This Saturday is the baptism of Joan Pau! Can you believe it???? I am so excited and happy and grateful and everything! This area hasn't had a baptism for about 8 months and now someone who we have been working really hard with for several months and who I grown to love so much and who said he didn't think he would ever be baptized is not only getting baptized this Saturday but is excited and is inviting everyone!
This last week my intercambio was in Zaragoza which means guess who I got to see!!!! Hermana Noakes! She is doing great and is really working hard. My companion for the day was Hermana Dorgia from Italy. She is amazing and we had an absolute blast. She taught me how to say a few things in Italian, how to pronounce the letters as I was trying to read the Book of Mormon, and we made two different types of pasta: one for lunch and the other for a cultural activity. It was the greatest! She is such a hard worker and it made me so excited for the direction this mission is going (she is still in her training).
Yesterday we had a visit set up with a women who has canceled on us three times. During church she called us again to tell us that she had to move the visit but she moved it to later that night so "menos mal" but we knew that if she cancelled again we had to stop trying for a little while. We invited Nair (the less active woman who is coming back to church that I have mentioned before as an absolute miracle) and the visit was AMAZING!!! Nair teared up as she testified of the spirit she could feel when she walked in and then Mireya said that she felt the same way that she had someone begging her to come over and when she said no that she had a visit with us and that she wasn't going to cancel it again her friend kind of teased her about it and said you're not really going to meet with them are you but she said she felt something tell her so clearly that she needed to open the door. She said in the past she has always bailed out on the missionaries but she said, I think God is telling me that now is my time. At the end she asked if we believe in life after death and when we said yes she said do you believe we can be with the people we love forever and when we said yes she began to tear up and said that's exactly what I want.
Speaking of families being forever this last week we went to visit a woman in the hospital who is older and was just in that waiting period. All of her organs were shutting down, she could only move her eyes but her eyelids were almost entirely closed. When we visited, her daughter who is a less active asked us to sing her favorite hymns, How Great Thou Art and I Know That My Redeemer Lives, when we did that the daughter, she, her mother in law (non member, Spaniard), her father (non member, brazilian), and even her mother began to cry. It was such a powerful moment. I wish I could tell you all of the spiritual experiences that we had with her and that the elders had with her but I'll have to tell you when I have more time and space one great thing was that she was given a little strength at the end and despite everything she was able to remember what church she belonged to, who her savior is, and told her husband to listen to the missionaries, to be baptized, and to return to the temple in a year so that they could be sealed together and he said yes. It was beautiful. She passed away last night, we showed up to the hospital to visit very shortly after which we were grateful for because we were able to comfort a little then this morning we went with the elders to the ambulatory (??? I don't know in english...the funeral place... ish?) help them get everything ready for the viewing. Tomorrow we will go to the funeral. It has really helped me to appreciate my family and my life and time and the plan of God and everything.
Well I have to go but I love you all so much!
Hermana Tuttle
P.S. I don't have any pictures from this week so I will just send this one from when we went to the Barç stadium. This is me and Messi being mad about the world cup finals. (I didn't really care who won but I didn't have any pictures with german players)
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