#22

Hello to all of my friends in case you were wondering here is what you missed in Alcalá this week:

A little review of my friend Melisa: Melisa is the only one of her family that isn't a member, she's 17 and she is sharp as a knife. She has had the charlas 3 times and numerous baptismal fechas but has never been baptized. Well Melisa loves to do personal progress and so usually we do that with her. And we would talk to her about baptism but she would just simply tell us that she didn't want to baptize herself. She knew that God wanted her to but she simple didn't have the desire. So that is a little confusing but bueno. I remember the last week with hermana Spencer last transfer, we had a lesson with Melisa and both left feeling so strongly we needed to teach the Atonement. So we taught it a little bit and then the last couple weeks those prompting were coming to me so strong again, so as I said last week we really buckled down on the atonement and taught about three different lessons on it. We really felt like we needed to focus on it THAT much... so we did. because you know, teach people not lessons 😎 WELL Hermana Garcia and I were in charge of the mutual activity on Friday for some reason and after the activity, Melisa and her mother pulled us into a classroom and closed the door. Mirna (her momma) said looking at Melisa , "do you want to tell them, or me?" And this is when I knew it was coming EEEEKKK. Melisa said  "QUIERO BAUTIZARME" TWO WORDS NEVER HAVE BROUGHT ME SO MUCH HAPPINESS. So we sat down and had a good talk and set three citas with her a week and just gave her a big hug and Ah We are SO happy for her and her family. I really think she is going to strengthen her family so much more and be key to her family. Now we pray that she can have strength to press forward with her desires and go through with it. We are going to be working witht her SO MUCH. After all her baptism is in 18 days and transfers are in 9 days 😅 I hope I can stay for it. 

 

My girl LOE: Loe has been on vacation for about a month and that means she kind of left us in the dust BUT we met with her and had an AWESOME lesson and set three citas with her this week as well. She is so willing to do e everything she can to come closer to God, to read, pray, go to church and everything! The only difficult thing for her is that her husband isn't to gungho about this whole Mormon thing. I've never even met him but she wants so badly for her husband to support her and at least try listening to the missionaries or going to church or something, but he won't 😔 it's so sad because it makes her sad, but she is still super motivated to continue with us. We asked her if she would prepare herself (again ) to be baptized on the 23rd. She expressed these concerns and I just felt in my heart that I should make her a promise. So I made Loe a promise. I promised her that if she would do all that she could to prepare herself that her husband would have a change of heart. She asked me if I really believed that and i said 100 percent yes. She just kind of nodded and thought about it a little bit and then said that she would prepare herself but not commit to a date quite yet. I have hope yet. We are so excited to keep meeting with her 😄

Thursday in the campo- There is a really sweet family who live about 30 minutes away from Alcalá out in the campo. They realize that we missionaries can't make it out there a lot so they sometimes bring food with them to church and give it to us so we can eat it for lunch that day. They are the sweetest and Eva cooks like a master. Well, the father, Javi said that he and his wife were going to come to Alcalá and pick us up so we could eat lunch with them. So we went out to their cute little house in the middle of nowhere. And it was SO FUN. We ate these delicious sandwiches called Serranitos and they are just so dang good. They have a daughter Narea  a who is 15and she's adorable. Javi just interrogated us the entire time haha but they are such w fun family. And then yesterday after church she told us that he brought some food that he was going to cook after church and we were all going to eat in the capilla. So that was super fun too, we just had some lunch with some members. 

MY JOVEN FRIENDS- like I said, we were in charge of mutual on Friday and we were so pumped because we love the jovens. So we started planning some fun activities to involve the menos activos jovens and made them an assignment to visit a menos activo this week. And then on Sundays we get to help the girls do Personla Progress and it is such a good time. We all get to set goals together and learn together it's so great. 

Week of the Atonement- this has been such a fabulous week and I really think it's because we have been studying the atonement of Jesus Christ all weeeeekkkk looonnggg. We taught Melisa about the atonement and some other people to. So we have had the opportunity to teach it many times this week. So because of that we have studied it a whole lot. We have studied it personally and together as a companionship. It has been absolutely thrilling. Also in preparation to hear Elder Holland, we have listened to about 20 of his talks in the mornings and nights and a large amount seem to be about our Lord Jesus Christ. AND added to that is my memorizing of the Living Christ Literally our entire week has been focused on Jesus and I think everyone needs to have every week like that. I'll just share a little of what I have so much enjoyed to learn: 

• WE watched the bible video of Jesus Christ suffering in the garden with Melisa just so she could understand the actual event of the Atonement. Although it was a little hard for me to watch, I learned so much about the character of Christ, how submissive, loving, quiet, and meek he was. To go so willingly with the soldiers and to heal so gently the ear of the man who was arresting him. After he had just suffered pain that was so much more painful than the wounded ear. 

•Christ suffered the atonement to know how to succor our afflicions (alma 7:12) succor means to "run to" He comes when we need Him and home knows what to do. Something that my friend Elder Holland taught me.

• WE read John 16:33. Christ overcame the world. There is not a single thing. Not a single sin, infirmity, weakness, or pain that Christ didn't overcome. He was sinless yet still knows how it feels to be a sinner. He was perfect, but still knows how it feels to have weakness. He went about doing good and was persecuted for it. He overcame it all to be our Savior and our Redeemer. There is nothing that the power of Jesus Christ can't do for us. 

Out of all of the studying I have done this week of the Atonement, though I have been completely lifted and edified by it, I still believe that the best and most effective way to learn of Jesus Christ and come to know Him is when you have to turn to Him and actually use His atonement. You can study it all you want but nothing will give you a firmer testimony than actually coming to taste of His love, like King Benjamin describes. I believe that. 

I'm still just a little brown hermana with two braids in her hair and a Book of Mormon in her sweaty right palm, no worries. 

Hermana Rust 

1.  we squirted the young women with water because we thought it would be funny. It was. And then they came gave us hugs and it was sweet. 

2. It's never to late to celebrate freedom 

3.the mujeres jovenes 💘 oh and Julio 

4.more jovens 

5. Cold pizza and peanut butter 🇺🇸

# 21

Today I turned 5 months old! Haha I'm still such a baby. But here is a little about my week

Monday- we spent our pday with Julio and Cristina. We made Gazpacho (GAZPACHO IS SO GOOD I LOVE IT) and JULIO made us a Spanish tortilla and these sandwiches called Cerranitos and it was just a food time with our friends. We also had a lesson with our investigator Melsia and her sister. Melisa has had the charlas about 3 times and it's just a little difficult deciding what to do with her but we felt very deeply we needed to go over the atonement with her. So we read Alma 7 which is a fabulous chapter. Everyone should read it. She expressed that she has had some questions about the atonement and that she has never really understood what the atonement was. So we just sat down a and had a really good talk about it. Hermana Garcia shared some fabulous things and it was just a really great lesson with them. We walked away knowing more what we need to do with Melisa. Which is an answer to prayers. 

 

Tuesday- Tuesday we had district meeting , but little did we know the fit was festivo here in Spain so the busses weren't running normally and we were about an hour late hahaha. But it was a good day and that's all I have to say about that 

Wednesday- so Wednesday morning we went to our part of Sevilla to find some menos activos and we walked down an alley way and there was this bright purple and blue house that looked like a princess lived there, so naturally we toqued the door. A woman named Melody came to the window and talked to us for a bit. She excepted our tarjetas and then invited us in to eat breakfast.... so we went in. We told her that we just wanted some water but she took us in and showed us her house, and her kids, and all of her dance trophies haha. She was very proud of them. And then she gave us a melon. A huge fresh green melon to take with us. It was random but we took it. There we were, miles away from our home with a very heavy melon in the hot streets of Sevilla. So we went to a menos activos house who told us that he wanted nothing to do with the church but nonetheless we gifted him the melon. I think he liked it. And that's about the extent of my story there.

 

Next story. We were supposed to have a noche de Hogar with Melisas family on Wednesday also. So we walked up and down fiestas for thirty minutes to get to her house just to find that the timbre wasn't working. There was no way to get into her building. So we called her, and her mother. Like three times. No answer. But we weren't going to give up. Hermana Garcia there were many windows opened to the building, so she started shouting! Nobody came. Then we started shouting together, and nobody came. And then fpagyer about 10 minutes I saw a woman walk passed a window! So I shouted and she came and answered the door! She is a lovely woman from the Ukraine and now a future investigator. We got into our cita, it was about 9:45 by the time we got into their house so we only had about 15 minutes with them but we went we testified and we got out of there and it was a success! 

Thursday: we had an awesome correlation. We have big things coming for Alcala! And had an awesome planning session that ran a little to long just because we were so enveloped in the needs of our friends here. And we had a cita with a new investigator named Antonio and then we had a noche de hogar with the young women AND OH MY GOODNESS. I JUST LOVE THE YOUNG WOMEN. They are seriously my best friends. I am so proud of them. A lot of them come from less active families, and over all the youth programs aren't very strong here,  but these girls are so strong. They are completely awesome and I just want to take them and guide them through life for the rest of their lives but I can't do that literally so I'm just here to be an example because they are just awesome. I feel so blessed that I grew up where I did, that we had tons of young men and young women AND activities every week and a place for jovens to grow up strong in the church. Anyway, yes #blessed.

Friday- we had intercambios with the SHE'S in Sevilla. They're good women and it was a good time. 

Saturday- Saturday I think hermana Garcia and I were just sleep walking through town. We were so doggone exhausted. I think we both suffered some sprt of sun stroke or something because it was bad. Hahaha we were just wiped out. So we decided to use our pday to take a nap. 

 

I'm just a little hermana tanning in the SUN and speaking Spanish and reading Alma 17-26 as my textbook for being a missionary... learning from the best! 

1. This is Hermana Cutimbo, she served with Holly, ad was also Hermana Spencer's companion before me. She served in Alcala for 5 months! 

2. My good friend Mari 

3. Last pday! 

4.Intercambios with gypsy pants 

 5. Noche de hogar with the chicas 

#20 Aug 14, 2017

This has been the longest week of my entire life!

•We made about 50 cookies and used them to get inside of people's houses hehehe. Everybody loves a good American cookie. It worked! 

• We passed by 15 menos activos this week. Probably about 3 answered. Rough. We will keep trying for em. 

•My first two transfers we have tried so hard to get a hold of a recent convert 12 year old named Chela. She wouldn't answer us para nada. We made her a focus this week and she finally answered her door and had a cita with her! That was awesome!

• We had a completely awesome zone conference ON Friday. It was completely awesome I loved it. We were councils to work with  the jovens to really get them pumped about missionary work and about inviting their friends. We talked a lot about the importance of goal setting and personal goals and how we need to take them more seriously. I love when Hermana Anderson speaks because she is just a little firecracker. She just tells us how it is. She said that we don't know Preach my Gospel well enough and we need to be reading the lessons everyday. That we should never leave reading or studying the lessons. President Anderson seems to always stress the calling we have of standing in Jesus Christ place as a missionary. Because we really are representatives of Him. He shared doctrine and covenants 46:13-14 and something that I really liked what he explained is that people must hear MY voice first to be able to hear the saviors voice. If that isn't inspiration to talk with everyone I don't know what is! I loved that! I have such a calling to fulfill. 

• I have started to memorize the living Christ. In Spanish. I can't even tell you how many notes I have in my journal since I was 13 the to need to memorize the living Christ and I have started about 12 times. But this time I am finally doing it. I already have the first 2 paragraphs and it has already made such a difference having that testimony run through my head all day. It's so beautiful and I have already started to take that testimony of my own. I could sign my name right there next to the other apostles because I agree 100 percent with everything that document says. I have such a deep testimony of the reality of Jesus Christs life and His being, and it has only grown. 

Everyone who is reading this should just do me a favor,  I promise you, the missionaries around you would love you and appreciate you 3000 times more if you invited a less active member/investigator/non member/ neighbor/friend /family member/random person off the street to the dinner that you are going to feed the missionaries. I promise. It's easy! Everyone go call someone, and then call the missionaries to help you, it'll be fun I swear! Don ever let the missionaries come over unless you have someone there for them to teach. Okay, good talk. 

I FEEL BLESSED. 

Loves

Hermana Rust

*  So I (Lorri) wrote this to Hannah last week: "Please take a moment to read D&C 128:19-20 and share with me what that means specifically and personally for you at this particular time in your life. "    

I LOVED HER RESPONSE SO I WILL SHARE IT WITH YOU.

 19 Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that bring glad tidings of good things, and that say unto Zion: Behold, thy God reigneth! As the dews of Carmel, so shall the knowledge of God descend upon them!

20 And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed.

These verses apply to everything that I am doing in my life. The gospel is a voice of gladness and that's why I'm here. I'm just here being happy and that's about the extent of my calling. A voice of mercy: we were teaching a menos activo about mercy the other day. I newly learned that basically anything that good that happens in this life is because of the mercy of God. Every time a prayer is answered or a priesthood blessing heals us, that is the Lord's mercy and power. If only more people would understand this. We have also been working with a recent convert JULIO who is going to the temple next month for the first time. He is so excited to be baptized for his father and his grandfather, he has expressed to us that even though his father wasn't the best father to him, he knows that his father is going to accept it. Here in Spain, where family is so important to everyone, really temple work and the gospel is a voice of gladness for the living and the dead. 

Hermana Garcia and I love to contact people using the Book of Mormon. It is something new that a lot of people haven't seen and it's just so exciting! Really the Book of Mormon is glad tidings. It's the realest  piece of evidence that we have. We were teaching my dear Nuria (less active) and her boyfriend, Dani (non member, not very believing at all) he kept telling us as we were teaching him that it is very difficult for him to be live such incredible stories (Joseph Smith first vision) he just thinks they are so grand and well unbelievable. We taught them a really good book of Mormon lesson. We read the introduction and we went through the photos in the front and told him the basics. Something that really made seemed to soften him up is that Christ appeared to the nephites. From there we were able to testify that the Book of Mormon really is another testament of Jesus Christ. That the Book of Mormon is the evidence that he  needs to develop a testimony of because really if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith really did see God the Father and the Son of Man, than Jesus Christ is the Savior of the World and that the LDS church is the only true church on the face of the earth. It's easy and simple and grand! The Book of Mormon is my evidence of the glad tidings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is my greatest textbook as a missionary. I always find something in there that helps me along the way. 

1.this is Clara.

2. Crazy faces with Gracia 

3. This guy sold us gypsy pants. He's cool 

4. Zoonnneeeee goals 

5.zone conference chillliiinnnnn

6. Gypsy pants 

#19 August 7, 2017

Nothing nothing nothing makes me happier here right now than knowing how happy my family is. Thank you so much for keeping me filled in. It fills me with complete joy just knowing that my family is doing okay and that they are together. It is the biggest answer to my prayers!! It doesn't make me homesick it just makes me happy!

The past couple of days have been just scorching hot. But I do consider it a huge blessing that God has given me that I am able to still have just enough energy to carry on. Definitely some physically enabling going on here. I will try my best to remember what I did this week that I can tell you about!

 There is a family who moved into our ward here in Alcala, they were in this ward three years ago and then moved to Germany for military work. And now they have moved back. They have 8 kids! Which is a Super rarity here in Spain. The oldest 17 the youngest 9 months. And they all speak English, Spanish and German! And they are super super strong in the gospel and the mom is just a firecracker. She is already helping out with the mission work. They have invited us over twice already. Felt just like home 😅and we are just super pumped for them to be here. With their family we finally have a primary and a young men's class! Hahahaha. But yes they are awesome!

We finally met with Loe again after not seeing her for 2 weeks. I was stressing and losing hair about that haha.i would cry sad tears when she'd cancel on us and then cry happy tears when we finally got so see her again. That woman puts me on an emotional roller coaster haha. We have to reestablish some commitments with her but we are really gonna work hard with her.

Hermana Garcia and I ARE planning some fun activities to involve members and investigators. We're gonna have a girls night and we are just going to invite every woman in Alcala and eat food and have a message and probs wear face masks or do something girly like that . And then we are going to have a Joven Party which I am stoked for. We have so many menos activos jovens and I just love the jovens and I just wanna have a party with them to por fin get them in the capilla. We'll  see how it goes with the summer heat. Haha nobody really likes to leave pisos when it's blazing outside pero bueno. 

This week I made cookies. I just wanna let all of my friends and family know that Hannah Rust is still good ole Hannah Rust. I put 2 tablespoons of salt and baking soda in instead of 2 teaspoons. Did I still eat them you ask? No. They were gross. Did we still go deliver them to ward members? Yes. They liked them.... probably. I don't know. 

I am gonna look through pictures and see if I can remember anything else i can tell ya about! 

#18 Monday, July 31, 2017

I'm gonna keep going with this bullet point thing.

•I GOT A BRILLIANT COMPANION THIS WEEK. HERMANA GARCIA ROCKS MY WORLD.

 

•2 days and we already are the best of pals

• nothing went as planned this week but hey that's chill, it happens 

• so Wednesday I said ciao to dear Hermana Spencer and waited 7 hours in the train station for my new comp with Sergio and Hermana Wood. She served in Alcalá for 7 months at the beginning of her mission so we were just chillin. We compared photos and talked about the people we both loved it was super fun. 

I watched new exciting  missionaries come and saw crying elders going home. It was all sweet and exciting. We had a huge group go home but a huge group come in. Good stuff happening in Málaga. 

• so now with Hna  Garcia I have to show her the entire area and basically take control of situations and talk on the phone (WHICH IS THE SCARIEST) but lemme tell ya my Spanish has improved 500 percent just because of this. I'm talking to people on the phone all the time and I'm understanding the andaluz and I'm even speaking it a bit which I probably shouldn't get into that habit because then nobody will be able to understand me hahaha whoops.

• WE contacted this girl singing about Jesus on the bus and she said we could come and visit her, so we did. We completely planned to teach her like we would a new investigator but we went to her house and turns it her and her mother are already members! This was just so funny to us, we had no idea. Poor women just moved to the area and nobody knew about them, so we found em. No worries.

• WE have two pisos here in Alcala because it used to be two areas. The other one still had a ton of stuff in it and we got a call that we had to clean it out before Monday. So we called up JULIO and Nuria to help us and they were gems and came and moved all the stuff to out pisos and cleaned it spotless with us. It took us FOUR HOURS. It was ridiculous and now we have a whole bunch of stuff just chillin in our pisos! Pero bueno. We'll take care of it some time. 

• WE went to Torreblanca (red zone area that we can only go if we have a member) twice this week to find souls there 😎

•I don't know what my tablet autocorrects we to capitalize 

• Hermana Garcia and I ARE gonna do some awesome things in Alcala. 

• WE just had a weird week, but it was good. I'll send pictures. 

"The English word atonement is really three words: at-one-ment, which means to set at one; one with God; to reconcile, to conciliate, to expiate." I love this, it shows how unified the Father and the Son actually are. Christ really is the example of glorifying God's will in everything He does. 

Roof Top Views

 First comp foto 😄

 My alcalareños

 We found roof access so now we exercise up there every morning 

 4 days and she already trusts me with the scissors. I did great