Dinner with Temple Missionaries

November 12, 2014

I love when we are fortunate enough to receive an update on McKenna from someone serving with her in Spain.  This morning this email came through:

"We were very lucky to have the company of these 2 beautiful young sister missionaries with us when a group of us Temple Missionaries went out to dinner last week.  What sweet young women they are, and how lucky Madrid is to have them here!  They both looked very happy!"

                                             Br and Sis D.

Thank you Brother and Sister D!  They do look happy!

Email from Another?

November 10, 2014

McKenna's mom here.  Let me just say that Hermana McKenna must be sooooo incredibly busy because she sent me her companion's email this week instead of writing one herself!  Mmmm....that may have made me upset but she wrote back to some questions I had asked her about and had replied to comments I made about how the family here in Panguitch is doing.  

"So M. is just incredible... I´m just going to keep writing that every week because she is like the highlight and miracle of our lives at the moment. We went over this week and she told us that one day she was thinking about the church and was looking at the Book of Mormon and was wondering "Can this really be true?"... so she thought about it for a moment and then turned on the tv (haha she also told us that she probably should have picked up the BoM and read it... well at least she knows it).. but when she turned on the tv it was a show about the Mormon church (fancy that) and it was talking about baptism... haha how perfect is that!!!! We talked a lot about her baptism and she is excited for it! She came to church yesterday for the first time and loved it, she loved the messages, the people, the spirit!! I´m sooo excited for her

Guess who else came to church... R.!!! You know, super catholic R. that didn't want to come to church because she goes to mass... so last week we had a super fuerte (strong) lesson with her about how she needs to come to church to know if it is true... and she didn't come. then this week we had another fuerte lesson about how she needs to come to church... and then we were really annoying and kept calling her and walked with her to church, but hey-she came!!!! Woohoo. that is a victory, let me tell you.

We found an investigator this week that is so legit... we contacted her and started telling her about the church and all...come to find out she has researched all about the church and has read the Book of Mormon... crazy right. She is also such an interesting person- she has blue hair, blue eyes and is a tattoo artist. Good thing the gospel is for everyone! 

Lots of funny crazy experiences this week...

-We met a guy who quoted princess diaries to us and then made an analogy from the movie to the gospel... haha so legit.

-We were teaching this crazy lady who would mid sentence stand up and start dancing with her pillow... we invited her to church and she flat out said no... but hey we got an invite to her church!!! :)

-We found this lady whose son is on a mission, and she isn't a member, so we went to her house for lunch and she absolutely pampered us... super cute

-We ate with this man yesterday who had misplaced his juice... so we started eating without the juice and every 10 minutes or so he would suddenly get up to go search his whole house for this juice... no worries. The juice was found."

From McKenna herself:

Heeey mom....:) If you wanna see what I do and be a little more vocal in what you believe, you could ask the missionaries if they need help in a lesson and tell them you would love to come. Finding members to come to lessons is one of the most difficult things here and then you would get to see just want I´m doing out here! I love you!!!   

Us with one of Hna Fowers converts that we went to see on Monday

C. She stopped us in the store one day and told us she has a son on a mission in England, but she and her husband aren't members. She had us come over and eat and showered us with love and kisses and yummy food!

  

My hand is blurry in the picture because I was preaching it up to C.'s husband. Trying to beg them to read the Book of Mormon for their son. Well I guess you can see how much attention they paid... But still, fun pic!

The cakes in one of the store that´s right across from the centro JAS.  (Side note:  I'll have to ask Hermana McKenna what the JAS is!)

Us with some BYU students eating at the house of one of our investigators, P.

Missions Are Great!

November 3, 2014

So can I just say....Missions are great. Like really. This is the best thing I ever could have done in my whole life. Things here in Alcalá....are just fabulous! We were finding for a while, but now we've gathered some brilliant investigators and really gained the trust of the members. I am so grateful for all that the Lord has entrusted us with! Some of my favorite investigators are:

1. M. - She´s from Peru and has a fecha (date) for this month. Fingers crossed! She works a lot, but our lessons with her are always so powerful. She even had a dream the other night that she needs to keep meeting with us. She always is so sweet and happy too see us. I love her!

2. W. - He´s 28 and divorced. I think it´s because he´s already experience some hard trials that he´s willing to meet with us, cause lemme tell you....normally people like him don´t want to meet with us!  He also accepted our invitation to be baptized this month and once he finds he own testimony I just know he´ll be a great leader in the church. 

3. A. - He´s got to be one of the most soft spoken men I've ever met, but even though he´s soft spoken he´s got a lot to say! Haha! He always has a ton of questions. He´s agreed to be baptized if he knows it´s right, but we haven´t been able to hammer down a fecha with him. But he did bring one of his friends to church on Sunday and brought us chocolate!

4. C. - She is from Romania and adorable. She´s accepted the invitation to be baptized, but wants to know everything first. We shall see;) I don´t think I've ever met anyone with faith in God like her. She truly knows that everything she has she owes to God. Last night in the lesson with her she started crying when we told her how special and wonderful she is. I don´t think she hears that often enough. 

Funny story this week: We were at a Noche de Hogar (FHE) at some members house this week and they found out I was a cheerleader. The mom (who has grown up with the church) responded, somewhat surprised, "How were you a cheerleader if you were Mormon?!" Hahahahaha!!! Apparently the standards just weren´t matching up to her. Hahaha! So I was like "Oh that was before my mission! I´m a changed person now!" ;) Hahaha we were laughing about it for a few days after. You shoulda seen her face!

Another story: (Background: Spaniards love their dresses so there´s a ton of dress stores everywhere and we always love to see the dresses and know exactly when they change the dresses in the windows and everything.) So we were standing at a stoplight the other night and all of a sudden I remembered that the shop behind me was supposed to have changed their window dress that day so I spun around while saying "DRESS!" Right behind me there was a Spaniard about our age just laughing at me. Hahah welll whoopsie....(Lemme just add real fast that these are all wedding dresses) Annnnd then we proceeded to have an extensive conversation about how the stylist really shouldn´t have put the three different styles of material the dress had together. ¡Que será, será!

I also attended my first party with alcohol this week. Funny how things like that happen on a mission! One of the elder´s investigators who loves us, invited us over to the party because she had an investigator she wanted to give us. So we got over there and then the guests that arrived after us brought two bottles of wine! Hahaha! Everybody there was super chill! I love them! Unfortunately the girl she wanted to give us, her mom is already being taught by a different set of elders sooo they'll probably end up teaching her, but we ended up sharing a scripture with everybody at the party and got everybody´s references who weren't already being visited by the missionaries (too bad they live in Columbia and are only here on vacation!) Everybody was super interested in what we do and it was such a perfect environment to meet them. Just nice and relaxed! Annnnd it wasn´t even a member who did it! Hahaha 

I love you all!!! Cheers to a great week! (We totally did clink our soda glasses with their wine glasses btw)

Love, Hna Finch

Facebook steals for the week!  I love these people who post random pics of our missionary!

Japanese Culture de Espana

October 28, 2014

This week was awesome, just fabulous! We had two investigators come to church which may not sound crazy huge, but oh it was such a blessing for us! One of them A. is very intelligent and awesome, but has some trouble believing that there´s only one true church (Elder Christofferson´s talk this conference, am I right?!) and the other D. ....haha well he's an interesting story...

We actually met D. on the streets (he´s from Africa and I think he´s done of few too many drugs in his life time, so he´s a little shaky). He approached us, calling us Elders and I was like "No. Not another drunk.." I know that´s not exactly Christlike, but we get a lot of cat calls and drunk approaches...I think it happens to all the girls here honestly. But we started talking to him and asked if we could sit down and talk to him. As soon as we sat down he started roll up a cigarette and we really didn't think we would be having another lesson with him so we just taught the Word of Wisdom. (Call to repentance, eh?) We were very bold, which I honestly think really helped, he had no questions about where we all stood. He´s met with missionaries before and has super great intentions, but he has a very large WoW problem. His fingers are stained from how much he rolls and he has tremors that roll through his whole body and he can´t be more than 35. 

We also carved some pumpkins on P-Day with the other hnas and just 4 days later one of the pumpkin was rotten and filled with this weird white spider web mold! Yuck! Oh and we got dressed in, not kimonos but some less formal, a Japanese dress by a little Japanese student! She´s adorable! 

Investigator: So this week were were finally able to meet with M.! We contacted her in the street in the middle of the transfer, but because of this or that we finally got to teach her. And oooohhh! Such a powerful lesson! We invited her to be baptized on the 23 of November sooo we´ll see what happens. Miracles are fleeting on the mission, but great to lift you up! 

CPoE: So last Monday our recent convert, L., her roommate calls us on Monday during P-Day hours (while we were getting our hot water heater fixed, did I mention our hot water hasn't exactly been working? Yep the joys of a mission;)) and tell us that we have to come over to her house right now cause she made us food (She´s an old Spanish lady = a poco demanding...) but we couldn't leave so we ended up using our only free medio dia that day to go have dinner with them and then she sent us home with two big tuppers of this suuuuper Spanish food (meat, oil, grease, cream, basically)....we gave it to the Elders;).

Love you all! Have fun in ´Merica!

L. and I got to see hna Coburn right before she went home!

Our pumpkins!

Pumpkin fight!  I think it´s obvious who won! (If you guessed me you´re correct ;)

I tried to roast some pumpkins seeds...it didn´t work... :(

Also our weird molded pumpkin.

Alcalá Sisters

Also this is a giant puzzle in one of our investigators homes! It was 15,000 pieces or something! Thought Mom and my Schmutz side would appreciate it!

A tower in my area...Yeah it´s gorgeous!  

(Side note:  I (Rachel) google mapped it.  It's Archbishop's Palace)

A crazy tunnel into one of the towers we found! Woop! 

We also have Hna Snelson with us today cause her companion is traveling up to the north:)

Inside the crazy tower.

We also went to the cemetery today. It was ridiculous!

The graves!

 Yeah, people are buried in the wall!

This building is built on top of the grave then it has stairs leading down into it! This was one of the more dodgy ones. Other had like alters inside of them and stuff!

My Week!

October 20, 2014:

My Week: This week was fabulous! (Hey Mom look at how long this email is;) Do you love me?;)) First, lemme start at last PDay...it was awesome. We made Mom´s oatmeal cake and then watched a chick flick (aka Legacy...look what I have become...). We also had a really great lesson this week with a menos activo young woman and we´re going to do the young women´s program all together!!! Ahhh!!! I can´t even tell you how pumped I am to do the young woman´s program again, but in Spanish! We also got to go to the temple this week - YAY - and right after we had intercambios. I got to go to Azuqueca with Hna Crandall again. I just adore her! She is one of the best funnest people alive! We also have an investigator who has a four year old daughter. She reminded me soo much of Leighton! Needless to say we talked about Frozen and Disney princesses and sang songs almost the whole time. So adorable!

Investigator: D. - So my old companion, Hna Coburn, and her companion before me actually found D., but at the end of their transfer together he stopped answering their calls. Then, when Hna Coburn and I were together we found him on the street and were able to sit down and have a lesson with him and talk about what had happened. He said that he had prayed about the BoM and didn't believe that he should continue learning about the church or meeting with the missionaries. We would see him in the streets after and visit with him, but he always remained distant. Yesterday Hna Fowers and I saw him and we just had enough time to teach one lesson before heading over to the chapel for a baptism, but our intended lesson had failed us. So we sat down and talked to him for a while about different things, the church, his schooling, his life, and his doubts.  (He´s also super intelligent and had researched the church before the other hnas had taught him - golden, right?) 

We invited him to the baptism with us, but he really didn't want to go, because he felt like if he went in the chapel that would be committing to return and that he was showing more interest than he felt. So we visited for a little while more, but we needed to start walking to the chapel (it´s about a 30-40 minute walk from where we found him) so in a very sneaky manner we invited him to walk with us. Then once we got to the chapel, we were like "Are you sure you don´t want to come in?" and he said since he was there - why not! So we gave him a church tour and he had some more questions about the life of Joseph Smith so we set up another appointment to meet with him this week! Yay!!!!! 

After the baptism he said he loved it! And I swear one of the talks was just for him! Hna Coburn said his biggest challenge was that he did not want to come to the church para nada, but now he´s entered! He overcame that! I´m so excited for him! Prayers that he will feel a yearning for the gospel in his life!

CPdE: Sooo this week for Crazy People de España we were talking to a menos activo in front of a roasted chestnuts and corn stand (Isn't that just the cutest? Also the ice cream stands went away and now there´s a whole bunch of these stands everywhere since it´s getting colder). (Another side note - the menos activo is pretty interesting as well. He´s got one ear ring with a dangly cross hanging from it!) Anyways so we´re chatting with him and the man in the chestnut stand motions to the pass along cards my companion is holding and tell us that he wants one. So we try to talk to him and invite him to hear the lessons, but I think he was just a little confused about life. He then proceeded to hang up the pass along card on the wall of his shack, and then make the symbol of the cross with his hands. Hahaha! So now there is an LDS pass along card in the chestnut shack of a very catholic little man!

McKenna's Mom here:  I found these pictures while rolling through my Facebook feed one day!  Love finding random pictures of our missionary!  Awesome!  It looks like she is making some beautiful friends!

Now back to McKenna's email!

Guess what time we go to the temple? Well we woke up at 5:30 to get ready, to leave, to get there on time...bleh! Guess what time I went to bed that night? Well it was intercambios, I love Hna Crandall, and we both love to talk....too late! Hahaha! Great times!

This is my dessert at one of the members houses! It was seriously the Spanish version of Grandma Schmutz!  I was dying! She made us the Spanish version of chocolate chips cookies and rice con leche! Yuuuuum!!!!

​Us with the members and their garden! Yeah that´s right they have a garden!!!! Guess how far we had to travel to find a garden?! ONE HOUR! So messed up! The yellow fruit is called membrillo and it is welll....kinda interesting, but I just had the best fruit roll up of it yesterday with the L.´s! They also had figs from their garden so I have now had my first figs! Yum!​

The little playground that we played at while waiting for the bus!

L. and his daughter E.! He was baptized when he was 8 in Columbia, but has lived in Spain for 17 years and has never really been back to church. We just barely found them this week, but I´m so excited to teach them!!!! He didn´t remember much about the church and didn't really want us to come over and teach them, but he did remember the FHE's they would have in Columbia, and all the treats! Sooo we wiggled our way into his heart and we´re gonna have an FHE with him and his wife and E. at their house this week! Hoop hoop holla holla! 

Puerta de Madrid! My city! It is beautiful!!!! 

The other sisters´ convert! Woop woop for baptisms!!! G. (their convert) is bomb! The other man is A. and 1st counselor in the bishopric. He´s from Argentina and we´re super tight with their family! We had the president of the Madrid temple come and give his talk in sacrament and he served in Argentina AND guess who one of his converts were?! A´s mom!!! How wonderful to see the fruits of you´re labors like that! 


 I LOVE MY COMP!!!