Transfer 7, week 3

January 26, 2011
Dear Fam!!

Thanks for the letters and the pictures. Shalese I got your package right on my birthday as well!!!! I love these headbands! I´m wearing one right now. They are so cool! Who taught you how to make them?
I also got a card from Sister and Brother Weed. How great that they got called to preside over a mission!! We all spent the day in the mission home today. So fun. Sister Smith and I snuck away with hermana Watkins to buy hamburger meat and buns for sloppy Joes. So fun...we bought it at a place that is a lot like Costco...my favorite place in the world. hermana Smith and I ended up cooking meat for about 60 missionaries, but it was pretty fun. We got a round of applause for it and then everyone sang happy birthday to me. On Monday I was given cake by four different people and I bought myself a Palmera before I knew how much cake was in store...I didn´t let the stomach ache or sugar rush slow me down from eating.

I got to play the violin at the Bishop´s house after a great lunch of fish!!! Yeah....my fingers are a little rusty after 11 months. He just got released as Bishop....sort of sad because he was amazing. His wife told us the story of how they met and got married..Super funny and she is a very animated person. Her parents were not supportive and when he said he wanted to do things right and ask her father for her hand she asked why he wanted to do that when he didn´t just want her hand but the whole thing...she said he shouldn´t have to ask for her hand or arm or leg or anything else. Super funny.

I still have a big question: Where is Kai Fsher serving? Any other mission calls in the ward I should know about? Didn´t Sarah Whitaker go on a mission? Shalese I am so excited for you to go through the temple on Saturday!!! Yeah!!! It is crazy how soon you will be here in Spain.

Other important updates: Carolina is doing great! we are trying to figure out how to help her get her answers.

I am doing great!!!! Thanks for the love!!!

I love you all so much and I am proud of you all!! Which you already know ;)
Love Hermana Shayla Moulton.

Transfer 7, week 2

Jan 19, 2011
Dear Family!!!

Thanks for the emails! Even Josh!!! It sounds like home school is going to be a lot of fun. It seems like homeschooling taught me to love reading too! Thanks for the updates on everyone. Jacob and Sharah are playing the piano!! That sounds great. You two can help me get better when I get home ;) Sure wish I hadn´t stopped taking lessons when I was twelve (hint hint).

Thnigs are great here. Hermana Bell and I are doing great.Last night we taught a Muslim couple. Super nice. We were all there to teach the others. It was pretty neat to see that they study much of the same history that we do. They are from Ishmael, the son of Abraham, which I kind of already knew but it is really fun to talk about. They wanted to hear about miracles from modern prophets but we know that signs can´t convince people...only the Spirit can convince them. We talked about the Word of Wisdom and they have many of the same beliefs and certain customs about how meat should be slaughtered. Very interesting. It was fun.


Maybe you´d like to read part of my letter to President Watkins ;)
"Carolina está progresando muy bien...está trabajando ésta semana pero ella lea y le encanta los Noches de Hogar con JAS. Ella tiene 22 años y será una misionera extrodonair.

Anoche enseñamos a una pareja de Musulmanes y ellos enseñaron a nosotros también. En el fin, todos decidimos orar a las cuatro de la mañana para preguntar a Dios la verdad...los siguientes tres horas yo pasé soñando de ellos ;) interesante. Son muy buenos.

Nimia está progresando también. Ahora su duda es que tiene miedo de hablar o dar testimonio en frente de otras personas...por eso no quiere ser bautizada. Vamos a planear más Noches de Hogar para que tenga más amistades para sentirse más cómodo en la capilla. Su hijo Victor (11) también le encanta la capilla!!

Hermana Bell y yo estamos muy bien. Hemos aprendido mucho y hablamos abiertamente. Bonding!!

Piso: estamos limpiando aun más. No sé si tenemos tiempo para hacer Todas de las sugerencias en la lista de limpieza pero vamos a intentar ;)

Liderazco: nuestro barrio es fantástico y el líder misional del barrio es muy eficaz!!

Me gustó el mensaje que Ud. compartió con nosotros está semana. Estoy aprendiendo como medir mi trabajo, lo que he hecho y lo que debo hacer, de acuerdo con el Espíritu. Estoy muy agradecida por las cosas que estoy aprendiendo en la misión y por los sacrificios de otros para que yo pueda estar aquí. A la vez, sé que no empezamos como misioneros perfectos, ni tampoco terminamos así, pero muy más capaz en el fin. Cada ves que estudio nuestro potencial divino y el propósito de venir a la tierra, siento más feliz con el trabajo que hacemos, y satisfecha aun que tenemos mucho más de hacer."



Family!!! I love you!! The Church is true!!! You are great!

Love Hermana Shayla Moulton

big PS:
Where is Kai Fisher going on his mission?!? How long has Keilana been out?

Transfer 7, week 1

January 12, 2011
Dear Family

I got the Christmas letters from the kids ;) I´m not sure what Sharah meant about the roosters. Thanks!!

I don´t have a lot of time today, Just want to tell you all that I really love you and things are going great. Carolina wants to be baptized soon. She is a miracle!! Other than that we have found a lot of new people lately (thanks for your prayers) and had some interesting lessons: One with a Muslim couple, and one last night with a woman from the Philippines studying with the Jehovah Witnesses. All very good people. Madrid is a different world than Fallon...but I love them both!

I love you!! Love Shayla

Transfer 6, week 6

January 5, 2011
Dear Family,

It looks like you had a great New Years party this year. I´m glad the whole family got to go to the dance. Our family is a dancing family at heart.

So Cyle might be getting married? Where are the pictures? Where is the story of how they met?

Dad asked for tips on how to be a great ward missionary (Yeah Mom!!! That is the best calling in the ward!) My advice is keep doing what you have always done...make everyone feel welcome and needed at church. Have no fear because you can´t say or do anything wrong if you do it with love. Chapters 9 to the end of Preach My Gospel talk a lot about how missionaries should work together with the ward. (PMG is amazing) When the missionaries introduce someone to you, don´t wait for the missionaries to instigate every visit, you can invite investigators over for dinner or Family Home Evening. It is always better if a member is present in the lessons with the missionaries. As missionaries we are encouraged to involve the members as much as possible. It is so important that visitors feel comfortable at church so that they can also feel the Spirit- and if they have friends there, it is easier. One thing I regret from before the mission is that I was often too shy to talk to new people. Now I have talked to A LOT of new people and I can say that everyone has their own quirky personality (so I don´t worry if my quirkiness shines a little). Most people will like anyone who likes them (I didn´t know how to word that). -That just made me think of a scripture: We love Him because He first loved us. (Don´t ask me where it is...maybe in John?) Anyway, missionaries come and go and the saddest thing as a missionary would be leaving a progressing investigator or recent convert without a support system in an area. All that said, Mom, you are going to be great!!! and like Dad said, when Mom signs up, the whole family signs up :)

Thanks for the prayers!
I love you all!!

Love Hermana Shayla Moulton

Transfer 6 week 5

December 28, 2010

Dear Family,
So great to talk to you on Christmas!!!! Jacob sounds like Dad and Josh´s voice has changed so much that we just spent our short conversation laughing. Christmas went great here...Christmas is the season of CHOCOLATE. A lot of the sisters in the mission are starting to think seriously about not eating so much as soon as the new year hits. We´ll see how that goes.

On Monday we did interchanges for a day and I went with Hermana Long. I always learn a lot in the interchanges...this time I learned a lot about food. The sisters that live with her are master chefs. I didn´t think that cooking would be one of the top ten things I would learn in the mission, but living with so many people for so long has really paid off.
Hermana Long seems really great. Her Spanish is very good for her "age" in the mission. She works hard.

We had the greatest lesson while I was with Hermana Long. We taught a guy named Angel. She said that Angel had contacted them and asked where he could receive the charlas. Apparently he has a friend and some cousins in Ecuador that are members of the Church and he was curious. He is studying medicine here...I don´t think he has been here very long. He has attended institute a couple of times and they gave him a Triple Combination (The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price together) so he gave us back the copy of the Book of Mormon that the missionaries had given him so we could give it to someone else. We taught him about the Restoration using the example of a tower of cups that fall and represent the apostasy. I guess that isn´t a great explanation but the example makes the apostasy very clear. The Spirit was very strong there and Hermana Long had invited a girl from JAS(Young single adults) who helped testify and explain. Angel had done reading and pondering and he was just so open. He agreed that January 15th would be an acceptable date for his baptism because it would give him time to read more from the Book of Mormon. Angel´s story strengthened my testimony that there are really people searching for the truth and will be open to us. We just have to put in the time and live worthily to have the Spirit and the Lord will guide us to the people in His time.

We have been stood up and had lessons canceled a lot these past few weeks and of couse my first thought was "what are we doing wrong" but I realized something cool: We are human and we can´t really know if people will be home or not or what changes will happen in their schedules or who will forget, but the Lord can see everything that happens and He can easily orchestrate a meeting between us and someone who is open to talking, searching for the Gospel, or just sad. All we have to do is be willing and brave enough to start talking to the people that are right next to us. Every mission is different and one of the biggest focuses of the Madrid Mission is contacting. I realized how great that is for me personally because I would not have said that opening up and talking, asking questions etc was a strength of mine before the mission, let alone with strangers in another language as we invite ourselves over to their homes. The Lord knows us well.

Hermana Long gave me a talk by Elder Ballard from Conference April 2004. "Atonement and the value of an Individual."
Elder Ballard said that the world judges importance based on the size of the audience of the person, but by that as the measuring stick fathers and mothers for example don´t rate very high. But the individual is important to the Lord. It is the little acts of kindness and service that will bring about the Lord´s great purposes. I thought about you Mom and Dad and how you might just have an audience of five but you have been the world to us.

I love you so much!! You sound great!! Not gonna lie, I can´t wait to see you but I am so glad I have more time here!

Love, Hermana Shayla Moulton

Transfer 6 week 4

December 23, 2010
Dear Family,

Thank you so so so much for the gifts I have been receiving in the mail ;) I also received a story from Grandma Jean and Mom that I will print off and read. Shalese it sounds like you are really taking care of all the Christmas business... Can I just say you have racked up about a million sister points and these points will be poured out again on you when we have a role-reversal.

Shalese says Sharah is as easy to shop for and grateful as ever. It sounds like not much has changed. I bet the choir performance with Josh and Mr Fleming was great. I loved being in his class...so fun!!! Jacob, I want to hear some Japanese on the phone in a couple days..

The Elders that work with us in this ward found a girl named Carolina when they were talking to people in the street. They gave us her number and I think she is a miracle. She is 21 years old, from the Republica Dominicana and she has a warm smile and kind eyes that make me feel like we were friends before. She said in our first lesson that she has a thirst to learn about things of God. Teaching people like her about the Plan of Salvation is the best feeling ever. I don't know how to describe it. So many plain and precious truths have been lost...I really felt like we were sitting there explaining the best news she can possibly hear. We shared 1 Corinthians 15:40-41 and 2 Peter 4:6 about the three kingdoms and about learning the Gospel in the spirit world. Seeing that the Bible teaches exactly what we have also learned by modern revelation is a huge testimony to me and it helped Carolina accept it as well. When we taught about the Plan of Salvation we had a member present and at the end she explained that knowing the Plan of Salvation gives her peace because of the loved ones that she has lost in this life but she knows she will see them again. In the following lesson, Carolina told us that her mother had died when she was 6 or 7 years old, and I realized what a comfort the testimony of that member must have been to her. In that lesson I also felt the direct guide of the spirit telling me what I should ask. I reminded her that she had said that she has a thirst to learn about God and I asked when or how she had developed that thirst. She talked about studying with the Testigos de Jeovah when she was 8, and later attending a protestant church with her aunt. Then she said there was a time when she felt far from God and she felt terrible. She became very emotional and opened up a lot...and I realized how perfectly Heavenly Father knows his children and he can show us what they need by the Spirit.

We taught another great family last night. The father was baptized a long time ago in Bolivia and it sounds like he has taught his family about the Book of Mormon. Cristian (15) and Bryan (10) seem like really great kids and the mother, Claribel, was the person who was contacted by Hermana Bell and Hermana Abellán. Claribel really wants this for her family. The problem with almost every situation in Spain is that people work SO MUCH so we will have to pray with a lot of faith to even have the opportunity to teach them on a regular basis, but they seem ready.


Jenifer (18) is getting baptized this Sunday!!!! She is so excited. We are so excited. At each lesson we ask her if she has been reading and she tells us about questions she had and how she looked them up in the Guide and read about them and then asks us a ton of great questions. Wow. She is going to get rid of a chin piercing on Friday and sheĺl be totally ready. It is a little difficult because the the majority of teenagers have facial piercings in Madrid, especially if they are Spanish. Even some of the sweetest looking girls have a nose ring or a lip ring. The young people in Madrid have it rough spiritually speaking. They are exposed to everything. The point is that Jenifer is amazing and strong and she has seen a lot of great changes in her family as they have learned about the Gospel.

I LOVE being with Hermana Bell and Hermana Bustamante. Most people dread being in a companionship of three, but I love this trio so much. My companions are so great. I am learning a ton from them. It seems to take a lot more to discourage three than two. This has to be one of the funnest times of my mission thus far.

Family, just know that I love you so much and I am praying for you. This Christmas is going great!!! Everyone seems to be feeding us way too much and I love it!! Thanks for everything and thanks for your love. I cant wait to talk to you!!!! Make sure Grandma C gets a special "Merry Christmas" from me.

Love Hermana Shayla Moulton

Thanks so much for everything!!!!!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Transfer 6 week 3

December 15, 2010
Hello Family,

I´m sitting here with two letters from Mom and Shalese that we just got on the way to use computers. THANKS!!! Shalese, I´ll be on the lookout for the Charlie Brown Package :) Lots of Big news today! First, we got permission to watch a Disney movie today and Elder McArthur was super excited to watch Mulan so Mulan it is. Even better: We will be a trio until about January 17th. Hermana Bustamante is our third companion. She is great friends with one of the teachers I had in the CCM, hermana Nalbandayan (from Armenia). She is 23 and very excited to be here. She will be serving in Los Angeles in the visitor center there. She spent four days in the CCM and is now working with us...then she will go to the MTC in Provo and spend nine weeks there to learn English..at least we think it will be nine weeks. We are supposedly training her but she came pre-trained. Her questions in lessons come naturally and inspire people to talk to us openly. I think it helps that she speaks Spanish. I am super excited to have time to learn Spanish with her. It is difficult to remember to always speak in Spanish when there are two English speakers serving together but it will be much easier now. She was born in Peru in Arequipa and moved to Spain as a little girl. She speaks using the zeta. I have been speaking without it because the majority of the people we meet with in this area don´t use it....I think I will be home before I ever decide if I want to use it or not. No importa. The point is that I am so happy that we have this time together as three because we will all learn a ton. Sure, we still need to learn to navigate through the bathroom with three of us, and contacting in the street might be a little intimidating to the people we meet, but three sounds like a party to me.

We are working with a family: Veronica, Hatson, Jenifer (18), and Mateo (almost 1). Jeinfer will be baptized on December 26 and Veronica is working very hard on her papers so she and Hatson can get married!!!! Their testimonies are so strong and she is reading the Book of Mormon every day without fail. Often our lessons are centered mainly on whatever she read that day. Veronica said that her testimony came when she finally started reading the Book of Mormon. That is a testimony to me of the importance of reading the Book of Mormon. Since then she says she has had desires to avoid doing things that aren´t right. The other day we went to teach Jenifer about tithing...we asked her if she had learned anything about it previously and she proceeded to tell us how she had looked it up in the guide of the Book of Mormon and then looked up all the scriptures that were listed in the Bible. She explained that it was ten percent that they paid from ancient times...we talked a little bit about Abraham...then she told us a story her cousin told her that she had heard in Málaga in church of a family who was struggling financially and still paid tithing...and the blessings that came to them. Yes...I think Jenifer is ready. It is pretty cool that a story someone told a while back made it up north and touched the heart of someone who was searching. It was a lesson to me that our experiences can be a blessing to others and that we should share our testimonies...you never know who you can touch.

Last night we set a date for baptism for a woman and her daughter, Maria and Luz. They have been attending church for a year! Her challenge that kept her from setting a date to be baptized was that she wanted to be sure she could live up to it. She will be the first to be baptized in her family and she wanted to be sure she was living right to be an example to them. I can say that she is a wonderful person and already is an example to her family and to me. Her daughter Luz (11) has been practically begging her to get baptized because they will be baptized together. Maria feels bad that she has to work one Sunday each month. Hna Bustamante had had a similar experience that helped Maria. They have a ton of friends in the church (which is sooooo important) so they have a great support system. I can´t wait till they get to do baptisms at the temple. Maria will love that peace.

Family, thanks for the letters and emails and the love!! I loved the pictures of Dad and Mom in California. Shalese..I got the pictures of you with Tina, Meg, Rebecca, and Nicole!! Thanks. You´re all beautiful! Jake:Good luck in the performance, Shalese says you are helping out. Josh: When does basketball end? Sharah: Shalese says you are the sweetest sister we have! I love you all!

Love Hermana Moulton 1 (-para distinguir entre las bellas Hemanas Moulton ;)