Week 20

Totally made it on the blog again this week. so famous :) http://www.spainmalagamission.blogspot.com/

Happy Pioneer day yesterday!! haha our day wasn't very pioneery...but hna sturgess and I did read some stories from Our Heritage to celebrate :) good stuff
So...this week was a little crazy craz...and I feel a little overwhelmed with all of the things that I could say. So I'll just share a little tidbit of what Hermana Sturgess learned this week.
So you know the story of the children of Israel...obviously. But you know they are fleeing with moses and the pharoah and all of his bad guys are chasing after them. So finally they get to the red sea and are like...what are we going to do? There seemed to be no way out for them. But the Lord says to Moses to tell the people "that they go forward." The people had to start walking. The Lord told them to start walking and then they would go through on dry ground...but first they had to get their feet wet. (exodus 14:15) So, sometimes (all the time) we have to take the step into the water...and then we get to see the miracle. So how is everyone going to get their feet wet this week?

Today we are having a joint district p-day...we are going to play basketball :) It is going to be so fun! Also, having all of the elders here makes the Locotorio a little crazy right now haha (locotorio=place we go to do email) Anyway, I have a super great district. Love them.

Funny story...so it's really obvious that Hna sturgess and I are american...or at least from another country. So we tend to get a lot of comments. Anyway, a few days ago we were in a little chino store (there are lots of "chino" stores here....stores of like food and candy, and stores of clothes and just stuff that are owned by chinese people) and as we were paying the little chinese man kept saying "mucho calor ya!" as in...it's really hot today. but then right before we left he was like "mucho guapa ya!!" and handed us free gum....hahaha it was super funny. we were laughing really hard. maybe you had to be there.

Also, this past week Hna sturgess passed her 9 month mark. Also we had set 3 baptismal fechas. So we celebrated with the most delicious ice cream thing of my life and taking prego pictures! (her...not me) It was fun. Hermana Sturgess is the best. And she speaks spanish like a champ. She speaks spanish about as well as she speaks english these days. If I am anything close to what Hna sturgess is when I am 9 months out...I'll be doing pretty good!! And that is with everything...not just spanish. She is a really good teacher too! I'm learning so so much.

Oh...maybe a spanish update would be good. I'm doing ok in the spanish department. I still can't speak very easily....or understand everything. But isn't such a big struggle anymore. I feel comfortable in lessons and I feel like I can carry a decent conversation with the members. The Lord has really been blessing me. It really does just take a lot of time, work and prayer. It is kinda weird to think about how I know another language though...because sometimes I don't even notice. Hna sturgess and I basically speak in spanglish a lot. haha i love it

I love you all soooo so much!!! I hope that everyone is happy and healthy and that there are no more hospital visits!! LOVES

Con amor,

Hermana ross

Week 19

Hi family!

Oh Nixon is so cute!!! I will be praying for him. Not going to lie...it is hard to know that he is sick but I have to wait a whole week again to hear the news :( I hope and pray that all is well though!!

Totally jealous that you got to see harry potter. Ok, so not that jealous...but still. I bet it was awesome. I just pretend that it comes out when I come home :)

We had an awesome times ten weekend. My life is so good. First of all, we made all of the standards of excellence of the mission this week! yay! That is something that really just does't happen in La Mancha too much...so we are excited! The Lord is blessing us so so much. Also, I hit my 4 month mark. crazy town. We celebrated by setting a baptismal fecha :) with Josefina. She is so sweet and perfect and receptive of the spirit. Josefina is from Bolivia...51 and wonderful. I just love her. And she is getting baptized on the 30th! yes.

Also, we had our district activity on Saturday. It was a cena with skits and stuff. It was a blast!! We had Dolly there with her 3 daughters (Dolly is my favorite person. have I told you about her yet? she's great. and so hilarious. I love her. She just calls me Ross and is always trying to make me laugh because she thinks i'm...well I'm not exactly what the word is that she calls me. I don't know what it means. But I'm pretty sure she loves me too. haha She isn't ready to get baptized yet...but she has been bringing her 3 teenage girls to everything because she has seen something in hna sturgess and I and in the members of the branch that she wants for her daughters) anyway, the cena was fun. The elders put on a couple really random skits spur of the moment but everyone loves everything the missionaries do...so even though they didn't get it, they loved it. haha And our branch had the spiritual skit. We were all dressed in white as if we were in the pre existence...I was a little worried about that...but it turned out really great. The spirit was strong. We sang Te Hallaré, Mi Querido Amigo. I can't remember what it is called in english, sorry.

Also something fun from this week is that one of the elders in the district, Elder Bradley, made us all tender mercy journals. So every night we have to write in our little journal the tender mercies from the day. It has been so fun! And we have become so much more aware of the little miracles that we see everyday. Or just the little things that happen to make us smile. You should start a tender mercy journal too...president monson said that to live a grateful life 'is to touch heaven' and it's the truth.

I love you so much!!! Have a good week!

You are in my prayers...and thank you for yours :)

con amor,

hermana ross

p.s. Picture 1- excited about our numbers this week!

2- last district meeting we ate at the Wok, the chinese buffet...it rocked my world. Seriously, it might be worth a trip to spain just so you can eat at the wok. But I love this photo because we had a chinese guy take it for us and he took forever to do it because he kept trying to make us get closer...but elder card and I could only get so close. haha we were laughing way hard

3- us, dolly and her daughters at the cena!

4- two of our FAVORITE women in the branch! Kriss and Denis. I love them so much.

Week 18

heyheyhey

This picture is of Jose Antonio :) he is a member of our branch and such a blessing. We meet with him once a week to read the book of mormon and just listen to him. He has the biggest book of mormon of my life. Jose Antonio can't see or hear very well. So it makes for a lot of really good times. It really is one of my most favorite hours of the whole week! haha it is so funny. I love Jose Antonio. With out him our branch would hardly function every sunday because he is so dependable to be there every sunday to pass the sacrament and at every activity. Just thought I'd send a little of why the Ciudad Real branch is the best in the world :)

Yesterday was the craziest sunday of my entire life!!! We had more investigators than members. It was interesting. But, through all of the madness...it was still so great. Through quite a few small miracles (but really big miracles for us) we made it through all of church and our investigators loved it! We are just so happy because we feel like if they can love it on a day like that...they'll really love it when the rest of the branch is there. haha Hna sturgess gave an impromtu talk, we taught our normal class with the investigators of course, and then we taught primary. Also, singing in sacrament meeting was interesting. Ever since I got on my mission, I'm suddenly one of the actually strong voices...because I know the song. Not because I'm good. haha Anyway, the rest of the day was crazy too. We had 6 lessons! That doesn't happen. But saturday all of our citas (appointments) fell through....and it was a long day (except one cita...with Josefina. She is too sweet and perfect to show us up). So then to have so many yesterday was such a blessing. We know that the Lord's hand is in everything we do! Saturday when one of our citas fell through we just happened to run into and contact an antiguo investigator that I have been trying to get a hold of for weeks (he doesn't know that) and then yesterday we had a lesson with him and set a baptismal date. I'm just so grateful to know that we are guided. If it was just us doing this....nothing would work out so well.

Thursday was our special specialized training with President and Hermana Clegg and it was so great!! They came with us to our lesson with Dolly (our favorite new investigator who is awesome) and it was the best thing that could have happened. Not going to lie...I was nervous to have the mission president in there watching me teach...but it was great. Such a powerful lesson to have! The spirit was so strong. And as you can imagine, the Cleggs have very strong testimonies. I wish we could have them in every cita with us! haha Also, we were just so grateful that the cita actually happened. We were worried it would fall through and we would be like, ¨well, alright president. let's do some contacting!¨ haha not exactly ideal :)

also...mom asked me if we ever do door to door. VERY rarely. It just isn't very effective. Especially here...everyone lives in apartments so it's more like ringing millions of doorbells and then talking to people through the intercom. Less than effective. But if we go to some of the little pueblos nearby where people live in houses-ish it is a little better. Street contacting is how we do.

Anyway, I'm still just a happy kid. Happy to be in Spain and to have Hermana Sturgess here with me. We are having so much fun together. LOVE it!

I think this email was a little random. Sorry.

Good luck this week ashley!!! I love you!!!

I love you all!!!

Con amor,

hermana ross