Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Meet the Office Hermanas!

Well this week was an interesting one, we had interviews on Thursday which was great! I love interviews with President! And mostly just getting to sit and talk with Hermana Dayton :) she had a bag of candy so we could "trick or treat" and she made us banana bread. She's so great! So in interviews President and I decided that it would be best for me to go work in the office until the end of the transfer to see if my knees get any better. They've been getting pretty bad as of late so hopefully this will help. Basically we go to the office Monday-Saturday and we still are living in Martorell so we leave after studies at 11 and get there at 12 and then stay until 6:30. We get back to piso at like 8 or 8:30 at night and just do things in piso. President doesn't want us working because he wants to just see if we can really rest my legs so that after these 2 weeks I can go work again. It was pretty hard on Sunday to give all our investigators to the Elders :( especially since after a couple hard weeks of pure contacting we finally have people progressing and we have to give them over. But I'm sure the Elders will take care of them.

Sunday I did a musical number with the Elders! It was fun! Elder Jones played the piano and Elder Ahlstrom and I sung "Con El Salvador al Lado" which is if the Savior stood beside me. I love that song in Spanish. It's super pretty.

In the office we're basically just Hermana Daytons assistants! So we don't even really work in the office, most the time we're up in the mission home working. Which was SO weird the first day when they just gave us the keys and left...like really? But it's so good! We're working on the mission blog, emails to parents, typing up a bunch of projects Hermana Dayton has! It's so great, we're super busy every second that the time passes by insanely fast. The Elders are grateful because they told us if we weren't here they would be the ones doing these projects, and they're already plenty busy. Yesterday we finished everything we needed to do and Hermana Dayton wasn't there to give us more and it was only 4:30 and we did NOT want to just go back to piso so we just asked the Elders what we could do to help them so we just made a bunch of calls & basically did busy work but it made me feel good we could do something to help! It's funny cause everyone gets really confused when we start calling them because hermanas have never worked in the office before. Haha.

My scripture I ponderized this week was 3 Nefi 5:13 13 "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." That's what I'm doing all day every day! How great is that?! I'm just here to declare the word of God so that we can all live with Him one day!

Well that was my week! I hope you all had a fantastic week!

Os quiero!

Hermana Ruth a Terrazas ❤️

Monday, October 19, 2015

Philippians 3:2

Read it. It says... "Beware of dogs." Yesterday this scripture came to life.

We went to visit a member and its this huge house with this gate, well she lets us in and this pit bull just comes running barking and growling, and first I'm like oh whatever hola! And then it just starts getting closer and she's like no it doesn't bite...it then tries to bite my hand and I barely move it in time. Que va. So she grabs the dog and is like once he calms down so after a bit I put my hand up to his nose...and he goes nuts and tries to kill me again. So she had to carry the dog until we got inside. Scariest moment of my life. I don't know why, but it's true that missionaries and dogs are NOT friends. The bible even says it.

This week was super good! We had intercambios and I was with Hermana Steinfeldt! My mtc companion! So that was fun! And we saw a huge miracle! Do you remember I. from last week? Well Wednesday we were waiting for an investigator to meet us at the church for a cita and I. walks up so we say hi and he's like we had a cita right? (No we didn't have one until the next day) so we're like oh...yeah...okay. So we go and talk to him (our other investigator never showed up) and we teach him the restoration and he tells us he knows it's true! And that he already believes the Book of Mormon is true! So we set a fecha with him to get baptized the 7th of November! He is super prepared!

And then on Sunday we had like 4 people who said they would for sure be at church...and not one of them came :( but then we were sitting there during sacrament meeting and this young girl walks in and the bishops wife asks me if I know her I say no she must be one of the elders. So afterwards our ward mission leader brings her to us and says she lives in your area, so we talk to her and she's friend of a less active member and so she just decided to come and see what it was like! All on her own! She stayed for all 3 hours and LOVED it. She said it was filled with love and felt like we were all just a big family. :) what a miracle!

So funny story. Wednesday during English class they're asking me how to say phrases and I'm like wow they have a ton of questions this is something great! Then it turns out they were just wondering how to ask us out....hahaha took me awhile to catch on but they thought it was hilarious, and then at the end they were like "como se dice tus ojos son muy bonitos" I'm like "your eyes are very beautiful" and then they would say it back to us with these huge grins. Haha we got a good laugh out of it. Oh Africans.

Well anyways I had a great week and I hope you all did as well! The scripture I was ponderizing this week was Helaman 12:1 "and thus we can behold how false and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him."  I really liked this scripture because I realized that it's true, the hearts of men are so unsteady we're always changing what we want, but when we learn to put our trust in God we feel his love and his blessings, his ways don't change. It's something I'm working on more is how to put my trust in God and not in man.

Love you all!

love, Hermana Ruth Terrazas



That is the Christopher Columbus statue where he left from Spain!!! How cool!


We went to barc today! And got MEXICAN FOOD! Man I've missed that stuff.



Monday, October 12, 2015

10 Months!

Hello!

Man I just feel like every month goes by faster and faster! How crazy I hit my 10 months already!

This week was a good one! And a long one! Well I got my retainer finally (from when someone stole my bag like 2 months ago) and wow it hurt! I felt like I got braces all over again! But the day we got it we stopped by the office and Hermana Een was there so I got to see her! I love being able to see old companions :)

So this week a recent convert from the Hermanas was helping us with a cita and he's from Ghana and is so funny. He's my new favorite person here. He just told me all about Africa and what countries are good and which aren't and how they tell the difference between each other. It was super fun. He also tried to teach me Twi...I think I'm just going to stick with English and Spanish.... But we were waiting and he was like "this guys from (place in Africa) but I mean...I'm not judging or anything..." Apparently there's some bad blood between some states in Africa haha and during a cita with him we're talking and all of a sudden he just bows his head & closes his eyes so we're like okay I guess it's time to start so I ask him who's praying and he just says "you are" without looking up, it was really funny. And then to close I ask him who he wants to say it and he says you & I told him I just prayed & he was like so, you're new. Haha thanks...

Also this week something I've noticed my whole mission finally clicked. The difference between city buses/bus drivers and pueblo ones. The city ones are just normal men and if there is music it's so quiet you can barely hear it. Pueblo buses are just crazy. The bus drivers are usually hippies, and the music is loud and just anything goes. They're these little buses and the bus drivers just go fast and crazy. It's the closest we get to a roller coaster ride on the mission. I love pueblo buses. Even though sometimes I fear my life, it's all good.

This week when we were at a Locultorio printing off something the guy final,y asked us who we are and with what group so we explain what missionaries are and everything & then he just goes oh okay...well this is free and gave us free gum :) I love nice people!

We had two huge miracles this week! The first is N., we contacted her last thing one night and she seems super interested so we set up a cita and we met with her she's our age, and is just golden! During the lesson she stops and says "is it okay with you if next time I bring my boyfriend to listen as well?" Uhm YES! She is definitely prepared. And then there's I.. So Saturday we had a cita and we brought a member with us. Well the cita fired and we couldn't go contact (I'll explain later) so we didn't know what to do so we walk out of the building and he stops and waves this guy over from across the street, and then turns and tells us that this is his friend and he's been talking about the church with him and wants us to teach him...so the guy I. comes over and before we can say anything the member says I want you to invite him to church (in front of him) so we laugh and I'm like hey we have church tomorrow! You should come! He said maybe, but then left. Well Sunday, HE CAME! That like never happens!!! And the best part he's been there before!!! And said he'd start going again!!! What?!? Miracles!!!

Okay now I'll explain the not being able to contact thing. Well lately my knees have been getting worse but I've still been able to work, well Saturday we had ward sports, and we all we played is rapido where you just shoot the soccer ball in the goal, and I thought it was fine because I wasn't running & i don't kick with the bad knee. Well after my knees hurt, and then as the day goes on it gets so bad where I just could not walk. At all. I would try and have to stop after 2 steps...which was okay because we had a day FULL of citas so if I could just manage to get there I could rest for 45 minutes, well every. single. one. Of the citas fired...so we didn't know what to do seeing as I could not walk for 5 hours contacting. So we called a President and he told me I had to not use my legs for 3 days...he said "you can get up to go to the bathroom or eat food but besides that you do not use your legs. You can go to church if you want, but that's it.....and never kick a soccer ball again." Yes sir. So we're hoping after these 3 days they'll be feeling better. Which I'm sure they will be!

As promised last week, my scripture that I ponderized this week was Alma 57:27 "Now this was the faith of those of whom I have spoken; they are young and their minds are firm and they do out their trust in God continually."  When I read this scripture it just stuck out to me. Then the more I thought about it the more it meant. I thought of it as explaining the missionaries here in El Faro, a lot of times people are so surprised at how young we are and what we're doing, but it's because of this faith and trust in God that we're here for a year and a half or two years.

Anyways, that was my week! I hope you all had a wonderful week!

I love you all!

Love, Hermana Ruth Terrazas

Monday, October 5, 2015

Martorell/General Conference

I hope you all watched and LOVED General Conference! I know I did! We went up to hospitalet to watch it (the stake center) so we got to watch it with the missionaries in our zone. They always play it in English in a different room for missionaries and investigators/members (there are a lot of Africans in Spain) I LOVED conference! So here in Spain Saturday we watch the women's broadcast and Saturday morning(that ones live) and then on Sunday we watch Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning (live) and as missionaries we can't watch Sunday afternoon because it doesn't play until after curfew. So today for preparation day me and Hermana Reid made for French  toast (we don't have a waffle maker) and went to the church and watched conference! I loved it! I can't pick a favorite talk but, I think the best thing was all the invitations and challenges we received! So mom mentioned this to me and I was thinking the same thing, we should all share our scripture every week, I'll put mine up every week and share my feelings about it and then you all can do the same :) also mom sent me the pictures of all you watching conference in your homes and it made me SO HAPPY to see my family and even better, them all watching conference. One quote I loved was "family is the center of life and is the key for eternal happiness". I love my family!

Well this was my first week in Martorell! The areas good, with conference I didn't get to meet all the members but we ate with the bishop so I got to meet his family and I've met others just around town and the few we've visited. They all seem great! Well as of now Martorell doesn't have much but it has SO much potential. I love that I have a companion who is equally dedicated to being exactly obedient. It just makes the work that much easier. We contacted basically all week and saw HUGE miracles, like huge. We said that no matter what we would have 8 new investigators(that's the goal for the mission each week) and we did! Sunday morning we had 5 but we're blessed to find 3 more! One of them is an older man who I went to contact but didn't hear me (he was turning) so I kept walking but my companion retried and he stopped, so I ask him if he believes in a God and he tells me no, but as we keep talking he tells me he has faith in a God but that God doesn't love him or care about him, that he knows he's his child but God doesn't care to listen. It broke my heart, so We bore our testimonies about how God is listening and he said well he's never sent me any sign and that's when I said, "well he did, because we're here." He kind of chuckled and said maybe your right. We were able to set up a return cita with him although he refuses to tell us his name..haha oh those old Catalan men. It was such a miracle for me! I've never been able to be that bold but because I could just feel such love for this man it wasn't boldness it was love! Another miracle is Peter. So after conference we had a cita in our area, last thing Sunday night(usually those nights are filled roaming the streets stopping every person you see because there's only like 3) so we went to "Peters" house and a woman answers, well it turns out she's an old investigator and her 2 children. We taught them and they were so excited we came back! They didn't know why the missionaries stopped visiting them. We're not sure if Peter gave us the wrong address and led us to them or if maybe he does live there, but either way it was a huge miracle!

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week and apply the teachings from Conference! Tomorrow morning I will pick my scripture and next week I'll share it and I'll be waiting to hear yours!

Love, Hermana Ruth Terrazas


She bought me chocolate :) this companionship started out on the right foot.