2/24;

First week in Cuenca! Its super pretty. Super cold. Our piso is about a half hour away from everything. And uphill, so my calves are going to be fantastic when my time here is through. Haha

So this week was mostly dedicated to cleaning the mess the trio left behind. Piso wise and the area book. We have just reorganized EVERYTHING. Do you know how disgusting an elder´s piso can be? I mean I totally believe in the power of the priesthood and respect the elders but when they are in their apartments, they are not elders, they are BOYS. And I cannot begin to tell you the horrific things we have had to clean. Lets not talk about it. But yes most of our time has gone to that. Plus the area book needed work. Basically there is a gold mine of part member families here in the branch and the area book seriously had duplicate registros for the same people. Just cleaning house. That is what this transfer is all about. We have a pretty full week coming up though, because we´ve been making calls like crazy to set up appointments with Antiguos, MA´s, Part families and just member visits to really just get to know the rama and gain their trust.
Yesterday Hermana Clay and I had to give talks in Sacrament and I think it went very well. The rama took to us very well. And we are just trying to get things rolling here. Cuenca just kind of grows on you. There was 28 people in church yesterday and that´s supposed to be a very good turn out. The branch president pulls us aside and shows us the little sacrament tray and says, look we almost ran out of sacrament cups... i want 2 of these someday (because there´s only one). Hermana Clay and I just looked at each other and said Oh Yeah! Let´s get to work! 

Hna Palomino

2/17;

Hey guys,

Crazy week. So we had transfer calls on Saturday. Olsen is going home and I´m going to Cuenca.... A branch like 2 hours outside of Madrid. My new companion is Hna Clay. She´s going home in June I think? Maybe I´ll finish her off too. Haha but yeah. There´s no hermanas in B1. They just closed us. And I´m going to an area where I have to whitewash Elders out. Super weird. Well off to Cuenca I guess! I´ve heard a lot of good things and I´m excited to get to work and see some miracles! I will admit, it was very upsetting to have to leave B1. I really didn´t see it coming and I probably was a lot more upset when transfer calls came than I needed to be but that next morning before church, I started studying the book of Job in the Old Testament. Now from what little I have read, I have a feeling I´m going to love Job. He lost pretty much everything and still remained faithful. Its funny because one of the things I always admired about Hna Olsen was her faithfulness. Something I think I needed to learn from her. So although I am a little heartbroken to be leaving, I have to just trust in the Lord and know that if I stay faithful and just work hard, His divine purposes will come to pass. 

We ended our time in B1 with one of the most waited for baptisms, ever. I remember crying bitter tears when Roger and Maria backed out of their wedding and then to see them finally enter those waters of baptisms and be crying tears of pure joy was the best thing ever. It was probably the best baptism ever. We FILLED the chapel with members. That never happens. But for them, of course :)

Hna Palomino

2/10;

Hey family.

So this week will be mine and Olsen´s last together. Super sad but... we do get to have a baptism to end our time together :) Roger and Maria are getting baptized on Friday. They passed their interviews yesterday. Everything is set. Now we just need to make it to Friday. Haha but they are very excited. Its been a long time coming. We were over there last night putting the program together and they are so giddy about it all. I feel giddy for them too! And I´m so excited that Hermana Olsen will get to finish her mission with this baptism. 

We had a really great experience this week. We were talking about we don´t have too many crazy stories but...  As Hermana Olsen and I were getting on the bus on Saturday, a woman stops her and says Is that the book of mormon? Pointing to a copy that my companion had in her hand. And she just says, yeah. The lady asks her if she has more and Hermana Olsen tells her well, you can have this one! And the lady starts explaining that she has looked for the book of mormon because she´s heard a little about it but she has never actually gotten one. She said that she sees the ¨chicos¨all the time but never ¨chicas¨and she felt shy asking them for one. It was so cool. She was holding it like she had just found gold or something. So obviously, we got her reference and should be meeting with her this week. I just love good stories like that. Its a big testimony builder that yes, there are people that are out there looking for the truth and we have it! And what a blessing it is to share it. Seriously how many times have we heard that the Lord is hastening His work? It wouldn´t make sense if there weren´t so many people out there prepared and ready to hear the message of the Restoration. And I can testify to that. This gospel changes lives. Ours is not a passive faith, the Lord requires our hearts. If there´s one thing I´ve learned its that. The Lord wants your heart, your willing and obedient heart. D&C 64:34. I love my Savior and when I´m out in the pouring Madrid rain because I accidently forgot my umbrella at home, and some investigator has just failed us, or someone promised to come to church and we just sit there waiting and waiting and they never come, I remember that I´m doing this because I´m trying to give the Lord my heart and do my best. I´m not perfect but He just wants me to try. So thats what I´m doing and every crappy day, is worth it when we have those tiny victories of people passing baptismal interviews, people stopping us and asking for a Book of Mormon. Thats what its about. I´m so grateful for everything that has happened in the last 11 months. Thats cheesy, thats cliche but its true. 

Hermana Palomino

2/3;

Hey Family!

So.............. you´ll never guess where I just came back from. ROGER AND MARIA´S WEDDING. YES. Thats a real thing. I spent my Pday at the registro civil and watching our investigators finally take that step and legalize the situation haha THEY´RE MARRIED! Tonight we´re going over there to officially give them a baptismal date. Although they´ve bascially decided the 14th. 2 days before the transfer ends and Olsen dies. But yeah we´ll officially work it out tonight. I am SO excited. We had one of the other hermanas that taught them before us come too since she´s just serving in Alcala. It was so good. I´ll send pictures but yeah. Its been such a good day! A miracle if I´ve ever seen one. We found out on Wednesday that they prayed about it again and decided it was time again. Hermana Olsen and I have prayed so hard for them to finally make the right decision and we are beyond happy to have finally been able to see them do it. 3 years investigating and now they took their big step towards baptism. Now we are just praying that everything will go well until that day.
Other than that, everything else is still going pretty good too. We have some pretty good investigators, that just need to start coming to church so we can get them progressing and working towards baptism. We had a hard time with getting members to our lessons and actually had to cancel a few lessons because we couldn´t find women to come with us to teach men. It was rough. In fact, we had a member just flat out not come or ¨fire¨ us for one lesson. Its been rough. But we are still trying. Its just always the same people that help us, which is great but we could use more help around the clock, if that makes sense.

But no complaints. We are just so happy to be serving in B1. I have 2 more weeks before Olsen dies. Its a little sad. She´s been my longest companion but all things come to an end. But yeah good things happening. I love you guys. I love being a missionary and I love the gospel. Good things are ahead :)

Hna Palomino

1/27;

Hey family,

Have I told you lately how much I just love you guys? But for real. It was definitely weird not being there for my birthday but its all good. It was still a pretty good day. We had zone meeting the day before so I got mail and Amelia´s Christmas package. Haha just in time for my birthday i guess. One of the hermanas in my zone, Hna Schone made me cookies. It was awesome. And the day of, we had pretty good lessons. For medio dia, the b5 hermanas Frost and Crandall took me out for ice cream. Which was super nice of them. And Johnny from Torrejon called me and read me what you said for my birthday on facebook. haha so thank you. 

Ok so I thought last week was good, but this week was better. Seriously, we just keep seeing more and more miracles every week. We found 5 new investigators this week. And really good ones too. One of them is this guy from Peru that is a karate and tae kwan do instructor so he´s super intense and has super good questions and its really fun to teach him. One of them is a man from Morrocco, he´s a non practicing Muslim and he´s so cool. We found a Book of Mormon in Arabic for him. Somehow Hermana Olsen figured out how to find 3 Nefi in there so we could share a scripture with him. It was so awesome. And then 2 from yesterday. A lady that comes to church with her cousin every week and wants to get baptized so we started teaching her. She´s a little shy but super nice and very receptive. And then a nice lady from Santo Domingo that did a report on Mormons for school a long time ago and wants to hear from us, really what its all about. Haha that was actually a really great lesson. She did a report on Mormons and had no idea what the book of mormon was. Toma! Haha it was a very good week. We also had our investigator Gaby FINALLY come to church. Oh man that was an emotional struggle. Haha but she made it. She could only stay for sacrament but thats ok. She´s a little miracle. She is an former investigator from like 2006 or 7. And what happened is that our elders found her while knocking doors, had no idea and passed us the reference since she´s a woman and its just hard for them to meet with her because she can only meet in the mornings and they have a hard time finding men in the morning to take with them. And we magically found her registro. The missionaires had dropped her because they just thought she was ready to progess but seriously its a different story now, she´s definitely more ready to accept it now. And she showed that by coming to church yesterday. She like cried through the whole thing. And after she told me, I really needed that today. Thank you for bringing me. I just gave her a huge hug, because I love moments like that. Freak, I love the gospel! 

And last night, we had our little fireside we were planning to get the members stoked on missionary work. We had some talks, testimonies, videos and in the end President Jackson spoke. It was all super spiritual but there was like only 6 people there. So frustrating but we are trying! I just wish I could somehow make everyone understand or just feel what I feel sharing the gospel the joy that comes with sharing it so they can just GET IT. Honestly I can´t think of a better way that i´ve strengthened my testimony than by sharing it. But I guess we have to keep trying. Keep on keeping on! 

Hermana Palomino

1/20;

Familia,

Yes, I turn 22 this week........................... let´s not talk about it. Actually we went to Toledo today.. again because Hna Olsen has never been and its her last transfer and you know I´m a saint so I went for a 3rd time. I was all excited to go to stuff I´ve never been to before but then everyone wanted to do the same old, same old. oh lets go to the cathedral, lets go look at swords. So it was fine. Haha its all good. We´re ignoring my birthday this year. I´ve told Hna Olsen all I want is a nap for mediodia that day. I´m not that hard to please. haha 

Ok I have good stories. This week was insane. I just don´t even know sometimes, the Lord just has His hand all over the place but ok. First story. So we are working with the relief society to hunt down less actives and also cleaning house on the area book. Because its just a mess. So we found this MA record of a woman named Fransica and we did a nice little pass by. She is seriously the nicest lady I have ever met. We could only talk to her for a second but she invited us over for the next day. we´re best friends already. she invited me to her house in santo domingo to visit her after my mission hahaha so i might have to take a trip. And on the same day we had a lesson with a woman named Charon, an antiguo investigator and it turned into one of those bible bashing lessons that just end up super bad. but i stumped her because i´ve been studying the bible a lot lately and it was cool to be able to back everything up but i just realized those lessons are pointless because the spirit is just not there and nothing good comes from it. sure i can prove my point but if they´re not giving us an inch to testify and invite the spirit, nothing good comes from it. and a testimony has to come from faith and prayer, not logic. it just doesn´t work that way but whatever. We also found another less active that was super freaked out that we had come over. Apparently, it was her father in law´s birthday that day and her father in law was a member and she had dreamed about him the night before that he was trying to wake her up and give her some important papers. and then we came over and she was like, that is no coincidence. of course not. so she took that as a sign that we needed to keep coming over and visiting and help her come back. Yes, that sounds about right. 

And then 2 firsts on my mission. I taught my first Muslim. Which I didn´t realize until after the first prayer in our lesson when he says, oh I´m not a Christian. And then it just dawns on me... oh crap. So I was like oh... I´ve never taught a Muslim. So i just look at Olsen with puppy dog, save me eyes and she just comes in like a champ and takes control. It ended up going super good and we met with him again on Saturday and he´s really reading in the Book of Mormon so we´ll see how it goes. 2nd first, I got the ¨Laban¨question. We were having a lesson with this guy Angel that is super awesome and he started reading the book of mormon at his own speed, he says and he wanted to start from the begining and he got to the Nefi cutting Laban´s head off part. And I seriously have never gotten that question and i´ve been waiting for it. 10 months later! And honestly, I couldn´t even tell you how we answered it. We basically just read it over again together and explained it and he just got it. It was so simple. There is definitely power in the book of Mormon. I love it. 

Lastly, a miracle. Yesterday was one of those terrible, awful, everything is going wrong kind of days. You know all your lessons fail. Then your back ups fail. And then the pass bys aren´t home. And then one of the part member families decides to have the elders visit them instead. All sorts of just frustrating things. So instead of getting mad. I looked at Hna Olsen and said, On faith Hermana we have an hour and a half left before we call it a night, and we´re going to see a miracle before the end of the night. And randomly we see a PT Cruiser and we have this running joke that everytime we see one, it means its going to be a good night because they are so rare here in Madrid. And not even 20 minutes later, we contacted this guy and somehow it turned into a standing lesson and we gave him a Book of Mormon. It was one of those contacts that just feels different, you know? And we have a return appointment this week and seriously just turned the night around. 

So in short, what did I learn this week? The Lord has His hand EVERYWHERE, you just have to be ready and willing to see it. And when you work by the spirit, you can see WONDERS. We can´t do this without the Spirit. I love being a missionary and serving and learning and seeing all sorts of good things. I wouldn´t trade it for the world. So am i bummed to be spending my birthday away? Un poco. But I´m so blessed to be serving here and wouldn´t want to spend it any other way. 

I love you and miss you! 

Hermana Palomino