New Pictures!

6/24;

Hey Family! 

Grandpa is sending me shoes? Tell him thanks so much for me because I just killed my favorite pair. The sole is almost clean off. Hahaha oops. Guess thats what hard work does. Haha Mom I´m meeting a ton of people here in the ward from Ecuador but not anyone from Guayaquil or however you spell it. Sorry! But yeah the ward is filled with Latins. I love it. 

This week has been filled with getting doors slammed in my face, people shooing me and running into crazy testigos. Its been a rough week I won´t lie. BUT. Everytime I start to get discouraged I just think to myself. Well, you wanted to be a missionary so here you go. Haha its been a really hard week. Hermana Soto and I are just working on trying to find people and its been hard but I know that if we just excerise a little more faith we can see big miracles here in Barrio 4. 

Plus its hard to get discouraged when I think of all the blessings I have. I mean for one, I have an awesome family. High five for you guys. You guys love me a whole bunch and thats awesome. Seriously its true what you say Mom, Satan doesn´t have a family and he is going to do everything in his power to destroy yours. You have to be strong. And I am so blessed to have a family that is super united. Seriously you guys are the most important thing to me and I´m sorry if I didn´t show it enough but you are. Mom thanks for nunca dejar que Satanas entre ni a la puerta. Haha your favorite saying. Satan.... I hate that guy. You know whats the best to punch him in the face? By loving each other and being good people and keeping the commandments. So simple. Punch that guy right in the face. 

I just got carried away with what I was saying.... thats ok. What I´m trying to say is that when things get rough, count your blessings and you realize, its not that bad. Thats what I´ve been learning. So stay positive back home and I´ll stay positive out here. Deal? Because like I said, this is what I wanted. I wanted to serve a mission because I know the truthfulness of this gospel and I can´t deny it. People don´t want to hear me? Their loss. Move forward and trust in the Lord. 

Thank you for your love, support and prayers. They mean the world to me. I love you all so much. Oh by the way I went to Segovia today, I´ll send pictures. It was super cool. :) be good. I love and miss you. :)

Hna Palomino

6/17;

Hey family! 

Well first off I am currently sitting next to Hna Manner, the sister that visa waited in Saratoga Springs. She is serving in Barrio 8 with my good friend Hna Seastrand so yeah she is here with me for pday. :) its nice to know someone that just came from my favorite place ever. haha So to answer the question you are wondering most about... Barrio 4 is definitely a lot different than Alcala. So the part of Madrid we cover is Hortaleza. At least thats the big part of it. We have the second biggest area in Madrid but theres only like 90 people or so in the ward. The ward is going through a transition phase. Im not entirely sure what everyone means by that. But they just got a new bishopric like 2 months ago and they are trying to change things in the ward for the better. Which is cool. But that also means that they expect a lot from us. The last sister misisonaries that here about a year and a half ago did not leave a good impression on the ward so all eyes are us now. Everyone has said that. But its ok. The ward is basically all latins so they love me. Mostly people from Ecuador. Thanks for that Mom, its helping me win hearts. hahaha The elders have helped us a lot to get started. They had the members invite us to all their food appointments. So now we get fed by members like everyday. Haha on Tuesday the elders took us to a food appointment, Elder Prentell who has been here for 3 months and his companion just came down from Vigo so Prentell was just leading us everywhere because the 3 of us were new to the area. So he said it was with a less active and to not be scared but that this guy had a few different ideas about the church. So we got there and we were super nervous and we meet the guy and he was quiet for a long time and finally he starts talking and starts telling us stories about when he served a mission in venezuela. about an hour later, he says alright tienen mas preguntas para su obispo? and we just all looked at each other. And Prentell busts up laughing. HE WAS THE BISHOP. And the bishop was like what did he tell you about me, did he say I was a less active member that was crazy? And we just started laughing. It was so funny. 

Also we met someone super cool. We were going through the old investigators in the old area book and found this lady Cecelia that we went to visit. She is 85 years old, totally Spanish and met elders 20 years ago. The last hermanas left her because she was not progressing but she says its hard for her to take the metro to church since its so far and shes old. But the cool part was that she said, she had been thinking about the missionaries the last couple of weeks but did not know how to contact them. Until we came knocking on the door. She said that she had been reading the Book of Mormon and she knows now that its true. Awesome! So we are going to keep meeting with her and see where it goes from there. I love her, she has a lot of cool stories. I am super excited. 

So yeah, I like Barrio 4. I had to buy a little book with maps with all the street names because I was sick of not knowing where to go. So now my goal this transfer is learn Madrid like the back of my hand. I already have the metro down. Madrid has nothing on this New York girl obviously. 

Mom is a primary teacher now? HAHAHAHAHAHA yes! Good. That will keep you nice and young :) well I am glad things are going well at home. Dad, I started writing you a letter for Fathers day but I havent sent it yet. So I am not a terrible daughter and forgot about you. I will send it this week. I love you guys! I hope you have a good week and good luck with the primary mom. Oh man that is just too good. hahahaha thank you I am going to be laughing all week.

Pictures, on pictures, on pictures.

We're thrilled that our Hermana sent us sooooo many pictures today. Picture Monday is the BEST! :)

6/10/13 --

Hey Family.

Bad news first. I got transfered out of Alcala. My time in the beautiful city where that dude that wrote Don Quixote was born... is done. I´m super sad about it. But good news... I´m opening an area. My new companion is not so new. Hna Soto and I are opening Barrio 4 for hermanas here in Madrid. So I´m in the city finally and fresh out of training I get to open an area. It could be worse. I could be training. Haha just kidding. My new area is HUGE. I honestly have no idea where I am. This is going to be very interesting. But yeah, there hasn´t been hermanas in this area for years so the members are super excited. So thats good. Hna Soto and I are living in a new piso. And yeah, its fun stuff. 

We got to go to the temple this week. Which was awesome. I seriously am so lucky to be in a mission where we can go to the temple every transfer. Seriously the temple is awesome. Can we just take a second to recognize how awesome it is.... thank you. I love the temple. Especially the Madrid temple. That was the highlight of the week. It always is. Also Mom, I met a missionary that said her mom knows you? I can´t remember her name, they are from Ecuador too. I took a picture with her so you can show her mom. haha 

I´m trying to remember all the things that happened this week but honestly all I can think about was having to say goodbye to everyone yesterday. I had to say goodbye to all my favorite members that have taken me in and it was super hard. But even harder than that was saying goodbye to my investigators. Mike wanted to say goodbye so we met with him. Instead of us teaching him, he basically just gave me a ton of animo. He said it was hard to say goodbye. First hna wright leaves and now me and we were his first missionaries but he is excited to stay with Hna Judy. He´s still reading the book of mormon, plowing through helaman now. Mike also said just to trust the Lord because even though my work in Alcala is done, I have a lot more to do here in Madrid. We also talked about love and how the world has twisted the definition. He said love is God sending Christ to redeem us and love is sharing in the Spirit with people and learning together. He also said love is my parents sending me to a foreign country to preach the gospel. I thought yo uwould like that one Mom. :) It was a good little meeting. I cried bearing my testimony at the end because I´m a big baby. 

But the worst worst goodbye was with Rutillo and Lorena. They fed us my favorite food of theirs and then I said I wanted to leave them with a parting scripture. It was a little poetic for me, my first lesson in Alcala was with them and so was my last. I shared Eter 12:4 and talked about faith and invited them to keep cultivating their faith. It was a big I love you guys basically. I cried a lot more at that one but its ok because they cried too so it wasn´t weird. They seriously are like family to me. Its weird to think how close you get to people in such a short amount of time. But thats mission life I guess. 

I´m glad you guys had a great time in New York. I´m a little jealous about the food. Thanks for that dad. haha DAD HOW WAS MAN OF STEEL DID YOU WATCH IT YET? I´m sorry about the Yankees, I´ll keep them in my prayers. And YES. We are going to Orlando after I´m done. Harry Potter World. :) I love you guys. I kept thinking in the temple this week how lucky I am to have such a great family that loves me even though I´m so weird. Thanks for loving me you guys. Thanks for everything you do. I wouldn´t be who I am without any of you. have a great week and be good. :)

6/03--

Hey family! 

New York sounds like a blast. I´m really jealous. But then I remember that I live in Spain... and the jealousy fades away. Just kidding. That was mean. I hope you guys have a great time! I wish I could be there but you know how it is. Gotta do the Lord´s work!

Ok so this email has to be short and sweet because we have to go to the mission home today for some huge mission pday activity and we are late and the elders are telling me to hurry up but thats ok. Short and sweet.

We are still in a trio here in Alcala. This will be the last week because transfers are next Monday. I think that Hna Judy will stay and Soto and I will go somewhere else. THere are 10 new hermanas coming in and only like 6 elders. Sister missionaries for the win! Please cross your fingers that I won´t train. I´m starting to get nervous. I can´t train a newbie. But anyways. 

This week was a lot better than last week. I´ll share a super cool story. So last week was really rough on us but we decided to change our attitudes and not let the little things get us down. So really, we punched this week in the face. Spiritually speaking of course. We met with this Nigerian guy this week who said he wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon and we were like vale lets do this. So we meet him and he basically just starts telling us that anything after the bible is wrong. Who is this Mormon guy, why isn´t his name in the bible. Blah blah blah. We had a very similar lesson like this the week before that ended badly so i was shocked in a good way when we totally handled it better. He said he would listen to us if we dropped the book of mormon and talked about the bible. Hna Judy and I were like nope, sorry can´t do that. Because this book is what we are all about. We both bore our testimony of the Book of Mormon and then finally I said, Victor just like I can´t convince you that its true, you can´t convince me that its not. And we ended with a prayer and left. Boom. I felt really cool. Because really all I can do is testify. I´m not here to convince, I´m here to testify and teach with the Spirit. 

Anyways, I´m sorry but I have to go. I will send you pictures of my adorable face next week. Be safe! Have fun! I love you guys and pray for you alllll the time. So be good. Especially you Mom. Especially you. Haha Love you guys. :)