Hannah in España: #3 Madrid

I'm in my 4th week! Good grief. I need to work hard and learn all that I can so that I'm ready but I'm so excited to actually be out there with my trainer learning to be the best disciple of God that I can. I love the CCM but I can only hope that it gets better you know? Haha. I know it does. My Spanish is doing okay! I know a whole lot of vocabulary and what not but I'm just not the best at speaking sentences. I am learning how to abbreviate in Spanish though so that's good! Instead of "I'm hungs", I say "tengs hambs". Lol it's been a good joke in our district.

HOLY COW I love my district. What incredible people. I have so much love for those people. I guess I have to because I spend basically every hour of everyday with them in our small little classroom. We are so supportive of each other and we really help and learn from each other. It is absolutely insane how close our whole zone has gotten in just 3 short weeks. It is definitely a missionary thing. I don't know it seems impossible to have these people that you love like your own family after just knowing them for 3 weeks. We are all so close and everyone is so sweet to each other. We frequently discuss how we know that God put us all here at the same time and that we are so grateful n that everyone made the decision to be here. I cant help but feel that we all knew each other so well in the pre-mortal life. I can imagine us all there saying "I see ya in Spain" it sounds so cheesy but it's something I can definitely see. President Packer has even made some comments about it. We have such a good and valiant group here. I know God put me here in Spain, to be companions with a Portuguese/Brit who has taught me so much. And also to be companions with a Brazilian whom I adore with all my heart. The three of us from three different nations were able to come together in Spain and learn to know and love each other in just three weeks. It's inspired.

Sister Pires (my Brazilian companion) left this week 😭😭😭 oh how I will miss her so. She is the most feisty and sassy girl but she has the biggest heart filled with love for others and for the gospel. She's incredible. She speaks English very well and I think she definitely has the gift of bearing testimony because even in her second language she can express her heartfelt testimony so incredibly and she does it frequently. I love her. She says she is going to move to the US so that we can live next to each other. Bless her heart. I hope she does because I want everyone to know her. She will whip everyone into shape, let me tell ya. So now it's just Hermana Dos Santos and I. It's funny because she's the oldest out of us all (21) and I'm the youngest sister out of us all. I can so tell that our companionship was made straight from God's hands though. We are all kinds of different but we really even each other out. I adore her. It is crazy how different we are but how well it works out for our companionship. She relies so heavily of the Spirit and she is so good at recognizing the spirit in everything she does. I love it. She kind of reminds me of Riley Fulmer. Like a lot. Not the crazy funny side of Riley, but the other side. Haha I don't know. Oh and since the Russians all left this week too, (tear, they were awesome. I miss them for sure too) sister Dos Santos and I are the new Sister Training leaders here in the Madrid CCM. And our elders in our district are the Zone leaders. Nefí District representing 🙌 our job is to like attend meetings and what not but mostly it is to love all of the sisters and go and be friends with all of them and if you know me, you know that is right up my alley. That's the best job I could ever ask for! I love the dear Hermanas here. Seriously the kindest and most humble girls I have ever come I to contact with. I've been sick these past couple of days and I have one Hermana that comes in at night to lather me up with essential oils and others often come to ask how I'm doing. They're so sweet. As I learn about them and their families and some of their humble circumstances I am so amazed. I have learned loads from them.

With the Russians leaving, we have gained 11 new missionaries. These missionaries are all going to one of the 3 Spain missions but they already speak Spanish so they only have to be here for three weeks. 4 sisters and 7 elders. One sister came from Provo because she finally got her visa. And most of them do not speak English so we've been trying our hardest to be speaking Spanish 24. /7. It's been hard but it's good for us. The new sisters are awesome. They're going to make incredible missionaries. The 2 that don't speak English are from Argentina and Bolivia but currently live in Spain and one does speak English and is from New Zealand! The two South Americans are so sweet even thought they always make fun of how bad my Spanish is hahaha. But I told them that I like giving kisses so they always kiss both my cheeks when they see me. It makes me so happy! I love it and I've only known them for one day!

We said goodbye to the Russians and my dear sister Pires 😢. And Elder Barrios. I don't know if I ever told you about Barrios. But he came the same day I did and is from Paraguay going to serve in Portugal. He and sister Pires kind of stuck together. They were the only two In their district and they acted like an old married couple. They fought so much and it was soo ooh funny. But Elder Barrios only spoke Spanish and Portuguese. No English. But man he was the funniest person I had ever met in my life. The elders all just loved him so much. He left his trademark here, whenever something good happened, and EVERYTIME he got done bearing his testimony, he'd put his arms up in the air and yell " ALLELUIA" and then we'd all repeat it. Seeing him say goodbye to all the elders was sooo sad. Seriously all of these 18, 19, 20 year old men were bawling their eyes out. I'm not lying when I say that we all got so close here. So now that he is gone, President Packer initiates the ALLELUIA. It's so great.

This has been the weirdest week. I've been down this week with who even knows what it is. Nothing serious, just coughs and headaches and fever and what not. Hermana Packer ( presidents wife) is so awesome. She has cabinets full of medicine and just takes so much care of me. So I'm recovering. It's just difficult because we have 2 investigators a day now so I've been missing some lessons. Ugh stress. The more I'm able to study the lessons the smoother they go. The lessons are getting easier to teach the more I do it. A lot of the time I just can't retain what I am supposed to talk about next. The more I study the easier it will get. But they are going well! I enjoy being able to teach people. Its good practice! The days all run together and I can't even remember the things that I did or what happened. Hahaha I'm sorry. We kind of just do a lot of the same thing everyday.

Let me tell you, my fútbol is getting better. Because I get to play soccer in Spain EVERYDAY.. in SPAIN. I mean I'm still awful but I'm a lot less scared of the mean elders who try to take the ball away from me so that's a plus.

I'm so grateful for this CCM! The teachers here are sent straight from heaven. I love them all so much and I know they love me too. They're angels. Almost all of them were converted from Catholicism and I wish I had a way to thank all of those missionaries that taught each of these hermanas y hermanos because I am so grateful for them. This is the best place on earth with the best people around.

Last Saturday, the hermanas in my district and Sister Pires (before she left) sang a special musical number at our Post-Park devotional (sorry I didn't write about the park, nothing huge happened this week, but it was still very enjoyable. somehow I talked to a woman who only spoke French so that was crazy weird. I don't even know French.) but anyway we sang I Need Thee Every Hour. Hermana Ruotsalainen ( from Finland) sang the first line in Finnish, and then Hermana Dos Santos and Sister Pires sang the second line in their native tongue, Portuguese. and then we all joined in on the chorus in English. and then the second verse was all Spanish with sister Sinclair and I singing Alto and the third verse was English, a Capella, and Alto. Not gonna lie, it sounded really good. It was nice. I've been thinking about that hymn a lot because I sure do need Him every hour. There is not a thing here in the CCM that I could to without the power of Heaven. Just simply reaching up to Heavenly Father in prayer can bring miracles. Also this week I learned that being charitable better puts you in a position to call down the powers of Heaven. That's from President Monson's talk in the Priesthood session I believe. But that's amazing!! I never thought about that before, I love that, Charity is a powerful gift to have.

I don't feel any stress here. Like I am doing completely fine. And it kind of worries me hahaha. I had an interview with president and he asked what the hardest thing was for me here and I honestly didn't have an answer! Like sure the language is hard and the studying and the teaching but I never get down on myself. I always just assume I'm doing fine. Like I know I have loads of improvements to work on, and with the Park Saturdays, I haven't had a whole lot of great experiences but I don't feel bad about it! It is kind of hard because as I talk to some of the other sisters they do get hard on themselves and it's hard for me to relate and try to help them as a sister training leader. I guess I'm just saying this to confirm that I'm still Happy Go Lucky Hannah. I still have all the self confidence in the world and I'm still okay. And I'm grateful for that. I understand that it gets hard, but I think I'm ready. I just need to work harder.

In case you are wondering, yes I totally speak Spanish with a "Lisp" which its actually not a lisp its only a lisp if you use the "theta" on the S´s. Which I definitely do not do. Hahah just the Z´s and C´s. But yeah just a fun fact.

I love you!

Amor, Hermana Rust

I can get mail here!

Sister Hannah Rust

Spain Missionary Training Center

4A. Planta

Calle del Templo N° 2

Madrid

28030 Alicante

Spain