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