Goodbye Granollers

Yup, I'm being transferred. We kinda already figured, but I had the hope that maybe I would stay one more. I am going to Martorell! It's kinda funny I have now served 45 min to the west of Barcelona, 45 min to the north, and now like 45 min to the south...they just really want to keep me around! Haha but I knew if I'd be transferred I'd stay close. Anyways, my new companion will be Hermana Reid. She actually lived with us in Terrassa my first 2 weeks of the mission and then we went to the Valencia zone together at the same time! It's kind of nice to already know who my companion is and what she's like!

Well this week was crazy. We had Zone Conference which was super good! I love conferences in the mission. They're definitely one of the best parts. Especially testimony meeting. Missionary testimony meetings are the best. After that I had an intercambio with Hermana Lamoreaux so they was super fun!

So on Friday we were out working and my throat hurt but I just went bought some cough drops and we kept working, well then Saturday morning I woke up and boom. Tonsillitis. I have some great luck. Saturday I felt like death. I basically slept the ENTIRE day. And then Sunday at church everyone was like "ohh....your sick..." Thanks you noticed? Haha.

 Man this ward is SO hard to say goodbye to. I feel like every ward I just get closer to and love more and more. I feel like my second family is here in Granollers. I remember when I got here thinking that I hoped I got transferred soon and was not looking forward to my time here, somewhere along those first few weeks everything changed and I became unbelievably close with the people here. It really was so hard to say goodbye. Hermano Merchan in our gospel principle class asked me to bear my testimony and before I did he told me "Hermana although maybe you didn't have many numbers here you planted seeds, and we'll take care of them. But most important you taught us all, you shared your love and we learned so much. I learned things from you I will keep forever." It was the sweetest and then in consejo when I told them I was leaving bishop got up grabbed one of the young adults there and said "give her a big hug for me" and then she gave me the longest hug. I am so grateful for the love I have felt from this ward. Afterwards all the women stayed to watch the Relief Society broadcast and Maria deal Angels came and sat down by me and told me how it would be so weird for her to watch this in Spanish because she always watches conference in English. Soooo we went to another room and I got to watch it in English :) I was a happy camper. But when we were watching during one of the songs she turned to me and said "I'm sure your moms thinking of you right now, and she's really proud of you." It was a tender moment.

Monday I had to say my hardest goodbye, Dari, Romane, and Dylan. Dari is a recent convert who is 14 years old and I just love her! We go to their house every Monday night to have a lesson and dinner :) I am going to miss all the laughs, jokes, and food. Haha. They made me a cake with a candle and everything :) also they gave me an anklet which is super pretty! I feel like Dari is the little sister I never had. Oh and of course her baby brother Dylan :)

I'm sad to be leaving but excited to go to a new area and meet more amazing people! I know for sure I will be visiting this family of mine here in Granollers. I'll send pictures :)

I love you all and have a great week!

Love, Hermana Ruth Terrazas

Ps. I'm sending this this morning and then I'll get back on later to email more with my new companion.

I forgot!

So this week was a weird one so one day we were contacting and this man kept trying to kiss us! And then got mad at us because we didn't want to haha like the first time he tried and we backed away and then got mad that we didn't like him and we explained we're missionaries and he kind of calmed down and then like 5 minutes later tried again. So we just walked away. In the moment it was super annoying, now looking back it was super funny.

When we went to eat with one of our members she decided to give us a law of chastity lesson for when we got home....haha talk about awkward. But super funny!

I'm sure there's more but I can never remember, anyways until later :)

Barcelona and Badalona zones :)

Oh yeah we had a birthday party for Elder Deleu!

Julia and Ana :)

Dixiana and Mateu :) her parents live in Martorell so I'll see her!

Dari ❤️

Maria deal Angels :)

Yes that says my name...haha I promise they don't call me that but she said "Terrazas" wouldn't fit and then Romane said "yeah and my hand would cramp trying to write all that!" Haha

Dylan :)

My companion

Almost all the hermanas who got transferred!

Hermana birch is now going to be the companion of Hermana Canales!!! (Hna birch is in my group and I lived witness her in Valencia and love her!!!)

One More Week!

Hello!

This was a good week! Next week is transfers and we're both nervous because we have no clue what's going to happen...we have the same amount of time here soooo we could stay together which we both want haha or one of us is leaving...Hermana Canales thinks I'm leaving but I'm not sure. Honestly, when I first came to Granollers I thought I wanted to leave shortly, but now after 3 1/2 months I've come to love it here. I love the members, and I love it here. I have learned so much here, probably more than in my whole mission. And I've grown as well. But we'll see what happens.

Well this week was super good! We were in the street contacting people basically for the whole week but it was fun and we have a couple people really interested! So last night we had a cita with a woman from our area book and she lived in a little pueblo. So we went and it was an HOUR to walk...an hour. And the best part the whole time...uphill but not just a hill like straight. We were joking "so the doctor said not to walk uphills or stairs...so what do we climb a mountain for an hour!" So yeah we thought that when we got there she wouldn't be there (that's about how the mission usually goes) but she was there and super interested! She visited the church in the U.S. With her sister and the visitors center and loved it!!! I'm super excited to visit her next Sunday but the only down part is that walk again...

So this week our zone had a goal to find 8 news, and Sunday night at 8:50 we only had 5 and we sent our numbers in and Elder Deleu called and said no you have 15 more minutes I'm not sending in the numbers you can find 3, so we were super pumped and went and found 3 people in 15 minutes!!!! It was so exhilarating! It was like an adrenaline rush haha so that was a huge miracle!! And I know it's because this week we decided that if we wanted to see miracles we had to be EXACTLY obedient (not that we were ever disobedient) but this week we did everything we could and we saw miracles!

I love my mission, I am so happy I made this decision to serve the Lord for 18 months it is definitely the best decision I have made and every day I'm more and more grateful.

Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Ruth Terrazas

Our lovely district :)

hospital gowns: at least their modest!

We cut our hair today! (Just the ends) and got cool watches from McDonald's

Noche de Culturas

Well this week we had our culture night! (I'll send pictures later) it was super fun! We got there early to set up there were 9 or 10 different countries! USA, France, Honduras, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Spain, Bolivia, Venezuela, and we had more countries in our ward but they couldn't come! We watched a video before about all the countries, has a message and then went to eat! I made banana bread and it turned out super good! I was scared cause it was my first time making it but it was good! I had lots of arguments because they kept trying to call it cake...its not cake. Also everyone complained that I didn't bring hamburgers haha but all in all it was a super fun activity! We had two investigators come and I think they liked it!

Since Wednesday was my 9 month mark I took the traditional pregnancy pictures, I don't know why but it's a tradition in our mission for the hermanas to take pregnancy pictures at 9 months haha so I'll send those later :)

This week was a little difficult work wise, basically all the people we had just fell through and we either couldn't get in touch with them or they didn't want anything and then the whole week we were street contacting or knocking doors and we just had zero success. We don't know what happened, Sunday night we still had 0 new investigators for the week and I was just praying to find at least one person, so we went to one of our pueblos to do some pass bys and we decided to talk to every single person, even if they looked scary, or busy, and after probably 30 people we found a guy named C.!!! And he's been to our church before! So that was a huge miracle. But this week we're ready to just contact the heck out of Granollers and find people! R. (our fecha from before) told us on Saturday that she still wants to be baptized but can't because her husband doesn't want her to, he had been trying for a long time to get her baptized in his church but she said no, and so she said if she were to get baptized in our church it would start a huge fight and possibly end their marriage. So obviously that can't happen, we're hoping with time he'll lighten up and she can be baptized.

I'll send some pictures now! Love you all!

Love, Hermana Terrazas

9 Months and a Dream!

Hi family!!

I hope you had a great week! :) can you believe it!?! I'm at my 9 months! It doesn't seem real. I still feel like a baby in the mission haha but it really is crazy that I'm at the half way point. I love my mission and wouldn't trade this experience for anything! Everyday I grow to love it more! I'm so grateful for the things I've learned and the people I've met. If there's one thing I've learned it's that thinking makes all the difference, whether it's positive or negative. If you think positive things will be positive, if you think negative things will be negative! It seems so simple but it's so true, the days where I just am so negative in my thinking are terrible but the days where I'm thinking positively despite the circumstance are the best days! Another thing-- about the hard days. Me and Hermana Canales were talking about this and I've come to a conclusion, that hard days build character and testimony. A lot of people when we tell them about our schedule say "well yeah but who's in your piso making you do it who's checking in on you?" And when we tell them no one, that we just do it, that they trust us they're always super shocked. Because it's true we technically could just go to piso and no one would know but we don't! The mission, and especially the hard days, build us to be honest to have character! One time President Pace told me "if you didn't have a testimony you wouldn't be you wouldn't be doing this" and it's so true! That this is hard, a lot of days are hard but because I have a testimony I'm here! And it grows everyday!

Well this week was super good! I had my first dream in all Spanish!!!! That was super exciting!!! I don't remember exactly what about...except that I woke up in the middle of the night super excited because it was in all Spanish, then I went back to bed haha

We have an activity Saturday for different cultures! Everyone is going to bring a dish from their country! We have 10 different countries in our wars! Spain is such a mixture of people! I'm super excited :) I'm still thinking about what I'm going to bring...if you have ideas send them to me...please :)

This week we set a fecha with Rosa!!! She's an investigator who we couldn't meet with for a couple weeks and we went Saturday and she wasn't there so we left and then she called us half an hour later and said she had left for a bit and lost track of time and asked if we could come back right then! So we went and we watched the Restoration with her and set a goal for her to be baptized on the 19th! I'm super excited for her! It was funny we invited her to the activity just to go and she was like okay oh I can bring this and this! Haha she's perfect!

We had Enfoque de zona this week and so I got to see Hermana Lamoreaux! So that was super fun, also I got a letters from the young women in the ward! Please tell them all thank you and that I loved
them :)

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

Love, Hermana Ruth Terrazas :)

The Cataluyna flag with candles!