Everything in the Lord's Time

Dear friends and family,

Sorry I have like no time today because we ended up playing capture the flag for our zone activity and it was an absolute blast so we lost track of time but life is going great. We had a hard week this past week. A lot of our appointments canceled on us (like a good 25 out of 35) and members would just not show up sometimes but honestly I love Valencia. I have fallen in love with the people and the culture and just basically everything. The church, of course, isn't as strong as I am used to back in Utah but the members love God and their testimonies are simple and pure. I am so humbled by these people who have been members for fractions of the time that I have been and who have such incredible faith and testimonies. I feel very blessed to be serving here.

Our miracle experience this week is that, much like other weeks, on Sunday morning we realized how far we were from our goals (I know it probably sounds like we are just hitting up the beach during the weeks but I promise we actually are working the whole week). We knew we had worked really hard and that if we just kept pushing ourselves and praying that the Lord would help us because we have seen him help us in the past and he definitely did. We ended up meeting our goals (we had 7 investigators and Manuel in church! it was awesome!) but even more incredible was that we met a Spanish family of nine who is very open and interested in hearing more about the church!!! (that probably doesn't sound all that amazing but it totally is...just fyi). After we set up a return appointment and left Hma. Shaffer and I just talked about all of the things that had to fall into place to get us to that point. It was amazing. Oh and Princess is doing amazing! She knows she wants to get baptized (she has come to church 5 times now) but she wants to wait until her husband Juan is more interested. We invited them both to meet with our employment person for the ward last saturday during the chapels open house and unfortunately the brother didn't show up. We felt really bad but they ended up staying there and walking around the church for 4 hours! I am really hopeful for them but we'll see. Everything in the Lord's time.

I love you guys! Hope you have amazing weeks!

 

Happy Father's Day

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Father's Day! Wow, I know my dad will hate me bragging about them to the zillions of people that are reading this (or just my mom...) but I really have the best dad in the world and I am so grateful! Most families here consist of a single mom and a couple of kids. It has really made me appreciate having my dad, my co-greatest role model with my mom, in my life.

So this week three exciting things happened:

1) Zone Conference: It was so good! I know I have said this before but I absolutely love my zone! I forgot to mention in my last email that transfers were last week but that's because nothing changed for me but the zone has changed a bit. Four elders left and one sister. We got two more companionships. So there were a lot of new faces. I definitely miss the people that left but all of the new people seem really cool. We have a lot of greenies which is super fun. It's crazy to think I'm not the new one anymore.

Our musical number went really well. I was still sick so I felt really bad but the spirit was so strong and President Pace was teary-eyed afterwards which was so sweet. I really can't even tell you how much I love President Pace. He is amazing! He cares so much about the missionaries and does everything he can to make them feel loved and appreciated.

2) A Baptism: Manuel was baptized!!!!!! I am so happy for him. I wish you all could meet him. He has a problem with his leg and can't walk very well but he is always early. We told him to be at the church at 4 for his baptism at 5 and he said "okay I will leave my piso at 1 so I can be there at 3 because I cannot be late. God would not want me to be late and I don't want to offend God." When he walked into the font I just felt this overwhelming feeling of happiness for him. Everything was beautiful. Afterwards he bore his testimony. He talked about the problems with his leg and how he wasn't able to walk for a long time and how none of the people from his congregation visited him so he decided he was done with organized religion because the people don't practice what they preach. Then he said he thanked God everyday for "his two sisters" who cared about him and told him not to give up but to come back. It was so powerful. I am so grateful God was able to use Hma. Shaffer and I as tools in His hands. I had no idea any of his background story until the baptism. The District is right: we might not know what they are going through but God does.

3) Biopark: Today for our P-Day activity we went to BioParc, a zoo. It was super fun. We got to see hippos and rhinos (I TOTALLY sang "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"), a lemur almost jumped on me which was absolutely terrifying (Anybody who knows me, knows how easily I get scared), elephants, giraffes, all of that fun stuff and we got super close.

Sorry, no pictures this week, I can't find the USB plug-in but next week for sure.

Love you!

Hermana Tuttle

PAUTAS!!!

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow you are probably getting sick of me saying this but last week was nothing short of a miracle. We had really high hopes for last week. We wanted to reach for Pautas de Excellencia (mission's standard of excellence. Goals that the mission has set each week for missionaries to work for but are very hard) The pautas are: 1 baptism, 6 investigators at church, 6 new investigators, 12 member present lessons, and 3 investigators with a baptismal date. I know every mission is very different but for this mission these are the high goals. About every week one companionship will get all five, one will get four, and one or two will get three of them. We knew we wouldn't have a baptism but we really wanted to try to get four. We pushed so hard but the week definitely pushed back. When Saturday even rolled around I was sick, we were far from our goals, and we only had one day left in the week. We had been praying all week and working hard and I felt kind of bad that we were going to fall short but motivated to work even harder the next week. But that night as I started my fast for fast sunday (because last week was stake conference) I just kept having this thought that I should fast that we could reach our goal. I didn't want to at first because I'll admit I was worried that I would fast and then if we didn't reach it I would feel discouraged. For those short moments during my prayer I had honestly been debating on if the power of fasting was strong enough to perform a miracle (because that was certainly what we needed)! I thought back on how many times I have heard that fasting can bring miracles and I shook my fear aside.

Sunday started off rough, several people told us they could not make it to church meaning that out of the 15 people that said they could come we were down to 3 people that would actually be able to make it. I wish I had time to go through each incredible miracle we saw that day but unfortunately I don't I will just say that between meeting a man from Bulgaria on a business trip on the metro, to two people from New Zealand and two people from Ukraine who had just moved her, to having three of the people who said they wouldn't be able to make it show up, to seeing a girl that we have been teaching and who hasn't come to church in the last two years stay for all three hours when we hadn't even talked to her this last week, to teaching powerful lessons before and after church, to having an investigator who we hadn't even had a visit with yet ask us if he could be baptized, to teaching a couple that we haven't taught for the three weeks, the list goes on and on but by the end of the night. We were tired but we had reached our goals and even exceeded some. It was incredible! I have such an incredible testimony of fasting. I wish you could have seen mine and Hma. Shaffer's faces the first twenty minutes of sacrament meeting our jaws were dropped the whole times as investigator after investigator, less-active after less-active walked in.

So now for the random updates:

I have been sick for the last four days. Not fun. But it has helped me recognize how much I have grown to love and appreciate working each day. It's like when you are in elementary school and you almost pray for an illness so that you don't have to go to school whereas in college you don't want to get sick because you recognize and appreciate how important each class period is. I am so grateful that my being sick hasn't gotten to the point of keeping me from working.

I forgot to mention last week that a kid we taught got baptized on the 1st of June. His name is David, he is 8 years old so it is a "baptism for the ward" not a convert baptism but we taught him the lessons and we are super excited for him.

Zone conference is this week! I am so excited! Hopefully my voice comes back because Hma. Shaffer and I are singing again. Yay!

Our current investigators who we are super excited about are: Manuel (the 15th), Princess, Stella (the 29th), and Alejandro (the 29th). Princess doesn't have a baptismal date yet but I think she will get baptized in June she already knows everything is true she is just a little cautious.

Love you all! Thank you so much for your prayers! Loving the 38 degree celsius weather down here in Valencia!

Hermana Tuttle

Picture 1: David's Baptism. I know this one they are both making funny faces but I thought Gabriel's face was priceless. They are both adorable kids! 

Picture 2: Me in front of the Sagrada Familia during intercambios. Ignore the no-make-up-ness my train left pretty early so I waited to get ready in Valencia. 

I Love Being A Missionary

Friends and Family,

I love being a missionary! You get to see so many miracles. But in reality, I don't know if I see that many more miracles than any of you but rather, that missions teach you to recognize and appreciate the little miracles that happen every day.

Our miracle experience this week was with Princess. Early last week she waved us down in a metro station. She explained to us that her aunt was baptized in Nigeria last November. Her aunt, Nekpen, had been through the temple in Nigeria to do baptisms and would go to church whenever she was down there but she hadn't been able to find the church since she moved to Spain. Princess was very insistent that we call her that very day. We did and set up an appointment for last Thursday. She is amazing! She is so enthusiastic about the church and because of that Princess wants to start learning more. She came to Stake Conference and absolutely loved it. We are very excited. We have an appointment with Nekpen and Princess this Friday after Princess's exams and we are going to talk about baptism. Fingers and arms crossed!

Things are continuing to go well with Manuel and we are still planning on him being baptized June 15th. We are really striving for the standards of excellence this week (mission goals for each week that are pretty high but definitely possible with hard work). We are trying to fill up our week with great appointments. We definitely have a lot of work to do but we are motivated and praying very hard to reach our goals this week.

As always, my companion is amazing and we are doing very well down here in Valencia. We are at a very similar level as far as being able to speak Spanish goes which is fun and I think has strengthened our companionship because we are able to learn from each other. She is much more fluent in the scriptures than I am which is inspiring. I am reading in the Book of Mormon every day and writing down references that I think could help present and future investigators so that, as my mission progresses, the Spirit can use that familiarity to inspire me to read certain passages with my investigators.

On Wednesday and Thursday Hma. Shaffer and I had companion exchanges which means that on Wednesday Hma. Shaffer went up to work with our Sister Leader Trainer Hma. Rivera and her companion Hma. Noakes (my first friend on the mission) came down to work with me for a day, then on Thursday Hma. Shaffer and I switched places. It was so funny spending a day with Hma. Noakes. I love her and miss her a ton! Then on Thursday I got to travel 3 hours by train to Barç all by myself. It was fun to work with Hma. Rivera and to learn from her and I got to spend some time with Elder Thorpe (who is doing awesome, I'll send pictures next week) but I definitely missed Hma. Shaffer and Valencia. It's so interesting how attached to your area you get.

We had stake conference Saturday and Sunday, we got to see President and Sister Pace which is always amazing. Elder Reina and Elder Ruiz de Mendoza spoke to us (I believe one of them is a general authority of some type). They were amazing.

Today for P-Day we went to this really cool castle in a place called Xativa (not the city center Xativa which is a little confusing) it was apparently built in 200 or 300 B.C. or something absolutely ridiculous like that. It was really cool. Can't believe next P-Day (which will again be on Tuesday) is transfer day! These six weeks flew by!

Sorry I have several pictures from this last week but my computer doesn't have a USB port so you'll have to linger in suspense until next week. Oh and the place I was jumping in front of in last weeks photos was Las Ciencias. Basically what Valencia is famous for. They are these 4 huge buildings surrounded by water. They are gorgeous!

Love you all! ¡Tengan una buena semana!

-Hermana Tuttle