We are constantly changing

Monday...April 28, 2014

Hi Family!!!

WOW can I just say that the other day I realized that we will be skyping in 2 semanitas. I totally forgot until Hermana Money told me on Friday. Wow, is time flying or what. Its killing me on the inside.

The atonement is REAL. The priesthood is real. I don´t quite know or understand how it works, but it DOES. Repentance is real. This week I was yet again reminded of the power of truthfulness of the priesthood! How lucky are we to have the privilege of having a taste of the power of God in our lives? Never be afraid to enjoy the blessings that come from it. We don´t even realize how much Heavenly Father loves us. Regardless of our faults. And through the priesthood we can get a small yet un-describable taste of that love and the plan that He has for each and every-one of us. The atonement CHANGES people. Change and “becoming” is the purpose of this life. Christ is just there with arms out stretched running to us. It’s never too late to turn. Christ truly is the only way we can be happy and feel weightlessness.

I had to teach young womens yesterday, and I really loved it. I love teaching young people. I just love this gospel. I LOVE it. It is sooo true. How lucky am I to have been raised in it. I still can´t wrap my mind around it. Or the fact of how happy I am to be a missionary. At the start of my mission I thought that the mission was maybe only for some people. That thought has changed so much lately. I was just thinking the other day, how are missions NOT for everyone?

I went on another intercambio with Hermana Money! How fun it was to be with her. It was so weird thinking about us back in Tenerife and what the odds were that we got to go on another intercambio again. I love her so much. I am so happy to have such good friends here with me. It is so fun to also see how people change. Well, really how the atonement allows people to perfect themselves. I love being here and learning how to change even the tiniest things to help us try to become perfect even as Christ was.

We had a really sweet lesson with a Spanish lady on a bench who was smoking maria the other day ha.. but I just have complete confidence in the atonement and the strength it gives us as natural men to do all things.

I have really been trying to fix my imperfections lately. I have been trying to suck everything out of the mission life that I can get. I am trying to consecrate myself more than ever before. To understand the spirit more than ever before. To be under the complete influence of the spirit in all moments.

The mission can and will change behavior! But it’s up to us to whether it will change our nature. It’s been something I have been studying lately. I have been studying the enabling power of the atonement and what grace is. I have been praying to understand even more fully the nature of God. I want to come back a changed person. I want to give my alll these next 7 months. The only way that can happen is when you leave all to the Lord and change your heart. You can do a bajillion things every day using all of the strength power, but if your heart is not there, it doesn´t mean ANYTHING. I want to make sure my heart it there. You cannot communicate with God until you have sacrificed yourself. After all, we aren´t here in this life to be ourselves, rather than to perfect ourselves in Christ.

How amazing is it that in Christ our weaknesses can and will be made STRENGTHS.  Our prayers are often answered through the means of other people. That is something I know with all of my heart.

J.M. is doing amazing. He will be baptized on Saturday. He is one of my favorites. I love teaching him because he really just LISTENS. He takes it in. We started to teach him in January and he has come so far. Conference was really the turning point for him. He came for EVERY SINGLE SESSION. #champ. Haha I love him. He is so cool. He is 26 and has changed his life immensely. He is so Christ-like. He came to a JAS (YSL) activity we had and then stayed to help clean the chapel. And THEN he wanted to go with us to visit a less active lady who is sick. We had a cake that we were going to give her for her birthday. He came over to me, grabbed the cake, and was just like VAMOS. Let’s go.

I love you all so much. I hope you know how much God loves you and of the incredible plan he has for you. Don´t forget that! Nothing is impossible when we embrace the light of Christ in our lives. Challenges bring us closer to God.

Hermana Nydegger

PS..KATIE GET YOUR CALL ALREADY. I am dying here hahaha. AH it will come for sure this week!

It's an oven in here

Monday, April 14th 2014

I mean ZERO time to write this week. I don´t even know how to sum it up.

I am reading the 4th missionary.. it is AWESOME. I love it I love it I want more of it! Any missionaries or future missionaries read it and it will change your life and mission. 

We went to the temple today! Yet again I am so so grateful for it and the blessings and peace and strength and just about everything we could even need or want from it. It was so great. Also it was great because guess who I saw?! Hermana Money. It was great seeing her... She is really like one of my best friends! I love the people I have met in my life. Seeing that she was just made sister trainer leader guess what she told me... that we will be going on our 4TH intercambio together. #HOLLER. Can´t wait.

WE have an awesome investigator named J. and he looks like Kino from Brother Bear... more to come next week about this stud of a guy

It has been HOT lately. And from what I have heard it only gets about 100 times hotter. I have yet to experience a Madrid summer... which is a dry one. I have heard from other missionaries that you wake up every day and just SWEATING and say to yourself, "I will die today." And then you go to bed and say "I am dying." SHOOT I successfully avoided it the first time and went to the glorious islands.. not sure if I will be able to avoid it this time. Unless I get sent to the North of Spain.. we will see. But I kinda want to have the Madrid summer. There are so many red brick buildings here so close to one another that the heat gets trapped in and you more or less feel like you are in an oven. As terrified as I am, I am also so excited. Bring it.

A. came to church. for the first time. Thats the miracle of the week I would say. I love this lady she is so great. M. will be getting the priesthood on Sunday. I have never been so happy. 

I love this work and this life. It is an oh so crazy one but it is oh so worth it.

I can´t WAIT for Katie to get her call. I can´t stop thinking about it! Venga already! I am dying. I am so grateful for missions. I am learning so much about myself and I just hope to come back a better person. I am striving to become that 4th missionary. 

I love you all so dang much. Can you believe that we will be skyping in a month? I can´t. Thanks for beeing the best. As much as I miss you all, I absolutely LOVE Torrrrejon. They are like my second family. I think I may even be closer to them than my last ward. I love them though. They are so fun and it can be so tempting to just want to hang out with them.. but then I remember that DUH I am a missionary and I am here to WORK!  It's not my time or my wants rather than the Lords. I love it.

HIGH PRAISE.. Hallelujah

Monday, April 7th, 2014

Helllooooo family!

I am so sorry we are really short on time this p-day unfortunately.

So here are my few words from the week.

I ate octopus and I liked it! (See picture) This is a typical Spanish plate. Yum. I think I am finally growing up! I´ll eat just about anything now out of my free own will.. minus a tomato. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

M. an African Investigator that we have is a religious, and practicing, Redeem church attender. He sings and he praises and he loves it. We invited him to come to church. He invited us to go to his. We couldn´t NOT accept the offer seeing that it is missionary work and cultural:) 

So... early Sunday morning we made the trek out to this nice old warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Yes, warehouse. Thank goodness for our tour guides we found off the street. We saw some colorfully dressed African ladies.. and assuming that they were going to HIGH PRAISE we did what we do best and followed them. We guessed correctly and as we walked to this warehouse African drums began to sound... well LOUD music to say the least. We walk in and the room is just full of Africans singing and praising and swaying back and forth dancing their souls out. It was louder than the high school monster mash dance. Ha I swear, I have never met people with more soul in them. Gotta love them. No wonder why they complain about our church being boring. We stayed for a short 10 minutes and then headed back to our church to real conference.

How grateful I am for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ? I love conference so much. I loved watching it in Spanish for the second time. I love how legit our church is. Well of course it is, it’s the LORD´S church. It is the most correct church on the world and it’s perfect. 

Sometimes when conference rolls around it can be easy for missionaries to feel trunky. Thinking of your family watching it at home. Or seeing the thousands and thousands of MEMBERS and real life people in Utah a place you know so well! But. I am telling you.. I have never loved conference as much as I have out here on the Lord´s time. I remember growing up thinking I love conference and I know they are called of God but this is a bit long and boring.. ha, now I am just think GIVE ME MORE!!!! I love conference. How can we not be the true church of God?

I mean here we are every day out in the streets begging (literally) people to take a few minutes to listen to our testimony of LIVING prophets who love us and who guide us and who speak for our Heavenly Father. 

Then, when we have conference I am just filled with LOVE for our church and its truthfulness. It is so true. We got quite a few people to come to listen and I just was SO HAPPY! Because I KNEW that they would have to feel the spirit testify to them that our church is different.. how it indeed is the exact church of Christ which was on the earth a long time ago.

REPRESENT! Be disciples of Christ. That was the theme I got! Manifest your faith. Do it day-by-day. It’s the little things! We are here to be disciples of Christ. To help each other along the way. How lucky are we to have living prophets and apostles and leaders who love us. Watching all of them testify of Christ is sweet. It’s my favorite. There is no way that they are not called of God. I know with all of me that they love us and they want the best for us because our Father in Heaven wants it!

So.

I don´t believe I have told y’all about E. yet??

Well... E. is my very first GUATEMALAN investigator! Shout out to Morg down there in Guatemala.. you have got some good people there.

But E. A GREAT woman. We found here a few weeks ago on the street and have met with her and I already love her so so much. She is just this little Guatemalan lady who warms my heart. I love her. She is here living a hard life but working and sending practically every cent she earns to her daughter in Guatemala who has cancer. She cries in every lesson and it makes me sad. She is a gem of lady. She practically already is a member! She has a baptismal date for this weekend but I think we need to change that seeing that she is very sick.

On Friday we went over to her piso to have a lesson when her nephew (who she lives with) told us she is in the hospital. E. has pretty bad asthma and caught something bad while walking to church in the pouring rain last Sunday. (She is a trooper) 

My hija and I immediately grabbed our bags and ran to the hospital. It started pouring but we just kept running. I love this lady! We finally found her hospital room and saw cute E. just sitting there crying with tubes all around her. It made me tear up! You just love people so much and it’s hard when you see them suffer when they are trying so hard to do good. It makes me think of Heavenly Father when he has to see us suffer when we try our best to do good. But we ran to her and just hugged her. We went last night after conference with the elders to give her a blessing. She was unbelievably grateful. My testimony of the priesthood has grown so much. I was so teary seeing her get a blessing just feeling love for her and love for the priesthood we have in our church and thinking of my great dad and brother who live worthily to have this great power to bless our lives. 

QUE MAS?? Oh ran into some more Africans like always and guess what their names are??

Favor and Frankincense

Love it.

Life is going great. The work is great. It’s the best thing in the world. I can´t tell you all how excited I am that my sister Katie´s papers go in this week. I am expecting a video.. no one tell me! I want to find out when I watch the video. Ah I get chills thinking about it. I think that she is going to the Philippines. Let that be my guess. His work really hastens on! Congrats to Jonny. You´ll be great in Germany and they´ll be lucky to have you! I can´t believe that Liv comes home in 3 weeks! Where does the time go?!  I have a feeling that we will be saying that towards the end of our lives. Where does the time go. Make your life count.

Hermana Nydegger

Line of the week:

(talking to Marino about missions)

Me: My grandparents actually served a mission in the Philippines and lived there for 3 years. My mom thought that I would go there on my mission!

Marino: Yeah you even look like you could be from the Philippines!!!

Me: ...Marino..please. 

Torrrrrejon!

Monday...March 31st, 2014

HI fam!

This week has been a monumental week in my mission!!!

I CAN ROLL MY Rs. I don´t know how it happened! Hahaha but I am happy and proud to say that after 9 months of living in Spain I randomly woke up one day and could roll my Rs. #tendermercy. I about tried everything in the world and was on the verge of giving up. But I didn´t cave in. I pressed forward and now I can do it. Sorry for being dramatic about it... but seriously this week has been monumental.

The Church is true, and his work presses forward.

Well we now have an investigator named America... from Africa... add that one to the list of great names.

Speaking of America... we had an AWESOME cultural activity on Friday..and I decided to go all out. As missionaries we don´t necessarily represent our country.. but this night I did, and went all out. I wore red, white, and blue... pulled out my American flag and made chocolate chip cookies. Ha fun night. Seeing that the Spanish culture is so fun.. they made everyone also do a dance from their country.. Sister Carroll and Sister Floyd legit clogged. Seeing that I don´t have that kind of talent, I turned on the music and introduced the dance. The people loved it though. I love Spain and I loooove the Spanish culture. It is just so fun. More than anything I just LOVE the mission. 

I thought how it is just so crazy how hard a mission is. Yet you just love it with all that you have. You just love the Lord with all that you have. And THAT is what pushes you forward and moves you to work harder and harder every day, every minute. I may never be able to express how happy and grateful I am to be on a mission. My testimony is strengthened everyday through Christ. I heard something awhile back saying how a mission is like FALLING UP. It is true. It can´t be said better than that. You serve people, and LOVE people, and love the Lord, and you cry, and it hurts, and you feel like you are falling... but you are not. You are not falling! You are indeed being carried up. Falling up. As I learn more and more about Christ and what it means to represent Him... what He would do... who He is.. I feel more and more humbled. What my purpose is here. What I am doing. Who I am putting aside and who I am representing. I am not just learning Spanish because it’s cool but I am learning it so that I can IMMITATE Christ in a way that people can understand. I love the Lord. I love what He did for us. I love the atonement. I love the restoration. The  church is perfect. The Savior is perfect. It’s just such an overwhelming feeling of gratefulness and thankfulness. How lucky are we.

On Saturday night cute M. got baptized. I can´t tell you how special this night was for him. And for me. For everyone! He is a powerful good man. He has changed so much. He is the most converted guy I know. He doesn´t just have a testimony, but he is converted and happy. And it has been the coolest thing in the world finding him and helping him know and RELY on Christ. As he got up after his baptism to bear his testimony, I couldn´t help but cry. He cried and gave the most humble testimony of the Savior that I have ever heard. President and Sister Jackson came. His family came... they will get baptized. I know they will. They now have such a strong head of the house... he will help them get to where he is now. That night I had this incredible vision of M. as a leader one day. Actually, it wasn´t the first time I had a vision of him as a leader.

Weeks ago, I remember we went over to his house to teach he darling wife A. the Plan of Salvation at about 5 in the afternoon. They live on the 5th floor of their apartment. This day there was a beautiful sunset right outside of their piso through the window. As we sat there and taught her... M. would bear the most powerful testimony. I just remember sitting there lost in my thoughts as I heard him teach and LOVE this doctrine as he poured out his heart to his wife. I was just taken back by feelings of gratefulness and how true this gospel is. I sat there and just felt the most warm feeling this precious afternoon and felt a confirmation that I am doing my job here in Spain. It was a beautiful spiritual confirmation that this is my life! This is what I do every day. And watching M. bear his soul to A. was the most rewarding thing. He does it in such a loving way and I couldn´t help but picture him as a leader.

And now he is baptized. He is baptized! It really still doesn´t feel real. It has been a journey with him. It is a weird but such a celestial feeling when your investigator gets baptized and you let them leave your care and into the care of the ward. I know with all of my heart that this night was a celestial glimpse into heaven.

As you have probably heard by now... I am staying in Torrejón with my baby for our third transfer now. I am happy about that. Me encanta este barrio. How lucky am I.

I love you all! I am so excited for conference. How did these past 6 months just come and go? Take advantage of this conference session! How lucky are we to get to hear from loving prophets who speak for God?

Watch this

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1839005837001

QUE DIOS OS BENDIGA!

Hermana Nydegger

Line of the week:

Us: Valentino, do you believe that God can call another prophet to guide us?

Valentino: Yes..... HE CALLED ME

Us: ... (awkward)

Valentino: BROMA.. si claro que si. (JUST KIDDING.. yes, of course.)

Us: ...good. (awkward laugh)

I Am Weak!

Monday March 24th, 2014

Last week Emily went to Segovia and had time to only send a few lines... this week she started a decent letter and the computer stopped working so she was only able to send half of it. She was able to send pictures.

________________________________________________________________

This week has been crazzzzy. I swear though I really just blink and then its p-day again and I am here e-mailing. (by the way we went to a different locutorio today and the key board is pretty weird and slow so sorry if the e-mail isn´t long....patience.) Time is flyin’!  I can´t believe that conference is in just a few weeks and more than anything I can´t believe that Sister Carroll’s 12 weeks of training are almost up. Transfers are next week so it will be interesting!  I have not a clue of what is going to happen. We could easily stay together for another, seeing that we opened this area.  Time will tell!

This week I went on an intercambio with Hermana Mather’s companion – Hermana Sanchez who is this really cool Spaniard! and I LOVED it. Holy cow you all have no idea how bad I would love to have a native companion. I would love it so that I can really just seal the deal with my Spanish.  We will see.  The only thing I would not want to do EVER would be train a native.  That’s got to be weird!

Today we went to a gym that we got free pass to and all I need to say is that I am weak!  I am the typical missionary - WEAK.  We did this cycling class and I about died.  It was pretty embarrassing as I looked around the room and was weakest one.  ha.... yeah.

Randomly, I got a call from President Jackson this week...  For some reason every time he calls it stresses me out.  I am always just like.. I DIDN´T DO ANYTHING! I am obedient! haha...  Anyway, so I picked up and he asked what we had planned that night. (phew) I told him what we had and was just so grateful that we actually had some good stuff planned.... So yeah, he then said that Sister Jackson and I are coming to Torrejon tonight and we would love to come with you to your lessons!  SCARY. So intimidating so have them there watching my companion and me teach!  But it ended up being a sweet lesson with cute M. (who will be baptized on Saturday by the way!) We taught him the word of wisdom and I just have to say that I LOVE HIM. He is just the greatest little investigator there ever was. We felt the Spirit really strongly and it was good lesson. I was grateful to have the president and his wife with us! They are the greatest and M.  sure loved meeting them.

The work is going great. I wish I had more time to tell you every detail!  But I. is trying to quit drinking. Fun fact: he is actually Muslim.  How cool would it be to baptize him?  IT’S GONNA happen. He has a baptismal date and if he can get off alcohol and if we can get permission, he will be baptized. It really is the craziest experience I have had on my mission.. but it’s cool and I love it. Pray for him! He is from Ghana and has been in the military for almost his whole life.  I can´t even begin to imagine how different my life has been from his. But he is son of God and is ready to change his life. His story really makes me sad though.  

ELI AND GIFTY...Little shout how to you both.. I am learning some things to say in the language Twee. Ha, I love having cousins from Ghana! There are SO many Africans here. It’s great...Eli and Gifty are Emily's cousin's who are adopted from Ghana.

Last p-day we went to Segovia and it felt like a dream! I actually felt like I was in Spain that day. 

..............