Monday, July 27, 2015

Bens Wedding!!!!

Family!

First off the wedding!!! How was it?!? It makes me so sad I wasn't there, but I am SO grateful to have you as family! The cardboard cut out and the pictures made me so happy!!! But seriously, although I wasn't there and it was super sad that the whole family but me was there, having the pictures made me feel like I wasn't forgotten :) so thank you! But really, I am so grateful to be a part of this family and that we're a family FOREVER <3 i love you all so much!!!

Well today for preparation day we went to Tibidabo which is the highest point in Barcelona it's a cathedral. The view is super pretty so I'll be sending a bunch of photos today!

This week was a good one, honestly not much to say about it haha but I did have an intercambio with hermana dorgia which was super fun! She was my first sister training leader so it's fun to have her again! I have pictures from that as well because well, we got stuck out in a pueblo because the buses don't come during mediodia and we had eaten with a member so we went to find a park to do language study, and we didn't exactly find a park but we found this abandoned place that used to be used as a live nativity it's like a whole town! It was super cool!!!

Our investigator I. dropped us, basically came in told us he wanted nothing to do with this we tried to talk about things with him, but you can't convince people especially once they've made up their mind. But good news...he still wants to be friends.lol. We were joking about how we felt like we just got broken up with.

Sunday night we had a fireside about family history. Wow. Best fireside I've ever been too. I am so sad that so few people went. The spirit was so strong! They did an activity were 6 people sat up front and 3 people in the crowd had names. Well one by one out of the 6 would get up read who they are when they died they're story and how they've been learning about the gospel and then would ask "Does anyone have my name?" When people did you could feel the joy, but when it was just silent you could feel the sadness. I'm pretty sure everyone was crying. They were all real family of the people there and it was so hard to have to see them sit back down. It made me realize how important family history work is. The people on this Earth have a choice, the people there don't. They can choose that they want it but we have to make the choice to do their work so they can accept it. Wow my heart was just filled with love for my family and sadness for those who don't know.

Well that's about it I will now sound a ton of pictures! I love you all so much!!!

Love, Hermana Terrazas








Monday, July 20, 2015

This Week

I know, I know, SUPER exciting title. I just can't think of anything to put. Haha honestly, I don't have much to say about this week...nothing exciting happened.

I still love my companion lol we get along super well! She's super funny and we're always just calling each other crazy. It's funny talking in Spanish cause sometimes we'll leave a lesson and I'll go to say something but I'll say it in English not thinking...and she'll just look at me, not say anything haha and then I'm like oh yeah...haha also sometimes I'll be talking in Spanish and randomly throw in an English word without thinking, but in a Spanish accent. She says I sound like someone trying to learn English, or I'm talking to the elders in English and not thinking I'll say a Spanish word but with an American accent. It's super funny!

So one night we were meeting with I. and he was telling us how he liked how we were, that we gave light and it kinda just hit me, I feel like most the time that we don't stand out, well we do but not because we give light, because we're weird and that a lot of times people reject us so when he said this I was like wow, someone notices that we're different (in a good way) and its ought about Jesus Christ. People rejected the light of the world. He had the most light of anyone who walked on the Earth and he was still rejected. Our mission song is "Brightly beams Our Fathers Mercy" (it's prettier in Spanish) but one line says how Christ is the lighthouse and we are the lower lights upon the shore. I just love that!

Also I've been studying a lot about the Atonement and I loved a verse in Romans 5:19

19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

It's talking about Adam and how the fall was necessary, but I just loved the way this was phrased.

Today for preparation day we wanted to go on a hike...our investigator told us this cool place he said it was more a trail because all the hikes are too "pro" haha well we went...nothing two fields. We're like really...this is all you think of us lol it was funny. But we made the best of it.

Anyways, I hope you all have a good week! I love you a ton!!!

Love, Hermana Terrazas :)



Enjoy :)

Monday, July 13, 2015

Nadie Nos Quiere

But really. Haha that as our saying this week. No one loves us.

I love my companion! But really! She's the sweetest native I've ever met! She's super funny too! We get along super well :) and I love having to speak Spanish ALL THE TIME! I realized the other day that I literally only speak English 5 minutes a day when I talk to the elders! How cool is that!? I love it! And although my Spanish isn't perfect she's so nice, she always says even if it's not perfect she understands me haha I tell her to correct me and sometimes I'll just keep saying the word if I think it's wrong until she says something lol usually she tells me I said it correct not to worry haha but I have to make sure! I hope we stay together 2 or 3 transfers. She's 26 and I feel like she's just a sister. Most natives are SUPER blunt and rude but not like they mean it its just the culture, but she's not at
all. Like, at all.

Granollers is good! It's a little hard right now but that's okay, we still have a good time! We don't let ourselves get down about it. We knock doors a lot....but knocking doors builds character...right? ;) haha we have a couple good investigators but not that many so we're just working to get more! Imanol (the miracle from last week) is still super good! He is now friends with one of the counsellors from the bishopric so that's super good!

Well nothing much really happened this week to be honest...so I don't really have much to say b it was super good and yeah! I hope you all have a good week :)

Love, Hermana terrazas

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Transfers/7 Months!

Uhm so sorry about last week! I don't know what happened it said it sent but I guess not!

So first things first TRANSFERS: I'm staying in Granollers (obviously) my new companion will be Hermana Canales, I hear she's really nice I don't know her but apparently she's from Honduras and lives in Spain now? I'm not sure on that everyone says a different thing, but they all say she's super nice! Which I believe it I love Hondurans! She just got out of training, so this will be her second area. She speaks 0 English so my Spanish is gonna have to improve that's for sure!!! Hermana Ratliff is going to Las Arenas which is in the north!

Second: we met our new mission President!!!! The Daytons seem amazing! We had a conference with 4 zones (Barcelona, Badalona, Hospitalet, and Lleida) on Wednesday! They are so loving and I'm so excited to work with them! They're super accomplished and talented and well, they wrote a song for our mission, and performed it! Super funny! I'm sad I only got the end bit of it, I'll try to send it later. But basically they just introduced themselves and their families and then they had us all introduce ourselves (well our companions introduced us) so that was super fun! There's a TON of people from California in this mission so it was really funny after President Dayton was like "so great we have missionaries from the country of Spain, Mexico, all these countries, and of course the country of California" haha yup we're our own country now! I also got to see a ton of people! It was super fun! Basically like half the Hermanas from the mtc, Hermana Een, and basically all the elders from old districts. It was super fun! Except everyone was like what are you doing here...so I had to explain that story a thousand times. Oh well!

This week was a good one! Still super hot and lots of walking but it was good! We visited a member named Maria del Angeles who lives in a pueblo pretty far and first of all it looks like America! There's houses and GRASS and trees! I was so excited haha but on the bus I got stung by a wasp or something =( it hurt...and I'm definitely allergic haha but luckily she had this oil to put on it and the pain and swelling went down (my whole arm started to swell)! But this member served a mission in Dallas and lived there forever! She just barely moved back to Spain in February! So when I was in Dallas visiting Chel this last year she was there too!!! How cool!!! She's super funny her boyfriend is a spaniard so he doesn't speak English but sometimes she just can't think of words in Spanish so the whole dinner was a mix of Spanglish.

We have another member in the ward, named Nicolas, who lived in the states for awhile, and is the 2nd counselor of the bishopric, and apparently during one of her talks she was trying to say the word "pimp" and she turned to Nicolas and was like "como se dice pimp" and he was like "really who says pimp in a talk?!?" He calls her "gringa" even though she's full spaniard. They're super funny!

So Saturday we went to the hospital because Hermana Ratliffs ankle had been swollen and started to bruise and turns out she has tendinitis...haha I know how that feels! So we're in piso, which is kinda of hard because I need to learn the area...and we can't go work..and now I have to take it over. I'm a little bit stressed about it, but it's not her fault at all!!! We called Hermana Dayton & told her & she goes "Uhm I'm just gonna ask Dr Dayton" haha I have a feeling having a doctor as a President is going to be very nice!

MIRACLE: so Saturday night after the hospital we decided to go down to Condis (a little store below our piso) to grab something real quick, well we were checking out & we were talking to the Condis man like always and he was like "you talk to people about Jesus Christ right? cause before we explained how we don't stop for dinner because we're out talking to people all day, so we said yes and he was like hmmm I'm interested, do you have plans tonight? Uhh no just going to be in piso so he was like I got off work at 9 can you come down and we can just talk in the bench? So we agreed! At first we were kinda sketched out like maybe he didn't really want to know or something, so we went. Wow. The most prepared person ever. He had so many good questions and was just so interested so we brought up church and he agreed to go! And the greatest part is he actually went!!! And stayed for all 3 hours!!! I'll send a picture with him later cause it was Hermana Ratliffs last Sunday. But he is such a miracle!!!  His name is Imanol! Even all our members were like wow he was super interested!!!

Other than that it's been pretty boring just hanging out in piso, I feel like such a normal person since I'm not the one hurt (for the first time) haha but it gave Hermana Ratliff plenty of time to pack and me time to clean the piso! Oh also to take pictures for Bens wedding! I, excited to see that cardboard cut out ;)

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!!!

Love, Hermana Ruth Terrazas


It looks like home!!!


So this is our miracle Imanol!!!! He's super great so we had to get a
picture with him before Hermana Ratliff left!!!


Our Consejo selfie. Haha our ward is awesome!!! The one on the right with the glasses is our Bishop and the one on the left with the glasses is the one who lived in the states when we told him about Imanol he was like "What's the catch? I want to go to a cita with him" haha 


The end of the Daytons singing!!!

Last Weeks Email!

So I definitely sent this email last week and it was in my sent but apparently it didn't really send...so super sorry I did try! So here's last weeks email!!!

Well it hasn't even been a week here and it's been crazy, getting emergency transferred is SO sad. But really, it's super hard to leave without saying goodbye to people, but I love Granollers! It's definitely different, it's a pueblo so it's ways smaller but I love it! The ward is way smaller but our bishop used to be a Mission President! So that's super cool! It was hard when I came because they literally had no one, no citas and no people. They've been sick and haven't been able to work so we literally started from ground zero. But Hermana Ratliff is a super hard worker so we just went for it! We've found a good amount of people who are interested so it's growing!!! I'm nervous to take over the area in a week but I'm sure it'll be great! I've definitely been learning a lot about myself and growing this past week.

So we walk a LOT which is nice cause pretty sure I'm losing weight! Haha but it's super hot and we walk all day so we're disgusting, like just dripping sweat, living th good life. Also our piso doesn't have ac so we have to leave the windows open and I get attacked by bugs. I have 13 bites and I've been here like 4 days haha and okay so I'm allergic to some type of spider in not sure what, but it happened in Valencia too. I get bit and it gets super big and purple and deep red and like super gross, and it hurts! It actually made me pretty sick for a day but we literally just don't have time to rest so we kept going which was good and I was fine the next day! But luckily the rest of the bites are just from Mosquitos!!!

Miracle story: Sunday we're walking down the street and there's this drunk guy and he starts following us...while making kissing noises and whistling so we start walking super fast and probably a good 5 minutes later I look back and he's still following us so we pick up the pace and then finally he stopped but we like had passed our investigators house so we go back and he's not home but there's this lady sitting down who was looking at us so we decided to contact her and she was SUPER nice she's from Honduras (I love Hondurans!!!!) and we got talking & she wants us to go to her house and teach her and her 3 kids!!!!! Miracle!!! She's super funny after we were just talking and she tells us how she saw us like running & she's like "here in Spain you don't run you turn around & ask them why they're bothering you and threaten to call the police, in our countries we run but here dot run" and then her husband gave us the number of the police for next time haha. It was super funny. Also her husband is from Valencia so we bonded over that!

So yeah our week has been lots of walking, sweating, and working but super good! This week we're going to visit a bunch of ward members so I can get to know them so when my new companion comes it's less awkward. Haha also president Pace leaves tomorrow! I'm super sad but I'm really excited to meet the Daytons and I know it'll be great!!!

Something I read this morning in Personal Study was Alma 7:11-13

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

But my favorite thing to do is to put my name in for "his people" so it would read: "he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of Ruth" "that he may know according to the flesh how to succor Ruth according to her infirmities."

I want to challenge you all to do that! To make the scriptures personal! Add your name in and I promise the scriptures will mean so much more to you.


I love you all have a great week!

Love, Hermana Terrazas