Transfer 1, week 6
Jun 9
Dear Familia, We went to the Temple today! One of the sisters that lives with us is going home on Monday so we had a lunch for her. Yes, my first transfer is at an end. I wasn´t sure that would happen, but now that it has I have a little clearer perspective.

Cool news: One of our investigators was baptized on Saturday!! She is from Peru and I guess lots of missionaries had lived in her house and she had been to church a lot. She said she wasn´t sure why she wasn´t already baptized. (That is why it is important to invite people to do things...they don´t think about it until they have and invitation)

More cool news: Sandra is 35 and married. She wanted to be baptized from the very first or second week we started teaching her!Her date is June 19. She is funny and she takes notes during the whole lesson. She is encouraging her husband too. I think he would be baptized too but he works every sunday....everyone who can find a job here works ALL THE TIME. They hardly see each other because she works nights and he works days.

Even more cool news: Alexandra is 23 and has a three year old daughter. Her marido, Patricio is in the Spanish Military but they are both from Ecuador. They have been together for 7 years but the last year has been the happiest because they started reading the Bible, she changed a lot, and she even gave up smoking. She and her daughter came to the baptism and she burst into tears as four of us sister missionaries sang the primary song about baptism and looking for rainbows after rain...I can´t remember what it is called. She loved church on sunday too! We hadn´t taught her that we don´t drink alcohol, tea, coffee, or smoke and we had a lesson about the Word of Wisdom. I was a little nervous how she would take it because we had only taught her once. She turned to me and asked if I drink coffee and then said she doesn´t either because it makes her stomach hurt. She was just nodding in agreement through the whole class. She cried again when she introduced herself in Relief Society. She says that nothing we are teaching her is hard for her to understand, it just makes everything she had read from the Bible make more sense. She feels like we are the closest thing to family she has here in Spain. My homesickness went away the moment I realized how much she needed us. We are trying to bring members to lesson so she won´t feel lonely or abandoned when we get assigned to work somewhere else. There are so many people here that have left their families to find work...so many lonely people. I am grateful that we get to share the message of the atonement and be with them. It makes me eager to search out the lonely people for the rest of my life.
Alexandra wants to be baptized but they have to work on their marriage papers first and we haven´t taught Patricio yet. We met him once and he seems pretty cool. Hopefully he will be as open as she is.

Parents, I know you have had a lot of blessings because of tithing, but I can´t remember the stories very well. Will you send me something about that? I am afraid tithing might be a hard thing for Patricio to accept.

Life is good. The future is as bright as our faith (Pres. Monson).
Love you!Love, Shayla

P.S. Sometimes we get tired and start to drag...my theme song this week has been "Pump up the Jam, pump it up, pump it up again!" And then Space Jam the movie pops into my mind. Hmmmm....I think I am supposed to be thinking of hymns when that happens...