Tuesday, February 25, 2014

La Autoridad de mi Llamamiento

Queridos familia y amigos,

Esta semana ha sido bien. Hemos visto muchos milagros. Claro hay cosas que cambiaría si podría pero así es la misión. Okay now I will talk in english, I just thought I would give you a little taste of spanish since I don't do that nearly as much as I should.

So this week I was reminded a lot of who I am as a missionary and what my name badge represents. In Spain, 70% of the people have no clue who/what we are and the other 30% think we are Testigos de Jehova (Jehova's Witnesses) so when people react to us wearing chapas it is usually negatively. But this week after district meeting we went out to Subway for lunch and a woman said "oh hey! Missionaries" she and her husband were on vacation here in Barcelona, they have lived a lot of their lives around the States, part in Utah, and a lot in Europe (currently living in Geneva, Switzerland). They are members and were super sweet. Then when we went to sit down another family greeted us and turns out they are members from Roy, Utah. Then a woman from England started asking us a bunch of questions about the name badges we wear. It was really cool. Elder Ferrer, Spaniard, was absolutely shocked. I don't know if he has ever just run into Mormons let alone two families in the same restaurant and he leaned over to us and asked "is this what it's like in Utah." The families took photos with us and it was so sweet to hear the kids get all excited about having pictures with the missionaries. It really made me think twice about what members think when they see missionaries. They have high expectations for us, as they should and it was really nice to remember that.

Then we had the sweetest visit with this older lady named Trini. She told us that she hasn't felt such a strong connection with missionaries since the elders that baptized her 40 years ago. She basically adopted us as her granddaughters and said that she wants to hear all about our futures. When we get home, when we get married, letters and pictures about everything. But despite the love that she has for us she said that she couldn't hug us because she said she doesn't think it's appropriate to hug missionaries. She says that we are too pure. And then in ward council they talked a lot about us missionaries and how we are held to a high standard and the ward needs to respect the sacredness of our callings. I don't know there were just a bunch of things that happened this week where other people talked about how sacred our calling is and the expectations they have of us and it really made me think more about why my name badge just says my last name and Christ's name on it rather than my first name.

So we also had some really good lessons this week but I'm super short on time so just real fast, we met with a woman named Tania and her daughter and they are amazing. And then on Saturday there was a primary activity as well as a YM/YW activity and we had 8 investigators and 1 less active there! How incredible is that!?!?!?! We were freaking out. Then we found a family of less actives on the metro and had an amazing lesson with them last night and we are visiting them again tonight. Oh and then today we had concilio and as always it was amazing! We talked a lot about less actives and recent converts.  Sorry not a ton of information about this week but just know that I am loving life and I am so happy. 

Hope you all have a great week! Lots of love!

Hermana Tuttle


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