It has been a minute...

Not sure if anyone is following this old blog, but ... mission accomplished. I got back (checks notes) six years ago. It was the best decision I ever made to go on a mission. Someday, when I get around to it, I'll post my homecoming talk.

But other than that, I won't be posting here anymore. I'll just be leaving it up for posterity's sake. 

If you want to know more about what I'm up to, this is where I'm writing now. I also posted this over at the blog that I used in college. Head over there to read the whole thing.

FASHIONABLY OUT OF FASHION

Hey, friends! It has been a while, hasn't it? Did you miss me?

I realize I haven't posted here for some time, but I want you to know I am still writing — just not here. My Blogger bio said, "Loves art. Loves fashion. Loves writing. Loves traveling. Trying to combine them into a career." I may have not combined all of those things into a career, but I have figured out a lot since the last time I posted here. 

• First off, as much as I still love sewing, fashion and clothing, I no longer want to go into fashion design. 
• I still love art, but being an artist almost sounds more painful than just enjoying it. 
• I love traveling... but Covid and being an adult kind of got in the way of that, didn't it?

I recently lost my job (story about it here), and it gave me a lot of time to think about what I really want to do with my life. I had always enjoyed writing and recently found a platform that I really enjoy working on. I also realized I wanted more flexibility with my own life and to have more decision-making power over my future. After a great deal of thought and prayer, I decided it might be time to take the plunge and become a freelancer — an idea I had already considered for a few years. 

I actually started a new publication called The Charrette which you can read more about here. 

WHAT IS A CHARRETTE?

Historically, the word “charrette,” meaning "cart," was used by the École des Beaux-Arts in France. It referred to the student's method of working late into the night before their initial projects and drafts were due and a cart would come around and pick them up. Later, their professors would go on to give them critiques and feedback. 

In today's terminology, you usually see a "design charrette" in civil engineering or at design agencies. In this process, they get a group of a few people with different specialties (for example, an engineer, a designer, a marketer, etc.) to problem solve and come up with a solution that no one of them could have devised on their own. 

The Charrette's motto is, "Where art, history, politics, & public opinion meet." I guess I wasn't finding a way to roll all my passions into one career, so I had to take charge and do that myself. 

SO, KATHLEEN — WHAT DO YOU WRITE ABOUT NOWADAYS?

I'm still working on finding my perfect niche, but I love exploring the interlocking connections between history, art and modern life. Having spent probably too much of my career in social media, I realize that so many of us have lost touch with reality. I feel that art and history have a lot to teach us in the way of empathy and can create important context for our lives. 

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BEST THINGS YOU HAVE WRITTEN RECENTLY?

Before I set off on this journey, I actually worked for a performing arts organization, and I wrote some pretty great things for them like this piece and this piece. I also created a few great videos for them that challenged my writing skills like this one and this one.

Before I left, I got the rights to publish an interview I did with Steven Osbourne, an incredible Scottish pianist and interpreter of Sergei Rachmaninoff. I will probably try and continue to include more artist interviews in the future, but for now, I have a few other projects I want to work on. 

I also republished the piece "The Black Dog: How to Talk about Suicide" on The Charrette. I made some much-needed updates. The meat of the piece is very much the same, but I have changed so much, that I needed to share the lessons I learned as I grew over the last four years.

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I'M MOST EXCITED ABOUT...

Read the rest over at These Elements of Style

I would love it if you followed me at The Charrette and subscribed. Sign up below, and keep up with my writing. 

El Camiño de Santiago‏

Today's email will probably be shorter. The Bakers (the missionary couple assigned to Galicia was nice enough to take us to Santiago today to see the cathedral. They are the best! I've been wanting to see this cathedral since I first heard about it in my art history classes in High-school. Dreams are coming true.
My first week with Hermana Graff has been pretty awesome. She's a really hard working missionary and she's full of energy. I feel really lucky to be working with her. Despite the awesome companionship, we had a pretty slow week. Honestly, it felt like all of our appointments failed on us. Of course that's just sort of what happens with transfers.
Nonetheless, we saw some pretty cool things.
First off, on Tuesday we saw G. He's progressing retry nicely. Hermana Graff in order to get to know him asked him a few questions one of which being "What do you like to do?" His response: "I like reading this book," motioning to the Book of Mormon. We read a little with him, which he always loves. We talked with him again about baptism, and he was still worried that he's not ready to get baptized. We explained to him that that's why we're here, to help people prepare themselves to get baptized. After thinking about it for a while we were able to recommit him to be baptized on March 19.
A small miracle we've been seeing with him is that he's really opening up to the concepts we are teaching him and starting to connect the dots. We asked him at the end of the lesson what he's been observing about himself as he reads and goes to church. He said that he feels like he's learning a lot of things he never knew before. I asked him where he thought those feelings were coming from. He paused for a moment and thought about it and then said, "Well, it has to be the Spirit of God."
He's starting to recognize the Spirit within himself and follow what it's teaching him.
Later we met with Ad, El and La again. We needed to finish teaching the Plan of Salvation to them, but we felt prompted to explain the Gospel of Jesus Christ to La.
La REALLY wants to get baptized.
We had beautiful lesson with them on the plan of salvation and Gospel of Jesus Christ. Even though she's a child, she knows the importance of having faith and repenting. She knows that being baptized is the right thing to do. We explained the principle of receiving a remission of sins through our worthiness in taking the sacrament and keeping the covenants of baptism. She REALLY wanted to get baptized after this. Especially so she could receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. She said she's willing to keep those promises throughout her life.
Her mom hit a home run when she explained that after learning about the Gospel that her daughter has become more honest and good. She bore her testimony about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and how it has changed her. She wants her daughter to have it as well.
At first her parents didn't want her to get baptized because they thought since they were so new to church, that she'd never be able to take baptism seriously. However, we have finally gotten Ad on board after explaining the necessity of receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost at a young age in order to make good decisions. In fact she got really excited and said she hopes she serves a mission someday.
The catch is with the father. He doesn't think she's ready. We need to help him understand that making these covenants empowers, strengthens and helps us. The bar is set high, but the Lord gives all those who want to follow him the help they need to live up to his standards.
Also I learned something in my personal study this morning. Joseph Smith had taught about the story of Cornelius. He had received the Holy Ghost in order to confirm his testimony, but he needed to GIFT of the Holy Ghost in order to continue learning. If he didn't, his testimony would be fleeting. We're hoping that her father can understand that soon enough.
I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the sudden thought came to my mind to testify about the simplicity of it and how it does require us to become as children. Hence the reason we are baptized starting fairly young. I could see his face out of the corner of my eye and he was thinking pretty deeply on that.
Aa also got up and challenged her husband to get up and bear his testimony. He didn't. But she did also challenge the whole branch to pray for him to let his daughter get baptized. She has a strong personality, but I really appreciate it. After the meeting, apparently he just sent up the white flag of surrender and said "Yeah, yeah, whatever you want." It's a step, but we're going to work for a little more... We need his full support.
Ya veremos.
We also saw Kla this week. Oh boy... The sent us through a loop.
She really is ready to be baptized, she has a really beautiful testimony and she knows it's true. BUT she has started having a ton of doubts. This week she wanted to know all of this stuff about church history and President Monson and everything. She's So close, but she needs to learn how to resolve her own doubts. In Preach My Gospel it talks about how it's not our responsibility as missionaries to answer everyone's questions, it's our job to help them learn the Book of Mormon is true. Only they can do that for themselves. We can only point them in the right direction.
Kla does know that the Book of Mormon is true, but she's overwhelming herself. We're going to change her date.
Please pray for Kla, El and La this week.
We met again with J. He's doing pretty well. We taught him the Plan of Salvation, which he liked, but admitted at the end of the lesson, he feels he doesn't know that much. We committed him to be baptized the 5th of March. He's a little afraid, but frankly, I think he can make it.
We also met with his dad, Jo. It was nice to see him again, but we had kind of a weird lesson with him. It didn't look like he had been reading, so we picked back up where he left off in 1 Nephi 4 where Nephi kills Laban. We got to the part where the Spirit tells Nephi to kill Laban and he says that he doesn't want to. This is how it went:
"So Jo, if you were Nephi, what would you do?"
"Well... I guess I'd take the sword and kill him or something..."
That wasn't the answer we expected. Normally we get an answer mostly like Nephi's where he explains that he doesn't want to etc. But not o ...
Moving on.
We met with Mn and Mfe again to do Family History. I taught them how to index, and they thought it was really cool. Also, big news. Mn apparently found something about his family this weekend. Mfe called us last night to tell us the Good news. We're going to meet with them tomorrow to see what it is.
Also, Tuesday night, a man named Valere got our phone number and called us. He was interested in the English classes we offered and he came to the class. He actually speaks really good English... And Spanish... And Russian (he's from Russia). So he put us all to shame.
At the end we shared a message about the Book of Mormon. There is this great Mormon Message about this bishop in England and what he had learned through the Book of Mormon. His face lit up and he said he really wanted to learn more. He was really interested in religion in general, but he has doubts about churches. He wants more faith. We're meeting with him again this Wednesday.
The highlight of last week was that we got to go to a zone conference with a general authority. Joaquim Moreira from the seventy came to address us. He gave us a great talk about repentance and how that means we need to change our attitudes, beliefs and actions to become more like the Savior. For example, when we say something like "I'm in the North of Spain, there's no way that we're going to baptize anyone..." Well... We need to repent.
Also, I think he somehow knew that I don't keep a journal and looked directly in my eyes and told us as a group that we need to write all of our experiences down so we can remember our own paths to repentance. He called me to repentance...
We had a really good meeting with him afterwards with the zone leaders. He gave great suggestions on how to help our branches be stronger.
I went up to him afterwards and expressed my gratitude for what he had taught because it had answered a lot of my questions. He gave me a hearty handshake and genuinely thanked me for my comments and questions. I felt like a million bucks.
Also I thought like this was all pretty funny. He seemed really nice. We had gotten a phone call from one of the zone leaders last night relating to us how scary he was. Apparently when he did the zone conference in Madrid, he didn't just singe their eyebrows, he took them right off. I was really scared of the meeting, but honestly I thought he was great!
That's all for this week. Hasta pronto!
Hermana Sykes

¡Feliz Año Nuevo a Todos!

¡Feliz Año Nuevo a Todos!

We had some really awesome miracles this week. I thought nothing could beat last week, BUT I WAS WRONG!

Honestly, I have no idea how the Lord somehow thought we were worthy to see these miracles. Nonetheless, I'm thoroughly enjoying them. I love Lugo and I love the people here.

We met with Ka again, and we decided that we wanted to talk to her about eternal marriage and temples. We've been through the first few lessons and she had a particular interest in temples, so we showed her a video that explained temples (Between Heaven and Earth). We tried that morning to show it to her, but we couldn't get the DVD player at the church to work, so we set up an appointment with her later that day. She showed up with potato chips, popcorn and Coke. We watched it with her and her daughter, and she LOVED it. She kept telling us that she's been having dreams about going inside the temple.

We thought it was a good idea to teach her about the temple because, in the end, that's really the goal. Her desire to get baptized has increased since we started teaching her about the temple.

Actually what's cool is that she has appeared to have just decided that she's going to be a member. She comes with good questions about the lessons and what she's reading, and really wants to participate in everything. She even came to church this week and really loved it.

We had a good lesson with Aa this week, even though we didn't get a lot of chances to get in contact with her this week. We watched "A Summer With Great Aunt Rose," Elder Uchtdorf's talk from the Women's conference this year. She had a friend over who was visiting from
Germany. She's not of our faith, but she really loved the talk. I think it's a good stepping stone for her in the future.

We met with Ad, a member who loves missionary work, and almost always has someone for us to try and visit. We are preparing her to go to the temple, and we talked a little about temples this week. She's really cool, and I'm convinced that she has the gift of prophecy! We spent a lot of time talking about the dreams she has. She also got me cozy socks for my birthday.

We met with Eo again this week. The first time we met with him, we decided we were going to teach him the Plan of Salvation. We thought that maybe his lack of progression might have had something to do with the fact that for the last 5 years the missionaries have never
really progressed with the lessons after teaching The Restoration. We actually discovered that he has A LOT of doubts about the Plan of Salvation. He doesn't believe it all the way. Which is partially
because he refuses to pray about the Book of Mormon.

We saw him walking around one day by the Muralla (the city wall)  (like about 4-5times) and asked if he wanted to sit down and chat for a while. In his prayer he mentioned something that went like this:
"Well I guess you have a message for me, God... Because I saw the hermanas 5 times today..."

We talked about the Book of Mormon AGAIN. How's that for your message?

The next time we met with him, we decided we wanted to take him though the scriptures to help him resolve his doubts. We read some VERY clear passages about the plan, and asked him to pray about it. Still no. We even were able to show him that he does, AS A MATTER OF FACT,
have doubts about Joseph Smith, and told him very clearly that if he wants to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet, he needs to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Because, duh. If you know the Book of Mormon is true through the Holy Ghost, then you also know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Because how else would we even have the Book of Mormon? It doesn't go the other way around. Much to the dismay of the members, who love him dearly, we've decided we're going to take a break from him for 2-3 weeks. Give him some time to think. He'll still have a lot of contact with the church because he reads the Book of Mormon every day and comes to church and the
activities every week. He even came to the church to fix some electrical problems. Also, he and the branch president appear to be best friends. He apparently stayed at the branch president's house for a couple of days this week.

We met with a less active member, Goo, who wants to come back.  He's really cool. He's Spanish and apparently came to church one day a few years back because he read a little of his dad's Book of Mormon. The missionaries snatched him up and he got baptized a few weeks
later. On his teaching record it says that he's one of the "other 3 immortal nephites." He went inactive a while back because his feelings got seriously hurt by a few people, including a friend who a year or two ago fasted and prayed to find to bring into the church (successfully I might add; she's one of the strongest members). This being a small branch and all, it got super awkward, and just stayed aloof.

His friend asked him to come back to church and we got to meet with him this week. We talked about repentance, and he committed to come back. He even helped us drive out to a town called Viveiro to track down a church referral. It was false, but we were grateful for the help anyways.

Later his mom (who loves us, by the way) called us and invited us to dinner for Noche Vieja (New Years Eve). We had lamb, shrimp and a lot of other traditional Spanish things. We spent most of the night talking to his sister who lives in A Coruña and she actually seems really interested to learn about the Gospel. We showed them a video before we left, and she and her husband and kids really liked it. We're passing the referral along to the missionaries there.

Ya  and Ge brought an old professor to family home evening on Friday. She loved the activity, and when we gave her a Book of Mormon she got really excited. She had apparently been looking for a church in Ciudad Real where she lives and asked us about it. She said she'd read it on the bus to Ciudad Real.

We met with Ya again for the first time in a long time. She's still reading. We're really impressed with her because she's studying and that's a huge commitment. We talked about temples as well, and she really liked it. We don't feel like it's quite her time yet, but she's progressing really steadily. She's really wonderful.

Sunday was the best day this week! This is the list of our friends that came to church:

Ya, Go (investigator), Eo, Ke and Al, and Aa's husband and stepson (E and Sa). That is SEVEN people. We beat both of our records. Also, they all appeared to really like the meetings.

After sacrament meeting Ad yelled over at me to come and talk to Sa, Aa's rebellious stepson. She told us some of the sad news that his older brother had passed away this week, and he was really struggling. His dad even recommended that he talk to us. Apparently Ad felt a strong impression to come and sit with him in Sacrament meeting. He sat there and asked questions about Jos, the boy who was passing the sacrament:

"Who is he?"
"What's he doing?"
"Can I do that?"
"How can I do that?"
"Do I have to talk to the sisters?"

We met with him later that night and talked to him about the Plan of Salvation. The spirit was really strong. I could feel that he felt a lot better after the lesson now that he knew where his brother was. We set up a return visit. We felt strongly that he'll be the one to do his brother's work for him in the temple. We set up home teaching assignments this week. Pray for the branch president, as he wants to do be in ALL of the companionships.  We met with Chr, the mother of two, young recent converts, Rl and Cs. Rl, as a side note, is a really good kid. He's the one in the family who takes church the most seriously. Also, he loves the missionaries and wants to help us on appointments. We had the rare privilege of meeting her husband who NO ONE has met. We're the first missionaries to teach him.

We also met with Er this week. She appeared to be doing a little better, albeit a little sad. We read about the atonement, and after the final prayer, we could tell she was about to cry. We both gave her a big hug and she felt a lot better. We can tell she likes and trusts us. We think she'll be ready to begin praying again soon.

That's all for this week!

Con cariño!

Hermana Sykes

El Reino de Dios or Nada

This gives you an idea of where Lugo is.

I really had a lot more planned for this email, but we're really
running out of time. .

Two stories. First is of K**** who knocked on the door of the church
while we were in another lesson this week. She was looking for a
church to attend, and felt strongly that this was it. She's from
Brasil and she has a cute little girl who turns eight in December.

In one lesson she was telling us that she has something like 12
siblings and almost everyone is a different religion, although her
brother is LDS. She felt so confused about why there were so many
churches in the world, and wanted to know which was the true church.
She felt an impression to get up and start walking one day. She walked
until she felt this force bring her to our chapel where she found us.
She likes the Book of Mormon, and is starting to develop a testimony.

She's really friendly, and she's started to make friends at church
activities. Everyone loves her. We feel really strongly that she'll
get baptized.

Our piso is finally getting sorted out. The landlady, who is an angel,
got the place professionally cleaned this week. While she was getting
it cleaned, she let us eat lunch in her house, showed us her house and
pictures of her son, and sent us off with a bag of fruit from her
house in the country.

She and her husband, J***, are super nice. Her husband is Gallego, and
sometimes he shuffles around muttering in Gallego. They were in our
house fixing something, and he started yammering to us in Gallego. She
just responded: "Honey, they don't understand you. You're talking in
Gallego again."

There is more to report, but It'll have to wait.

Lots of love,

Kathleen

This week's district meeting. We didn't want to spend 44 euro and 4 hours to travel to Santiago, so we skyped.

Un Besino

Kathleen and her companion, Hna Baxter, in front of the Cathedral in Lugo, Spain.

Hna Sykes, celebrating Movember.
 

Hermana Baxter and a really big lunch!!

****************************

No, that is not Spanish in the title. It's Gallego. Not everyone
speaks 100% Spanish up here. Actually the older generation can hardly
speak Spanish. It's like I was transferred to another country.

This week was pretty slow. We whitewashed the area, which means the
elders were taken out of the area and replaced with sisters. We also
took their piso (apartment), which was frightening. We spent most of the week
cleaning it, much to the delight of our neighbor/land lady. She
knocked on our door one day and we had a conversation that went
something like this:

"Oh, hello. Who are yo--"

"Oh thank goodness they sent girls to live here! I was so worried
about the boys that lived here before. I could smell their piso from
my piso! I was so worried about them because they haven't opened the
windows for four years! I noticed you took a bunch of bags of trash
out, and I thought to myself 'Oh my goodness! What could they have
found!?' I love it when they send Americans here! They are so nice,
and charming, and polite!..."

This went on for about 10 minutes and then she said we could knock on
her door for anything because we could consider her our "mother." She
liked us so much that she and her husband were going to get the piso
cleaned professionally. We were so happy!

For what little went on this week, we actually had a lot of success.
The members trust us right off the bat. We received five phone numbers
this week four of which are from members. They are also really good
referrals!

We taught A****** this week who is a long term investigator. The
elders didn't visit her last transfer, but in the meantime, she has
kept praying, she came to church a few times, and she tried really
hard to give up coffee. She has a lot of potential. She's also really
honest about her progress. She told us she hadn't been reading as much
as she should have, but she knows she needs to get better. We really
love her. She'll do great.

We also met with a member named G******** this week. He got baptized
about 4 years ago when he just decided to walk into a sacrament
meeting. He got baptized 20 days later and has been a firm member ever
since. He's half Spanish, half Gallegan, and has a really firm
testimony. We also got to meet his mom, who is really nice. She loves
art and poetry, so we got along right away. We taught her a little
about the Book of Mormon and she accepted to have us back.

We taught English classes, and an old investigator, J***** showed up.
He appears to show some interest. He doesn't seem like he's quite
ready to change religions quite yet, but he has some potential. We
taught him how to pray this week.

About 3 months ago, I ran into a girl on the train in Leganés who is a
member, and wanted to be a missionary. She is in this branch! We met
with her, and she's working on her papers to go on a mission. She got
baptized 2 years ago, but wasn't confirmed until April of this year,
so we're going to be working with her on mission preparation until
she's ready to go on a mission.

There is a student from Mexico, G********, who is attending this
branch until she goes home in January. She's studying to be a
veterinarian along with her room mate who is also studying abroad.
Y***** is living with Geraldine and another member, and we went to
visit them last night. I'm not quite sure what happened, but Y*****
showed up in the middle of the conversation, and it seemed like she
wanted to know more about the church!

We were in the right place at the right time. It seemed like she was
really curious, but was too shy to ask her room mates. Also, I'm
pretty sure that her room mates didn't know how to start the
conversation, but we were there! She loved what we shared with her. We
left her with a Book of Mormon, and she was THRILLED. I hadn't quite
seen that much excitement to get a Book of Mormon in a long time. When
we gave it to her she had a big smile on her face and immediately said
(without much of an invitation), "Yes! I'll read it!"

We also met with an inactive member named M****. She admitted right
off the bat that she was inactive, which struck us as really weird.
Normally people don't admit it or try to hide it (which is hard when
you're not coming to church). We went over to find out why, and we
discovered she was having a really difficult family situation. I could
tell that she was really worn down by the cares of the world, but I
could see that there was a potential miracle here.

She really wanted her whole family to be active, but she wasn't
feeling the support of her husband or children, nor the branch. What's
important is that she has the desires. If she has the drive, she will
be able to work miracles in her family.

We're excited to have a full and normal week here! Hasta la proxima semana!

Hermana Sykes

Nuevos Comienzos‏ (New Beginnings)

So I had a little bit of a shock this week. We had transfers this week
-- which no one actually knows what will go down -- and I was totally
expecting to stay a third transfer with Hermana Clements. I expected
wrong.

President called me this Saturday, and asked me to move. I'm going to
the super-far-north of Spain to a city called Lugo to whitewash the
area. We are going to be the ONLY missionaries there.

President is showing a lot of confidence in me and my new companion
(Hermana Whiting). Because frankly... I'm a little freaked out. Not
too much, but this is a lot of responsibility.

Prayers, as always are appreciated.

Just a note about Hermana Whiting. We sort of knew each other before
our mission through Facebook. We got in contact through a group that
was for sisters who were preparing to go on missions and we hit it off
there. In my first transfer, we did two companion exchanges because
our trainers were the sister training leaders and had to go to
leadership council. We did another companion exchange when I was in
Leganés, and we joked about how we wanted to go whitewash some obscure
branch in the north in an area with no other missionaries... We got
our wish!

This week was a bit slow, but we did see some good progress with
I****. This week we started teaching him some of the commandments. We
started by teaching him the Word of Wisdom. He had a lot of questions
because he had read about people drinking wine in the Bible. We simply
explained that we know that we have a living prophet today who
receives revelation from God and that if we want to know if something
is a true principle, we need to live it.

The next day we got a text from him saying something like this:

"Hola, hermanas! You can pass by after 7 if you want. By the way, I
went to a birthday party last night and someone offered me a beer and
I told them I don't drink anymore."

I'm so proud of him. He has been accepting the Gospel so fully and has
been living in a way that he'll be able to receive an answer. He's
accepting the Gospel with his whole heart.

Side note: He's in Mosiah 10 now.

Also L****, one of the girls in the ward who is planning on going on a
mission got her call this week for London England. She invited us to
come see her open her call. She's super excited because it was the
exact call she wanted. She leaves on December 17.

Unfortunately, we dropped R**** this week. Like always we had a
beautiful, strong lesson with him. Also like usual, Roger has no
desires to change his ways.

We had decided since he was struggling with reading the Book of Mormon
that we would read with him every lesson until he felt its power and
wanted to start reading on his own. We read 2 Nephi 31 which talks
about what we need to do in order to follow Christ. And he loved it.

We asked him if he would read the Book of Mormon every day. He said no.

We asked if he would read a little bit every day. He said no.

We asked if we sent him a text with a scripture in it every day. He said no.

We asked if he'd come to church with us this week. He said no.

He had a lot of doubts and excuses. No matter how much we explained
things like it was okay if he failed as long as he tried again or
whatever else. He still said no. Hermana Clements even testified and
promised that he would be happier and find a job if he read and prayed
about the Book of Mormon. The Spirit testified to me in that moment
that this promise was true, but he still didn't want to read.

At this point I sort of saw where it was going. I've seen it before.
He didn't have the desires to change. He liked meeting with us and
hearing the word of God, but he termed himself to be a "flexible
Christian" and said all churches lead to the same God. All he needed
to do was be a good person and everything would be fine. I testified
that I know that God established one way for us to return to him, that
this was the true church and that God would testify of that to him,
just like he did to Joseph Smith if he would just read the Book of
Mormon and pray and ask.

He then got offended. He essentially went to say that all churches are
the same and teach the same things. Therefore they must all be true.
He then told me to not say that I know that this is the true church
because it confused him. The Spirit testified to me at this point that
it was time to let him go. So we did.

It was a hard lesson. I don't think I had ever seen the Spirit work so
hard on someone who was so resistant. He really was prepared and had
potential, but he chose to use his agency against the Spirit. Hermana
Clements and I were really sad. We kind of began to understand how God
feels when we disobey him or don't listen because of our pride.

On my last day we went to several families to visit them. I was
surprised about how much people appreciated me even though I was only
there one transfer. A few people actually shed a few tears. We went
over to the Plasencias, a really nice family from Chile, who told me
that when I was over before, they really felt the Spirit after I
started a small testimony meeting with them. The wife wants to do that
in her Sunday school classes. The son also thanked me for being a good
example of obedience. He's preparing to go on a mission and didn't
really like the idea of the rules. He said that we made it seem fun to
be obedient missionaries.

That's all for this week! Off to Lugo!

Con cariño,

Hermana Sykes

Hermosa Guadalajara‏, Rabbit Stew and Selfies

Kathleen and her companion have been transferred to Guadalajara Spain.  There have never been Hermanas there before.  Here is her report:

First and foremost: Guadalajara is GREAT! I love it here. Here are the
main reasons:

1. The elders here are angels. Normally when you open an area, you
don't have a book information from old investigators... Let alone
investigators. We got there and the Elders (Nash and Broadbent) found
old investigators for us, gave us referrals, invited us to meet
members, and are letting us teach the only person they baptized in
either of their missions. They are a shining example of what it means
to be Christlike. And awesome.

2. The ward is any missionary's dream. The members really like doing
missionary work and they particularly like having sisters. Half of the
phone calls we made to members this week went like this:

"Hi, this is the sister missionaries. Is this Nico--"

"AHHHHH!!! It's the sisters! We have sisters now! Oh, Hermanita! I've
been praying that we would get sisters for months! When can we have
you over? What do you like to eat? What's your name? Can we come on
appointments with you? Where are you from?..."

3. Guadalajara is really pretty and we get to walk a lot. I don't have
to deal with the metro for at least one transfer.

4. We have some AWESOME investigators already.

5. The bishop is one of the best bishops I have ever worked with. Same
thing with the ward mission leader.

6. There are several young women who want to serve missions and have
been calling us to ask if they can spend time with us. They go
contacting with us sometimes!

Now for the stories from the week. Warning, the part following the
stars might not be suitable for people with weak stomachs.

***

Okay, I wanted to write about this because I officially ate one of the
weirdest things in my mission. A rabbit's head... Actually two... This
is what happened:

We were invited over to an Argentinian family's house, the
S's. They are rumored to be the best cooks in the ward, so
I was really excited. They had cooked rabbit that day, so I was even
more excited. Until they lopped the rabbit's head on my plate.
Normally the way rabbits are butchered here is they are skinned and
cut in half down the middle. They do not bother to remove the head,
and so when you go to the grocery store they have a pile of rabbit
corpses all looking straight at you. It's weird. Normally people
remove the head and it's not eaten. This family also doesn't like the
head and thought they removed it. They did not.

I realized I got the head when I realized that the rabbit was looking
at me. I could see it's eye and teeth and everything. so I sort of
pushed it to the side. Everyone else got normal things like legs. The
daughter, who served a mission and understood my misery, saw that I
got the head and slyly asked me if I wanted more rabbit (understanding
that I probably didn't want the head). She reached in for another
piece of meat, and plopped the other side of the head on my plate. She
gave me back the plate and suddenly realized my dilemma...

The mother was asking me if I didn't like rabbit, and I finally came
clean and mentioned that I had gotten the head. They said that was
impossible because she had removed it. Only those Spaniards like the
head. The family started poking the meat on my plate insisting that it
was not the rabbit head. I tried to eat it, but I gave up after it's
brain fell out on my plate. They all came to the conclusion that it
was weird and decided to make a pizza instead. I don't think I've ever
been more grateful!

***

Okay, weird story over! You can all read about the rest of my week!

It started off a little slow. Since Hermana Clements and I didn't have
many leads, we just hit the street and contacted. We had to stop to
rest her foot a bit, but we actually got a lot of work done.
Guadalajara is a less receptive city compared to Leganés and Barrio 3,
so we had to work extra hard. So far we have three investigators, but
they are AWESOME.

The first is K. He's from Iran, but had to leave many years ago
because he was in opposition to the government. Many years ago, he
converted to Christianity. We walked into his shop one day to buy a
snack and he started up a conversation with us. He wanted to know more
about what we believed and so we taught him a little about the Book of
Mormon (we actually had one in Farsi that we were going to give Sr
back in Leganés, but he never met with us again) and the next day we
came back and taught him about the restoration of the church, which
appeared to answer a lot of his questions.

He's kind of an eccentric guy, and he talks A LOT! I think he really
appreciates that we do come and listen to him, though.

The second person is Va. She's from Senegal, and we met her on
the street one night. We talked a little about the restoration and she
asked if she could come to church. She actually seemed really excited
to talk to us, and tried to come to General Conference.

We also met En, a young man from Equatorial Guinea. He's here
studying and is very interested in religion. We met him on Saturday
night and he seemed really interested. We invited him to come listen
to conference the next day, and (drumroll please)... HE CAME. He also
loved it. He was talking about all the apostles and prophets
afterwards like he had been a member his whole life. He said he
learned a lot and felt like some of them were talking to him. The
members were also really friendly to him.

We also met with the Elder's recent convert this week. She hadn't had
the new member lessons, and they wanted to know if we could be in
charge of teaching them to her. Aa is really cool. She had been
waiting to get baptized for a year and a half because her mother was
very opposed to it and still doesn't know she got baptized a month
ago. In the mean time, she graduated from seminary and got her
personal progress award. She's a really strong convert. We talked
about the Restoration of the church and she really felt the Spirit. We
talked about how she will be a good example for her family even though
they are resistant right now.

I will never forget the first phone conversation we had with her:

"Hey, Aa, we're the sisters assigned to your ward, we wanted to
get to kn--"

"QUE ALEGRIA! We have sisters now!" (She squealed this at the top of her lungs)

We love her.

I love all of you.

Con amor,

Hermana Sykes

This is Hermana Clements, and Kathleen.

Siete Meses Mas

It's hard to believe that Kathleen has only a little less than 7 months until she returns home.  Here are excerpts from her latest letters.  I'm including my favorites -- Rebecca Sykes

Hola Familia:  Hope all is well with all of you at home! This week was a bit challenging. A lot of our investigators have not been meeting with us, so we hit the streets and contacted the stuffing out of them. One day, all of our lessons failed... So we had 9 lessons in the streets. Pretty crazy... Experiences like this are a little bit like taking castor oil (yes, I do realize that this is an old-timey reference). It's not that fun at first, but in the end you're happy you did it. We found some really good people, many of which are really prepared to hear the Restored Gospel.

One day when we were out contacting with a member and we got tired of contacting, so we asked him if there was someone in the area we could visit. He indicated the door we should knock and we went to find this family. Apparently it was a family that joined the church a while back -- and because of some lamentable offenses to the family -- they became inactive. The Spirit must have really been working through our member because when we knocked the door and she asked who it was, it popped right open.

Normally we have to explain what we want to do; convince them that we just want to get their number and leave our card; ask if we could come by some other day; etc. But C had been waiting for someone to come and help her. I won't go into details about her struggles, but she had really suffered from the bad decisions of her family the last few years and was in the middle of a family emergency. She had really needed to hear from us. We shared something to comfort her and prayed with her. We're going back to meet her tomorrow.

We met R this week, who is really prepared to hear the Gospel. He said he really wants to be part of a faith that focuses solely on God and our Savior and not on the bad things happening in the world. He said he's always had the question of why there are so many churches in the world and was so fascinated that we said that he could know through prayer. He was excited to know that he could get an answer directly from God. He was also happy to know that he could be completely forgiven of his sins through our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We also met with a man named B this week. He's GOLDEN. He's been looking for a church that really provides a clean environment and that... Get this... "Has the authority of God" and "Was the real church Jesus Christ established when he was on the earth." We had to pick our jaws off the ground. He kept asking questions and making comments that showed that he was really in tune with what we were going to teach him. He was so excited that he could receive an answer to his prayers and could know what was true.

We also had a funny conversation with an old investigator who in the time she was not meeting with the missionaries started meeting with another church. We were trying to meet up with her and she said that she didn't like our message because she was really confused when the missionaries met with her the first time because they had said something about there being "one true church on the earth."

She commented, "But when I go outside, there are a lot of churches! There are churches on every corner! Obviously you two are really confused because there is obviously more than one!" Hermana Cls responded with "Yes... That's why we want to meet with you. Because you're really confused..." I couldn't help but laugh.

Other interesting facts... Well I could go into how many lessons we taught this week, but I'll go into more interesting stats:

-People asking me to marry them this week: 2

-Investigators who are Muslim: About half (They're really good investigators!)

-People we met on the street who told us some story about how they slept on the streets of Paris on two different occasions and when the rats and cockroaches came out, he prayed and God told him to tell them that he was better than they were and they went away: 1

-Doors knocked: At least 120

-Angry Spaniards threatening to call the police if we knocked more doors: 1

-Spaniards giving us dirty looks for knocking doors: 5

-Police officers called to scene: 0

-Doors knocked and answered by a weird old Portuguese man who thought we were prostitutes even though we were dressed in sensible shoes, floor-length skirts, and frumpy sweaters: 1

Now for a little more humor:

Twice this week we had unexpected teaching opportunities. We were walking home one night and two rowdy teenage boys started trying to yell at us in English (this actually happens a lot)... I had had it with the cat-calls these little punks and so I grabbed the Book of Mormon out of my companions hands and stormed back to where these boys were. They probably thought I was going to kill them. I gave them the Book of Mormon and told them that it was a gift for them. One of them, Jamal, was a little awestruck and said "You can´t just give it to us without explaining it to us!" So we explained it. Or rather, I explained it while my companion was dying from laughter. He was really interested and he actually read some of it. We´re meeting him again this week.

Roughly the same thing happened when a group of construction workers cat-called us this week. I went back and gave them all pamphlets and explained a little of our message. I even committed one to be baptized. We called them later that week and they had read the pamphlet. They loved it and even said it resolved a lot of their doubts.

It´ll be an interesting day when they are talking in sacrament meeting about their conversion story:

"I was sitting on the street one day cat-calling at women and then two of them stopped; chewed me out; told me to repent, and then asked me to get baptized. Now I´m here..."

Serious Thoughts:

Two thoughts that I have had on my mind this week. The first is the power of the Atonement, or the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us. Often we think of it as simply our sins being forgiven and being able to start fresh. I read a lot about the Atonement this week, and I realized that it was a lot more. The Atonement does get rid of our sins and the effects of them. But even more, it changes our hearts.

When we really take advantage of the Savior's sacrifice for us, we have the same reaction as the people who listened to King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon: "And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually."

We also had a zone conference this week. We talked a lot about the Spirit and the function it has in the lives of our investigators. Truly it is the Holy Ghost that brings this change in our hearts. We can't change on our own, therefore we need to rely on the Spirit to testify to us that we do have a Savior and can be new people.

I had also realized that it does not matter how much study you do in the scriptures; how much doctrine you know; how many years you have studied religion; if you do not have the Holy Ghost with you, you will learn nothing. You may know a lot about religion afterward, you may be able to explain things, but without the Spirit you can not apply the Atonement to your life or be converted. It's like reading a science textbook without actually doing any experiments.

Con Cariño,  Hermana Sykes

Drumroll Please

Sorry to all, but I've been really slow at updating Kathleen's blog.  Here are her two latest letters.  BTW, doesn't she look great?

July 8, 2015

Drumroll please...

I got transferred to Leganés! I was hoping to go up north or finish training Hermana Cheret, but I'm actually pretty excited for this. Leganés shares a border with my last area, so I'll probably see a lot of my friends from Barrio 3 again.

My new companion is Hermana Gálvez. Don't be fooled by the name. She's from Canada. And so are the other two girls that we live with. In case you didn't catch it, I'm the only American living with a bunch of Canadians. The accents... Also I'm living with my MTC companion. Small world.
I really like President Pack and Hermana Pack. President pack sounds like he's from California, but Hermana Pack has the most wonderful southern accent. They're both super nice. Even though they've only been out a little while, I'm really impressed with them!

Okay, now to the good stuff... S got baptized! By the skin of his teeth, but he got baptized. We had to have a few more heart to hearts with him, but he finally followed through. This stubborn and indecisive boy got baptized.

We were pretty nervous about him not getting through to the 4th because he had been so difficult about the day he got baptized (doing it on a specific day even though he had no reason for it etc). Also, I will add that two other people got baptized too. Happy birthday, America.
When we were waiting for him we called (we were calling every two hours to make sure he was actually getting out the door on time... Punctuality is an issue...) and he responded:

"Hermana... I have bad news for you..."
"S, what happened?" At this point my heart sunk into my stomach.
"Haha! Just kidding! I just got out of the metro!"
I wanted to kill him...

He got there and it went off without a hitch. It was actually a beautiful powerful ceremony. S bore his testimony at the end even though he didn't want to at first and said he really appreciated the work the three of us did with him and he loved this church because he was amazed about how correct it was. His wording.

His confirmation was another story... We made plans with him and a member to get him to church 20 minutes early. When we got there that morning he wasn't there... But the member was. We called him and the call went something like this:

"Hey, Hermana!"
"S... Where are you?"
"Don't worry! I'm coming right now! I'm almost there"
"S... Where are you really?"
"At my house..."
"Get here now!"

He finally got there 15 minutes after the service started. The two other people were confirmed and S ran in as soon as the second guy was confirmed. His shirt was half open because he was trying to change on the way to the church. I took off his hat, which has his name on it by the way, pulled him in the door and pointed to the front of the chapel where he was to be confirmed. A few of the members were giggling. Our district leader said "well... That was good timing!"

The last day that I had in Barrio 3 was really great. First off, I need to applaud Hermana Cheret. I felt so good leaving the area in her hands. She'll be area training her new trainer, but she has a really good handle on everything.

We were in church that morning and several members came up to me to wish me good bye. A lot of them told me they didn't want me to go and a few even cried. Not that I'm happy about their sorrow, but it made me feel really special that they loved me so much. Actually... About 7 people cried. One is going on a trip to London and said she'd write me and send me cookies that I like from there. She also says she plans on visiting me in May when she comes to Salt Lake. I made some lifelong friends here. ALSO L told me he thinks I was one of the best missionaries to ever come through that ward. He's been there a long time.

We later went and visited some people who were really special to me. We visited Sa and Jr in order to explain the change. They were both really sad, but Hermana Cheret said some really inspired things with her limited Spanish that make be believe that they will stay. I also have a firm belief that many of the people I taught there will get baptized. I know that to be true.

At the end of the night, we visited Aa. She is one of my favorite people in the whole ward/world! We chatted for about an hour and then I wanted to leave her with a spiritual thought. When Hermana Sánchez was training me she put a scripture on the front of my planner. I put the same one on the front of Hermana Cheret's when I started training her. Doctrine and Covenants 84:88: 
"And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." 

I told her how I had a difficult few transfers in Barrio 3, and sometimes I wondered when I was going to feel the Angels bearing me up, but Aa always took care of me, my companions and investigators. I thanked her for that. She cried when I told her that. She really loved me and told me that she loved when I came to visit her. She said that she and Jr (they're relatives) talked about me often and that they really loved me and my desire to work hard. I want to be in contact with her forever.
I sometimes felt like I was really doing nothing in the ward, however, I really felt that the spirit was testifying to me that I had really made a difference for a lot of people in this ward.

Also this week was great for other reasons as well. We had a lesson with Jx, one of our most complex investigators. We were going to talk to him about the law of chastity, but I felt prompted to change the lesson, so we had a lesson on the Plan of Salvation. It was really powerful. He had been somewhat depressed lately, but he really opened up to us. We have asked him to be baptized 3 times before, but he refused every single time. This time he accepted at date in September. I told my Zone Leader about that and he was thrilled! He told me that he already looks Mormon.
We ended the week really well. It was good.
I love you all,
Kathleen

July 13, 2015

Sorry, yet again, this one will have to be short. My companion and I ate some weird fish the other day and she got really sick. We spent most of the day going to and from the Doctor in the center of Madrid today.

Other notable events this week: My companion lost her iPad. A bird pooped squarely on my nose while I was walking (astronomical odds on this one). We taught A TON of people this week. Most of the people we contacted were somehow related to an investigator or member. A Russian future investigator called me the enemy, I told him he won’t feel that way when we baptize him (He found that amusing).

This week was mostly me getting a handle on the area. We have only a few investigators, but I really like the ones we do. We have a bunch who are really prepared.

My companion was really pleased with this companionship and we´re getting along really well. She said that in the short week we´ve been together, she saw that a lot of these investigators perked up as soon as we started working together. They even appeared to be excited to meet with us.

We´re working with a family, Ax and her children, and they want to get baptized next month. They´re doing really well. They´ve been investigating the church for a little over a year now, and it appears that they are finally making progress. The theme with her and a lot of the other people we´re teaching is learning to teach them where they´re at, not where we want them to be.

A lot of people take the missionary discussions and sometimes they just go through one by one, even though they don´t really understand the content. We learned that with a lot of these people we had to rewind back to lesson one. It proved to meet their needs much better. It´s an important lesson to learn that we´re their to guide people to the Gospel, not drag them.

I´m really sorry with how short this. Crazy day and week!

I love you guys! I have in fact read your emails.
Love,
Kathleen

Make-Up Blog Posts & Photos of Eyebrows.

This picture has Kathleen in it.  If you look at Sister Jackson, in the red jacket, and look behind her and behind the Sister in blue, you can see Kathleen's eyebrows.  She is a little too short to be in the 3rd Row.

We have been quite remiss in posting Kathleen's emails, so we are going to catch up with excerpts from the last three.  Sorry for the delay.  We know everyone wants to know what she's up to.  So here they are:

Generic Weekly Email-5/17/15

This week was slow, but we still had some good experiences! Monday really started out strong when we taught a new investigator (M) who was really open to listening to us. She has cousins who are in the church and one that´s even serving a mission in the United States. She has a really cute family and seems like a really special person.

We are also teaching a boy named J. He is somehow related to Aa. We keep asking both of their families, but everyone gives us a different story, so we might never know. Nonetheless, he´s proven to have a lot of promise. He´s really liked meeting with us. We went to visit Aa this week and she asked us if we were teaching him. We told her that we were, and she said that apparently he was so excited about it that he was telling his non-member brother all about it. He´s a really sincere, sweet kid.

We taught Jx again, and he´s been progressing really well. He´s a really inquisitive person and he wants to know everything. He´s asked a few questions about the Word of Wisdom this week (mainly because the members kept telling him about the Word of Wisdom despite our efforts to control the amount of information he receives), so we decided to teach him about it. Since he´s been so curious about prophets and modern day revelation, we decided to give him a copy of Doctrine and Covenants and gave him a few things to study. He appears to be taking it all very well.

Also, this was a copy of Doctrine in Covenants that we found in our apartment. We didn't realize that two other missionaries wrote in it to a different investigator a few years ago, and we suspect that they never had the chance to give it to him. But we had the chance to give it to Jx. Our member at this lesson, C, saw Jx coming and told us "Quick! Cross out the other missionaries names and put your own in!" And so we did. Jx thought it was hilarious.

We've been really lucky this transfer to have a lot of people really invested in the welfare of our investigators. Ca, an older Spanish gentleman, took a real interest in Jx. He asks about him all the time and has even given us things like movies to let him borrow. We were worried that they wouldn't get along at first, but they really hit it off.

We invited him to meet Aa this week, and he loved being over there. Aa is always willing to just let us pass by with our investigators. She loved meeting him and we think he appreciated it as well.

Also, our district leader, Elder Gao, has really pitched in on helping S. He said he will invite him to go to appointments with him. He asks about him a lot. It´s really inspiring to see how much the people in our ward are working to help someone come unto Christ.

I've really put a lot of thought into what it means to depend on the Savior this week. I've felt discouraged at times and I've felt a little sick this whole transfer. Sometimes it felt like I didn't have any physical or spiritual strength to do anything. I've prayed a lot to know what to do and say that would carry me through a lesson, and we've had many good lessons that were really guided by the Spirit this week.

Sopresas!!

In response to the last email, here is what happened with transfers: The unexpected.

First unexpected thing, some of our investigators almost cried when they heard one of us was going to leave. It was good to know that we had a good relationship with them.

We received our phone call on Saturday night and I was just expecting to get something that went something like "Hermana Sykes goes to Barrio 6 with Hermana So and So and Hermana Griffin gets So and So."

What we really got was a lot more shocking. Hermana Griffin was told she was going to Barrio 8 and I was staying... To train another missionary.

Actually at first we were told that our area was closing, which was much more surprising considering that we had a lot of progression this last transfer. Luckily, one of us was staying. Nonetheless, I´m still really nervous for tomorrow when I pick up my new companion. Please pray for me. I really want to be a good trainer and help her be a good missionary.

I´m pretty sad about losing Hermana Griffin.I loved her and she was a really good missionary, friend and companion. I know she´ll do great in her next area.

Right now I´m having an adventure with Hermana Barkle. We´re companions until tomorrow. She only has been on her mission for 5 months and she´s whitewashing an area (Translation: The sisters before her both left and left the area for her and she doesn't know anyone or the area) AND she´s training.

She´s really worried, but I saw her spring into action immediately when we hit Móstoles and get to work. We planned for an investigator who has a baptism this Saturday and started sorting through the apartment for resources. We´re going to be doing a lot of preparation for her new companion tomorrow. She´s going to do a really good job. (Also on an unrelated note, she´s from Australia and is really cool!)

We saw some incredible miracles this week. We realized this week we really needed to find people, so we had dedicated about 4 hours this week looking for old investigators and street contacting. We found some very wonderful people including a Spaniard who told us he really needed the message we shared with him.

We also found a woman who was really excited to talk with us. I felt a pretty strong nudge to go and talk to her and I´m happy we did. She has family that are members and at least one cousin who is serving a mission in the United States. We stopped her when she was with her 4 year old daughter and she told her "Honey, shush. We´re going to listen to the nice elders." We thought it was pretty funny she thought we we´re elders but even happier that she wanted to listen to us. 

S is plugging along really well. We invited a member to come help us go over the baptismal interview questions with him. He told us that he was at "85%" on Joseph Smith and the Restoration. He says he believes it and wants to believe it, but he´s not quite sure yet. Aj, the member we invited for this lesson who is a convert himself, was able to relate his personal experiences. Smith´s attitude started to shift a little. You can see more and more that he´s starting to develop a testimony.

J, Aa´s relative, is progressing at full force. He´s reading, praying and made it a point to come to church for all three hours this week. He even mentioned that he want´s to serve a mission. One of the Elder´s lent him his name tag to see how it fits. :)

Ja, our less-active member who´s coming back to church for the first time in 26 years, came to a baptism with us this week. She loved it. She said it brought back so many warm memories to her. We explained baptism to her later this week and the covenants we make. I bore my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the sacrament. I remember the room was filled with the most wonderful feeling of the Spirit. She stared at us in silence for a few seconds and then told us she didn´t want either of us to go. It was really satisfying to me.

Also, as a side note, she´s a make-up artist. She did my make up this week as a nice, natural, day-time look. It was really pretty, but I felt like I was dressed up to go to the opera. :)

We met with a new investigator this week, Zx. She´s from Brazil and had met with the missionaries for some time in another part of Madrid until she lost contact. The elders brought her to English class one time and she sought us out afterwards to tell us that she wanted us to come by and teach her. The elders were a little confused, but were happy to pass the referral. She was so prepared to hear the Gospel. She loved the whole message and even wrote down scriptures we gave her. She had been sick for the last few months and we offered her a blessing. The elders came and gave her one and she said she had felt so much better when we were around her.

This is only a tenth of the awesome things that happened this week! I wish I could write more. I´ll talk with you next week. I love you guys!

Sincerely,

Hermana Sykes 

The Voyage

This is Kathleen's most recent letter.  I am posting the entire letter.

Familia y Amigos!

Let me explain the title of this email. A few weeks ago an Elder once told me that his brother told him that all missionaries get to a point in their mission where they look back and all they see is mission. Then they look forward and all they see is mission. A little like being in the middle of the ocean.

I hit that point this week. It´s a little surreal.

Also, I had to strain my eyes at the word "voyage" to remember if it was actually a word in English.

I´ll start with the funny stuff this week.

We had a ward activity this week that was a lot of fun. We met a few people and have some good leads of new people to teach. This was also one of the funniest culture shocks of my mission.

We had a barbecue, and I´m kicking myself for thinking we would eat hot dogs and hamburgers. We are in a ward that is about 95% South American, and the food we eat with the members is usually stuff I don´t recognize. We went into the kitchen to see what they were preparing and they had a GINORMOUS tub filled with some sort of organ meat. I´ve eaten various organs before, but I didn´t recognize these. This is what ensued:

"Hey, Paa. What are these?"

"Oh! They´re whatchamacallits!"

"What?"

"They´re whatchamacallits."

"I don´t know what that is.

"Oh... Um... It´s the part of the chicken that holds the eggs. They´re great! I promise!"

What she was describing were chicken ovaries. We both tried one, and we politely left the room to find a place to spit them out. I also ate what I´m pretty sure was chicken tongues this week. I was at a lunch where one of the elders was served cow tongue. He hid most of it in his napkin and later described it as "It was like kissing a cow!"

We had two investigators -- Jx and S -- show up to this ward activity and they had a great time! They stayed all five hours and played games, played with the children and made a lot of friends. We both felt pretty strongly that this was going to help them progress a lot. 

I´ve noticed a strange quirk about the people in Spain. The last few days have been REALLY hot. Normally people tell us to put on a coat even when it´s warm, but they usually believe that it´s cold out (it´s not). It´s been 70 and above, and I´ve still been seeing people with winter coats and sweaters. We saw several women in wool coats fanning themselves with flamenco fans on a hot bus yesterday. In case there was any doubt before, we´re in Spain.

Now on to the more spiritual stuff.

The fifth person contacted us on the street this week. He had met with missionaries before and had wanted to know if we knew one. He invited us to come talk to him next week. We´ve been having a lot of luck with people contacting us!

We met with a less active woman this week named Ja. She was baptized with her cousins in Peru when she was 8, but when she was 13, she inexplicably stopped coming to church. She lived her life as normal: Went to school, moved to Spain, got married, had a baby. Everything was going normally until her life started to unravel. She started to realize how much she needed God in her life and she had spoken to just about everyone: Jehovah´s Witnesses, Pentecostals, Hari Krishnas, but nothing seemed to work. She ran into the Elders in the neighboring area and she told us that it just seemed right that she ran into them.

She was so excited to have us come over to meet her (even though we woke up her baby, Ls). We discovered that she didn´t know much about the church, and we started teaching her about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We had asked her if she had ever asked herself why there were so many churches in the world, and she told us that was one of the most prominent questions in her mind. She also wanted to know why -- if there is a God -- so many bad things happen in the world, especially to children.

We promised her that if she prayed and asked God, that he would reveal an answer to her. She was very confident that she could receive an answer. She might be one of the most amazing people we teach. We could tell during the whole lesson that she has the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She is very in tune with the Spirit.

We´re really excited about Smith. He´s super enthusiastic about church and loves coming. He´s working really hard on keeping the commandments and is doing a good job! He´s been progressing really well and, assuming he keeps pushing along, will get baptized next week. We´ve been praying for him that he can receive and nurture a testimony. Your prayers are appreciated too.

Ji left for Barcelona this week and won´t be back until the 15th. She might even move there. We´re going to be in contact with her. Nonetheless, she´s progressing really well. Please keep praying for her and her family.

I learned a lot about seed planting this week (in the spiritual sense). I´ve finally started to see that no matter how small my actions are, if I´m trying to be like the Savior and teaching people (even though they reject us sometimes), I am actually making a difference.

I read something in Preach My Gospel this week about what it means to be an effective missionary. It doesn´t matter what the external factors (number of baptisms, lessons taught, etc.) but what you are trying to do and if you are trying to follow Jesus Christ. I found this list and I loved it so much I made a poster for my desk:

You´re an effective missionary (or member or person) when you:

• Feel the Spirit testify to people through you.
• Love people and desire their salvation.
• Obey with exactness.
• Live so that you can receive and know how to follow the Spirit, who will show you where to go, what to do, and what to say.
• Develop Christlike attributes.
• Work effectively every day, do your very best to bring souls to Christ, and seek earnestly to learn and improve.
• Help build up the Church (the ward) wherever you are assigned to work.
• Warn people of the consequences of sin. Invite them to make and keep commitments.
• Teach and serve other missionaries.
• Go about doing good and serving people at every opportunity, whether or not they accept your message.

I love you guys all very much. Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Sykes

A Whole Bunch of Letters

We've received a whole bunch of letters from Kathleen that I have just neglected to post for the last few weeks.  So I am going to make up for it by posting this cute picture and excerpts below from a few of her letters.  -- Rebecca Sykes

April 20, 2015

We finally met with Mle this week. This was the woman who ushered us into her house to talk to her children a week ago. We finally caught her when she was home and we had a wonderful lesson with her. 

This was another one of those times where you have something planned for someone, but you realize that they need something else. We wanted to teach her about the restoration this week, but the Spirit guided us away from that as we started talking to her. She first started talking to us and peppering us with questions: Why are we on a mission, do we have two last names or just one, who was our family etc.

As we started teaching I was going to ask why she was interested in meeting with us, but I got an impression to instead ask who Jesus Christ was in her life. She opened up to us about how she is really struggling. She is out of work because she broke her hand and still can´t move it. She has a daughter that is in jail in her country. Another in France who´s about to have a baby and she can´t visit. Her son ran off to go live with a much older girlfriend. And last of all, her other daughter got mixed up with gypsies and a dangerous lifestyle. Like any parent, she is very pained, but she believes the Lord is still with her. And he is.

We talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that he understands what she feels. We also explained that because of the Gospel, families can be united now and in eternity. She has many things to hope for. We taught her how to pray and invited her to pray at the end of the lesson. She really appeared to feel that the Lord was listening to her. You could tell that she knew she was talking to her Father in Heaven. Hermana Griffin asked her if we could do anything for her at the end of the lesson, and she really appreciated that we took such an interest in her and her needs.

4/27/15  Grandes Noticias!!

I have some awesome news... Followed by more awesome news. Actually I´m pretty sure this is going to be a great email.

First off, we were in companionship study today when we recieved an ominous phonecall from our district leader. He said that all the missionaries are to read the ENTIRE bulletin. Hermana Griffin and I were both a little nervous about what this meant. Maybe it meant there was going to be a split in the mission. Perhaps we were going to be collectively called to repentance (although I´m not sure why I thought this as we appear to be a pretty good mission).

We had to go to 4 different computer cafés in order to find two computers side by side (mission rule) in the small space of 45 minutes. We quickly signed on to see what happened only to find out... Drumroll please... 

We´re getting iPads!!!

We have a seminar on the 7th to train us how to use them. I´m crazy excited for this!

In the way of spiritual things this week I wanted to talk about something really important to missionary work: Invitations.

It´s basically what all good missionary work is based on. It´s part of the plan of God for us to learn how to put off our natural inclinations to be selfish and serve ourselves. As missionaries, we can not make people do the right thing no matter how much it will make them happy. The only thing we can do is invite. This is the way that the Lord works with his children in order to help them do good.

I read this in Moroni 7:13,16

"But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God... For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God."