Sept 30 2013

Sept 30 2013

This was a Great week full of ups and downs.  Where to start....

On last Monday we had a water fight in the fountains with Hermana Wallace, Witt, Elder Larsen, Arrirán and a member Carlita.  Super Fun. 

We visited some great people. We meet with this man named Carlos it was an investigator the elders were giving us and so we met juntos(together) and then we were in the cita (appointment) for like 2.5 hours. forever then meet with him 2 other times this week for about the same amount of time.  He has a lot of questions and he doesn't believe that Christ accomplished the atonement for us, but everything else he believes. He is crazy but after we get him to understand Christ, then he will be golden.  But we gave him back to the Elders. the elders also gave us Adela who is Romanian who know Chek, Spanish and wants to learn English. Super cool so we are teaching her English and giving her lessons. She has three copies of the Book of Mormon, in 3 different of languages.   Then we Have Vicente and Guzman who are also super golden. And we found Leonardo this week and he is super  golden tambien (also).  There is more about him later  in the letter.  

We also had zone conference which was super fantastic. the spirit was so strong and learned how to be a better missionary.  I love everything about my zone the Bareles islands.  More about that in my excerpt from the letter to President.  

As I have been reading the scriptures I realized that there are many things that talks about the isles of the sea I never really cared or took interest in it before but now i love to see the promises that are given to me and the people I am teaching our here on my beautiful Island of Mallorca.  

I love you all and  miss you all here is a excerpt from my letter to President Pace.  

´´I was so grateful for the opportunity to attend Zone conference this weekend, and the ability to feel the spirit so strong.  It was exactly what I needed.  I learned about the importance of obedience.  I really had understood obedience previously and have all ways wanted to be 100% obedient. I was working on that for the first 6 weeks of being here and being the only one getting up at 730 and the only one studying at 900 and the only one in bed at 1130.  Hermana Pazuengo all ways told me of what a great example of obedience I was and that she was grateful that I am her companion.  But after the conference her attitude about obedience changed we now all are getting up at 730 and exercising, and getting to study fully ready for the day, and leaving promptly and getting to bed on time (most of us any way). Thank you for that topic in Zone Conference. Thank You.  Because of our obedience we saw many miracles on Sunday. We had 2 investigators at church with us, Vicente, and Guzman, they both loved it. Then after correlation we had a cita and then we called and then he didn't answer but then he called us back and we were already in the park so we waited for him. We explained to him about the Book of Mormon. We then ended with a prayer and I prayed sincerely and simply and prayed that the Lord would bless him in his work and with his family, I then closed the prayer. As we opened our eyes we saw that he had tears in his eyes. The spirit touched his heart, I´m not sure what it testified of but he was touched and he told us that he would read the Book of Mormon starting with the Introduction and then start 1 Nephi.  I´m so glad we found him contacting in the park. 

My companion understands her purpose as a missionary and I admire that so much. I also admire her patience with my broken Spanish as I try to speak Spanish with her on the street."

Some Pictures

Jessica sent these pictures 2 weeks ago, but because of computer problems and my lack of computer finesse I am finally getting them posted.  It looks like a great place to be!

Cathedral at the Palma

View out the apartment

View out the apartment

Hermana Witt, Me and Hermana  Pazuengo,

Park where we street contact

Jessy's letter                                                                                                      Sept 23,2013

A lot of things happened this week. It was great contacted some, three new potential investagators. its super great when we ware contacting and we find some one that wants to listen to what we have to say. We live next to this park and that's where we do all of our contacting.  

This week its been raining a lot.  and we see it in the sky its so funny it comes on so fast. we usually get drenched on the way to the capilla (chapel).  I finally bought an umbrella because my rain jacket is to warm for right now.  

We  have this family that we are teaching Romosa, Clemente, and Oliver, and Fabi (already Baptized) they are ready for baptism but this week all of their citas they weren't there or they canceled.  they are so ready.  

we have another investigator Vicente who is ready on Thursday I tried to extend the baptismal invitation but my memorized skill lacked, but I have got it down now so I am able to ask the whole island and baptize with a tsunami. 

I love the elders in my district the are such full of service and caring for us.  on saturday we were getting a new wash machine so Hemana Pazuengo and Hermana Witt went to go and buy the washing machine, and We Had a cita at 130 and Hermana Wallace and I didn't know how to get there any way the elders came to our piso and walked us there, and then carried our washing machine up three flights of stairs.  ç

My miracle for the week is that Hermano Fransisco helped us buy a new washing machine and Elders Larsen and Arriarán helped carry the washing machine to our piso. I am so grateful for the service the Queirlo family has done for us.  

One thing that I have learn to admire about my companion is her testimony and the strength that it has.  The spirit that lingers afters she testifies of the truth and of all that knows to be true.  I am so glad to have her as my companion. I love learning the Spanish from her.  

 It was great to able to attend the baptism of the Poniente Branch this week.  It was an opportunity for be to become more excited to do this work.  I am so glad to be here in the Spain Barcelona Mission, and have the opportunity to serve here on the islands.  I have been learning to love the people of Palma.

Something that again came to my memory is that preaching the gospel, and sharing the gospel is a commandment of the Lord.  I am so grateful for this opportunity to set 18 months of my life set directly apart for focusing on this commandment but to remember after I am released that this is still my duty as a disciple of Christ

Love Hermana Ward

Jessy sent some pictures but I'm not so good at tech things so I will have Willy help me with putting them on the blog a little later.  

Sister Ward"s letter                                     Sept. 16 2013

This week has been great.  We have this park near our piso(apartment) and we are always there contacting. And this week we found three people that would listen and that we gave pass along cards to and taught them.  Vicente is the one that is the one with the most success as we met him in the park we taught him the plan of salvation, and then set up another cita ( appointment) with him on Saturday. on Saturday we meet with him and talked about the Book of Mormon and Its importance, it also went really well he seemed to believe what we were saying.   We tried to Give him the Book of Mormon , but he wouldn´t take it because he can´t see it so we are going to try to get a copy with big print.  We then asked hem if he would come to church with us, He said YES. he came and he liked sacrament meeting, but then we found out he doesnt live in our area. ¡QUE TRISTE! Its ok 

We also Met Gislea in the park and we have a cita with her tonight at a noche de hogar (FHE).  

We also Met Milta in the street and had our second lesson with her too about the importance of the book of Mormon.  

We also taught a family Lliquira about the plan of salvation they seemed realy reseptive, one of thier daighters is already baptized we are working with the rest of the family, we are going to ask them to be baptized this week I think.!!!

It rained alot this week which is odd for the islands. we rain throught the rain to a cita and then she canceled and then we ran back to the church in the rain.  Oh how I love the rain.    

I love my time that I have to be in the scriptures and learn to grow closer to the Lord there are so many things and so many levels in which you can learn about each gospel principle.  I invite all you that read my letter, find a topic in the gospel that you know alot about and then study more about it, we will never know everything about every thing. This pont was pointed out to me while in the MTC and I realized That I have alot of studying to todo and that there will never be enough time to study it all.  

Something that I learned This week was Romans Chapter 8 : 31-32.  Read it and never forget that the Lord is on our side so why doubt what he tells us to do.  

I love you all and hope that you all are sharing the gospel all in little ways to those that you see.  

I promise Pictures next week.  I need to buy an adaptor for my sd card.

Con amor 

Hermana Ward

Sept 9 2013

I just received this email from Jessy.  She sounds so good  and busy.  Enjoy 
Sept 09 2013

Hola Everybody

Its been a long week. I´ll go in some sort of order today in my email. 

On last Monday we started our flight across the world.  There were 7 of us that were going to Barcelona; Hermana Mangelson, Hermana Jarman, Elder Seegmiller, Elder Butters, and Elder Merkley.  It super cool I had the opportunity to call my family in the Airport in New York were we had a 6 hour Layover.  We continued to fly to Barcelona which was a 9 hour flight and arrived in Barcelona Airport at 1100 am on Tuesday morning.  The office Elders pick the 7 of us up and we meet at the capilla in Barcelona.  Where we meet the other 32 new missionaries from the Spain CCM and we again saw Hermana Hassett and Hermana Vazziri.  It was so great. We received a little training, and toured and food and then recieved our temporary companion and went and proselyted. Super fun. The following 2 days we did fingerprinting and got things ready for our residency in Spain and continued proselyting with our temporary companion. on Thursday we received our assignments of our first area.  Mine in is Palma Mallorca in the Lavente branch. Palma is a island in the chain of islands that are in the Barcelona Mission.  I am so excited to be here.  

My Companion is Hermana Pazuengo a Native spanish speaker that doesn´t know very much English. It´s super fun because I have to learn the spanish fast.  I learned a gospel conversation I can understand at any speed but when the conversation is about anything else its quite hard.  I love my Companion So much she is from Mexico and I will be her last companion she leaves in the end of November.  We found a game that is super fun that helps me with my Spanish pronunciation and her´s in English.  Have you ever heard of scripture baseball or of scripture golf.  If not look it up.,  Any way our slight variation is that she has the English BOM and I have the Spanish BOM.  

I love it here in Palma. Its been fantastic.  

I have seen many miracles ( milagros) and the following is one of many 

This week the miracle that I saw was while street contacting in the park yesterday, we found some one that accepted the Book of Mormon. While we were at the park we reached the end of the park and then turned around I was inspired to talk to this couple on the bench I approached them and the gentleman noticed my American accent and his English was better then his Spanish, so I spoke to him in English and Hermana Pazuengo spoke to the lady in Spanish, We talked to them for about 20 minutes.  She took the Book of Mormon in Spanish. It was so neat to see the way the spirit works and to give someone an opportunity to change their life with the Book of Mormon on our efforts.  We received her contact information, and shewill only be in the area for three weeks, so we have to work fast. 

While studying this week I realized while reading 1 Nephi that when he wanted something from the Lord or taught he did it with all energy of heart and that is how I have got to do this Mission thing With all my energy of Heart.  

I love you all and miss you.  

Attached are some pictures

lies next week I´ll Have some I need to buy a converter for my MicroSD card

CON AMOR,

Hermana Ward 

Jessy's address in Spain

 We received a short email from Jessica this week, which I will include in this post.   On Tuesday we were curious if Jessy made it to Barcelona.  We decided to look at the mission web site to see if they had posted pictures of their newest missionaries.  It was exciting to see on the front page the pictures of the 43 missionaries that arrived to the Barcelona mission on Tuesday.  There was Jessica in the midst of them. Here are the pictures from the web site

All the new sisters and the president wife.
 She's in the second row
Poking her head around the sister in the brown dress

We think this is the group that came together on one plane

I love the sea in the background.
Jessy is toward the left in a blue shirt

Lunch for all the new missionaries.
Jessy is the one with watermelon in her hand!

Wow She just looks great!  She is excited to go forth and do the work.  I can't imagine what it is like to get 43 missionaries at one transfer so I imagine that this is the reason we haven't heard from the mission president, but no worries. 

  I am sure that she would love to hear from anyone who would like to write her.  The best way to write is threw email because it's free.  Her email address is jessica.ward@myldsmail.net .

  Please understand that she has one hour to use the computer each week so she may not be able to respond to each individual email however please come back to this blog site to see her weekly updated letter.  

There is also another way to contact her through snail mail.  This address will be good throughout her mission.  It's the address of the mission office.  They prefer that the mail goes through the office because the missionaries are more likely to receive it.  Please do not send packages because of the problems with customs the mission home has to pay extra costs when it is received.   For stamps and cost please go to the post office.  For what little research I have done it costs $1.10 for a post card.  

Sister Jessica Ward

Spain Barcelona Mission

Calle Calatrava N' 10-12, 1'

Barcelona

08017   Barcelona 

Spain

Here is Jessica's Email                                                      Sept 6th 2013

I am in the Palma Island as my first Area in my mission with a native as my companion. I am so happy to be here.  The humidity is about the same as DC.  I love it here in Spain. I am told that I have excellent Spanish. Hey let every one know my situation here.  Monday is my usual pday so I will reply then. I love missionary work.  read Alma 13:21  

I love you all so much.

Hey send me letters at the mission home address.  mom has the address for letters and packages, its just more reliable then sending it to my apartment, I´ll get letters about once a month and they probably wont get lost in the mail you´ll get more info on Monday on my pday.  ¡¡¡Hasta luego!!.  

con amor

Hermana Ward

We are so glad to have a missionary serving.  She would be so grateful to hear from all!