Transfer 5, week 3

November 3, 2010

Dear Family,

Bummer that Shalese still hasn't received her mission call! Hermana Smith and I can't wait. I thought we would know for sure today.

Shalese, thanks for the letter and the pictures. It looks like Mom had a great birthday!! And yours is coming up!!! Also, Thanks to Grandma C. I got her letter the same day.

Today our district all went to Segovia. It is a cool city with a castle. I was going to send pictures today but I cant plug my USB into this computer very easily. One day soon. We just walked around and talked and took pictures. We also paid two Euros to climb the stairs to the top of a tower. I think the best part was the bus ride because we drove through the country and it looked like Utah or California- Nice to take a break from the city.

So, we found a family and we think they are golden! The mother is called Alexandra (another Alexandra!), her marido Eric, and their ten-year-old son Eitan. Eitan just got here a few weeks ago after being in Ecuador for the past 10 years!! Alexandra is so happy to have him back and I imagine that it is a huge huge change for her. I think he is part of the reason that she is so open to the gospel right now. We took a recent convert named Sandra with us to visit them. Her testimony was on fire and she really helped. She is preparing to serve a mission as well.

Other cool story: On Sunday night the Elders planned a Family Home Evening for the young single adults to watch the Joseph Smith movie in the chapel. We invited a few people to go with us but it didn't work out. We ended up going for a few minutes and leaving because we didn't have someone visiting with us. I was pretty tired and it was kind of hard to make myself leave but we did...so I knew something really good would happen (that always seems to happen when we put out that last effort to be obedient). I was right. In the course of walking up one street, changing our minds and going the other direction to find a house, we ran into a guy (probably 27ish? and from Nicaragua) who was heading to a party or something for Halloween. He said he used to be Adventist but he lost his faith when he was about 18. He said he hadn't gotten into anything bad or drugs, he just lost it. He sounded like he had studied and read a lot of books on religion and he said that he had even been a missionary all his life until he turned 18. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and marked a couple chapters for him, as well as a card with the Church web-site on it. He turned around and went to take the book to his house before he left to party or whatever. We felt pretty good about it. We have great hopes for him. The Book of Mormon can definitely help him regain his faith. I know that Book is true. I feel its power when I read and each time I open it now, I feel like I am searching for a treasure.

Other than that, we are still working with Victor and Vanesa as well as Alexandra and Jofre. Alexandra and Jofre found a homeless man a few months ago and he has been living with them ever since. He is from Cuba and came for three months to make a little money to help his family have a new start. With economic conditions the way they are in Spain, he is leaving with little more than what he came with. He is pretty disappointed but at least he will take a testimony that their are families in the world as kind as Alexandra's, as well as a Book of Mormon.

It is getting a little colder, we are eating a lot of soup.

Lots of love coming from Spain!! You are in my prayers all the time!!

Love, Hermana Moulton

P.S. just got your last minute chat messages. Good job on Scripture study. The droid sounds cool. I love you a ton. Cant wait to talk to you for real. I think I want to choose Sep 20 for my release day. That seems like it would work out better if you are coming to pick me up (then the kids would be adjusted to school again?). And about that, let me know how your plans are coming along. I will be happy however things work out just so long as I get to see you!!

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Transfer 5, week 2

October 27, 2010

Hola Familia,

I am sending pictures!! The one with the cowboy hat is from the Ward party where we taught everyone the line dance to Cotton-eyed Jo. The picture of the snails represents what was going on outside during the party. So cool!!!

I just barely got the letter you sent as I ran out the door to come write emails, so I haven´t had time to read them but thanks a lot!! Also, thanks for all the emails!

Cool story from this week: We had been waiting for someone to meet us at the metro to have a lesson....when she didn´t come we decided to try a person that lives on that same street. Their names were Marisa and Victor. The Elders had visited them a couple of times a few months ago, but they gave us their names because Victor couldn´t meet as often as she could or something like that.

Background: a few months ago we passed a woman crying in the street. We quickly slipped her a card with a picture of Christ and a packet of tissues and walked on. I didn´t know if she would call us but it was a neat experience all the same. So this week as we sat in her bedroom I noticed one of our cards sitting on her shelf in a noticeable place and it turned out to have my handwriting on the back. She told us how she had been crying one day and some chicas gave her that card. I mentioned the tissues and she was surprised to find out it was us. We hadn´t seen each other´s faces because her hands had been covering her face (or maybe I just forgot her face and she hadn´t been able to see because of her tears...can´t remember) Anyway, when Victor joined us, Hna Smith recognized him too. It turns out that we had contacted him and given his address to the elders in the first place. It is pretty crazy how what goes around comes back around.

Another cool story from this week: We were walking along and a guy said, "Mormons... Hola...Mormons." So he starts talking to us about where we are from...genealogically speaking. Then he goes off animatedly about the history of Spain and Columbus and Indians and the Brothers Pinzon (???) and how Spain is the melting pot of Europe....all in a hilarious friendly Spanish way. Finally we asked him if he had seen the Book of Mormon, and when he had been baptized (by then we had caught on that he must be a member). He didn´t answer the baptism question but joked around and recounted the story of Joseph Smith. All the while he was teasing us about our age and about not knowing about the Brothers Pinzon etc. He was pretty hilarious and just what we needed that day. He said he was from Mostoles and I said my dad had served there about thirty years ago. He said, "Your dad! Elder Moulton!"

Dad, he is 38 now and I don´t know if you will remember him, but he listed off a few family names that you might remember. His name is José Maria Benitez Carrasco and he named families: Clemente, Caso, Roberto, La Fuente (and calle Huesca?) He also gave us his email and number if we ever need anything. It was pretty crazy...he works as a security guard in the Airport and he recognized Hna Smith from when she arrived 9 months ago!

Thanks for all the emails...I will print them off to read later. I love you so much!!!

Love Hermana Moulton

Transfer 5, Week 1

October 20, 2010

Dear Family,

Just found out that Hna Smith and I will be companions again this transfer. Talk about getting to know a person! I am excited for the things we want to do this transfer, like help Pamela become good friends with the youth in the ward and help Vanesa get to church and continue learning.

Pamela came to seminary for the first time last night and we think she really liked it. I think this will be the spring board for her to come to a lot more activities. Juan Aranguiz taught the seminary lesson this week and he is great. I could have just sat and listened to him forever, however, a counselor knocked on the door and said the Elders still hadn´t arrived to teach some people that were waiting for the Engilsh class. We stepped out and covered for them until they got there. English class turned out to be so fun that I didn´t want to leave that either, but we went back to seminary to sit with Pamela when the Elders got there.

I read about Elder Cook´s daughter who was called as a primary president and at first it weighed her down. The primary presidency were consentrating on the problems but then they decided to focus on love, faith, and prayer. Inspiration began to come to them and they knew how to help children and families in their ward. Friction decreased.

I read another section from "Our search for Happiness" by Elder Ballard and again realized that if we focus on Christ and his atonement we will naturally be happier and a better people, with positive attitudes.

We have so much to be grateful for. I have so much to be grateful for. I know that Jesus Christ suffered for our sins and our sadness and Heavenly Father´s plan is perfect. We will all end up so happy and gain much more capacity for having passed through times of sadness and happiness and times of sacrifice. Our outlook and attitude determine our happiness and I am working to remember Christ´s example of love no matter what happened to Him and what they did to Him, especially and the end of His life.

I was feeling a bit inadequate and my comp showed me a talk by Pres Monson. In that talk I realized that Jesus called Peter (a doubter), and Paul (a persecutor) to be missionaries in His cause. I read later about Alma the Younger and realized he could be in that category as well. "The Lord calls imperfect people to teach the way to perfection." Boy does that make me feel better!

I love the Lord! I love my family!

Love Shayla

This is Hermana Smith's entry Oct. 13, 2010 :

This week has been really good, but i can´t believe it´s already the end of the transfer. We´ll know about transfers this Saturday night. I hope I don´t leave! I love this area and my companion and I are having a lot of fun together.

A lot of cool things have happened in the past couple of days. A lot of our appointments have fallen through, but we´ve ended up finding some really great future investigators. Yesterday we found ourselves teaching a peruano named Carlos on a park bench. He´s a super humble guy that has been studying for the past year and a half with Jehovah´s Witnesses. I asked him what he has to do to become a member of their church and he had absolutely no idea. Maybe that means he´s not that serious about joining with them? I think he has mostly been studying the Bible with them to deepen his knowledge. He mentioned that there are a lot of churches out there and it´s hard to know who to believe. We taught him about Joseph Smith and the restoration, gave him a Book of Mormon, and he asked us to give him 2 weeks to study up a bit. I´m and praying so hard that he feels the Spirit when he reads the Book of Mormon and that he and his wife will want us to come teach them! It will be awesome!

We finally talked to Alexandra and Jofre about getting married. We taught about marriage last night from Corinthians 7. It was a bit of a surprise actually. We weren´t really feeling like it was the moment to teach it again, so we started talking about the baptismal covenants we make from Mosiah 5. After reading verse 5 about how we promise to keep all of the commandments of God the Spirit said, "Okay, now for the transition." I was burning inside and so I went for it. Jofre seemed a little flustered once he read the chapter heading of Corinthians 7 and knew what was coming. We just laid everything out for him plain as can be and I didn´t let him justify anything (because he is a little too good at justifying not living the law of chastity). It actually went really really well, but he basically told us that he´s not ready to make the commitment yet. Phew. Patience. Patience is key. And lots and lots of prayers. One hopeful thing though is that he is definitely thinking about it and said that we will definitely be invited to the wedding. I can hardly wait for that day!

We were unsuccessful on getting Vanesa to church again. Victor´s family showed up at her house on Sunday and said they were there to celebrate her birthday. Lame! Okay, nice...ish, but she was really going to come. She even personally asked us to help her get to church. There´s still hope for this week though. And the good thing is that Victor is learning more and more. It will be nice when they are finally on the same page (where she is now, of course) and that they decide to get baptized together. Now that would be great.

We went to a ward party on Saturday night called Día de la Hispanidad. The different organizations from the ward each chose a country to represent. Of course we were asked to represent the USA. Each group had to bring a typical food from their country, set up a table, explain a bit about the country and perform a typical dance from that country. Other countries included Bolivia, Peru, Columbia, Spain and Ecuador. The dances were really cool to watch but I can tell you I was not excited to dance. We had the hardest time coming up with a dance and finally settled to do a country line dance to Cotton-eyed Joe (or whatever that song is called. It reminds me of Dillon. I think it´s kinda like his personal theme song haha.). Everyone loved it. So, so funny.

Well, those are the highlights. Hope all is well at home. Love you all!

Hna. Smith

Transfer 4, Week 6

October 13, 2010

Dear Family,

First off, happy anniversary to you!!!! 25 year mark is pretty intense!! That day was a pretty good day for five of us kids...I bet we were doing high fives together in heaven. Mom, I started a letter for your birthday last week but I couldnt finish it so I have to send it today...it will arrive a little late. I got your letters and pictures and Shalese sent me some too...they both got here the same day! I loved the pictures! I got a really nice letter from Mikayla too!!! She is going to be a great RS pres up in Idaho!!

Mom, Iĺl save all the mushy stuff for the letter but I hope you know how great you are and how grateful I am to you.

Dad thanks for the wedding day recap...that is pretty cool to hear about.

Things around here are going pretty great. Saturday we had a great ward activity...kind of a dud for the missionaries because no investigators came, but it was way fun. The six of us missionaries in the ward got cowboy hats and taught everyone the line dance to "Cotton-eye Joe"

The last two days have been really cool. On Monday we met with Monica again who is amazing...She made us breakfast and then made us cry by telling us how we always have a home at her house. Then a member took us out to lunch for kebabs. After that we went to visit a less active member whose dad is probably not going to live much longer over in Honduras. She was sleeping but we ended up sharing the Book of Mormon with a girl (26yrs old) that lives with her. It was a great lesson together and we are going to visit again tomorrow. On the way from her house to the metro we saw a woman carrying some heavy bags and offered to help. Turns out that she is a member of the Church and she had been hoping someone would stop and help her. We went back to her piso with her and shared a message with her family. Her daughterś boyfriend was there and told us that his girlfriend had mentioned that she wanted to come to church again. We are going to do a Family home Evening with them on Saturday. From there we went to visit Vanesa and Victor. She wants to be baptized soon still...just has a lot of challenges that keep her from coming on Sunday...but I bet this week will be better.

Yesterday was almost even better. We were stood up by an appointment but it was great because we found a dad sitting on a park bench reading a magazine from another church. He said he was just searching for the truth...so we talked with him for another 45mins and gave him a Book of Mormon. His name is Carlos (he is from Peru) and I think he is really going to read and study all that we left him!! From there we went and visited a family from church that is having a really rough time and we brought another sister from the ward with us to visit them who has also been having a hard time and it turns out that she had been through the same situation as this family when she was younger and her comments really helped them I think. We helped them arrange to get blessings from a brother in the ward on Saturday to help them feel better. Then we visited with Laura Chimbo who was baptized about seven months ago and she is doing great. It took her nine years to accept the gospel she says, but she has a really firm testimony and her daughter is reading the scriptures like crazy.

More big news: Last night we finally talked about the Law of Chastity with Jofre and Alexandra...a lesson that has been pending for a long time. I was a little nervous but it all came out ok. Jofre seems to be waiting to be done with school, and Alexandra told us that his mom doesn't really encourage marriage for her sons (what!!!) so we are planning to somehow teach her about the law of chastity the next time we teach her. I really hope I am is Spain for their wedding.

Today we went to the temple. I always learn something I need to do or change. The mission is a time for a lot of change. I am so grateful to be here!! Later today we are going to hunt for boots before it gets freezing cold!!!

Happy Anniversary!!!! Happy Birthday!!!!

Love Hermana Moulton

P.S. Hermana Smith says Hi

October 6, 2010

Exerpts by Hna Smith, Shayla's companion. It's neat to have a few more details as we pray and think about the work Shayla and her companion are doing.


conference was incredible! we did a lot of work in trying to get investigators there and ended up having 5 come. alexandra and jofre came! i was so happy. unfortunately they weren´t around to hear about the importance of marriage though. we had a lesson with them last week about the word of wisdom. alexandra already agrees with everything about the word of wisdom and jofre thought that basically all of it was a good idea. he´s just still hung up on there being a living prophet and now we understand a little more about why. he totally changed the evening´s subject of the word of wisdom into using scriptures to justify living with alexandra without being married to her. he started to explain to us that the scriptures say that it´s okay to live with someone before marriage as long as you aren´t having relationships with other people. definitely not true. we are praying and praying right now that he will soften his heart but he just doesn´t want to listen right now. it´s makes me frustrated because i know that alexandra believes that what we teach her is true but she can´t do anything about it right now. tonight we are going to talk about the law of chastity again and i pray that it goes well. oh i sure hope the spirit is there with us!

two other investigators that came with us are omaira and dario. they are a colombian couple and are super great. dario is one of the more profoundly spiritual thinkers i have met on the mission. he is really bright. he taught himself how to read by reading the bible.

the last woman that came with us is angelica. it was so fun. i watched the third conference session alone with her while my companion went to watch in english. i sat in between angelica with an old spanish gentleman from our ward on the other side of me with a bunch of latin ward members i´ve come to know and love. it was so fun to be there with all of them. i love these people so much!

we had some other great lessons this past week. we taught the law of chastity to pamela yesterday and it was such a spiritual lesson. teaching the law of chastity has become one of my favorite lessons to teach on the mission because the spirit testifies so strongly of it´s message. it is a privilege to teach these people of something that is so important to each of us and to watch as they make changes to live this commandment. i love seeing people repent and change! their light increases and their happiness too as they make changes to follow the laws of God. i love being here to help them along the way.

anyway, i feel rushed today as i write this and none of my thoughts are even near to being refined. sorry! i have to run. love you all. miss you mucho mucho.

hna. smith

Transfer 4, Week 5

October 6, 2010
Dear Family,

I love to hear from you! I have to read your emails later though because I don't have a lot of time...ahh.

Today we had a Hermana´s day at the mission home. It actually started two days ago with intercambios (each sister goes to work with a different sister for a day to learn from each other.) This time was different because it was a day and a half long...which means two nights. I went to Guadalajara, about 2hrs travel by metro and train, to work with Hna Kushchyan.

Hna Kushchyan is here for just six weeks on a "mini mission" but she was a great missionary and I learned a lot from her. Her parents are Armenian but she grew up in Russia where she joined the church 9 years ago. Four years ago she moved from Russia to Spain with her family. It was a hard move for her and I am sure she would like to be back in Russia if things were different, but things are the way they are and so she goes on. (That made me really grateful for the blessings of a stable home that I have).

The first year she was here she didn´t speak Spanish and she says she hardly spoke at all and it took a lot of tears and effort to learn Spanish...but it has paid off- everyone in the street thought she was from Spain (that is a huge compliment to her language abilities). Meanwhile one couple asked me if I was from Romania.

Hermana Kushchyan is a hard worker, she made me want to increase my efforts. We taught a Spanish man who joined the church as a teenager, served a mission, and then stopped going to church and/or studying the gospel ten years ago. Now he is fifty-ish and is working so hard to come back and study the scriptures to prepare to go to the temple again. We shared a lesson about the temple with him. We told a story about an investigator whose wife died but he was eventually sealed to her in the temple with their son. Hna Kushchyan spoke about wanting to do the temple work for her grandmother who has passed away. She spoke about the day when she would be able to hug her and tell her thank you for so much. The Spirit was strong in the room and I learned a greater gratitude for the temple.

(Insert from Mom: It's fun for me to see subtle changes in Shayla's english grammer. It seems to be sounding more like spanish grammer in english.)

We had a lot of time together so we got to have a few personal conversations. She made me feel pretty good about the way I contact people on the street and she said she notes that I have the spirit with me which is way nice because sometimes I worry so much about that.

She seems to feel that six weeks is pretty long...and I know how she feels because that is how I felt when I went to Mexico for six weeks. Now I can see how short that time is and how quickly it goes by. It gave me a better perspective about how quickly the mission goes by and how we need to put in all our strength while we have the chance. She is definitely putting in all of her strength.

Guadalajara is super pretty with great Spanish architecture...it is how I thought Spain would look before I got to Madrid, which looks more like New York City. We walked a lot more because they don´t have a metro system there, but it was really nice and the weather was perfect...speaking of the weather, we talked to a little old Spanish lady who would like us to visit her!!! That is the first time that has happened to me from an actual Spanish person!!! Way cool!!

Shalese, I got all of your letters so far and I wrote you last week but I still have to send it. Thanks for you letters. They always make me so happy. I am way proud of the person you are!! I still have to read your email...I am going to print it off.

Mom, I still need to read the details of the new treatment you had.

I sure love you. Wish I could write more...I got a little distracted helping the lady next to me write to her friend on Facebook. (She gave me chocolate for it)

Have a great week!!!

Love Shayla