous things unto the people, which they did not believe, because they saw them not.

And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him; wherefore, it must needs be that some had faith in him, for he showed himself not unto the world.

But because of the faith of men he has shown himself unto the world, and glorified the name of the Father, and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift, that they might hope for those things which they have not seen.

Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith.

Behold it was by faith that they of old were called after the holy order of God.

Wherefore, by faith was the law of Moses given. But in the gift of his Son hath God prepared a more excellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled.

For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith.

Behold, it was the faith of Alma and Amulek that caused the prison to tumble to the earth.

Behold, it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi that wrought the change upon the Lamanites, that they were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost.

Behold, it was the faith of Ammon and his brethren which wrought so great a miracle among the Lamanites.

Yea, and even all they who wrought miracles wrought them by faith, even those who were before Christ and also those who were after.

And it was by faith that the three disciples obtained a promise that they should not taste of death; and they obtained not the promise until after their faith.

And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God." 

I love you all. Have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Kathleen Sykes