July 14, 2014

Hey family! 

Happy. . . week. . . No holidays this week I guess. How´s it going? 

So the world cup is over. Germany is champion for the 4th time. I was pretty sure they were going to take it. Sorry Sarah. I can´t believe she got so into it, that´s hilarious! And I´m not sure I´m okay with you saying you love Messi. I respect Messi, but he plays for Barça. We´re a Real family aren´t we? Or things might get tense when I get home. . . :) 

News from the week. Javier and Yesabel are still amazing! They want to get baptized! But they are not married. And here is a twist. Yesabel is only 17. Yeah. So they´re going to have to wait. She turns 18 in feb. I think it will be good for them to continue going to church for a good time before baptism and I think it will be good for the branch to see that too. Sara y Marta are also willing to be baptized when they are sure and feel prepared. The only thing with them is being able to come to church. But they committed to talk to their bosses and try to work something out so that they can come. And Sara at least has talked with her boss and they are going to try to do something so she can come next week. So not as many big miracles as last week, but still progress. 

Hasn´t been too great in the street this week. We´ve found some new people but no one I feel is super great. But you never know. We have a ward activity planned for Saturday that sounds super fun! And we hope people will invite friends. Noemi (an awesome member) says she is going to invite a woman that she has been talking about who sounds really great. I´ve been really wanting to meet her so I hope she comes. Other than that, just doing the work. Having fun too. We went to Ferrol today and climbed all over this amazing castle that´s right on the beach! I´ve going to send along a couple pictures. 

Well I hope all is well and that you have an amazing week. Remember: I love you all much more than you know. Thank you for everything. Os amo! 

Quinn

July 7, 2014

Hello family! 

Well, I somehow completely ran out time today, so I´ll have to be quick. 

We had an awesome week this week! We saw some really cool miracles. We found this awesome young couple (like really young, they must be 19 both of them). Javier and Yesabel. They are from the Dominican Republic and they have a 6-month-old baby. We are not sure if they are married (experience tells me that no) but they are amazing! They are so humble and so full of faith. Javier told us from the first moment that he believes in God more than in his own life. At first he didn´t understand why it was important that we find the one true church, but after explaining he understood and said that he wanted to know. They both committed to read and pray and they have been doing it. They also came to church on Sunday! And the members were amazing! They took them right in and made them feel at home. The whole branch eats together every fast Sunday after the meetings (how cool is that?), everyone brings something. So they stayed for that and it was awesome! We didn´t even have to sit by them. The members just took care of them. I love this branch! 

We also brought some members with us to visit Sara and Martha and the same thing happened there. They hit it off from the first minute. Then they went to a Relief Society activity the next day and got to know all the women in the branch. They couldn´t come to church because of work, but I´m really excited for the progress they are making as well.

The Lord is really blessing us here and I feel it´s for the hard work we are doing. I came up with the goal to leave behind any barrier that keeps me from being my best. I´ve been really talking with almost everyone I can (not perfect still) much more than I ever have and there are some days it´s been hard, but the Lord is showing that He blesses us for our best efforts. I want to go home the best missionary I´ve been. And I feel like I´m doing it. 

Last cool thing. I saw the ocean today!!! It was awesome! We went up to the tower of Hercules, one of the oldest Roman lighthouses still standing. It was really cool! And I got sprayed by the waves :D It was so cool to be by the sea again. I´ll send some pics along next week.

Well gotta run. Love you all! Till next week

Love,

Quinn

 

June 30, 2014

Helllllloooooo!

Well another Monday, another week. Son pocos los que quedan. Things are going great here! We had a good week, lots of walking. But I really like it here compared to Madrid. I´ve gotten to know most of the members and they are all pretty excited about the work, so that´s super cool. Our ward mission leader is the coolest! I really like him and I´m really excited to keep working with him. (And he invited us to come eat octopus galacian style on Tuesday. Super stoked!) 

We´ve spent a good amount of time out in the street this week, but have also had some good lessons. We taught a new woman for the first time. Her name is Sara, she´s from Ecuador. Her son was a missionary a long time ago so she was really curious. She also told us that her mom passed away not too long ago, so we decided to teach the plan of salvation. At the end she said that she was comforted to know where her mother is and that she will see her again. That was really cool. 

We had one guy come to church on Sunday, Ramses. He had been taught by missionaries before. We called him during the week and he said he didn´t want to meet with us, but then we ran into him on the street and were able to teach a little lesson, and then he showed up to church, so we´ll see how it goes with him. We have a few other people we´ve met on the street that seem to have a lot of potential and a lot of interest. I´m excited to get a lot going on here. 

It is a lot like Oregon and Washington here, but luckily we´ve had a lot of sunshine (and now I sound like Grandma). And some rain, of course. All this week there´s been parties (it´s some sort of holiday). My first day was San Juan, which involves making bonfires all over the city and then jumping over them for good luck. So everyone was outside, and there were fires all over the place. It looked like the whole city was on fire. Then on Saturday one of the main streets was lined with little stands of all the shops in town, like an outdoor market. It was way cool! You mentioned having heard of the pilgrimage. We see tons of pilgrims everyday who have just finished the camino. In fact a couple Americans came to church on Sunday and I translated for them. They were doing the camino as part of their honeymoon. I definitely want to go on the camino one day. Oh this is great! We ran into this old Scottish guy the other day (also a pilgrim) who was telling us about how great the camino is. My companion said that he loved hiking and the guy said "then you´d love the camino. And if you like Spain then you´ll like it even more." I said it sounded like the perfect combination and he said "It is." :) It was great. 

Well, here are some pictures (sorry the computers are really slow here, I´ll send as many as I can.) Thanks for the email, and for your love and prayers. Have an amazing week! I love you all!

Love,

Quinn