Just Another Day in Paradise!: Happy New Year

Monday, January 1, 2018

Happy New Year - Week 22

Hey friends! Happy New Year, 2018! 6 months gone by and 1 more year to go in beautiful Spain😂💙 This week has been amazing but, they all are! Love love love the mission! My week started out with a little rough patch, my pain has been coming back in my neck pretty bad, so bad! President Dayton told me to stay in our apartment for the day....I didn't. I have been ok these last 6 months in Vilafranca by going and seeing Jose' angel for acupuncture and it has been relaxing the muscles and taking away the pain but hasn't been healing it. I got my test results back from my MRI and they came back completely normal which is such a good sign but at the same time means there is nothing to fix. We are thinking it might have something to do with muscle spasms. President is a doctor and told me that this is probably something I will have to live with for the rest of my life, that heating pads and Ibuprofen would be my best friend. Which now the pain is coming back worst than ever, I'm a little worried because this week I will be leaving Vilafranca and going to my second area for sure, and I won't have Jose' Angel anymore. But as my old man says "It is what it is" and I'm just holding on to the scripture that says something like "There is nothing that will keep the work of the lord from progressing" and that's Doctrine! But ya! I am going to my second area! Woohoo I have been in Vilafranca for a long time, 6 months in your first area is really long, I'm very lucky. I remember when I found out I was staying in Vilafranca I was a little heart broken. I felt like there was a burden in Vilafranca for me because it's where I was trained and of course it was hard, and I wanted to leave, but I remember telling myself that I was just going to grow this transfer and do everything I could so I would be remembered as the missionary who grew in Vilafranca instead of the missionary who struggled. And I think I did it. This transfer has been my favorite one yet. My Spanish just showed up one day like a miracle, of course I still struggle with it but I can understand and for the most part get what I want to say across. I have made some of my best friends here. I love the members to pieces. The people here are amazing! I have really grown close and friendships with people this transfer and I love that! Vilafranca has become my home away from home, and I honestly don't want to leave... but the Lord has a plan and there are bigger and brighter things ahead! We have been really focusing on referrals lately as a zone and literally miracles. Every person we are teaching but 1 are referrals and are all so amazing, we are now meeting with a woman named Margarita and her son. Oh my and biggest miracle was yesterday on the train. We had two young girls come up to us and ask us where the church was. They told us that one of them lived in Columbia and went to church with her grandma and loved it, met with my missionaries and everything but when she moved here she couldn't find the church. We are meeting with both of them this next Thursday! Miracles that God just seems to put us right where he needs us. New Year's was good we got to do the grapes which are impossible! And drank non alcoholic wine, contacting was impossible because everyone was drunk all day. But now 4 more in Spain have a pamphlet from the church ha ha. Today for preparation day we went to this beautiful park. Spain is so amazing, literally the adventure I have always wanted! But preaching the gospel is even a bigger one! I loved something that my grandma said in a letter "you have always loved the spirit of adventure, now you will learn to love the adventure of the spirit" I LOVED THAT! This gospel is so amazing I can't imagine my life without it. Without the knowledge that there is something more. That we have a loving Heavenly Father and that we have his son Jesus Christ who are there for us always, there is help and peace in everything, that God has a plan that everything happens for a reason and that we will see and live with our families again, forever. I know this with all of my heart! And feel So blessed to be called as a disciple of Jesus Christ and share this message! Happy New Year's love you all❤❤❤ 1john 14 19 We love him, because he first loved us.