Experiences

I am so happy here!! its hard work but its not at the same time..its a
blessing to have this time to only focus on my Savior and learning how
to become more like Him. The temple was awesome! how was it? I'm happy to hear you went:) thats awesome! the Lord knows the desires of our hearts and will bless us as we not only desire to follow His commandments, but as we show it through our actions
thoughts words and deeds! the most important thing ive probably
learned is that being Christ like is more than just being nice and
doing service every so often, it is turning outward when the natural
man would turn in, no matter how hard it is, no matter who it is, we
need to turn outward when all we want to do is turn in. i can apply
this to so many different experiences in life and it only makes me a
stronger person!

Scriptures that strengthen

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto
men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all
men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before
me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto
them."
Ether 12:27

Rollercoasters in the Parque

Keep telling me anout the blessings! that makes me feel so good.  anyways, the first few days were HARD. everyday is a rollercoaster, but the adjustment to sleep, the schedule, the life was hard. but now im in
the groove. ive learned so much. its so important to do all we can to keep the spirit with us. learning the language is a challenge but its reitterated over and over to obtain the word and then it shall be given unto us. (theres a scripture where it says that but i dont have time to confirm it...) please keep tellikng me how everything is going
and whats going on. its so uplifiting. me and my companion are basicallly twins. we think the same, we have the same struggles, but we manage to go through downfalls at different times so we always pick each other back up! my district is awesome. were the only hermanas and theres 6 elders. theyre like brothers to us, its fun but we help keep each other on task. i proselyted IN SPANISH to REAL people in retiro parque on saturday! it was crazy....we had to talk to people as soon as we got on the metro! but, i manned up, swallowed my insecurities
and did it! my compañera and i talked with a lady and as i was bearing testimony the metro stopped and my compañera was like this is our stop! i turned around to check, turned back around and said ADIOS! to
the lady and ran off the metro. hahaha. then it was the parque......it  was sooo hard! one couple thouught we were amish ahhaha. my companion, sister edmunds (diff companions for park) said lets go talk to him,
pointing to an old man on a bench. i was like no way, he looks scary and hes smsmoking a cigarette! Then shes like no, come on. So I was like alright…..we went over there, started talking to him and then he just started talking and talking. I could pick out every few words and he would pause every so often so id think he was done but he just kept goin. We ended up giving him a book of Mormon! I couldn’t understand most of what he said, which made me sad because I really wanted to have a meaningful response back. But one of my maestros said that all we need to do it leave a lasting impression, through a smile hug or whatever. So I feel that my lasting impression was the time of day and just simply listening. At the end of our first parquet experience,
these two guys came up to us, there were four hermanas together at  this point, they asked for a book of Mormon! Then they were talking to us and we were telling them about the church and stuff. They told us
we looked like angels over and over. It was so cool. Not in a flirty way, but they said we literally look like angels. It’s the spirit!!! Then we sang hymns all together, all the missionaries, not us with the two guys hhaha. The spirit was so strong! One important thing ive learned is that as missionaries “we invite others to come unto
Christ”. We are not there to teach or recite memorized lessons, our job is to invite the power of God, the Spirit so that it can be felt. Saturday was hard, as it was a little out of my comfort zone and a lot of people look at you funny. But clinging to good things, spiritual experiences, favorite scriptures, the prophet´s words, help get you
through those and help those not so fun moments become strengthening. Hermana hollenbaugh and I are tight! We have been teaching investigators (our teachers) and its hard, but as we keep doing it it gets more fun, not so nerve racking. Lyesterday I was talking to the investigator about sins and what he does when he feels bad and all
that. And mi Hermana doesn’t understand as much Spanish yet so she was clueless and thought we were talking about coming back tomorrow so out of no where in English she was like <”tomorrows bad??” and we all bust out laughing. It was so funny. So moments like those are also good to look back on when the work gets discouraging. I am trying to include as much as I can but its so hard to remember everything on the
spot…………I wake up at 630 and go to bed at 1030 everyday. The food is pretty good here. I LOVE speaking Spanish even though I still have so much to learn. I am studying from 8-930 everyday, breakfast at 7,
lunch at 1, dinner at 645, then back to class. Theres Russian French Spanish speakers here. Pretty cooll. I met up with 3 other missionaries in London so there were 5 of us  we saw missionaries at the airport that were going home. They looked like they were in a  trance haha. = IM A MISSIONARY! Its cool I cant
wait to go to the temple next week. Keep saying prayers and reading scriptures and attend the temple as often as you can! I need the blessings…we all need the blessings!

New friends, family and past times~ Could not be happier :)

Sunrise~Madrid Temple~Eternal Views

All in the Lord's Timing

First of all, if you know me well, you know I LOVE the Lord´s timing.
It it seamless and perfect and nothing happens by coincidence! Before
I came out on my mission, I wondered why I wasn’t called until
January..why did I not turn in my papers earlier so I could get called
earlier?, why didn’t I get to report in December when david archuletta
came to this very mtc?! Things like that.     Well the very second day at
the Madrid CCM (MTC) I found out one of the many reasons there are and
will be for the Lord´s timing specifically for ME.   So the
director spoke to us missionaries the second day at the MTC.   He is a
convert. The missionaries taught him when he was about 15 or 16, about
30 something years ago. He named one of the missionaries that had
taught him then continued on with his story.    Towards the end of his
address he mentioned the three missionaries that brought his family
the gospel, one of them being an “Elder Blackner”.    My mind went back
to when President Mortenson briefly mentioned the Brother Blackner in
our stake served in Spain.   I hadn´t thought much of it but,”Oh cool!”
until Brother Arjona said his name.   After his devotional, I quickly
went up to thank him for his words and shake his hand and tell him I
know a Brother Blackner.   That´s all I had to say and he said, “I was
not able to keep contact from him.   He is from Tacoma.   He is probably
in his fifties by now.”   I KNOW HIM!!! He said, “I never mentioned that
name when speaking to missionaries before.   I didn´t know why I did
this time, but now I know- you.”   PLEASE TELL BRO BLACKNER J Brother
Arjona is the director here, he served a mission, his brothers served
missions, his family was baptized, he has a family now and he is so
inspired!
Next cool thing that Adam King needs to hear! One of my teachers,
Brother Rissi, served in Portugal 4 or 5 years ago and knows Adam!
Tell him that for me please J
Also, I found my tea tree oil haha, my blow dryer turned red hot and
started  smoking the first time I plugged it in but I  figured out how
to change the voltage and it works now thanks hartles!!
This past Saturday was……proselyting in el Retiro Parque of course! I
was companions with Hermana Diderickson this time. I LOVE her. She is
so sincere and sweet, but real. We have the exact same views on the
kinds of missionaries we want to be. I have a couple cool stories to
share from Saturday- Frist, Friday  I  had set the goal of reading 15
min. of BOM and 15 min. of PMG each night before bed because I just
wasn’t finding time to read them during the day and I was missing it…
I was going to continue in chapter 2 of PMG where I was at in personal
study, but I had the feeling to read in chapter 9 instead. Great stuff
in it as always, and it lead me to 2 aswesome scrips: Alma 31:34-35
and D&C 123:11-17 but specifically 16. The D&C v. 16 talks about a
small helm being of great worth to a large ship in a mighty storm. I
likened it unto myself as the small helm. Saturday was ironically very
stormy- windy, rainy, hail, cold…craziness! Anyways, as we were
leaving the park this couple stopped us and said a set of elders had
talked to them earlier offering a BOM but the kindly declined. The
elders had left them with a family proclamation pamphlet anyway.  The
couple decided they were actually interested in reading it and asked
for a copy- we gave them an English and a Spanish and talked to them
about what we believe and a little about the BOM!(: after proselyting
we sing in the park and then leave. We had finished singing and
everyone wanted to leave because it was freezing and super stormy. A
few of us wanted to sing one more song so we were like  no no one
more! The Lord knows I haaaate being cold, but the cold didn´t even
bother me that day. Had we not sang another song, we would not have
passed that couple when they needed us(:
Second park experience, there is a cool statue column thing, im not
sure how to explain it….., I compañera was testifying when all of a
sudden the clouds parted and the sun shone so bright. Gabriella´s eyes
got so big and she pointed to the sky and was like “el sol!”  we all
laughed a little and inside we knew that was the spirit helping her
know what we were saying is true. She said she was from Brazil, so I
told her I have friends that have served there and are serving there
right now so it was cool to make a connection  with her about that! I
cannot get her out of my head! I fasted for her on Sunday, but I pray
that she will be lead back to the gospel somehow if not through us. It
takes about 9 contacts before a person investigates the gospel! Just
keep planting seeds and eventually the  right time will be right!!(:
President Lovell said I remind him of a Sister Barbie (Barby?, Barbi?
Idk how to spell it but maybe you can find her on the Malaga blog!) at
first I thought he meant if “Barbie” was a missionary I would be her
lol, and it just reminded me of when grampa called me Barbie, but then
he asked sister lovell if I reminded her of this sis Barbie, my
mannerisms, the way I carry myself and look, everything, and she said
yeah a blond version! So apparently she has dark hair but shes my twin
haha.
My district is awesome. All the teachers and the president say Abinadi
is outstanding. Elder Kirby is from England so he gets letters and
packages all time…he´s so sarcastic, we say his is that sass in our
district. I love all of them though, we are all a family (: Elder
Llavina sits next to me, hes always messing up my chair…hes from Utah,
and is the district leader now. Elder Lake used to be DL but is ZL
now, hes from Arizona. Elder Gibson is so sweet. Elder Wadsworth is
hilarious and has 11 bros and sis! Omg… Elder Byington is from Santa
Cruz!! and is super sweet at well, we talk about Cali all the time. I
miss it L

First photos of Hermana Cook in Madrid

Peace, Be Still