Sister Tuttle's Mission: Ch..ch..changes

Dear family and friends,

Wow, okay so sorry that I am writing a little late. So here is why...well that's no fun I'll go through the week a little bit first.

This week was crazy! Monday and Tuesday were a little slow with a lot of appointments canceling on us but we were still able to have a couple good appointments but then the week quickly got packed and we ended up running around for the rest of the week.

On Wednesday we taught Mensen a lesson, then we went to a member's house for lunch. So I don't know how much you know about Paella but it's amazing and it's super common in Spain, you can get it everywhere but Valencian paella is known to be the best in the world, that's one of the defining characteristics of Valencia. So that is what we ate, made by a true Valenciana. It was so good!!! (oh and be proud, I ate 3 snails). Then we had a visit with a family from Ecuador. We taught them the Restoration. When we got to the part about Joseph Smith we felt prompted to show them the 20 minute movie. During it Hermana Walker and I were both a little nervous. People usually take the story of Joseph Smith one of two ways: either it makes perfect sense to them or it is just too incredible for them but with them it was definitely the former. They loved it. The spirit was so strong in that room as we asked them how they felt and testified of what we had just seen. As we were leaving we thanked them for the time and the mother said "no, thank you. I can feel so much peace right now and everything makes so much sense. So many of my questions have been answered."

Thursday we taught a few lessons, one of which was our last lesson with Mensen, and went to a stake family home evening.

Friday was a lot of traveling because the other hermanas in our piso were doing intercambios so we were in a trio part of the day and had to go back and forth from the train station to pick people up and drop people off. But we did have a couple really good lessons one of which was with Stella (the one who just doesn't feel any excitement to get baptized). We taught her about the stripling warriors. After we read the first couple of verses and asked her what stood out to her she said nothing and that none of it really "touched [her] heart" at that point I was super worried but I really appreciated having a member there because as we went on his testimony was so strong and by the end she was volunteering things she liked from each of the verses we read and talking about ways she could apply it to her life. PROGRESS!!! We also had Mensen's baptismal interview and correlation today.

Saturday=Crazy. Along with finishing up the other hermana's intercambios (trips to the train station), we had to pick up two mini missionaries (the Barcelona stake is doing a youth activity where their youth who are nearing mission age are serving for a week with missionaries in our mission and two of them are going to be with Hermanas Steenblik and Liu), then it was Mensen's baptism. It went perfect! You wouldn't believe how beautiful it was! Everything went perfect. She is so sweet and was just smiling from ear to ear the whole time. She said that she could feel the spirit so strong and she felt a peace and a happiness she had never felt before.

Afterwards I got a call from President...I have been called to serve as a Sister Training Leader! For those of you who don't know what that is: it is a recently instituted leadership for sisters, somewhat equivalent to a zone leader. There are 8 in our mission right now (myself included) and all of them have much more time in the mission than I do. I feel pretty inadequate for the position but I am also very excited.

Sunday, Mensen was confirmed and we taught a really good lesson with a man named Isdi. Then I headed up to Barcelona with the zone leaders for the monthly Mission Leadership Meeting on Monday (the reason I am emailing late). I got to stay with Hermana Shaffer, which was a blast and of course the meeting was incredible! I learned so much, President and Sister Pace are so inspired! But as fun as being up there was, I missed Hermana Walker it really made me realize how attached we have gotten. Traveling around a lot now to do intercambios will be hard but it's going to be especially hard when I get transferred one day.

Oh random tidbit: Mensen's real name we found out is Mercy. Oops. We found that out when we had to fill out the paperwork for her baptismal interview... with her accent it really does sound like Mensen (did any of you guys just try to say Mercy with an accent to test my theory. I promise it does) anyway, I think I'll continue to call her Mensen just because Mercy seems way too unfamiliar.

Well I love you all, sorry this letter is a little dry, a lot to catch up on and not much time since we are heading back up to Barcelona to get Hermana Walker's residency card tonight.

Have a great week! Please keep me in your prayers!

-Hermana Tuttle