FEAST OR FAMINE

Monday...September 23rd

Feast or famine is just about the story of my LIFE. Haha especially this week. As a missionary it is either a feast or famine. There is no middle ground no matter how hard you try. Life as a missionary is just about as crazy as it gets. I love it. Though, I can miss home, I am very happy.

Guess where I am right now? In the lovely home of LOS ANDERSONS. (by the way I forgot my camera cord this weekend so SORRY. no pictures until next week). They are just the greatest and this has been the most fun weekend in the history of traveling to other islands as a missionary. Haha This is definitely the closest that I will ever get to a vacation as a missionary. Love it.

So let me start from the beginning. Sister Phillips and I had suuuuch an incredible week of work. Every day we have been out leaving early to appointments at 10:30am and not arriving home until 10:30pm. If you ask me... that is a packed day. We haven't had time for one single medio dia this week because we have just been out working, working, working. Every night we come home just exhausted and literally sleep like a rock until 7:30am the next morning. We are literally running from appointment to appointment. And not just running - sprinting. Ha it must be such a funny sight to see to young girls dressed in skirts with big smiles on our faces just sprinting to catch the gua gua (bus).  Catching it literally by a second. We definitely get a wide variety of looks if you know what I mean.. It is so great. The work is really exploding here in Los Cristianos thanks to the Lord.

Yesterday I was practically on THE TITANIC. It was so fun and beautiful. So Saturday night after our work we took the bus up to Santa Cruz to stay over with the Andersons because we had to catch the boat over to Gran Canaria early Sunday Morning. AND guess what. The sisters here in Santa Cruz are currently staying with the Andersons until they find a piso soooo.. aka Hermanas Nydegger, Phillips, Money, Judy sleepover. It has been so so so so sooo fun.

Sunday morning we got up at the crack of dawn to catch the boat to Gran Canaria. I think it was the first time I have been on a boat as big and official as that. The view was SO gorgeous. The prettiest thing I have EVER seen. The sunrise was gorgeous. AND coming back at the end of the day we watched the sunset which was even more gorgeous to me. It was such a fun thing after such a fun and exciting day. I honestly have never had a better day! The Canary Islands are now officially a STAKE. 6 wards and 3 new branches. It is incredible.

Sometimes I honestly wonder how it is that I am here right now at this time serving a mission here on an island and how the Lord has directed my life in such a way that I can be here right now. It is so cool reflecting on my entire life journey.

Sorry the email is so short this week. I WISH I HAD MORE TIME! I really have so much to say!! Sooo much to say. Just a shortened time for emails. I will give you all more details next week I promise! AND pictures I promise.

I love you all so much! Keep up the good work and keep the high and positive perspective. Find the Joy in everything good or bad because it is THERE! I promise it is there... it is just up to you. Look to the Lord in every detail of your life and trust in Him with all.

MUCH LOVE!

Fried Sardines?

¡Que tal familia!...Monday Sept. 16th

How are you all? It is seriously SO great to hear from all of you every week. I can tell that you are all being stellar member missionaries! What cool examples. SO this week has kinda been a drag because guess what... BOTH ME AND MY COMP ARE SICK! Kinda haha. We all knew this would happen at some point. Press forward saints... life goes on. This week is going to be such a good one.. I CAN FEEL IT. We already have some great things planned PLUS... guess what next weekend is...

THE CANARY ISLANDS ARE BECOMING A STAKE

How coooooool is that? We may be few, but we are STRONG! And we are growing. I am so excited. We finally have enough priesthood holders to become a stake. All of the missionaries are headed to GRAN CANARIA early Sunday Morning.. I CAN´T WAIT! It is going to be so fun! Such exciting times here in enspaña!! AH I CAN´T WAIT! We are going to take the gua gua up to Santa Cruz on Saturday night.. sleep over at the Andersons and then catch a FOUR hour boat ride over to gran canaria Sunday morning! Elder Reina the area 70 will be there. We will have Stake Conference. We will eat. And then we will go back to Santa Cruz. Me and my comp will stay over AGAIN at the Andersons and then get to spend Pday with them and the other Hermanas in La Laguna. SO. EXCITED. Oh and I will finally get to meet the other hermanas and elders on the other islands!

So this week I ate probably the NASTIEST thing ever! AND I ate probably my most favorite thing ever. Good week yeah? Haha okay so to start with the nasty. Blended up sardines breaded and fried. Haha OH MY I NEVER WILL EAT ONE AGAIN. On Friday we went wayyy far out to the middle of nowhere on a windy and sketchy gua gua for a food appointment we had. So we FINALLY get there and then as soon as we walk in I smell sea food. And not the good kind. The bad RAW kind. I was like NOOOO in my head. It was badddd. So she puts on our plates these weird fried things. I cut it open. The insides are just gray. We asked what they were. "Oh they are just sardines blended up! I breaded them and fried them. I hope you like them because I made a lot!" You should have seen the smile on my face. But guess what. I downed like 9 of them. She just kept piling them on our plates. I am becoming mentally strong with things like that. Yay for gift of tongue.

AREPAS!

This week our friend Leonor taught us how to make arepas. AH so fun. First off let me tell you about Leonor. She is incredible. She is a less active that we found. Probably the nicest old lady. We have been meeting with her and I just LOVE HER. The first time I met her she made me sit down and put my legs on a chair. She just started massaging them and saying some interesting little chant. I was dying. She is so great! So loving. And she has been coming to church so it is great!! So arepas are these really popular things from Colombia and Venezuela. SO good. You will have to look them up. They are so simple and easy to make! It’s amazing because they are so good. And it was so fun learning how to make them. I wish so badly that I had my camera that day. But it was fun. We then put this super good meat stuff inside. Haha then we had this big Colombian feast! Also... Leonor has a grandson named David that lives with her in their tiny piso. David is this REBELIOUS little 19 year boy who smokes all of the time and has tons of tattoos. He isn´t a member. He is so mean to Leonor and it is so sad:( but we are trying to get him to change and have a better life!) We FINALLY got him to open up that night! He prayed outloud for the first time with us and was really interested. So we will see with him! We are slowly opening him up little by little. Either way I now know how to make arepas. So get ready in 15 months I will make you all some! they are cool. You can practically put whatever you want in them. Also I just love the word "arrrrepas."

COOL story that happened this morning! So we get this random call this morning. We answered and it turns out that it was a lady and a grandson who want to learn English! (she saw our advertisement or something for the class.) Anyways so she told us that she was in Los Cristianos at the moment and we were - SO ARE WE! So we ventured out to go find this lady and show her where the chapel is so that she can know where to come for English class tomorrow. So we finally find her! This cute old lady with a cane. So we met her and walked with her to the chapel! I can´t remember her name.. but this nice lady is from Cuba. Anyways so finally we are like 7 steps from the door to the chapel. And guess what. As soon as she sees the little chapa (I forget what it’s called in English.. it’s like a nametag thing). As soon as she sees the name of the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints she just stops in her steps and starts CRYING. She just starts crying. And she begins to tell us how much she just loves Christ. It was such a cool experience. She then started to say, "Cristo vive! Alelujah!" It was SO cool! She looked at my chapa on my shirt and just hugs me. We then decided to give her a church tour! She was very teary throughout the whole thing! I don´t quite know how all of this happened so fast. but I KNOW that it was inspired. It was the coolest thing hearing her talk about how she felt. She then told us how before when she was waiting for the bus one day, that she saw our flyer and that it just GLOWED to her. She described it as something from the heavens. She told us that she knew she had to call that number.

The Lord works in mysterious ways!

My comp and I have great hopes for this cute little lady from Cuba

More than anything lately my testimony has been growing of following the spirit. I know that if you are living your life, in a way that Christ would live his life, and if you are doing ALL that you can do... Your paths will be directed. We are here in the Lords hands! If we are worthy He will 100% use us as his instruments. Often times not in the way that we would expect. Some of the coolest moments that I have had on the mission are when plans fall through and we randomly decide to pass by someone’s house. When we are doing all that we can and when we decide to ACT.. that is when The Lord directs our paths.

Until next week! LOVE you all un monton.

con mucho amor,

Hermana Nydegger

Milagros

HOLA FAMILIA!! ¿QUA TAL?  Monday...Sept 9th

Guess what!? My companion and I are seeing MIRACLES! This past week has maybe been the greatest week yet. Heavenly Father is seeing how hard we are working and we are being blessed so much with success. We are seeing SO much success... the work here in Los Cristianos is really starting to explode. The church is true the book is blue!

Also we had Zone Meeting this week in Santa Cruz... SANTA CRUZ is so cool. It is so much prettier than Los Cristianos haha!  But the meeting was awesome. Super uplifting. AND the new sisters are here! They are so great!!! ah I love all of the missionaries that I get to serve with! Hermanas and elders are so powerful.  Funny thing... no one can say my name here.. so at the meeting I had to play the piano and after one of the zone leaders.. who is a native says, "Gracias a la hermana niiiger para tocar el piano." EVERYONE starts bursting out laughing!! Not to mention we were on skype with the other missionaries on the other islands. Not like we didn´t see that one coming. AND a family here started calling me Hermana Mcdonalds because apparently Nydegger sounds like nugget... understand their logic?  Yeah, I don´t either. Haha I have good luck don´t I?

Yesterday was fun. At church I had to give my first talk in SPANISH. For like 10 minutes! Haha, yay for first timers! It went great. I talked about the importance of repentance and baptism. LILY. I talked about you in my talk! I talked about how you are preparing to baptized in a few weeks and how HAPPY I am for your decision and for your example. I actually got kinda emotional in it. I just felt a huge wave of emotion and of the spirit testifying to me that you are making the right choice in your life and that you are about to open the door to the rest of your life! It was a really tender moment. It still is as I am now thinking back to it.  It really is the door and it is the first step. Baptism is one of my favorite things to bear my testimony about. And how IMPORTANT it is. I am so proud of you Lil.  I wish with all of my heart that I could be there with you for this big day.

So speaking of baptism.... guess what...

Starting with ALEX! Alex the Colombiano. Alex is a miracle! He is guy that we found street contacting one day. We were waiting to catch the gua gua (bus) and saw him just standing there. We actually almost didn´t talk to him! We were like an inch from just catching our bus... but last minute we decided.. no LETS TALK TO HIM. So we went up and contacted him. He is from Colombia and is here working! He has seen our church before in Colombia and wanted to meet with us another day! This was all a super fast convo... he had to catch his bus in like 1 minute! But yeah super quick so we asked him for his number and he gave it to us and ran off on his way! Anyways so we have been trying for a long time to get ahold of him and finally on Monday we got a hold of him and set up an appointment to meet with him. Anyways so we met with him and long story short he is GOLDEN. Absolutely golden. It give me chills just thinking about him. He is here in Tenerife working. He has 2 kids and they are in Colombia living there with his wife. He is moving back in November. He really wants to make some big changes in his life and really wants something to keep his family solid. We told him about our church and really just talked a lot about this life. It was a really random lesson... but ohhh my, the spirit was SO STRONG. It was so strong. So when the spirit was at its peak we said, "Alex. Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God?" And guess what he said.. cuando. haha “WHEN!”  We were so shocked! He is scheduled to baptized on October 12. We are super excited. He wants to be baptized and then take the gospel back to Colombia to his family. And to think... we almost didn´t talk to him! He. is. a. miracle.

Second. MATEO! Mateo is also from Colombia. He is so cute and is only 9 years old! There is something really special about him. We recently found his mom who was a menos active (less active)... reactivated her and guess what... he will be baptized on September 28th! He can´t wait and neither can we. Mateo and his mom Jacky are so strong. They are so great and are so happy about this change they are making in their lives.

Third. Carolina. Also Colombiana! (I LOVE COLOMBIANS.) One of the chicas from the noche de hogar. We finally got a lesson with just her and her mom (a lady that we recently re-activated). She is SO cute! She is 19 and just moved here to live with her mom that she has been separated from for her entire life. Ahhh I love her! There is something special toooo... Hahaha there is something special about everyone. Anyways we had a SUPER spirit bomb lesson with her also. She is also scheduled to be baptized on September 28th. She is incredible. AND they are making Colombian food for us this Thursday! Yes, we can´t wait.

RAFAEL. Another guy that we almost didn´t talk to! GOLDEN. We haven´t put him on a fecha yet but we are going to tomorrow night.

LUIS AND JESSICA FAMILY- aka my best friends. ahhh they are SO GREAT! Such a miracle. ahh! So we actually found them through our English class flyers and THEY CALLED US. Luis and Jessica are from Venezuela. They have a daughter and a son. (YAY for families... ahh!) They have been coming to English class. They are so FUN and happy and great people. Super social. After the first English class with them, we gave them a tour of the church. They LOVED everything that they saw! They loved the classes for the kids and they loved everything. Seriously, they. are. a. miracle. Haha when we showed them the baptismal font and told them how we baptize they practically tried to climb into the font. They are so funny and just happy. We invite them to everything! Sometimes we wonder if we are being too much or something to them. On Tuesday they came to the baptism of Jayniz and her mom (see the pictures) and they LOVED it. They seriously are perfect. They are REAL too. We had a lesson with them on Saturday night. Our first sit down one! And it was incredible. We felt that with them it would be best to just sit down with them and read 2nd Nephi 31 with them. All about baptism. It was so powerful. I had a really cool experience. As we taught them about baptism, the spirit was so strong. Again Lily, I felt like I should bear my testimony about you and about my family. They were so receptive. It also was like a heaven sent moment. At that moment... I could SEE them in white. I could see them perfectly in white. We invited them to be baptized. And guess what... right after Luis said ‘yes’, the phone rang. He left the room for a couple minutes and then came back with the biggest smile on his face and shouted "I GOT A JOB!" Talk about a miracle and blessing straight from God. Right after he accepted the invitation he got a job. How cool is that?? It was a defining point for me as a missionary. Baptism is so important. It changes lives. And it is just the first step to eternal life with our families. What a cool promise we have. I have such a strong testimony about this. I saw this family in white that night. and I know that they will be baptized one day together. ALSO, after the amazing lesson with Jessica and Luis, we left and I looked up into the sky and saw my first shooting star!  I think it’s a sign! J

Life is good here! I am SO excited for this upcoming transfer and for the miracles that Sister Phillips and I get to be apart of! I have high hopes. I am learning so much and every day is another challenge and another journey. I am loving life as a missionary. Please pray for all of the people that I talk to everyday! Prayers are what can change hearts. There truly is no more important work and there truly is nothing better or more satisfying than knowing that you are being an instrument in the hands of the Lord. I love being a full time representative of Christ.

Thank you all for all of the emails and letters and PRAYERS!  Wow I feel such a gratitude for those who are cheering me on. It’s so humbling.

FIND JOY IN THE JOURNEY ALWAYS.

Hermana N

Sleep Deprived

Monday...Sept 2nd

I am so sleep deprived.  Both my companion and me.  It is not even funny!  But, we are so happy.  It is so weird!   I don´t understand how someone who is so tired as I am could possibly be as happy as I am.  I guess it is just the grind of the mission.  It is amazing the things that we are able to do all day everyday.  I love being on a mission.  It is so cool being able to talk to literally EVERYONE.  Its fun!  It is fun being able to do weird and bold things that a normal person would never do haha.  Really its fun being a missionary!  It's super awkward too.  There is not a single day where something awkward doesn´t happen.  I am learning to just embrace it.  Someone told me before my mission that the second I put my papers in I would just be signing up for 18 months of awkwardness. And I am here today to testify to all that may be reading that it is LA VERDAD.  Super awkward but I love it.  

I don´t even know where to start!  So many things happened.  I will start with the HIGH!  So anyone that has ever served a mission knows how ANTICIPATING transfer calls are.   This transfer we have 44 missionaries that the mission president has to put somewhere... haha so really all of the possibilities were endless.  So Saturday night at 8:30 we get the big call.. and guess what..... drum roll please... THEY ARE BRINGING MORE SISTERS TO TENERIFE!!!  Ahhhhh I am so EXCITED!  Although it was cool to say that my companion and I were the only sisters on the Island.  SO YAY!  They are flying in today.  Sadly they are more up north and not in our area.. but boy I can´t wait!  We will see them on Friday at the Zone meeting.   We are so excited to have people to hang out with on P-days and just sisters to relate to. Lucky for them they will be whitewashing just like we did.  Starting from scratch!  I can´t wait. Oh and two another set of Elders are coming into Los Cristianos.. the work is growing!  

So this week we had no sleep.  Literally no sleep.  That is because of this Catholic holiday that I don´t even really understand..  So apparently many many years ago this virgin doll washed up from the ocean... hence, the people here now worship it. Anyways... because of that this whole week has been this huge party.  This huge fair with huge concerts and roller-coasters and people and food.  And guess where this is all taking place?? Haha, well you guess it.. right outside of our piso!  So all night there is music BLASTING and we can't sleep.  I don´t understand this culture!  But I guess a good thing about it is that there are ton of people out that we try to contact!

Funny story... one night after personal prayers..guess what happened?  So my prayer was a super motivating one and super pumped up one!  Haha I was like okay Heavenly Father I am ready.. I am going to do it!  And literally like right when I said that.. the concert right outside of our piso starts playing Eye of the Tiger.  Co-incedence? NO! HAHA Heavenly Father has a sense of humor and I love it.  I laughed so hard.

The hardest thing lately has been getting people to COME TO CHURCH.  Wow it is so hard!  Yesterday was super sad... there was no one there!  A lot of the members don´t understand the importance of coming to church every week.. some do and they are strong and good examples... but yesterday was so shocking.  Not that many people came!  There were only about 25 people there.. not including the missionaries.  Hopefully it is just because of this holiday this week.. but wow!  It is sad.  It also is super hard to get investigators to come.  The ones that do though are so cool!  We just need to keep teaching them over and over the importance of coming to church every week.  They just don´t really understand. We had 3 less active members who haven´t even looked at the church in over 20 years to come though!! That was cool.

We have been finding TONS of good people here and have been working really hard.  It is hard to meet with them because they are always busy or something.. or they always cancel at the last minute.  But this past transfer we have been sifting out the good and bad ones.. and now we have high hopes for this next transfer!  

Line of the week:

(While knocking a building to find a menos activo)

Us:  Hey! Does a man named Andre still live here?

22 year old boy: He does but I think that he is a criminal..

Us:  Oh really? haha funny joke..

22 year old boy:  No really... like the police came to get him this morning...

Us: great.

I hope that you all have the best week!  The language for me is coming... slowly.  But my companion has told me that I am progressing super fast compared to her when she first started! So that is good!  It is hard to see the progress in myself... but I think that I am getting better.  I feel a lot more comfortable than the first weeks here so that is good. 

Love, Hermana Nydegger

Ps, NO ONE can say my name here. Its funny.

Pictures... 

P-day!  We went to go see the Dragon Tree.  Apparently it is the oldest tree in the world!