Llamado a Servir en España: The Fruits of our Labors

Hello family and friends!

I am not exactly sure how it is already Monday again! The time on the mission is probably one of the strangest things I have ever experienced! I love my mission so so much and never ever want it to end!! This week was a week of many lessons! I want to share with you the main lessons I learned along with stories that relate to each point. I hope that you can each think about these lessons and really try to apply them in your own lives as well!

1. Member missionary work is the most effective way to do The Lord´s work!

Last week we had a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with one of our investigators from Nigeria, Steven. I think I have told you all about him before but a quick re-cap... he has been here for a few months and is studying at a university and researching robotics. He is really smart and loves to learn. He contacted us on the street one day because he wants religion in his life and he wants to learn Spanish (right now he only speaks English). We decided to have this NDH with him and a family in the ward... Los Campos. They are so sweet and have a 12 year old daughter, Marta, who speaks English really well. What we didn´t realize though was that the parents don't speak ANY english. So we were a little nervous as to how this would go. But to our surprise it turned out even better than we had hoped. We taught the lesson about the Book of Mormon in Spanish and English at the same time and everyone loved it. Then we played games and had alimentos (kind of like dinner but more like light snacks because they don´t have dinner here in Spain). It was absolutely perfect!! The best part was when we were all driving home together and we dropped Steven off and we watched him SKIP all the way back to the university with a grin on his face from ear to ear! It was incredible! Also Los Campos offered to pick Steven up every Sunday for church so he doesn´t have to take the bus! I LOVE THE MEMBERS! We all have such a critical role in this Missionary work. We don´t need to wait for the missionaries to tell us what to do as members. We need to go to the missionaries and tell them what they can be doing to help us! I challenge all of you to reach out to your friends and share the gospel with them and then get the missionaries involved :) (I promise they will love you forever!) oh also.. while we had NDH the lights went out 3 times while we were eating pizza! It was pitch black and we were eating in the dark! I laughed pretty hard at that one!

2. Follow the Spirit in EVERY circumstance. NEVER postpone a prompting!

We went to go help our investigator Alejandra one night because she is getting REALLY close to being baptized (although awkward moment when we found out last night that she lives in the Elders area and we had to give her over to them. We had a good cry about that one, but I know we are placed in areas for a reason and Alejandra will be baptized regardless of who it is that teaches her because in the end it is the Spirit... not the missionaries. We are merely the instruments that Heavenly Father uses to help the investigators feel the spirit). Anyways, we were supposed to have a lesson with her last week so we went over to her house with brownies and a cute note for her but nobody answered the door. We knocked and waited, waited and knocked. Then we said a prayer and knocked one more time. We left her building and started walking away. All the sudden we both turned to each other and said, "we need to go back". So we followed the prompting and went back to her building. Guess what happened?! Absolutely... nothing. We were a little concerned at the fact that the spirit had led us astray but we knew that couldn´t be right. We left the brownies and the note on her door and then left again. Right when we left her building we found her walking home on the street! She was so excited to see us and came running to give us both a huge hug!! She had forgotten all about the lesson and her phone was dead. We went upstairs with her but at that point we were late to another visit so we decided to take her with us because it was to a member visit. She agreed (for the first time ever she agreed to come to a NDH). We were SO excited! And at the NDH the members invited her to lots of different activities and to church and to do a special dance for the JAS (YSA´s). It was probably one of the most perfect moments! NEVER POSTPONE A PROMPTING! Miracles will always come from following them!

Following the same point. We went to one of our pueblos this week in Reus. One of our members, Sara, really wanted to help us because it was her day off of work. So she spent the whole day with us but all of our plans fell through. But we ended up seeing miracle after miracle after miracle solely because we decided to follow the promptings of the spirit. We found Camila, Aneudy, Julia, and Fall! (also we had a prompting to put a french BOM in our bag so we did and then we found Fall and he spoke French! MIRACLE!). Also both of us forgot our agendas and tarjetas that day!!!!! Any of you who have been on a mission know that you don´t leave the house without your agenda and tarjeta. I felt so much like I wasn´t a missionary. But then Heavenly Father truly taught us that as long as we follow the spirit we don´t need anything but our smiles and testimonies and we can still see miracles and bring His children closer to their Savior. We also found a menos activo family standing at their door that night! We ended up being able to go in and have a NDH with them! They have 3 little girls... Marina, Daniella, and Africa (8,6,3). Pretty much they remind me exactly of Livvy, Liza and Abby! And they couldn´t stop climbing all over us and playing with our hair! They now call us Hermana Elsa and Hermana Ana because they think we look like them. We have them CONVINCED that we really are them! :) Anyways... the point of this lesson is to just follow the spirit no matter how crazy the prompting might seem and you will always be blessed!

3. Language doesn´t matter!

We had an incredible lesson this past week with another investigator from Nigeria, Pintsil. We brought a member with us, Encarna, thinking that Pintsil could speak Spanish. Well... he sort of can but not really. haha so we ended up teaching the lesson in English and I kept leaning over to Encarna to apologize but she just kept saying, "no se preocupe" (don´t worry about it) and she would try to listen and would still chip in and bear her testimony in Spanish whenever she felt the spirit! It was such a neat lesson and in the end we gave him a fecha for December 5th!!!! Which happens to be this Saturday! John and Pinstil will both be baptized this saturday and I cannot wait! The point is though that the language doesn´t matter! Even when we can´t completely communicate exactly what we want to say, the Spirit CAN and the Lord will work through us and the Spirit to help people understand what He needs them to. All we have to do is open our mouths!

(PS. Pintsil LOVES learning about the gospel and takes notes while we teach him! Also his phone went off about 5 times during the lesson and he kept getting so mad! The 5th time is went off he looked at his phone and started giving it a little "lecture" and then shoved it as far down the couch as he could and yelled at it and said, "I need. to listen. To the word. Of God. No. Distractions". haha I love these people from Africa!)

4. Serve others with no thought of reward!

Thursday was a very special day here in Spain! DIA DE ACCION DE GRACIAS!!! Well, ok it actually isn´t very special here. But in Tarragona for all the members it is special because they all know that the missionaries from America celebrate it! So we went over to Maria Rosa and Capi´s house for Medio Dia not expecting anything fancy. When we got there we walked in and it just smelled like Thanksgiving. I started to cry! Their house looks exactly like my house and when we turned the corner into the kitchen we saw a huge nice table all set with everything you could possibly imagine from an American Thanksgiving dinner!!! I had to keep turning away from everyone so that they wouldn´t see the tears coming. Not tears of saddness or homesickness but tears of gratitude. The members here love to serve people so much that they will go through so much effort as to stay up until 2am cooking us a thanksgiving meal that they found all online and then drove all over Spain to find the right ingredients for it!! I couldn´t have been more grateful! It was probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me!!! Maria Rosa, Capi, their daughter Alicia and her friend Grau are also the most humble and service oriented people I have ever met. They are so willing to do anything and everything for those around them with no thought of reward!! I love watching them and trying to shadow them in every action! We tried to repay them by giving them brownies. They came to pick up the brownies (because we were stuck in piso again one day this week) and when they came to our piso they brought in loads and loads of groceries, treats from the bakery, french bread and lasagna because they knew we were sick and couldn´t leave piso!!! WOW! I don´t think we will ever be able to repay them. But that´s what I love about their examples... they don´t want to be repaid. They just want to serve people because they Love their savior! I challenge you all to look for ways to serve those around you this week with no thought of reward!

5. Exact obedience brings MILAGROS (miracles)

This is one of my favorite things that I have learned on the mission. This week we had another NDH with some of the sisters from RS and investigators. We were almost done when the elders walked in because it was at a house in their area that they just decided to pass by. Instead of staying in the same house as them, Hermana McWhorter and I looked at each other and then the Elders and before anyone had said anything we had grabbed our coats and started to leave. The Elders offered to leave too but we felt bad making them leave since they had just gotten there. We all felt a tiny bit awkward about the situation but it was also a really good learning experience. PLUS on our walk home to piso we saw ALL of the chirstmas lights!!!!! And the huge christmas tree and the big ice skating rink and stage the have set up in the middle of the town for christmas performances!! With all of the lights it honestly looks a lot like temple square and I feel right at home! Tarragona is the best place to be at Christmas time! I love it here :) Always be obedient even when it might be hard sometimes and you will always be blessed (sometimes with christmas lights:)

6. All things will give us experience and be for our good

My hip problems haven´t completely gone away but I know they will soon. But my sweet companion has been really sick as well so president has had us stay in piso the past 2 days again. At first it was really hard to go from a miracle week to not really being able to do anything. But then Hermana McWhorter and I realized that obviously we are supposed to be learning something from this. And that is when I remembered the scripture in DyC 122:7 that no matter what, even in the hardest times, all these things will be for our good. We just have to say "that´s great" and find how we can learn from it. I know that Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for each one of us and as we have an eternal perspective at all times we will find so much more happiness and learn SO much more of who He needs us to be in the processes.

I know this was a lot to learn for this week! But I hope you can all at least choose one of these and apply it into your life. Work with the missionaries, follow the spirit, speak with the spirit, serve other people, and remember to find the good in all things! I know as we do this we will become a little bit closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior and they will help us see clearly the path they need us to be on in this life!

I love you all and I LOVE being a missionary!!! Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Eyring

We love being missionaries!

Noche de Hogar with Norah and her family and our
investigator Alejandra. Norah just got back from her
mission and was Hermana Smalley's trainer - small world!