#34 Canton Santos Angeles ...Originally sent 12/18/2017

This week was the weekiest weeks of weeks it was just too cray cray. I'll try to let you all in on what happened. Because man I just thought it was a righteous blast.

We had the super great opportunity to prestar some service for our intpvestigators this week. We made some lil decorations and decorated their door. We were just about to go and attack their door with Christmas cheer but they were outside so we RAN like we had never run before. It was humorous, really. But they got our cute notes and really loved it. 

We met with Viviana and she finally brought her daughters so we are officially almost teaching a whole family!  Ahhh answers to prayers. We had a whole  bunch of cool opportunities to share the Illuminate the World Christmas video and that's just been the best. It makes finding so much easier and so much more fun. Also some member invited us over to have a family home evening and they invited some Nonmember friends and it was so fun! That is definitely answered to prayers right there.

So Wednesday night we and our other 2 hermana friends packed our bags and went a couple hours north on a bus to Granada to stay the night with the Hermanas there. We watched the Christmas devotional on the way and it was just a lovely Christmas celebration. So we got to Granada and there were 6 of us Hermanas. Basically a small army so we had 30 minutes to divide and conquer and we all just went and contacted in the beautiful streets of Granada. We found a girl from Washington DC and it was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do to contact in English. It was so weird and exhilarating. And then we caroled to the passbyers. It was sweet. 

So we all spent the night there on Wednesday and got up at 5:30 the next morning to get on a bus to Murcia for the Christmas zone conference. And jolin, that was an amount of fun I was not expecting. One whole half of the mission was there so it was rad to see my missionary friends. We started with a talent show that was just loco. Some people did real talents and they were bomb but mostly people just did weird but absolutely hilarious skit type deals. I can't even explain it. I don't know about you guys but missionaries are FUNNY. My district did a little skit. People laughed. it was funny. But anywho, and then we all went to Murcia central and sang Christmas hymns as a whole group. Can't get enough of the Christmas caroling. President and Hermana Anderson spoke to us. President talked about ALWAYS testifying of Christ and if we did, we would be filled with the spirit of Christ this Christmas. The best part of being a missionary is that we have so many opportunities to testify of Him, and through doing so, my love for Christ has grown so much. And then we all sang our Mission hymn (which Elder Holland named as the favorite mission hymn he has ever heard😎). There is something so completely satisfying and magical about gathering in a circle as a mission and singing and swaying to O Vos Los Llamados. Also I got blamed for singing the verses in the wrong order and steering the entire mission astray but I blame it on you mom 😉  and then we  ate paella. 

And then we had a 3 hour bus ride back to Granada and literally for 3 hours my Hermanas and some other elders sang hymns the entire way. And these elders were not just messing around, we had 4 part harmony going on their. It was beautiful and a lot of fun. I just love all of the singing we have done this week. 

And then one of my favorite parts of this week was something as simple as this: we made it back to Granada and we had to spend the night their again. Right before bed Hermana Hargis showed us the bible video of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Oh my goodness. I don't know why I had never watched it before but it has changed my life. It's one of my favorite bible stories because to me it shows best the character of Christ. He had so much faith in His father that he would be able to perform miracles, and He did. He knew he could and was going to raise Lazurus from the dead, yet he still wept, and mourned with Mary and Martha who were mourning. The way He consoled them in their sadness made me feel so much love for my savior because I know he continues to offer that same soccoro to me. I dont know how to say that in English, succor?

 

For everyone who reads this email, could you maybe do me a Christmas favor and send me your simple and beautiful testimonies of Jesus Christ? I love hearing people bear witness of His name. I have some ideas stirring around inside of my head. 

I'll start: Jesus Christ is the Son of God. It is only by Him and the mercy He offers that I can be with my Father again. I know He loves me because He has given me His grace to overcome when I didn't have my own strength to do so. He is my Healer and I love Him. I know He lives and because He lives I am so excited to see Him in the flesh and just give Him the biggest hug. I feel honored to be His representative. 

Merry Christmas from Almería! 

Love, Hermana Rust 

For having such a great week I didn't not take enough photos.here are some random gems 

1. Caroling with the hermanas in Granada 

2. Our small army

3. Decoratin' doors

4.thats a lot of Paella.

 5. Blurry selfies 

6. I'm just throwing it back to the Bako and Hermana Rust squad days. So righteously fierce. 

#33 Companionship unity

The purpose for the subject line:

Hermana Boggess and I found ourselves at 4 o clock this morning having companionship study. Hahaha literally it was the funniest thing. We both have a severe problem talking in our sleep so we combined our efforts to have companion study. She was asking me what we were studying and I was telling her random pages of Preach My Gospel.  Which is so nice because mom, I can't tell you how many times I have taught Lesson 1 by myself at 3 in the morning to my wall. It's nice to finally have someone help me out 😉 my sleep talking and walking has only gotten worse on the mission... My poor companions. We woke up this morning just laughing so hard. Also juat while I'm at it, we both have light switches right at the head of our beds and each of us at least once accidently turns the light on during the night, it's actually kind of creepy but hey what can you do. 

Anywho enough of the goofy stuff. We finally taught some investigators this week. Alll of our investigators just like to meet with us out in the chilly air but it's okay, we're glad to be teaching anyone. The really really hard thing is that seriously all but one of our investigators works on Sundays. It's such a pena because the economy is pretty bad here I guess so work is just hard to find in general. We are praying a lot and are definitely needing some celestial help with that. But hope is something we do have. 

We had 4 eating citas this week and all the food was just so yummy. The members here are so very sweet. Our favorite lunch is always with Paco and Beatriz. They are gems sent from heaven. Seriously every time we go to their house they just treat us like queens. They just wait upon our every need. This week we had some yummy soup stuff and then we each got a plate full of huugggee shrimps and in Spain they just keep the bone and head and guts and everything. They serve it whole, I don't really know why, maybe just to show it's fresh or somwthing.  But we are these huge shrimps and then sucker on their heads with their beady little black eyes hahaha. Gross. But it was good! And they brought me back a whole bucket of green olives from Madrid. Kinds souls. Also just side note,  it's really funny cause they just call me Roots cause they cant say my name its humorous. But ANYWAY after the lunch we teach em a bit and we taught about faith and repentance and hermana Boggess and I were just ending with our testimonies and Beatriz chimed in and bore a beautiful testimony. And then Paco as well said something so so important. He said he has strengthened his relationship with God and since he has been coming to church and meeting with us and really praying, he has received so many answers and so much comfort and also that everyday he learns something new from God. It's is such an incredible thing to see investigators deepen their relationship with God for themselves because they want to . HE REALLY DOES ANSWER PRAYERS!

Also on Saturday we met with Celina. She's like 20 from Guinea Equatorial in Africa. She meets with us every week but she just kinds listens to us and doesn't really show much interest but this week she actually asked questions and gave input. We showed her one of the Easter videos to explain the Atonement a little bit and she loved it. She understood and she actually showed expression which is seriously a miracle. Prayers answered, sabes?

Also Saturday night we went contacting crazy and hermana Boggess and I were talking about how much we just want to teach a family so we talked to a bunch of families. We did find one who was interested. We just showed everybody the #lighttheworld video and it was so lovely because we were contacting next to this giant Christmas light tree and it just felt like Christmas. And they had this giant farmers market/fair thing so we decided to treat ourselves to some Gofres. I'll attach pictures of all of this. 

And the yesterday we got a new ward mission leader and we are really excited for that! This new bishop is just turning this ward around. He is just so precious I just love him haha. Also it was the primary program yesterday and if you think that's cute in America, it gets so much cuter in Spain with the the little children singing and speaking with their little voices in spanish it is just so dang cute. 

Hermana Boggess is doing so well she is so diligent and is always working to be better. She has inspired me a ton. She is from alpine Utah, she's 6 feet tall and she is ACTS JUST LIKE JACOB HAUVER HAHAHAH we get along so great. She's the companion I have always wanted. But let's be honest, all of my comps hab E been incredible. But we just have so much fun together and still work so hard together. It's the best of both worlds. She makes me go running in the morning and I hate it hahahaha. Also ahe has this crazy talent where she can say any word backwards like really fast. She barely hesitates and can seriously do it with any word and even small sentences it's the craziest thing haha I'm such a fan. This Thursday we get to go to Murcia with the whole other half of our mission for a Christmas conference. And we're having a talent show and she's gonna do that... And I'm expected to do something but I have no talent... so maybe I'll just pit my fist in my mouth and call it good. 

1. This is Ainoa, we were her biggest fans in the primary program. I dont know why my neck vains are so gross 

2.GOFRES. I guess a gofre is just a waffle but 12 times better.

3. Two of my favorite things 😉

4.my companion loves talking to old men and I don't. Hahaha 

5. I forgot to write about this last week, but last pday we were in city center and their were these people doing a flash mob to whoever would throw away trash to try to promote city cleanliness. So The elders knew about it and tricked us into throwing away a piece of paper and then out of no where all these men and women came with a bunch of brass instruments started playing When the Saints Come Marching In and the woman started dancing with us ans it was actually really fun haha I loved it. So this is the picture we took after it. 

                                                   6.giant Christmas tree. Featuring me 

              7.tree

8.ha

9. alll l bundled up

#32

HI MOM HOW ARE YOU I'M GREAT. THIS WEEK HAS BEEN LONG HAHA BUT IT'S OKAY. so Tuesday Hermana Cornwall and I packed up to Malaga to go collect our new companions and it was fun to see pres and hermana Anderson again. It was so fun to find out who my companion was! We were the first ones to get called. Also it was weird because I saw all of my friends going home and it was actually really sad.

 This week has been such a blur. I don't even know what to say. We brought our cute companions back to Almeria. They are just so excited and so pumped to do the work. Our piso is all decorated for the Christmas season ahhh. We have been doing little services for the light the World. We gave water bottles to some needy men and it was fun. My companion loves to talk to old men it's so funny.

We did something different this week. All of the missionaries in Almeria went to the hermanas area to contact for an hour and it was actually really fun to do it all together. We got a bunch of futures and just talked to everyone. It was so fun and I could really tell that the spirit puts the words in our mouths when we need them.

 Some thing I have come to love on the mission is to testify. At the beginning of the mission, I used to dread contacting people who said they were atheist, now it's my favorite thing! It's so wonderful just to tell them that at least I know that God is real and that He loves them. Ah there is nothing better. My companion just wants to teach so bad but all of our citas have failed but we still have faith, sabes? Its going to be SUCH a great 12 weeks with sweet Hermana Boggess. She is a ray of sunshine and reminds me lots and lots of Jacob Hauver hahahaha.

 I SAW HERMANA SPENCER !

 All bundles up because it's cooolllddddddd.

#31 originally sent Nov 28, 2017

HI family, friends, and straight up randomers. This week has been....something else. I'll start with...TUESDAY.

Hermana Lighten has been so sick. So I had time to read like 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon instead of one! It was actually a righteous party. Also! I had time to sew a dress. BECAUSE the Elders investigator, Valentina got baptized, and she doesn't have many dresses or anything. So in our piso we had this super cute black dress that was a large and Valentina is teeny tiny. So I sewed

It up into a small with some thread I found in the piso. And it actual looked so good. I'm so proud of myself, you taught me well ,mother. I'm considering taking up sewing.  And then I put it on and took pictures because I was just so pumped. And yeah...that is what I got to do on my 8 month mark.

 And then the rest of the week just got so good. We had an incredible lesson with Alma, I'm pretty sure I wrote about contacting her last week. But allow me to expound a little bit. I read Elder Uchtdorf's talk this week about "returning to our heavenly home" and I was so intrigued with the idea that we are all here on earth with the purpose to return home. Right after I was reading in Preach my Gospel about the light of Christ. Every single person in Spain has been given the light of Christ, therefore every single person has that inward compass that is trying to guide them home. It is more evident in some than others, but I feel so privileged to help the people remember their eternal identity and spark that interest in them where they want to return home. Even though we have all passed through the veil, we have the Holy Ghost slowly bringing things to our remembrance, like the reality of our Premortal life. When we remember God, we remember that He knows us and that we knew Him before.

 We were in a cita with Alma who has been angry at God for quite some time now. She was born with an infirmity and she is very upset, yet she still believes in God. We taught her about our Pre-existence which she agreed just made sense to her. We taught her about our purpose here on earth and how through the fall, things became imperfect. We taught her about our loving Savior who has suffered everything that she had, and who has His arm outstretched to her to pull her up. She would become so accepting of what we were saying, even smiling, and then Satan would remind her of her upset feelings she had toward God.  We just testified to her of how loving God is and how He is All Mighty and All Knowing. We asked her to pray to be able to feel God's love. So she did. And while she prayed, I prayed, and my companion prayed. We prayed that she would be able to feel something. She did. She voiced in her prayer, "Father, I miss you."  And just then, through the incredible opportunity we have to talk with our Father, she felt the desire to return home. Through her light of Christ, she felt the desire to know God again. The spirit spoke to her spirit and she felt God's love. And through that experience I felt God's love also. 

AND THEN something else incredible happened. We were doing our weekly planning and we had to cut it in half because we had two citas inbetween. So we were planning and it was going all right, but we kind of hit a wall and weren't sure what to do with some investigators. We decided to pray about it and then leave to go to our citas. The citas we had just so happened to be with the two investigators that we were having trouble with.

 [We went to our cita with Paco who we are teaching and his girlfriend Beatriz who is a menos activa. . We asked how the papers for her divorce were coming and they said they would get them next month! And they're so excited and I am too! This is seriously a miracle because we have been praying so hard for those papers to come so that they can get married and he can be baptized]

 But another miacle is that Paco, (our investigator) started talking about how excited he was to finally be able to be baptized. He was able to go to a convert baptism on Saturday and he was so excited to see how he would get baptized. He pushed his way to the front ao that he made sure to see and then requested that a bigger man baptized him that could hold his weight 😂This was surely an answer to our prayers just to know that he still was thinking about baptism and that he is so excited to be baptized. The other investigator, we weren't sure if she was actually interested in our messages. She would listen, and pray, and read, but still wasn't progressing so much, and we knew it but we just weren't sure why we felt like she was missing something. So we went to her cita and she was able to express to us some of her feelings and even the spirit told us so evidently that she needed more learning, that she quite hadn't understood everything the first time missionaries taught her so we are gonna go over some things again. I was completely satisfied with that answer and am pumped for Pilar. 

So what I, Hermana Rust, am trying to say is that GOD LOVES US SO MUCH. And he doesn't withhold blessings from us. And that the best thing about being a missionary is that you see how much Heavenly Father loves your investigators, and in turn, you feel how much he loves YOU! And that i think so often we dont see prayer as the fabulous thing that it is. Feeling stressed? Pray. Feeling happy? Pray. Feeling unloved? PRAY. When you pray, you will always always always feel God's love and that is a promise. We have the opportunity to pray always to a supreme being, all powerful and all loving. That's something that shouldn't be taken lightly. That's INCREDIBLE. My mind is seriously blown. 

I just wanna take some time and talk more about my favorite people, Paco and Beatriz. I have never met two people who are so KIND. They invite us over to eat and Paco knows that I love Aquarius so he goes and buys Aquarius just for me. And he knows that I love anchovie flavored olives so every time we go over there they give me a jar of olives. The last time we went to eat, Beatriz (from El Salvador) made Papusas! Do you remember that so Salvador restaurant we would go to with Natalie in Provo and we always got those little pancake things with cheese and meat and beans? And they're called papusas? Well she made them and it made me sooo happy! She even had that jar of pickled vegetable stuff that they would put on the table and you'd put on top. Ah it was so good. And then they always give us all the left over food and offer to drive us home. They just love us so much and I just love them so much. Beatriz always tells us that we are like her daughter's and we just feel so loved in their home. 

ALSO THANKSGIVING. Like I said, our Ecuadorian district leader took it upon himself to make us a turkey as a token of gratitude. And it was actually really good! It had stuffing inside that was tasty. And he made mashed potatoes and we went around the table and said what we were grateful for. It felt like we were in the States :') 

In other news, this week is transfer week! I am staying here in Almeria, Hermana Lighten se va a Cartagena, and I'll be getting a new new new companion straight out of the MTC. I'm so excited! We got a new bishop yesterday and we went to ward council and I am so pumped because he is gonna be straight fire. He is sharp as a knife and the nicest guy and he basically just told everyone that ward council is going to be focused on the obra misional heeeeyyyyyy. Three cheers for Bishop Lopez 🙆‍♀️🙆‍♀️🙆‍♀️

Also the new Light the World video is incredible. I love love love the solid 30 seconds it shows where Christ is physically lifting people up. When  see that it makes me all shivery and happy. I don't know about you all, but I have definitely felt Christ lifting me up like that. And what a beautiful opportunity we have this season to lift others. 

This was the longest emails and I don't think I have covered everything but I'll add some pics.